sobersolstice

During my 'pink cloud' days, I remember doing everything I could around the house to stay busy... mainly cleaning maniacally. I'm not sure why this happened, but I felt like I had to catch up somehow, or clean up my space to feel better about cleaning myself up from booze. I had all these bright aspirations and future goals for self-growth and overall, and was functioning well on 4 hours of sleep.

Now, I'm around 7 months sober, and finding that I want to sleep more, and the old patterns that came with drinking (maybe habits) are returning; mainly lack of organization, time management issues, and some degree of apathy. I feel like I have to force myself to do things, and my life goal is non-existant. Ever since I've stopped drinking, I've been searching for a passion and big goals, but have been in this state of stressful quandry for a while. While drinking, everything was about getting through the day, but now I feel like I'm not doing enough, and not living up to my potential.

I feel like I'm way behind for someone who's 41, and have been going back to old athletic pursuits that gave me joy when I was younger, lifting weights, and eating better, working harder, but I'm not giving 100% toward anything because I'm trying to find that one thing that's worth giving it to.

I'm not sure if it's the decades of drinking, and the mindframe that drinking has permeated into my being, or if I'm just wired to be lazy?

I want to start a new career, find an amazing mate, and live a fruitful life in sobriety, but feel like I keep hitting both mental and real roadblocks toward my short-term goals, and a lot of the big things I want to change about myself are posing challenges that are overwhelming with this feeling that I need to work 10x as hard to make up time I've lost. It's overwhelming enough to where I'm not getting basic things done because I'm constantly searching for the one thing that will be my destiny.

I think this all stems from the fact that I've lived a drunk life to please others. Most of my actions were not to improve my life, but to find acceptance when I was in a drinking modality. Now, I'm doing this for myself, but feel a little stuck with where to go, and meeting new successful friends around my age has been intimidating (beautiful homes, kids, successful careers, etc.), as I feel so far behind.

Anyone else experience this? How do you deal with it? There's a lot more, but I'd be writing a book...

Fearlessat50

Hi Sobersolstice. Yes, I completely felt this way. Crazy busy trying to catch up with life and everything I missed out on for the first 6-7 months. Then, I wanted to realize my potential and started thinking about what I could do in my career to excel, how I could give back to community, be the best mom, etc etc. I wound up exhausted. I felt that I had reached a plateau. Even though I was sober, I got depressed. I started to realize that just because I had stopped drinking, that did t mean I wouldn’t still have life ups and downs and both good and bad emotions thinking about my life. My therapist helped me to see that maybe I’m just fine being where I am and being grateful for all that I already have. At 52, I’m coming up to two years sober and I love my simple life. I do set simple goals for myself that revolve around creating something new everyday whether it’s in baking, cooking or some type of art expression or a work project initiative (with or without praise). Regardless of where you are at in sobriety you may be experiencing a bit of a midlife crisis too? I went through that in my early 40’s. I had a baby. He has special needs. It can be tough in general and on marriage. I do love my life but my life would have also been ok had a gone a different path. Right at this moment, my son is being super annoying! realize now that back then I thought the grass was greener everywhere else when it was perfectly fine right where I was standing. Lots of people who seem to have it all on the outside are struggling inside. No one else knows what another is really experiencing. Maybe there will always be an internal conflict between what we want and what we have. Maybe it’s part of the human condition.

PalmerSage

Yeah, I can completely relate to what you're saying. I'm about to hit 10 months sober, and for several months I was kind of clicking on all cylinders for the most part, my life was improving significantly, and the novelty of sobriety hadn't worn off. I had some serious life issues pop up, but I didn't feel depressed during those times, more focused and mission-driven than anything else. Now, I'm in a period where I feel kind of apathetic and like I've plateaued, as Fearless said.

I've asked around here, and the ups and downs seem to be a normal part of early sobriety, like when we think the worst has passed with exhaustion, moods, etc., it's like "not so fast, we're still in this!"

The good news is that some low moods don't even BEGIN to compare to the desperate hopelessness I felt while drinking. So even though it sucks sometimes, the sucking is on a totally different level, you know?

August252015

Glad you are sharing.

I was definitely one of those alcoholics who wanted everything NOW for most of my life, even when I knew things were a process of working toward any goal. I had to slow down and accept that gaining e ground and life I want and have now, in so many ways, simply took time. Seven months is awesome- and still very early. For me, even almost 1000 days (Tu), so 2 yr eight mo, is a short time compared to my ten or so years of drinking alcoholicslly.

I had to learn to use tools to encourage my evening out, patience, lots of things, and accept slumps and peaks and....

My only option for the centerdness I generally have now was to keep going sober.

Take care and keep going. It is absolutely worth it.

Flower2327

I can totally relate. Sometimes I feel the "ghost" of the 10+ years I gave to drinking (all of my 20s basically) and start to get extremely conscious of where I might be if I had quit earlier, in terms of career, relationships, personal growth, etc. But I try not to linger in that mindset too long. I know that a lot of my drinking stemmed from a deep-seated anxiety about all of those things - about everything, really - so I've taken to just throwing myself into things. And one of my biggest take-aways from my first 9 months sober? So many things I used to worry about or try to drown out with booze are. not. a. big. deal. I used to feel like putting myself out there in the world - taking a chance, asking someone out, applying for a new, better job - opened me up for soul-annihilating rejection and ridicule. And I didn't feel like I was strong enough to handle that, should it come (ironically enough, the booze I was self-medicating with was the main cause of feeling so weak). Sobriety has given me a core sense of self that I'm not sure I'd ever really felt before; I started drinking heavily when I was around 20 and first encountered the growing pains of adulthood.

I've also felt some leveling off from those heady first couple of months of sobriety where it was especially shiny and new, the weight was falling off, and I was experiencing things for the first time in many ways. My thought patterns and habits with booze were always similar to those with food, and I'm finding lately that, with my weight loss plateauing somewhat, I've been falling into old habits with regard to eating my feelings, so to speak, especially at night, so I'm trying to address that now. I just try to keep in mind that everything is a process with ups and downs.

D122y

sober,

The fad of not drinking started to wear of on me recently. I have deep kindling from decades of off and on binge drinking.

So it took this long to feel this good.

Now I am trying to figure things out from this perspective. I am still healing.

I know that I am blessed for so many reasons (book time) and I know I will never ever drink again (not even a shot).

I felt pretty down 2 days ago. Then I decided to not be down any more and now I feel better. Working out is my new drug.

I do nice things all the time too. I am up out of bed by 6 am today to take Jr. to a baseball game. He gets so excited.

Yesterday I went to a VA hospital and talked with some very ill folks. Trying to make their day better.

Stuff like that helps me.

Thanks.

August252015

I'd also add that learning new daily patterns, in thought and actions, has been a big learning process for me. Having set things like a disciplined five item morning program time got me grounded in a new habit early on, and I've kept it up since my first sponsor instructed me to start this work. Other things like the same and earlier than necessary arrival time at work give me stability too.

Even stuff like naps, and other than now that I have a back injury, the same yoga classes, help me with bigger picture stuff including those icky character defects and some crummy behavior I had when drinking.


I think we each need to be gentle with ourselves as we find a new way of life.