thomas11

I am about to walk down to our annual summer party. Our association has a large park on the lake and each year there is party thrown for the neighborhood. I have not attended in two years. Last year because I was injured and the year before because I was "too drunk". I will proudly walk down there sober and catch up with people I have not seen nor talked to in quite some time. Actually looking forward to it.

Our guests arrived a couple hours ago (wife's side, first generation Peruvian immigrants), and afterward we will be grilling. One of our guests is an Afghani veteran and has PTSD, so we have discussed (and I have warned him) that loud explosions will be heard pretty much around the clock through Monday. I've got my fingers crossed.

We'll see how this goes.....

ZenLifter

I'm sure things will go just fine. Should be interesting to be at a party sober, right?

ScottFromWI

Hope it all goes well Jeff. Not to be a downer, but did you make any decisions regarding the opiate addiction you brought up in your thread yesterday? You kind of just left that one hanging, and it's a pretty big deal. Seems like quite a 360 to all of a sudden hear you are heading to a big party after where you left off.

thomas11

It was interesting. I got a perception that since I no longer own a business, people were less interested in speaking to me. I hope its just my own insecurity, but it may very well be valid. I need to earn my place back into society I guess.

thomas11

No, I did not make any definitive decisions. I have an appointment with my Dr. on July 13th and will discuss options. No, I don't want to be an addict, but then again I don't want to be the "hero" either and have to deal with pain that I don't have to.

I've never been through this before, so I have no answers.

ScottFromWI

You already know that there are alternatives to opiates for pain. And you also know that you are taking them for more than just pain...you like the buzz. I understand what you are saying above, but you need to understand that it's addict talk - rationalization. You steered off the topic of your addiction in the last thread and you are doing it again.

Maybe instead of waiting 2 weeks to see your doc you could hit an NA meeting? You already have the answers, you just have to take action.

Delilah1

Hope you enjoy your party Jeff.:-)

thomas11

Scott, with all due respect, you are speculating, correct? How could you possibly know my situation? You don't. In fact, I don't even know my situation quite yet. I wholly understand your concern. But let's be honest, even my surgeon in 14 years of practice didn't know how to handle my situation. Neither do I.

Its not responsible to make any calculations or assumptions. At least in my opinion.

ScottFromWI

I'm talking about taking action with your addiction. You yourself just said in your thread last night that you need to start taking your own advice in that area.

Your pain management and rehab is certainly between you and your doc, but when it comes to addiction we know you well....because we've all be there too.

IvanMike

I've got news for you, neither do I.

Fortunately I don't have to be an active addict.

Have fun at the party and be careful.

EndGameNYC

Seems like Scott's comments made you angry. You've commented in great detail over the years about your struggles with alcohol and, more recently, with painkillers.

You've had a number of false starts with tapering, and then recently commented about your concerns around being addicted to painkillers. There's also the fact that your father is an alcoholic and is addicted to opiates, an addiction that you've supported, unwittingly and otherwise, on and off for a time. Have you still not made this obvious connection?

Surgeons and MDs generally are not by virtue of their training and experience alone experts on any individual's use of painkillers. They know what relieves the pain, but they cannot know how much pain any single patient is enduring. It's up to the patient to be honest about where they are in terms of pain management...amount and duration of pain, pain tolerance, and frequency. Once we start enjoying the side effects of opiates, it's not an easy thing to be honest about where we are with our own tolerance. Or if we have any significant pain at all. It's just the way things are. If you haven't been following, opiate addiction is among the biggest problems the US now faces, mostly for people who refused to stop using them once their pain had significantly subsided. I got a buzz from opiates following each of my two hip surgeries. I liked it enough to taper the moment I no longer needed them. Not psychologically, but in terms of pain management.

Everyone here wants to see you succeed. But you haven't given yourself a real chance to get there. Not by a long shot. And this is what's so frustrating about your ongoing reluctance to make a commitment to sobriety. You seem to want to drive in the sober lane, documented by your comments to other people here on SR, and your published convictions about the value of staying sober, but then you don't seem to get that your swerving into the drinking or using lane is a major obstacle to long-term sobriety. More than that, it represents a set back, and the kind of thinking that we undertake long before we pick up the drink.

Your comments around the ostensible benefits of drinking (for creative people, people who are driven to succeed, making important business connections and the like) are not the products of sober thinking, no matter how much you spin them. When I read your fairly common comments in this regard, I half expect to see yet another thread about how you just had a coupla drinks last night, and how stupid it was, and how much you learned from it, and whatever the most recent silver lining is in having had a coupla drinks, and how at least you were honest about it, and how it wan't really that big a deal, and how you now know that you can't drink...

You've also rationalized your relapses or slips or whatever you want to call them by making statements like, "Well, everybody relapses before they get sober..." All of this is simply not good enough if you truly want to achieve long-term sobriety.

There is no money-back guarantee if drinking doesn't work out for you. One may have imagined that you learned this after nearly killing yourself with an unscheduled flight down the stairs. And drinking without destructive consequences is not a consolation prize for a worse outcome.

You seem surprised by some of the comments you get after posting your ideas around drinking and then about using opiates due, at least in part, to the pleasing effects of painkillers. And you sometimes seem to feel that people are picking on you. To me, I still read a lot of denial in your comments, and that's a shame.

I'll leave you with a quote from Winston Churchill, that seems appropos to your recent comments.

"Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things."

Dee74

Hi Jeff

I just want to add we're not piling in on you for sport...we all care what happens to you...and I have to admit it freaks me out how oblivious you still can be as to which inner voice is you and which is the AV.

I really hope you'll give some thought to getting more deeply involved in your recovery.

AVRT might be a good start - no meetings, book based and it will help you discern that addictive voice a little better?

D

thomas11

With regards to a couple of posts, yes, I felt the need to defend myself a bit, and I will when I feel the need to do so. When I was a drunk I'd let people steamroll me (not saying that is what happened here) because I knew I had a serious problem.

When I look in the mirror now, for the most part, I like who I see. I understand there is always room for improvement, and I will work a little harder on that.

dwtbd

Comments about your chemical use and their purpose as advice and council on how best to handle such a situation , need 'defense against'?
Or are you defending the AV's side of the story? I think you are approaching a rather critical point and really need to dig deep with full self honesty and figure out whose side your on, your's (like everyone else here) or the AV and its drive for chemically induced feelings of'niceness'.

Hawkeye13

You've got a lot going on besides sobriety management Jeff--including dealing with addiction in your family,
difficult family dynamics, starting a new career, and getting off the pain meds
which were clearly pinch-hitting in a minor way to the drinking.

So, kudos for all you are managing, and you should feel good looking in the mirror
at the man who is rebuilding his life in a positive and proactive way.
That's what I see too--

The other posters do have a point about your AV, however, which looks valid from here.
You have the trickiest AV I think I've ever seen, and he / it does get around
your radar fairly frequently--even if you don't act on it (which is a great step forward).

Pain meds for you, or for me, are not ever a good idea given our past addictive history.
It isn't about being a hero, but finding other ways to manage without drugs period.
It's a slippery slope, and your AV is just looking to trip you up now that
you are building positive momentum out of the gravity well of alcohol and pain meds.

I'm thinking yoga, biofeedback, or something like this:

http://www.notimpossiblenow.com/the-...s-fda-approval

Hope the party was fun--you are growing and changing in a good way.
Keep pushing it and keep challenging yourself and see where you are
in another year alcohol and drug free

ScottFromWI

I think Dee said it best Jeff, you have come a long way in certain areas, but when it comes to you recognizing your addictive voice, it's it's almost as if you are posting here for the first time. Go back and re-read your previous thread and then this one. Assume you are viewing what someone else wrote and think of the advice you'd give them. We can only offer you suggestions and help, at the end of the day it's all about you and your choices. And if your intent regarding your opiate addiction is to just "try a little harder", I think you know what the results will be.

thomas11

Keep pushing it and keep challenging yourself and see where you are
in another year alcohol and drug free

Thanks Hawkeye, your statement above resonates with me.

thomas11

Fair enough Scott, I think SR as a group works better as allies as opposed to "adversaries". Power in numbers if you will.

EndGameNYC

Everyone here either is or aspires to be an "adversary" of alcoholism, alcoholic thinking, and alcoholic behavior.

Some of the power that comes in numbers is the much-needed and repetitive recognition and acknowledgement of dangerous thinking and behavior. For alcoholics. For all of us. You've done the very same thing yourself. Does this make you an adversary of the people you've counseled here?

thomas11

I don't post this to please any of you, but I want to share. I have cut all my pills in quarters and will take only as necessary (which of course is subjective). Today is my father's birthday and I'm not really surprised that what he wanted for his birthday was "some help". Meaning a pill. I cut him short and direct, the answer was "no, I don't". To be honest, I felt a little bad about it, but I took into consideration that he has stolen from me on three different occasions, and if he was truly in enough pain to need medication, he'd have it. I found out that he was getting 20 days worth of medication and it was gone it 8-9 days. I tolerate a lot from him as he is getting old, but I had to put my foot down.

Regarding myself, I have read and digested the posts, I cannot disagree completely and don't want to be defiant. But, I will do what the Dr. suggests when I see her on the 13th.

Lastly, the alcohol trigger has been strong in the last couple days. I am a lone wolf, I don't like trying to entertain a bunch of acquaintances, but I have been forced to. For years I'd drink it away, I have not and I'm kind of proud of that. I'm not a natural when it comes to entertaining, unless I am drinking.