sobersolstice

Can someone please advise me on how to figure this out? I've been forced to drink by my folks since I was a kid, but now I'm 62 days dry, and realized I'm old. Why am I 40? None of this makes sense... Who am I?

Why am I drinking so much coffee?

entropy1964

Who are any of us?

A couple of years ago I was talking to my sponsor. I don't remember the exact context of our conversation but I was saying something along the lines of "I need to figure out 'who' I am'. Mind you, I'm in my 50's, I've been me for quite some time. She responded 'You know who you are. Go out and start being of service to others and stop thinking so much about yourself. You've been in your head for 50 plus years and you still don't know who you are. Through helping others, you'll learn more about yourself then you ever thought possible'. Huh. What a thought. I admit, I found it kinda harsh. But I realized (and this is just me) that I was kind of using this 'who am I' quest as yet another reason to just not get on with it. Ya know? Not sure if that makes sense.

So, I dunno. If you've been pondering who you are for most of you life, maybe its time to ask someone else "how can I help?". That has helped me a lot.

joandmelandhan

And breeeeethe........sobersolstice.......
Early sobriety is a roller coaster of emotions and thoughts it really is. I've found that somewhere around the 2 month mark (in my experience) there is quite a peak of brain activity and raw emotion and panic and anger and grief and.......allsorts.
You're on a journey now and yes there is a lot to come to terms with and process but goodness 62 days really is brilliant and you're doing this!!!!!
Giver yourself a break and trust in the healing power of time. That's my strategy right now anyway.
Yes there is a period of mourning for the lost years (I'm feeling a bit of that) but you're doing the exact right thing to get a new future. A new life. Free from the chains of addiction and all that comes with it. These feelings will pass given a little more time.
Take care of yourself xxx

tekink

I'm coming to grips with the fact that I don't really know who I am either. I'm a bit over 9 months sober now. I've been drinking at least every weekend for 26 years and I was a daily drinker for 23. I'm introverted and alcohol was useful for breaking down the barrier and actually interacting with people.

I hid the real me away for so damn long I don't actually remember who that is anymore.

Dean1978

Im 39, started drinking when i was 15, took me over 20 years to move forward with my life. My outlook is about what the future can give me in a sober/happy world and not dwell on a unhappy/drink induced past.

I know of a Lawyer who turned his life around at 54 and is hugely successful now. Age doesnt matter, its what you do with that new found freedom that is key.

nova84

I feel like my life started when I hit my 30s...I started 2.5 years of psychotherapy which helped me to deal with my past so that I could focus on the now...cue sobriety, learning to love myself and being kind to myself.

Dee74

I had no idea who I was sober either but the more sober time I built up and the more I worked on recovery I began to remember a me I'd forgotten about.

I think no matter how long you've been drinking, or what age you started there a real you in there waiting to come out sobersolstice

D

SportsFan15

"There's a real you waiting to come out." So true!

sobersolstice

I guess I know who I am, but I'm not sure I've been with that person for a long time to where my sober self is trying to figure out who I am. I know myself better as a drinker, because of patterns I've learned to follow.

I definitely feel very young for 40, and want to hang out with 20somethings whereas when I was younger, I wanted to hang out with older people that partied. I'm probably too old to party like the spring break days.

What's crazy is that I didn't choose to stop drinking this time. I just didn't drink on a random Tuesday I was tired from work and fell asleep, then I kept it going. I got a lung infection, and didn't drink during that 2 week spell.

I felt better, and wanted to go out to drink, and my friends intervened and told me I'm in a good place to stop if I wanted to. I was only drinking 4-5 coors lights a day for the month prior because my hangovers were getting bad, and 'backed off' for a bit. This created a hole for my AV that to this day makes me think I can drink a few and stop. I can... but it takes painful will power and preplanning in my head. I don't want to deal with having to crave and push it down harder to not drink more. Eventually I'll give in, and I know myself well enough to where I'll slip down that slope again.

I just don't know where the years went. It's confusing, and I think and think until my head hurts. Things in my life were backwards... I was an athlete while I was an alcoholic (I was just younger and did a sixer a day), then i turned to it for comfort in the evenings after work, but now I just get tired and apathetic. I'm tired now from my body recovering, but my brain is firing with an emotional rollercoaster I didn't experience my first go at sobriety. My motivation isn't the same to get things done.

I think I'm an easy going guy with an all or nothing mentality. I'm getting better with it, but I still ask my friends if they want to go out on the weekends, and they say I should stay in, so I've been watching tv and eating a lot of sugar. I now have clients who know about my problem (well one client), and I asked about how they knew, but they were just like "I just know things"... So I feel more accountable now. Needless to say, this person is invading my personal life, so no longer a client.

I need something I can put 100% into, and I'll be happier perhaps. I need something I daydream and think about obsessively, and I haven't found that recently.

Thanks for the support, 2 months is my second longest sober streak, and it wasn't even intentional, until it became intentional.

I think too much.

BigShoe

Great thread. Thanks all

Eaglelizard

That whole "comfort after work" thing really sucks us in, doesn't it? From your post, it sounds like you are an athlete who feels young inside. Why not go with that for a while until the other pieces fall into place? Fried brain not understand complex human emotion...

DontRemember

I was checking fakebook this morning and one of my attorneys had a picture of some flag football,softball? some championship thing.. I was thinking "How in the hell do you have the time/energy for all of these extra activities?" This guy trains in multiple things;mma,weightlifting,flying planes,married with a preteen daughter that's involved in as much, if not more crap than he is. So, he's also involved in her stuff too.. I guess I've gotten lazy,but that's just too much for my plate! Not to mention he has his own law firm and is still building that..Crazy..But that's his life. I'll stick to the 'slow lane' for now.

sobersolstice

Yeah, I live where everyone is like that. I feel left behind... everyone rock climbs, does triathalons, and builds schools in Nepal, while working for NASA.

I didn't know I was burned out of my business. I can't get out to work... I want to sleep for decades.

DontRemember

I'm burned out out my main current business. I have zero desire to continue to build it anymore,at least not right now. I'm exhausted constantly(which is normal for me when it gets dark at 4pm). I've got a few new ventures I'm looking into,but they don't have the 'shine' they had for me a few months ago. Chalking a lot of this up to a mild depression that my ex is in a new relationship,but that's none of business and out of my control. Doesn't mean that 'feeling' isn't there at times. Hell... I even canceled on playing golf today!? How lame is that? I decided I 'needed to do some stuff around the house and go check on the one business I do like owning.'

FreeOwl

I got sober at 41 and found myself confronted with "who actually am I", too.

Turns out, that's one of the greatest gifts of the thing.

Look around at how many folks aren't even asking that question.

Look at the way we wandered around for 4 decades without really giving it a thought.

Look, we could have gone to our grave having never bothered to ask.

Now, here you are; sober and asking "who am I"? "what's important"? "what is Purpose"? "How can I cherish my life"? "what can I give into the flow"?

These are the substance of abundance.

Welcome to the ride.

ScottFromWI

One of the tools/concepts/ideas I've learned a great deal from during my quest to stay sober and to deal with my anxiety is Mindfulness. It's a pretty broad term of course, but exploring it has really helped me in both areas.

Basically what it helps me with is to focus on the now, and to clear all that other garbage. It's not that you just ingnore everything happening around you, but it teaches you to simply acknowledge it and let it go past. A counselor I used to see used the "river of thoughts" analogy. Imagine all the thoughts and happenings around us as the water in a raging river passing you by. You cannot change nor divert the flow of the water - it's going to keep coming no matter what you do. But you can choose to watch it go by calmly from the bank - vs wading in or even diving in head first and drowning.

I've also drastically cut back/eliminated my interaction with social media over the years. I shut down my Facebook account about 5 years ago and it was a fantastic decision. While most social media platforms do have legitimate uses, the reality is that most of what happens there is comparing people to each other, or comparing yourself to others. And that's a sure fire recipe for pain/sorrow , especially for those of us already struggling with addiction.