wpainterw

It's getting a bit late but I wanted to throw this thought out and start an interchange on what is the really scary part of getting into recovery. For me the scariest part was the eventual realization, that took me forty years of struggle to achieve, that for long periods of time, I was not really in controlWhat I mean is that I was under the illusion that I could control this thing, I honestly thought that I could stop for good "if I decided to do that" but in reality I had lost myself. My body and my chemistry had changed. Whatever it was in my nervous system, the receptors or whatever it was, had changed. The chemical balance of the neurotransmitters had changed. Alcohol had become an essential ingredient of my makeup. And all of this influenced my thinking. I had become a slave to something and this, coupled with the subjective feeling of still being in "control", put me in a real dilemma. How to unlock the door, break the chains, get some leverage so as to start recovery? And how easy to slip back, relapse! I found that I had to have the help of 28 days in a rehab, aftercare, and help from other recovering alcoholics. And even then, it was, as a famous general (Wellington) once said, "A damn close thing."!


W.

RobC420

My biggest fear is relapse. Nothing in recovery scares me as much as the last 6 months of my drinking/using.

MythOfSisyphus

I was an "ideal" child; captain of the debate team, a member of the NFL (Natl. Forensics League), I did extemp, oratory, was in the Natl. Honor Society, etc. All the way up til graduation I refused to try alcohol at all. My fear was that alcohol leads to loss of self control, which I held to be paramount to a rational person. But I decided that at 18, the age at which I could serve in the military or get married, I was mature enough to try it.

Sadly, there was a brief romance where I used it before it began to use me. Alcohol has insinuated itself, in some degree, into every action and situation I've been in since then.

I don't know what to make of this now. I have no cravings, no withdrawals, no DT's...mostly just a strange sense of peace that I may have finally regained control of myself. If I stay away from drinking and overcome the Addictive Voice, my actions will be by my own again.

Biggest surprise to me is how boring my life is! :rotfxko I've thought I've been incredibly busy for the last few years with work and school. The truth is you just don't manage to get much done when you're drunk.

GypsyHeart

i started drinking when i was 16. i was addicted from the very first time. it has been 31yrs since. so i never learned social skills, how to have normal relationships, do the things that other people take for granted. also having no children, i just completely don't fit in or have anything in common with the majority of the planet. people have no comprehension of how that is - you can't unless you are in the situation. so my greatest fear is of not ever being able to "live a normal life", to always be standing on the outside looking in and not being able to learn the skills to even have a chance.

MythOfSisyphus

I feel you, Gypsy. It's like being reborn into a world that's incomprehensible at times. I was hooked the first time I got drunk, too (B&G peach wine coolers!).

onlythetruth

You know, it's funny. When I decided to quit drinking, nothing about recovery scared me as much as living another day the way I'd been living.

Admiral

Try not to think of things in black and white, the world just doesn't work that way, and I'm not bashing you, I catch myself thinking like that too sometimes, but it's true that things are never the way we imagined. When I was sixteen I imagined that by now I'd be wearing a suit and tie and going to work in some big tall skyscraper downtown, the reality is so far from that, it's laughable. Realize that your fears are just that; fears, some have a little basis in reality, others are just downright irrational, but whatever the case, they are not predictions of the future.

I try not to compare myself to other people, but I do it a lot, especially when I come across people I went to high school with and see how far ahead they are. They've finished college, they have nice jobs and cars, and I'm still stuck figuring out what I want to do. It feels like they know it and they pity me, the poor kid who just couldn't get life right. That's NOT how it is, that's in my head, the reality is that the people I went to school with are all over the place and I have no idea what most of them are doing. Some of them are worse off than me and some are better off, but that doesn't matter. When you get to comparing yourself to the rest of the world nothing good will come of it. Focus on you, it's your story so why spend all of it reading other peoples? You do what's good for you and you'll find that stuff just sort of happens on its own if that makes any sense.

My fear is that I'll just end up relapsing endlessly. I guess I've had so many last times that it doesn't have much meaning to say it any more, and it's probably going to feel that way for a long time.

2granddaughters

It does take us a while to be "restored to sanity"....

I love the Promises of Alcoholics Anonymous

The Promises, that are read in many A.A. Meetings can be found on page 83-84, of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous.
THE A.A. PROMISES

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and selfpity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.

All the best.

Bob R

karilynn27

I am watching this happen in my life Bob

The scariest thing for me was that I could see no other life besides the one I had. I could not imagine a life without alcohol.

BlueEyedBoy

The scariest thing about recovery for me is recognising I would have to handle normal emotions and 'life on life's terms' and I would no longer be able to drown my feelings in drink. I sometimes crave the oblivion of my drinking...but realise, the more sobreity I get, I can deal with life on life's terms.

duane1

I fear alcohol. I can't even look at the stuff right now.

hypochondriac

The scariest thing for me is thinking that being a drinker was my natural state, that I will never be comfortable being sober and looking after myself, that those self destruct tendencies will never go away.

freshstart57

I knew that the day was coming when I would quit drinking. I couldn't picture myself being a senior citizen still drinking the way I had been drinking, it was going to kill me long before that. So the day came, and I quit.

The scariest thing was that I might have left it too late.

flutter

Once I decided I was done, fear left me. Fear kept me drinking for a very long time.

tomsteve

the scariest thing for me about recovery was everything. i started drinking when i was 13 and got into recovery at 36. i had absolutely no clue how to live.

wpainterw

Thanks for your replies. The more I read these the more I think that, whether or not one believes in a God or a Devil, at least one thing is crystal clear. Alcohol is, at least for us, the very Devil, the most destructive thing we could possibly encounter, insinuating itself into our lives, promising relief, enjoyment, a "buzz", companionship, and all the time enslaving us, first gradually by inches, then with growing strength, until it takes away everything we have, our families, our friends, our jobs, our homes, and, finally, our selves-- that is what we used to be. The scariest thing is the possibility that we might not be able to get any of this back, that we can't get out of this, that we're sinking and that time is running out.
But we also know that it can be done. Hundred's perhaps thousands, maybe tens of thousands have done it. You can see that just by reading this SR website. There is a way out...

W.