Part of what I'm getting from your comments, and from the comments of others on this thread, is an articulation of why so many of us continued to drink despite a slow and excruciatingly painful descent into hell. The alternative, to meet life where it is -- "accepting life on life's terms," in the vernacular of recovery -- can be both an awesome burden and a continuing wellspring of pain with the added bonus of more complete awareness. Surgery without anesthesia, if you will.

There is both an admission fee and an ongoing maintenance charge that comes with being born into a life of recovery, and as experience and the decades-old statistics reliably demonstrate, few people are either willing or able to pay the price.

Offering advice to someone who's struggling through an existential crisis or a crisis of identity is like telling someone dying of lung cancer that they should stop smoking. "Embrace the suffering" is too vague and nebulous to be of any help, and offering up the popular notion "everything happens for a reason; we just don't know what it is" is only cold, hard comfort in sheep's clothing, which is worse than no comfort at all. Imposing well-worn slogans on human suffering is often the worst of all remedies, particularly when a remedy is not at all needed.

Whatever it is that is now killing you is likely making room for something else. And I have no way of knowing what that could possibly be, or even if what "comes next" (if anything comes at all) is better than what's there now.

Well, my friend, there's a whole school of existential thought that would say, that maybe the hatred of the self, is actually the death of the ego....

Hell, I was ready years ago to put a robe on you, sit at your feet, and call you "Guru"...

I'm jus sayin"... :)

How can I hate my "self"? I am all I have when I boil it down to the essence. When we get to the nub, as we do in trying to get sober, I am all I have.

Anything anyone else says is irrelevant unless I think it and comprehend it and accept it.

Not to be solipsist, but when it comes to recovery, it's my world.

Yeah Robby, and whenever it feels like the universe is shaking my snow globe I just remind myself that:

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know. - Donald Rumsfeld

and

No gnews is good gnews with Gary...Gnu - The Great Space Coaster

Somehow I feel a little better.

:grouphug:

Wow guys. Just wow. Your honestly felt responses are tearing me up, and that's good, because I'm way way defensive, and its costing me dearly to keep these walls built. Thanks guys and gals , each of you for having my back. :hug:

Something is dying in me, that much is certain. I'm unsure if that is good or bad at this point. I'm absolutely going to come to a cross roads and when that happens, there will be an kind of line crossed for me, I suppose.

I didn't get this far by quitting on myself. Its difficult for me to not believe in myself, and I just don't know who I am anymore.

I'm okay with sobriety. Its not about that, thanks for respecting me on that. I'm very appreciative. Its about getting up again even though I know I'm gonna fall nonetheless.

I'm tired. And old. And yet, I feel like a lost kid. I never wanted to hate myself, but it was the only train ride in town when it all fell to pieces for me back when. Its not easy to stop a train. Sure sobriety is better than being drunk. Being drunk I wouldn't know I don't care. Sober, I know I don't care.

I do care though that I don't care, you know? And so I've reached out these past weeks in my own way. Thanks for picking up on all that angst.

:thanks

When I am in fear or angst, is that authentic? I know I wouldnt come on this website if so. Unless I was in an isolated community cut off from telephone lines to be able to talk to people. Even then prayer and meditation works well. I just talk to any number of my sponsees who have quite a bit of time in themselves.

OK. Ya ain't quite clear on your place in the world right now. You're typing contradictions.

You know who you are.

Oh yeah, my fears and angst are indeed authentic. :) I'm never entirely removed from my ongoing challenges, you know? I really don't know what freedom from self is if that freedom is won without cost to myself.

This is not an intellectual puzzle for me. I understand what is going on well enough. Prayer works for me too, but prayer doesn't relieve me of owning my feelings. Mediation is helpful, and yet these feelings are entrenched in a dance of changing dynamics that I want to control, and this control effort is making things drag out. To let the control go though, I simply as yet don't have the faith in any probable outcome. Guys like me don't like to have their soft underbelly left to the fates. I wouldn't be even alive if I trusted myself to the windstorms of life. I would have wrecked against the rocks long, long ago already.

Yeah. I believe in God. God also gave me these challenges. And when I turn to Him, I get an encouraging admonition that He doesn't answer to me, lol.

I'm okay with reaching out here on SR. Its very doable. :)

Hey Robby, very sorry to hear you're in a bad place at the moment, your one of the pillars of the community around here, or at least in my opinion anyways, you always make such great points in discussions.

So not as eloquently as you might have put out, but I wanted to make the point that authenticity doesn't disappear as a result of change, JDs point on Niagara Falls was fantastic, I was going to use the similar analogy that the cells that make up the human body now are not the same that made up my body 5 or 10 years ago, living cells regenerate and so the makeup of the body is always changing, but does that mean I or we are not the same person or less authentic from the person we once were?!!

This got me thinking that maybe it's the present that defines us a lot more, the thoughts, the feelings of the here and now, I was a different person 10 years ago, and will be a different person in 10 years time, there isn't a reset button in our minds, it's always changing, our perspectives change, but neither time is more authentic than the other, life is there to be lived day by day, the journey of life isn't like groundhog day, but instead it's a building of knowledge and wisdom as time goes on!!

Again, probably not the most eloquent, but to boil it all down I didn't know the Robby pre 2012, and frankly the Robby post 2012 is a pretty cool person to have around!!

Hang in there!! :)

Yeah. Hurt does make things complicated. I'm surprised there isn't more contradictions, ya know?

Dear Robby, just want you to know I'm here too. There's nothing wise or even smart I have to offer. I hear your fear, pain, self-hatred and the apathy -- and I hear another part of you that's reaching out to us despite those conflicts and showing us your self, your soul. That's a supremely human and humane thing to do. Thank you.

Well, let's be doing the thing, Robby. How can I help?

Thanks for the unconditional acceptance of my present storm, Courage.

I am reaching out, and it does feel better just in that. Its not enough to carry me, and that's okay, I don't want to be carried. It is enough to know I'm not lost to myself so much that I'm uncaring of others. That would be a real horrific line for me to cross. I'm doing well enough to know my ship is yet not lost to the depths of my selfish feelings.

It wont be over quickly, but I'm not flotsam as yet either, and its awesomely good to hear the experience and wisdom of others swirling around in my self.

It's been said that prayer isn't for people who want to avoid Hell, but for people who don't want to go back.

I was talking with a friend before who told me something I'd never heard: "Reality is for people who can't handle drugs and alcohol."

Often wonder about exactly how it really works that service to others helps us stay sober. I think part of what's behind it (for me) is that really fixed, rapt attention on someone else's needs helps me be sane, because it's an attachment to reality. When I'm really deeply involved with someone else, I don't lose myself, I become real -- not just a spinning, self-reflecting myriad of ungrounded imaginings.

Do you have someone to help?

You already are helping, my friend. You'd be perhaps surprised what I can do with just the offer of help, you know? Guys like me are loyal to sincerity, and this is awesomely in abundance with you and so many others in this thread. I work on probabilities that don't require me to have all the details of why a hand is given to me. Mostly all I need is to know that such a hand given is worth my reaching out for, and this requires me to be less selfish in my angst. My pains are already less directly because of the actions taken by posters. My duties are not less, but my burden is less.

:thanks

I do. And I'm grateful for it, goes without saying. Helping others is a well walked journey of surety through many of my darkest times. This day no less.

Still though, its outstanding I as well can be helped even though I'm defensive and angry with myself as we go along.

Before I sign off for a time, I was reminded after reading jdooner's comments about the philosophical issue of self-identity through the process of change, through time, both an existential and a metaphysical problem. This is only made more problematic by the reality that we are all and always in the process of becoming rather than being. Despite its seductive powers, the idea of being a finished product is illusory and often dangerous when indulged. Life tends to shake us out of our "everydayness," forever reminding us that there is still more to be done, no matter how much we may want to freeze moments in time.

From a psychological perspective, developmental goals vary greatly across the life span, and existential dyssynchrony is often the result...the vague but persistent and nagging feeling that we are not supposed to be where we are in life. In my experience, it's one of the top reasons why people come to therapy...or avoid it. And this is why support and why places like SR are so important for so many people. As human beings, as mortals, we are uniquely suited to endure existential crises, but we are not often built to survive them on our own.

Hey, just the offer of a hand up from the ditch can be instrumental. I've been there, needed that, and welcomed it from wherever the hand came from the fog.

Yes. I've too have been in that same ditch. Its amazing what a hand up can offer in it simplicity of getting the deed done.

:)