Valleyd

I wish I could stop feeling the way I am feeling. I can't stand being in my own skin. I have been beating myself up. Feeling anxious, guilty, ugly, sad, fearful, hopeless...

My sponsor says now that I am clean all the years I repressed feelings, they are going to start coming to the surface and I have to feel them and cry.

I am having extreme difficulty finding work. I have a criminal background, no transportation and a f'd up economy. I spend too much time stuck in the house and up in my head.

I try to think positive, make gratitude lists, pray and share about how I feel. I live in a recovery house and I go to lots of meetings. I feel like I'm losing it. I wonder if I need psychiatric help. I'm getting on my own nerves. I tell myself I'm lazy and a crybaby and a loser. My sponsor says I need to look in the mirror and say "I love you". I feel like a fake when I do it. I think everyone else is judging me and I shouldn't care and hopefully, someday I won't but right now I do. I know that I am judging me.

I am trying to have faith that this is all part of a process and that if I am patient and have perseverance, that I will get through this but it is really difficult. I try to turn it all over, but it feels like its not working. I guess I want instant gratification... sigh... thanks for allowing me to whine once again.

TigerLili

Hi Valleyd,

Sounds like a really hard time for you right now. I have professional, outside help from a psychiatrist who is supportive of AA and it helps a lot.

I think the crucial thing for us alcoholics is to be able to sit with the hard times and bad feelings, and not try and push them away or resist them. In a way, we have to kind of surrender to them, acknowledge them and avoid acting on them. Acting on our impulses and feelings are what got us into trouble a lot of the times.

You might have a criminal record, but you're not the only one. There is probably an employment service that can help you find a job. Don't try and do it on your own. In my meetings I see men and women coming out of jail and rehab getting employment, so it's definitely possible.

I hope I don't sound dismissive of your feelings and you experience at the moment, but for me, the best thing to do when I get like this is to reach out and help another alcoholic. I call someone who has less time up than me or talk to a newcomer after a meeting. I help at meetings - setting up the room, putting out the literature etc.

Are you working the steps? Nothing helps me if I'm not working the steps. They really are the key to recovery.

And of course, calling on my HP. I have no idea what God is or isn't, but I got desperate enough to say 'God please help me with x becasue I can't do it on my own. Please show me what you would have me do.' Nothing to lose, right?

I think it's really normal to judge yourself - we all do it. For me, I think the harsh self-criticism I used to get is the voice of the disease of alcholism. My disease wants me to feel bad about myself. It wants me to think that my only options are to drink or kill myself. Recovery gives me a third option that involves working the programme and helping other alcoholics.

I think your sponsor gives you good advice. I'd add to just keep it in the day. Today you didn't commit a crime or have a drink/use. Today you went to a meeting. Today you can take a step towards getting some help finding a job, or a counsellor. Today you're ok. You have a roof over your head, food on the table and people who care. That proves, to me at least, that the programme is working and that you are experiencing a miracle.

I never thought I could go a day without a drink, let alone 14 months. That we can not pick up, despite how bad we feel, is a miracle.

ckbeep

Try talking to a friend who understand what you're going through and wont judge you whatever you say.

It helps to talk!

tyler

You don't need to choose between AA and professional help. They can both be part of your healing and recovery. IMHO, AA is not a substitute for professional help, when you need it. I think you will find very few AA members, with good recovery, who will say that AA is the answer for everything in your life. AA is there to help you stop drinking and learn to live sober, professionals are there to help you sort through crippling depression. They can work together. Seek the help you need. Take care.

Ba Ba Oreilley

hi valleyd,

you pretty much answered yourself at the end of your post. put down the stick, you beat yourself up enough when you were out there. it's over. believe it or not, you can stop feeling the way you do right now. fr me it was a thing called working the steps. and learning how to live them in my life.

with the right person guiding you it can be a very simple, easy task.

good luck kid!

Anna

I think, if it's a possibility you might be depressed, you should talk to your dr. Get a professional opinion and that will give you information you need to move forward. If you are depressed, it's possible that medication could help. My depression came long before my drinking, so I had to get it properly diagnosed and treated before I could begin to heal. It could also be that your mood will improve as you recover.

HumbleBee

Ah, instant gratification...the trouble with instant gratification is that it doesn't come fast enough!

Seriously, it's not unusual that you're feeling depressed, anxious, fearful, etc. - when we stop drinking (or doing anything that seemed 'normal') and then stop that behavior, we're actually in a state of mourning of sorts. It's a whole new way of thinking, being, living and our bodies and minds have to re-adjust.

It helped me to try to think the emotions through - not analyze every feeling - but ask myself "what" I'm really feeling. I've learned that when all the little things really are really bothering me, it's usually because there's a big thing that I'm not facing.

When I got sober, I was in the same place as you (unemployed, fearful about the economy, etc.). It wasn't until later that I realized that this was absolutely the "best" place for me to be because it gave me the opportunity to focus on my recovery "full-time." What a blessing!

Now that I've been given the gift of "time" to develop a program of recovery, I'm on my feet and back to work. Had I gone right back to work before finding a sober way of living, I really don't think my life would be as content because I wouldn't have learned how to develop and use the tools I needed to in order to deal with my many triggers.

Using the time you have now can help you establish a solid program of recovery without the other distractions. Time is a gift. Treasure it while you have it.

coffeenut

Like Anna said, if you are clinically depressed, please see your dr.


14 months sober is Super, btw!

Valleyd

Thank you all so much for your thoughtful and helpful responses...I just got back from a meeting and I do feel a little better for now.

Dee74

I'm glad you feel better Valleyd
I agree with the folks who said a Dr may be a good idea, at least to set your mind at ease

D

overdope

You just said exactly how I am feeling also. Always beating my self up, never think I am good enough to be around positive working class honest loving people. Some reason I feel much more comfortable around people who are at a lower standard in life ( i hate it)
Just lost my job, after almost 5 years, criminal record hinders employment opportunities. 2001 was the last time I have been in trouble with the law.
I really hope things get better for you, Just know that there is always someone who is a little more into harder times then you are, think positive and focus positive energy.

Pray for me and I pray for you!!

yeahgr8

Are you working the steps? I have worked them and continue to do so and had all the feelings you had outlined below before...i don't have them now...

Valleyd

My sponsor wants me to concentrate on steps 1, 2 and 3 and we discuss how they apply/how I am applying them in my daily life. She feels that until I am firmly grounded in the first three, that a fourth should not be taken. She says she has seen a number of people go back out from taking a fourth step "too early".

I have had a couple of psych evals over the past year, but I am am thinking it may not be a bad idea to get another one sometime in the near future.

laurie6781

When I hit that period in my recovery, I too was a mess. I had feelings and emotions that I couldn't even name, without my sponsors help, popping up and out, at the most inoportune times all over.

I felt like I was in 20,000+ peices scattered around, and needed to keep reaching into the air and grabbing a piece and pasting it back on my frame.


That was the time in my recoery, where I was introducing myself as follows:

"Hi my name is SCATTERED and i am an alcoholic."

I was dead serious. I felt so SCATTERED.

I can tell you that by continuing to work with my sponsor, and continuing to work my way through Steps 1, 2, and 3, that this started to pass. I started to learn how to deal with all those FEELINGS and EMOTIONS that I had stuffed and ran from for so many years.

Stick with it Valleyd ......................................... IT DOES GET BETTER!!!!!

Please keep posting and let us know how you are doing as we do care so very much!

Love and hugs,

Tazman53

I will mention 2 things that have already been well covered.

1. Taking the steps, applying them to all areas of your life, and staying sober help immensely with situational depression.

2. See a "Talking" doctor, they can help with both the situational depression as well as depression and anxiety that can only be helped with medication. Be totally honest with the doctor, they can not help unless one is honest.

I was fortunant that my depression was alcohol and situational in nature, the steps freed me not only from my alcoholism but myself as well.

It states in the BB that we should include psychiatrist & doctors where needed in our recovery.