BenMacdui

Hello everyone,

First of all, I have now not had a drink for six weeks, which is frankly amazing and a record for several years

I heard in an AA meeting I attended the phrase "When you drinking, you begin to learn the reasons why you drink!", and this could not be more true... Apart from being socially awkward around people, it seems that every little stress or feeling of inadequacy I've ever felt keeps swimming around my head without respite. These are the kind of things I "solved" with dutch courage, and as a sober person I'm finding that I have a lack of mental tools to deal with them. All I can do is seemingly just put up with them and keep off the drink...

I went for a meal with an old university friend last Saturday. We were the closest of mates when we were studying together. He had just come back to London for a week from Dubai where he is working. He was telling me of all the amazing things he was doing there, the people he meets, the seemingly lucrative and impressive job he has in financial services and the travelling he was up to in his spare time (all over Europe and the Middle East it seems). All I had in my head while he was talking about this was my sense of inadequacy (and a little jealousy to be honest) - that I don't have a lucrative career in an accountancy firm, a life in the sun or amazing travels around the world around the world to occupy my time. I'm just a boring English bloke with nothing the way of achievements, or even a girlfriend - almost 30 with nothing to show for it. I'm dreading the thought of the big 3-0 because of this...

He is not an exception. Many if not most of the people in my year at university ended up moving onto seemingly successful careers and lives, keeping their drinking under control, while I spoilt it with drink, depression, getting into considerable debt that I am only now facing up to and other stupid activities.

He asked me to go and see him in Dubai for a week. I told him that to be honest, it would have to decline as I wouldn't be able to afford it. He said that if I had spent as much time working on my career and success like everyone else as I had drinking, I'd be doing better for myself and could do these things. While this is true, I was hurt by this, and rue all the missed years I could have taken to improve my life.

In any case, this is just an example of the inadequacy and wretchedness I used to medicate with drink. I can't get away from thinking about it....

Sorry, I just had to get this off my chest...

vegibean

I little venting is always good for the soul.

Congrats on your 6 weeks, that's AWESOME!!!!!!!

Wolfchild

Welcome to the SR community. Congrats on staying sober!
No apologies necessary. That part of why this site exists!

tommyk

Welcome Ben. Feel free to get anything you like off your chest here.

We're a friendly and "been there too" bunch.

Dee74

Congrats on yr six weeks Ben.
Regret was a biggie for me too - today I just try and focus on the rest of my life.

Sorry if it sounds trite but I believe it
D

shaun00

alright ben....nice to see a londoner.......i was born in fulham...although i moved when i was younger.

i get that share totally.....ive been through periods just like it.

i call it my looking back period.....the "what if" period......

i dont look back anymore.....i look foward.....backwards is history and i can do nothing with it...

i had a bright future in civil engineering...till the masked slipped and people started to notice....the morning drink became attractive......the rest is history...

i lived as a vagrant for a couple of years....all i had was the sally army clothes i had on....everything was gone.

it was a long hard battle to get back......before i even tackled constant sobriety...over 30 years old.

i got into AA and worked my a@rse off.........there was no going back...i was finished.

i can dwell on the past ....how much i lost.......the people i hurt.

or i can point my nose forward and live my life....just the way i always wanted.

and that was just to be happy and content....

now i do that without booze and life is good................

the past is gone....apart from the criminal record...and a few bumps and scars.

look forward mate........the past is the past and the future looks good without booze making all the bad decisions for you.

wanttolive

Like Trucker said it doesn't pay to look back as long as you have resolved the issues that caused you to drink. Many feel that they lost years to alcohol but nothing can be done about it now. Look forward to a happy, healthy and sober future. Congrats on 6 weeks! That is a great accomplishment!

FightOn

BenMacdui,
My wife left with my two kids due to my drinking. My answer was to leave California and my job to return to NY. My reward, all of my "friends" got me hooked on crack and put me in a rehab. It was the lowest that I have ever been. All of my army friends were doing well and I was completely lost. I managed to stay clean for two years and put myself on a path where I am remarried and now own a house. Times were tough but I fought through it. Yes, I have recently let my guard down but things did get better and I realized that I have to live my own life. I may never have great material wealth but I know that my struggle through this will make as strong as anyone out there.

There is no question that seeing friends succeed while I struggle is frustrating. I just do not measure myself that way any more. Staying true to one's self, I have found, is the only true measure of success for me.

Anna

Hi Ben,

I also have many regrets for the years I spent drinking, and for the many years before that when I simply buried my feelings by being an overly busy control-freak. But, when I hit my bottom, there was so much pain in my life, that recovery was a godsend. I am SO grateful for where I am today and for the years of recovery that I have. I can't go back and change things, of course none of us can do that, but I have found peace.

You're young, you have your life ahead of you. Don't make the mistake of judging yourself by other people's standards.

BenMacdui

Thanks everyone for your positive words! They really cheer me up...

51Anna, I must admit that I find it hard not to judge my own life against other peoples' standards - and most of the time I come off at least a bit worse... People judge each others against their own standards (or simply compared to others that are available) all the time - from the employer interviewing prospective candidates to bouncers in bars not letting people in over their choice of clothes or people stating in their online dating profiles that they want tall, dark-haired, successful people etc etc.... It may well be that the city I live in, London, is just a very covertly judgemental city.. but that is the impression I get.

sfgirl

Hey Ben-

I know how you are feeling. I often felt like I should have been doing "successful" things but I didn't really want to be doing those things and I was always torn. I constantly fight against what others think I should be doing and what I think I should and what I actually can do.

But another more important thing came with recovery. I totally understand your feelings. I think I would have felt hurt by my friend talking to me like that, personally. But it is still really early for you. I have gotten to a point in my recovery where I have experienced a lot of gratitude— gratitude for being sober, gratitude for the journey of recovery, gratitude for the opportunity to really look at myself and have this opportunity at a new life with all these new skills emotional and spiritual. When I look around at non-recovering people sometimes I feel sorry for them that they don't get to go through this journey because I really feel like I am getting such an amazing experience of life out of all of this. I feel like there will probably be a point where it will all click for you and you will be like, dude (well, if you were a California chick like me...) this recovery thing is awesome, and it is ok that my life didn't go as planned because I love it anyways, and dubai isn't that great (because actually it is my least favorite place I have ever been in the whole world) and fancy jobs aren't all they are cracked up to be, and life has something else in store for me. I don't know what I am saying— I guess I am just pretty sure one day you will perceive this whole situation differently and that hopefully that can give you some hope...I know I have definitely gone through my ups and downs in recovery—luckily tonight I am in a recovery "high"....but maybe I just sound like somebody blabbering...

yeahgr8

Well done on the 6 weeks. I can relate to the wasted life thing. I am 38 now, was hanging round with the B lists in London at 30, more money than i could spand, all that crap...at 36 i was in a different country hanging around with, what i would have called at 30, peaasants in order to justify my situation and drinking. 38 now and in AA, dealing with the fear that has ruled my life. have i wasted my life? Compared to the people i used to hang around with at 30...yeah sure! Does it matter, not really! You got a choice, the same choice i had at 30, you can get the help you need and be laughing about this at 38 or you can keep going pretending everything will be ok and deal with it at 38, 48...maybe 58...maybe never.

I said what you have posted when i was 31, i really hope you put this as a prioirty and do something about it now! You are lucky to be on this forum, look around and read and try and find similarities. I did the few months of not drinking about 6 times in the last 8 years, always ended the same way! Good luck!

Tazman53

Ben trust me, you are just beginning a new life, the past is the past and can not be changed, amends can be made for our past, but living in the past is a fruitless venture that leads to nothing.

BTW I was 52 when I got sober, I can more then relate to what you feel right now, I spent a lot of years drinking while thinking of my past and where I should be, it led me no where except to another drink.

Well I am 55 today, what saved me from my past was a combination of things, learning in meetings how to stay in the day because in reality today is all I have and the only thing I have any control over. Taking the steps with my sponsor and then applying the steps in all areas of my life has not only allowed me to clean up the wreckage of my past, but also to move forward in the day I am in right now.

I was 52 when I got sober, I could sit around and worry about 40 years of my life being thrown away by drinking but what purpose would that serve? I choose to use my past to help other alcoholics see that they are not alone, they can recover from thier alcoholism and move forward becoming useful and valuable members of society.

I am in the IT industry, should I look at Bill Gates and all of his success and be jealous of him? After all we are in the same industry and I am older then him and was already working with computors at about the same time he got into them!

Thanks to the steps and the fellowship, I am more then happy just being me! Today I am a good husband, father, grandfather and employee, there are a whole lot of people with far better jobs/positions/recognition then me that can not say that.

Ben it may seem like you have thrown away your life, but you are young, you have many good years ahead of you!

Ben you can get married and your wife will never know what you were like when you were drinking first hand, you can have children that will NEVER have seen you take a single drink, I can not do that and I have 6 kids, I do though have 8 grandchildren of which only one has ever seen me drink and he was young when I sobered up.

Ben do you have a sponsor? Have you taken the steps?

BTW congrats on 6 weeks sober, that is great, you are starting out on a new life, a life which you will be amazed at just how awesome it will be sober and comfortable in your own skin!

My old solution for life was drinking, I assume it was yours as well, in order for me to stay sober and happy about it I had to find a new solution for life other then drinking, I found that solution in taking and applying the steps in my daily life.

Hudstar

Dude, you could be describing me. I've just hit 31 and am only really now making my first steps into recovery. I haven't quit yet but the day is very near as I continue to absorb AA and read posts here at SR. So bloody well done on 6 weeks!

I think this is the time for both of us. Drinking has swallowed up my entire 20s and I've watched friends and peers face and conquer challenges and grow into their lives while I've retreated from life with the bottle for years.

I remember approaching 30 and vaguely promising that I will make my 30s everything that my 20s wasn't. That is; confident, healthy, fit, successful, romantic, full of travel and new horizons. Of course, these felt like pipe dreams, and indeed felt completely unattainable as I passed 30 and my drinking kept on dragging me down. But now I'm seeing clearly how those dreams could actually become reality if I continue this journey towards sobriety. That's pretty damn exciting.

Just imagine yourself a few years from now, still sober, and achieving all the things you felt you'd missed out on, being the person the drink kept you from being. I'm not sure, but I think I respect people more who have scraped the bottom and pulled themselves out and upwards and achieved their goals in spite of their pasts.

Keep going dude!

Rich

Gypsy Feet

"Your joy is your sorrowed unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potters oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater.
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep on your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or sorrow rise and fall."

Gibran


I believe only the people who have had great struggles are in a position to truly recognize and appreciate the wondrous gifts they are given. Hang in there, with open eyes and an open heart~

Charmie

hello ben and welcome to sr.i am glad you have chosen to go to AA and ther is a 12 step recovery programee there for you to teach you how to live.i drank alcoholically for 20 yrs and i used to wallow in what could have been and what i messed up and what others had that i didnt (im not saying you are wallowing,,that what i did!) and since i wnet to AA,got a sponsor and work hard on the 12steps all my attitudes to life are changing.i am learning to live life on lifes terms.i was a very good cook in the area where i live and got good jobs,it was all aout the name,money and prestige for me! its not like that now.i work part time for my uncle in his guest house cleaning the rooms.it pays the bills and its an honest days hard graft.i have also applied for a befriending service for the red cross.it is magical going to bed every night with a clear consience and waking up without the impending doom! recovery is there waiting for you ben,,i wish you well,please keep us posted...oh and one more other little thing,my sponsor gave me alittle bit of advice that has sort of become my mantra in all sorts of aspects,,and that is "mind my own business" ,,,ie,its none of my business what others are doing,saying,earning etc,sounds a bit flippant but its worked for me in many situations.

keithj

I'll just pile on the good thoughts, Ben. 6 weeks is a really long time without a drink. And it is so only the start of this beautiful journey.

There's a section in AA's Big Book that says, "Henry Ford once made a wise remark to the effect that experience is the thing of supreme value is life. That is true only if one is willing to turn the past to good account. We grow by our willingness to face and rectify errors and convert them into assets. The alcoholic’s past thus becomes the principal asset of the family and frequently it is almost the only one!" AA BB, 1st Ed.

Where you are right now, with all your past and future spread out just like they are, is the only thing that matters. Your past can be an asset instead of a burden if you are willing to look at it and use it to help others.

I had to abandon myself to the 12 steps and face my past in order to be comfortable and content with where I was at in the present moment. Once that spiritual malady was overcome, I was able to face my life realistically and clean things up with relationships, finances, career, and all the little things I had let slip.

jamdls

Welcome to SR and congrat on 6 weeks sober! Early in sobriety I think most all of us have to deal with our regrets that's part of recovery. I didn't get sober until I was 50 and realized I had totally wasted the previous 12 yrs and couldn't even remember most of it. I had discarded every decent man I'd met, been a shameful embarassment to my daughter and wasted around $150,000 (divorce settlement) with very bad decisions that I should have been saving for my retirement. But I am happier today than I've ever been, my life began at 50 and I treasure every day of sobriety.

tommyk

The best way for me to handle regret, guilt, and remorse has been to never repeat past behaviors.

As each day passes I grow further and further away from the person I used to be.