Smilax

I was doing well but the writing was on the wall the past several weeks.

I guess it hasn't been quite 2 months but it feels like much longer than that really. I had to look it up a few days ago, it feels like more like a year lol. I haven't really felt the urge to drink till the past few weeks when it came on strong!

As I said I was doing well. But a bunch of recent stresses plus the deepening of my continual depression seems to have broken me. A huge amount of new stress at work has been piling up as staffing between the stores near me change up and I'm left with the prospect of having to lend out all the staff at my store to fill empty positions. That added to the fact that there has been week upon week on continual pressure to sell and meet goals. I was burned out at work before all of this started. Once those things hit the fan my stress levels skyrocketed. But I still wasn't prone to falling off the wagon yet. I was just EXHAUSTED every single day and getting worse.

The other stressor may sound strange to everyone here as stress because it would sound good to anyone. I've been talking to a girl recently and invited her out to coffee and she agreed. We have been talking back and forth for a good 2 weeks. Things seem to be going well. So why would that cause me stress? Well because this is new territory for me. I'm not proud of the fact but I'm 36, a virgin, I've never had a relationship. I've never so much as held hands with a woman. But I've been pushing my comfort zones more and more of late to put myself out there and this opportunity arose recently where a girl seemed to be interested in me so I forced myself into a situation that I would normally be extremely uncomfortable with. I've been socially isolated my entire life and socializing was fraught with anxiety almost all my life. I've made huge strides and now I'm pretty good in everything except relationships.

Because of my social isolation though I've been painfully lonely my entire life. That is something I'm sick of and have wanted to change for a long time. I felt that the only way any of this was going to change is if I pushed myself through the discomfort. Change is always stressful, especially when you have avoided it your entire life.

Things have been going well. But my mind is such that it eats me alive. I haven't even gone out to coffee yet with this woman, I have no idea if either of us are into each other, if there's any interest really at all. But my obsessive compulsive mind has just been eating me alive the past 2 weeks despite having pleasant conversations with her most days. Just back and forth constantly about a million and one things, and with all of that an increasing feeling that I'm hated by everyone, a sure sign that my depression is worsening. This might not make sense to people unless they have personal experience with OCD and depression.

So all of that came to a head today. I drank a bottle of wine. I have been having urges to drink more and more the past few days but being able to hold them off. Not today.

Hopefully I can pick up the pieces and keep on pushing forward. Not let today become a pattern. I've made a lot of progress. But man I worry that this slip up will become the excuse to dive right back into the thick of it. Cause the siren song of alcohol is always that it washes away so much of the pain I describe above. But it does so by making the pain so much worse in the long term.

Dee74

Welcome back Smilax

I'm not surprised a new relationship is stressful, even when its going well.
There's a reason why new relationships are discouraged for a while.

I'm sorry for the other stresses too. Have you thought of other ways of dealing with those?

D

theVman31

Jump right back up on the horse. Most of us go through relapses.
It kind of irons out the fact we have no off switches and are really in need of recovery. I reckon chill out a little, go easy on the over analyzing and get some extra sobertime under your belt before jumping back into stressor and trigger situations. Hope you dont make it any worse than one bottle of wine.
Take care

Smilax

Technically I know the right answer to that question. Exercise, a healthy diet, meditation, etc. But. From my perspective of life long depression, childhood emotional neglect, anxiety, etc, those are easier said than done. I often find I barely have the energy to get through the day.

I should mention though that I have been seeing a therapist bi-weekly recently which has been going well.

I should mention one other stressor that may have lead to me caving in which is that I’ve been trying to taper off the antidepressants I’ve been on for years. I’ve been on SSRIs for years without seeing much benefit. I felt as I had weaned myself off the alcohol and the sleeping pills I would do the same slowly with the antidepressants. As I said they have never helped me that much because those things that I’ve been depressed about I’ve needed to actually change about my life. But going off them adds yet another layer of stress to things, side effects include depression and anxiety themsleves.

I’ve probably been taking on too much all at once as I always do in my life without realizing it till it’s too late.

I’m just hoping that tomorrow I feel some sense of withdrawal from my screwup today. Otherwise... it’s going to be an uphill battle not to get back into the swing of drinking again.

Smilax

Thank you! Man I hope I feel bad tomorrow. Cause as you said it would be a shame to add more than just a bottle of wine to this slip. But... ****... my brain is fighting with me on it.

Choppo

G’day Smilax. So glad you posted! It’s so easy to beat ourselves up when this happens, but hey, none of us are perfect and s*it happens.

2mths is an inspiration to me buddy! Even better it hasn’t ‘gone’ - it’s still there. Average the sober days over the drinking days over the past 2mths and post back with a %..... I think you’ll find it a rather impressive figure which I really respect

Just keep coming back

Dee74

Hi Smilax

I think it's probably best to get your Dr on board before stopping meds - even if you don't think they're working it might not be safe, or at least not optimal, to simply stop talking them

I had a list of underlying reasons why I drank including chronic depression & anxiety .

Over the years I also developed a nasty case of alcoholism.

Ultimately for me I had to fight the alcoholism as well as those underlying issues together.

The best plan in the world is not worth any if you can't out it into practice, so thats probably a fairly urgent thing for you to address as well.

A way to access help at the very moment you don;t want to reach out for help. A head scratcher for sure but not insurmountable.

I'd look at your support network

D

Smilax

It’s funny. I don’t know if anyone will be able to relate. All my life I’ve assumed that I’m not likeable. I was painfully shy from an early age. I was bullied in school. My home life, while living, was smothering to a degree where I couldn’t form a sense of individuality. All of this lead to a life long sense of deep loneliness and depression .

Now. I’m slowly learning that the truth may indeed be the opposite. That not only am I not, not likeable. But that I’m liked by many, loved by many. While that may sound like a wonderful thing. It’s not if you have spent your entire life building a foundation upon the opposite. Because to be honest I feel that when people pay me compliments, I feel they must be sarcastic, or they must be just teasin me. Etc. It makes me feel worse now.

Yixi

Hi Smilax - I can very much relate to you in what you're saying and I too developed a dependency on alcohol to mask the pain and find "self worth". It has taken me years to overcome the bullying and get to a point where I can accept that I'm not a bad person and allow others to compliment me on qualities that I didn't even know were there. But they are there - and so too are yours. Just because we spent years beating ourselves up over hearing little p***ks telling us we're worthless it doesn't make it so. Good people will come in to your life and we have to let them. Please keep posting on SR, (the people here are some of the good one's I've mentioned), and we're with you all of the way. Much love Yix x

Dee74

sounds a lot like me Smilax - I'm sure others will relate to what you write as well.

I had very little sense of self - everything I thought or felt about myself was shaped by what people said to me, about me, or how they reacted to me.

That drive for external validation made for some crushing disappointments and lonely nights and some desperation to be belong and be wanted.

Recovery gave me the change to look at myself dispassionately, fix what I could and be ok with the rest.

I needed to be sober for this process of 'peeling back the onion skin'...

I found that rather than someone who was detestable when I wasn't poisoning myself with various and sundry substances I was actually not a bad guy.

My healing started from that point

hpdw

Just chiming in here and learning from this thread .
Depression was never really a biggie for me until now after 10 months sober I Relapsed and went off the radar (sr) for some months . Now I am sober 9 days but the depression is heavier than it ever was and coupled with terrible morning anxiety for which I have succumbed to the Dr,s prescription of a small dose of diazepam . It is my hope that with some decent sober time the depression will improve . Its strange as I can have some decent days but sometimes the slightest things can trigger a mood which makes me feel like a 3 year old .
I,m not posting much these days as I just don't know what to say and still feel somewhat gutted at my recent fall from sobriety .
It,s my wifes 60th birthday on Monday so ALL of my energy has went into some preparations to make this a nice day for her but deep down all I want to do is be alone .


Smilax I hope you can work through your current issues .

Dee74

I hope you can work through yours too hpdw - keep posting!

D

FreeOwl

You might consider weekly therapy - or even more frequently at first.

Also, are you actively working a recovery program?

My experience has been that the addiction and the emotional / psychological issues are incredibly interwoven.

What helped for me was to work both with qualified help.

You can grow and build yourself an incredible life - you just need support and tools, choice and ACTIOn.

andy1

Hi Smilex

I relate completely to your post. I'm at 2 months sober too, and it's only started to become tiring now. I understand how new relationships are stressful - I've never had a long-term relationship and I'm 41. I've had 2 dates with a girl recently, and it was a struggle to remain sober, but since I so rarely have dates, it's important to me and I made sure I was driving.

I don't have OCD, but shyness and depression ring a bell. As everyone says - hope you stay strong and continue with the sobriety.

I had a minor lapse last week and had a single pint because the craving was so strong. In a way I feel that was meant to happen because it showed me that drinking was definitely not great like my craving said it would be.

Andy.

Smilax

Thank you for all the support guys! Remained sober today which was key because today was a hard one with lots of anxiety. There were quite a few points in the day today where I had just about told myself I'd get another bottle but the urge eased off toward the end of the day. I'm still struggling a lot with the depression but I'm staying on the wagon for now. You guys are right that dating will make sobriety harder especially as most of my friend circle likes to drink. I have no problem remaining sober with them at friendly meetups. For example we all go out to a weekly Trivia event at a local pub and despite the fact they all drink I don't have any urge at all to there. But dating is new territory to me and the stress and anxiety of that will make it hard not to want to.

tekink

I'm coming from the same place. I was bullied bad starting at age 5. My dad told me I needed to beat up the 10 year olds bullying me. I was five and didn't understand any of this. He was giving his five year old son boxing lessons and telling him to punch people in the nose. People much bigger than me. My sister hated her little brother following her around so the next day when the bullying started I punched her in the nose as hard as I could. She laughed at me, every one bullied me until I cried. She told on me and I got in trouble even though I told my dad she was making fun of me.

From that point on I knew I was on my own and hopeless. If the girl laughed at me what would the boys she liked do to me?

My dad insisted if I didn't take care of it nothing would change.

My dad divorced my mom because she weighed 165 at 50 years old. He called her fat all the time but she was not.

I am afraid of people still to this day. I had to isolate myself to stay sober but I did have a few relapses around 2 months that made me reevaluate what I needed to do to actually sober up. Some of that involves suffering for a while.

Smilax

I'm sorry you went through all of that. My family was quite different but there were aspects that were just as unhealthy.

I think one of the keys to me is taking the risk to actually feel stuff lol. My life was actually very easy technically, my parents gave me everything. But I was so socially isolated my entire life that I took few is any emotional risks. I learned that other people meant disappointment and pain so I never went beyond the surface levels of socializing. In my 20s I got past most of my surface level social anxiety so that I could work retail jobs and hold friendly conversations but I didn't do much else.

Now for the first time in my life I have good friends and I'm starting to inch my way towards relationships. I'm learning in that processes that I never had actual good friends growing up, despite the fact that I thought I had them. Most of this is new territory for me and despite the fact that it is all very good technically it's not all good feeling. It's emotionally intense, both good and bad. I'm not used to dealing with intense emotions without running away from them. I'm getting used to it though. I think I'm doing a fairly good job of getting used to it too. In the space of a few months for example I've gotten much more comfortable now talking more intimately with women. I don't actually mean intimate but I mean light hearted joking, being relaxed enough to show the real goofy easy going me. I'm still so much a child in an adult body it's something I'm ashamed of. It's not easy. When the stresses, depression, and other things pile up my urge is still to run.