LegallyBrunette

I am new to recovery and I guess I am becoming very depressed about this. I am feeling very isolated and just not present, no I am not having dissociative feelings, I just feel like I can't live my life. It is not that I am overwhelmed it is just I do not feel able to participate in anything. This past week I have left my house only to work and go running alone. The only person I feel comfortable around is my 19 month old son, I feel strange around other friends, family, work colleagues. I don't know what to do with myself. Physically I feel okay. Mentally I feel pretty okay for the most part I just feel awkward in all interpersonal situations. I can tell that even though it hasn't been that long that even my fiancé is becoming frustrated with my inability to do anything or even really talk to him. Anyone experience anything similar?

HenryKrinkle

I sometimes have the same feelings. Perhaps it is PAWS?

Carlotta

It's good to hear from you and that you are still sober. Have you checked out the Women For Sobriety meeting yet? It is very tempting to isolate and a lot of alcoholics are great at isolating this is why it is a good idea to have f2f support.
Also while depression and anxiety are fairly usual for newly sober people, if I remember well, that dingbat of an X sponsor had talked you into getting off your meds. Maybe you could check in with your doctor and be honest with him/her that at the time you were drinking but now you are sober???

LegallyBrunette

I needed to be off benzos. I am still on antidepressants. I was not able to go to wfs meeting last week because I returned to many "emergencies" at work and just could not be there at the set time. The thing I am really struggling with is I just feel like I've ruined everything. I cannot do anything normal socially as everyone feels so odd around me like they can't have their glass of wine near me if we go to dinner or everyone has to treat office happy hour as a secret. I even want to cancel my wedding because I feel like it will just be weird. I skipped the Seahawks game. I just feel so incredibly out of place. I feel the urge to sleep more than I did when I was when I was hungover. I feel completely lifeless. Everything is dull. I can actually say that I have not had a single pleasant feeling of any sort since getting sober. I hope this passes.

Notmyrealname

Things get better over time. It's weird to stop drinking, it's new and uncomfortable. But it gets better. Just like any big life change (and it's a pretty big change), it takes some getting used to.

I recommend you give it time, and keep an optimistic, open mind. Try to focus on positive stuff, and try to do positive things to fill those gaps. You could pick a goal race and time and start up with a training program, for example, lock in your diet, really get to putting in some work on your running. Or pick something else you're interested in working at and having success. Start painting with watercolors? Sky's the limit.

LegallyBrunette

I guess I did not realize that getting sober would in fact be my "bottom," I have honestly never felt this bad and disinclined to doing anything. I have not even been able to really eat for 2 days. I know to an extent I am engaging in self pity which I have always loathed but I cannot even stand going to see my therapist. I don't fit in, in 12 step groups and now don't fit in in my social/family groups. It just seems strange.

Thepatman

Things will get better for sure. I'm only a month in myself and can relate to the feeling. Filling the hole left by my favorite hobby will take time.

Count your blessings, it works for me when I feel down. Don't despair.

Charliee

Glad you are here and I know exactly what you are going through. I have been sober for a little over 10 months and I still struggle with interpersonal relationships. I find it very frustrating because I have never really had a problem before. I was just me without apology or a second thought and friendships and relationships just came easily, but now I am very guarded and struggling being myself. It does get better but it takes time, communication and a willingness to put yourself out there again. It has to be an intended effort and you can go as slowly or quickly as you want. I go to meetings once a week and my counselor, but I didn't want everything to revolve around the alcoholism, so I also place dice with some girlfriends once a month. I am still struggling and find it very easy sometimes to just sleep all day or just lock myself away, so it has to be a conscious effort. Good luck to you and keep on keeping on

PurpleKnight

The body/mind has to adjust to not having what it has had regularly, it'll take time, but in the meantime emotions, feelings, energy can all fluctuate to extremes.

My first few weeks, I became even more forgetful than when I was drinking, also I went to work, came home and crashed, I had no energy for anything, but after a while that changed, things started to balance out as I guess my body/mind started to adjust to not having any alcohol anymore!!

Hang in there!!

grandma12

I felt very much like that at first. Everything I did involed drinking, so stopping the drink I had to learn to do things without alcohol. At first it seem like too much to work at . It was just easier to stay home. It does get better. As you get more time in you will start to feel like everything isn't a threat to your soberity.

Dee74

hey LB

I dunno about you, but I spent years drinking - almost any strong emotion or tough situation was met with a drink.
It can be overwhelming to have to deal with those feelings and situations now.

I think it's common enough to shut down a little.

Learning to connect with people and situations sober is a skill - but it gets better the more you do it.
I can recommend community volunteering as a great way to get back in contact with other people and do something good and with purpose.

I think it's also common to grieve the loss of the life we knew, even if that life wasn't great, it was still familiar, and many of us are not good with change.

I'm not sure how long you've been sober but it took me about 3 months before I really felt I was coming to grips with stuff like this.
Of course if you feel concerned, there's no reason why you shouldn't see your Dr or a counsellor if you feel you need help now

D

PaulinaPolitely

Hey Legally,

I sent you a private message. I am in Seattle too. Drop me a line and I will try and figure out how to access it. Do people in the same city ever get together?

Might be helpful.

Thanks for your post, sounds like you're at the worst part, it will get better.

XXX

Carlotta

I am in Seattle too and while it is nice to network etc. here is a good thread about internet safety
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...predators.html
not saying that you or LB are serial killers or something but a good reminder from Anna

EndGameNYC

Some might say that you're having an "existential moment." Grasping the overwhelming reality that the life you have is yours, or that your life is one in which you exist. It's not someone else's life. Appeals to a higher authority or an indifferent world will not, cannot, change this. Some existential philosophers refer to existential moments as "boundary situations," life events that force us to engage our unique existence, to take hold of who and what we are.

Why do so many people run from freedom? Avoid living a life of their own choosing? Settle for being enslaved by alcohol, drugs or other people? Why do so many people settle for a life of misery, a life trapped in an abusive relationship, a life that is little more than wearily sitting in death's waiting room?

For many people, getting sober sucks because there no longer is anyone or anything to blame for our suffering; and no one else to provide meaning or, at least, to make our lives less painful. We either embrace our individual existence, or we surrender our lives to a power lesser than ourselves. In surrendering our responsibilities for our lives, we ultimately forfeit any chance at living freely.

Where you are at this moment won't last forever. It isn't a matter of trying harder or attempting some random hobby to bring you to a better place. If those things worked, none of us would need SR.

The thing to do is to embrace your life as your own, to be honest and clear with yourself as to what is and what is not both desirable and acceptable. To accept your life as your life, and all that this means to you.

Trauma and failure both provide opportunities for us to recreate ourselves in accordance with who we truly are. What happens next is up to you.

RobbyRobot

Awesomely well said, EndGame.
Beautiful. Powerful. Gutsy. Painful. The Real Stuff.

Thank you.

LegallyBrunette

Thank you for the observations. I do not really know what I am experiencing or at least not in the way you are likely thinking. I am an alcoholic. I know this. I accept that as fact. However, I feel like getting sober is actually what has stripped me of all my efficacy as a person. Now that the cat is out of the bag so to speak I have lost the respect of all my peers, my family and even my employees whose paychecks I write. Every single person I know from my fiancé to my legal assistant is treating me with kid gloves. I am viewed as an invalid child. I have actually sat in my car and considered just driving away and leaving my entire life. I am ashamed to admit it but I have since Friday been considering just sort of walking out on my toddler whom I adore as any mother would, the man who has never done me a single wrong and has given me unqualified love for 8 years, the law practice I spent the last 10 years building, etc. I don't even know why. I just despise being viewed as tortured, defective, etc. It is like admitting I had an alcohol problem erased every achievement I have ever had, all the life I have lived and I am just a little kid everyone needs to lord over, spy on, talk about, etc.

I also cannot handle being at recovery group meetings. Which is what people always suggest to combat the increasing isolation. I honestly view the 30 days I spent in an AA group as the most traumatizing experience of my entire adult life and I once again do not want to hand all my personal power over to a group and be told what to do like a child.

I know I am not going to drink. I just do not know what I am going to do in order to feel like a real adult human being again. I am trying hobbies as suggested. Hell, I ran 14 miles today. Nothing is helping me want to be connected to other people. That is what I need is the desire to be connected to other people. Work in progress I guess.

RobbyRobot

Taking in your shares, welcome to my nightmare comes to mind. I have empathy for you. Back in my day, I fell out of my life in slow motion it often seemed to me. Its not that I couldn't have turned myself around by reaching out, its that I didn't reach out. And eventually I didn't care I didn't reach out. And then I forgot I didn't care. And then I didn't remember about reaching out anymore. I was free within my little self-made prison. And then I really ignited and fanned the fires of my own destruction. It took years of waste and oblivion toasting myself before I cared again enough to see which way the wind was blowing. At the very last, I quit drinking yet again, and that last time instead of not caring, I reached out and saved my life even though I didn't want to live I also didn't want to die. Tough times.

You know, I have no advice for you. I'm sad your finally at an essential cross road and how you go from here makes all the difference. Its not about figuring things out really. And its not about being something better then we already are either. When were at the end of the end of our rope its more about caring enough about others to understand how we care about ourselves deep down in our hearts, is my experience. How I love others is a brilliant mirror reflecting my own love for me. Its amazing, and makes no sense, but the more we give the more we have to give, real life is just built that way, and for good reason obviously.

You have a lot to give LegallyBrunette. Seriously.

Becky13

EndGameNYC, thank you. That was an especially great post.

Wish I had advice, LB. The only thing that works for me when I feel like that is to get outside and soak up some nature. Just slow down and take it all in. But, see, that's just me.

Sounds like you've been working very hard for very long. Maybe getting out of the work environment could help you reconnect with things.

jaynie04

End Game thank you, I was reminded of a Victor Frankl quote…

"For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day, hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment".

I used alcohol to get out of the present. Getting sober while brutally uncomfortable at times, reminded me, even when I didn't want to be reminded, that I was living.

kflee

I wish you the best. Hope the people around you will become more forgiving.