Keep the faith...
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Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 2,013
Keep the faith...
To all those just starting out or to those contemplating quitting then I think it's important to keep the faith in recovery. For me then I had no faith in myself or the way I was living. I was stuck and unable to perceive how to progress my life and just felt like my life was sliding out of view. I was getting lectures from the riff-raff about how I was just wasting my life by sniffing it all up my nose and drowning it in booze. I couldn't even get escape anymore without being made to feel guilty.
I kept that faith in recovery and believed what those with good recovery under their belts told me, both in AA and also SR .
One thing is for certain and that was the life I was living was getting progressively worse and going down, fast. I was unemployed for way too long and this was depressing to have to go to sign-on and feel totally and utterly defeated and demoralised at how I had f*cked up so badly. I would bump into people at the job centre who i had been sessioning with the previous weekend and I would head over to the cheap boozer across the road. I would sit in there on my own watching all of the other alcoholics or wasters in there and accept that this was to be my life and that it wasn't so bad anyway. It wasn't too bad in the buzz and the banter but without the booze then it would be sh*t.
Alcohol and drugs were now my lifeblood, my only salvation, 'sessions' were creeping into a Tuesday and Thursay as well as the usual FRI/SAT/SUN. I knew where I was heading, or wasn't heading, and just felt totally stuck and unable to shake myself up or get any enthusiasm about doing anything apart from getting wrecked and forgetting about life.
There were so many things that just made drinking to oblivion justifiable, not that I ever needed an excuse anyway. I was always there buying other people pints as i just would be grateful of some company but if not would gladly sit on my own and drink pint after pint. Felt a bit embarassing especially when people would bump into me who i knew but I would just either tag along with them or just call up a dealer and try to buy coke and go back to their flat to get a session on.
I am glad that i kept the faith in recovery. I am grateful that I continue to have this faith in recovery. Recovery is totally worth it and so much more rewarding than drinking and drug abuse and the whole lazy, cynical attitude that goes with it.
Having hope is such a great feeling and feeling like you have no hope is such a terrible feeling. That's how I used to feel and another drinking and drug session seemed like the only realistic outcome. A terrible vicious cycle but one that is so difficult to climb out of. Only by stopping drinking and living a life of recovery was I able to climb out of the hole 'one day at a time'.
Grateful to be a recovering alcoholic.
Peace
I kept that faith in recovery and believed what those with good recovery under their belts told me, both in AA and also SR .
One thing is for certain and that was the life I was living was getting progressively worse and going down, fast. I was unemployed for way too long and this was depressing to have to go to sign-on and feel totally and utterly defeated and demoralised at how I had f*cked up so badly. I would bump into people at the job centre who i had been sessioning with the previous weekend and I would head over to the cheap boozer across the road. I would sit in there on my own watching all of the other alcoholics or wasters in there and accept that this was to be my life and that it wasn't so bad anyway. It wasn't too bad in the buzz and the banter but without the booze then it would be sh*t.
Alcohol and drugs were now my lifeblood, my only salvation, 'sessions' were creeping into a Tuesday and Thursay as well as the usual FRI/SAT/SUN. I knew where I was heading, or wasn't heading, and just felt totally stuck and unable to shake myself up or get any enthusiasm about doing anything apart from getting wrecked and forgetting about life.
There were so many things that just made drinking to oblivion justifiable, not that I ever needed an excuse anyway. I was always there buying other people pints as i just would be grateful of some company but if not would gladly sit on my own and drink pint after pint. Felt a bit embarassing especially when people would bump into me who i knew but I would just either tag along with them or just call up a dealer and try to buy coke and go back to their flat to get a session on.
I am glad that i kept the faith in recovery. I am grateful that I continue to have this faith in recovery. Recovery is totally worth it and so much more rewarding than drinking and drug abuse and the whole lazy, cynical attitude that goes with it.
Having hope is such a great feeling and feeling like you have no hope is such a terrible feeling. That's how I used to feel and another drinking and drug session seemed like the only realistic outcome. A terrible vicious cycle but one that is so difficult to climb out of. Only by stopping drinking and living a life of recovery was I able to climb out of the hole 'one day at a time'.
Grateful to be a recovering alcoholic.
Peace
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Join Date: Jan 2010
Posts: 114
Thanks-this was a great post. I couldnt agree more. Having hope and faith for me in sobriety is something that I cherish, but even still at almost 10 months, I grapple with it. Just yesterday, I was having one of those down days where I was feeling hopeless with some things going on in my life. Luckilly, the faith and hope I have found in recovery got me out of it-the "toolkit" of my recovery is what helped me. Even at this point in sobriety, I have my ups and downs, but I always come out of each period better off and stronger BECAUSE OF my faith and hope. I never used to have hope. Before I got sober, I always said "oh well" nothing is worth hoping for, or I am hopeless, or nobody will ever understand...all those things. I guess it was the selfish nature of my addicition that did that, but my hopeless way of life manifested itself in everything I did. I used to be a negative person and felt that all the bad things I did to myself would be a self-fulfilling propechy because I beleived everything was hopeless, so I might as well drown things out.
Today, I am not a shred of the person I was before. People have told me that they admire my positive outlook on life and how I dont dwell on the bad things. I tell them a few things, like "I dont have this every day or all day". But, I also like to tell people that, even though I have bad days, like everyone on this planet-my faith and hope allows me not to dwell on them, and to not let them get the better of me. This is something that sobriety has given be, and because of it, I appreciate, live, and relish the life that I have been given-not like I used to live before sobriety.
Thanks for posting this-it has helped me look at myself today and get through what has been a very bad day. I think what amazes me still, is that in sobriety I can go from feeling so good and happy, to falling right into the darkest place I was when drinking. The fortunate thing is, it is short lived, there are no consequences, and I learn from it.
All the best
Today, I am not a shred of the person I was before. People have told me that they admire my positive outlook on life and how I dont dwell on the bad things. I tell them a few things, like "I dont have this every day or all day". But, I also like to tell people that, even though I have bad days, like everyone on this planet-my faith and hope allows me not to dwell on them, and to not let them get the better of me. This is something that sobriety has given be, and because of it, I appreciate, live, and relish the life that I have been given-not like I used to live before sobriety.
Thanks for posting this-it has helped me look at myself today and get through what has been a very bad day. I think what amazes me still, is that in sobriety I can go from feeling so good and happy, to falling right into the darkest place I was when drinking. The fortunate thing is, it is short lived, there are no consequences, and I learn from it.
All the best
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Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 2,013
It's amazing how by 'keeping the faith' then it allows you to manage to keep moving your life forwards positively 'one day at a time'.
I have been feeling back on balance again and today I really felt a sense of calm and peace in my mind and general well being. This is a result of reaching out and working through the unbalance that I was feeling.
It's like when i'm feeling really in my perfect equilibrium then my head is so quiet. It's like there are no erroneous thoughts flying around and I'm literally just at one with my mind and it is just happy to not feel anything but warm and happy contented thoughts and hopes and dreams. But mostly I guess it's just the silence in my head, very hard to describe but it feels nice and just peaceful and content.
When it ain't like that then it's just racing and noisey and my body feels anxiety and pain. But it's a learning experience and I'm learning more about what can cause this. By working my program and importantly reaching out and getting out of my own head in a productive manner then it allows me to gain that balance and sense of harmony back.
It's a good feeling and I like it. It's what makes recovery worth it to me. I know categorically that it's more rewarding than drink and drugs. The calmness is most likened to plateau of LSD but that is a fleeting and fake way to achieve it and also it was never just LSD for me but alcohol, nicotine, cocaine, MDMA, cannabis. ha-ha.
Peace
I have been feeling back on balance again and today I really felt a sense of calm and peace in my mind and general well being. This is a result of reaching out and working through the unbalance that I was feeling.
It's like when i'm feeling really in my perfect equilibrium then my head is so quiet. It's like there are no erroneous thoughts flying around and I'm literally just at one with my mind and it is just happy to not feel anything but warm and happy contented thoughts and hopes and dreams. But mostly I guess it's just the silence in my head, very hard to describe but it feels nice and just peaceful and content.
When it ain't like that then it's just racing and noisey and my body feels anxiety and pain. But it's a learning experience and I'm learning more about what can cause this. By working my program and importantly reaching out and getting out of my own head in a productive manner then it allows me to gain that balance and sense of harmony back.
It's a good feeling and I like it. It's what makes recovery worth it to me. I know categorically that it's more rewarding than drink and drugs. The calmness is most likened to plateau of LSD but that is a fleeting and fake way to achieve it and also it was never just LSD for me but alcohol, nicotine, cocaine, MDMA, cannabis. ha-ha.
Peace
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