Acheleus

So after a rough few days I have realized I drank a lot to attempt to soothe emotional pain and loneliness. However this use only intensifies negative emotions and experiences. Tonight I am nearing six months sober and I think I have a clearer and more rational mind that enables me to think through negative feelings. It hurts to just grin and bear reality, but it is far more painful to add problems caused from drinking on top of whatever bad is happening. This is why even though I am going through a bad experience right now I don't have to turn to alcohol to self medicate. Tonight I accept responsibility for the bad decisions I have made and there is nothing I can do but look at the experience and try to make better decisions in the future. Instead of getting drunk and hurting myself I am choosing to grow up and face the music.

Any one have thoughts about using alcohol to deal with fear, loneliness, and emotional pain?

Della1968

I absolutely self medicated...and made things 1000x worse. Since I got sober everything life throws at me is much easier to manage.

Gilmer

You get used to dealing with things as the weeks go by--then weeks turn into months, and you cannot remember why you used to need to drink.

Thepatman

Yes, absolutely.

Alcohol was my coping mechanism for all emotions. Yes, even the good ones. Happy, get plastered to celebrate, sad, get hammered to cope.

All my adult life dealing with booze left my emotionally under developed.

Dee74

I think most of us self medicated. I know I did.

D

Anna

Absolutely, I self-medicated to deal with anxiety and depression. I was not properly diagnosed and treated for way too long and turned to alcohol in a desperate move. And, of course, it makes things worse and we still have to deal with the stuff when we stop drinking.

Congratulations on 6 months sober!

OnMyWay7

Great post

Notimetoloose

I read something the other day and it went something like, 'when we are little we learn to dress and help heal a physical cut or break but very rarely do we know how to heal an emotion or mental cut or break...

Mark1014

Yep, could have written your post myself. There's no reverse on my sobriety ride though, so I'm gonna have to face some things I tried to drown in beer. I will say that I am listening to the wisdom of those further down the road than I am by deferring some personal decisions that will affect my future and other's too. I've read that a year or so is needed for proper perspective.

Congratulations on how far you've come!

Acheleus

Yes I made big decisions that I now regret. But I know my sobriety is more important than anything else in my life. I take things a day at a time and I am trying to figure out how to live. I have so much to work on that I just neglected by being a selfish drunk. Getting sober is humbling and I believe it has made me a better person. Life is too short to waste another moment of it drinking.

FreeOwl

Yes!

Congratulations on six months.

Nonsensical

Yes. It's like using a bowling ball to swat the mosquito on your forehead. The mosquito is gone, but OH! the consequences.

HeadLump

It's been humbling to witness how you've grown, Ach, and to see that reflected in myself. Thank you

Plure

I did this too; like others have said, alcohol "seemed" to work for my anxiety, until it didn't. I say seemed because it was only burying the feelings to a deep place in my mind where they built up and later whacked me upside the head!

Six months is a great accomplishment!

KateL

My drinking was always to soothe emotional pain. It's easier to tackle things head-on now x

Hawks

Last decade of my drinking was pretty much all about that.

It was all fun and games for the first two decades but I kept going well past the fun times.