For those who are able to maintain thier sobriety...
61'st day sober as of:12/18/07
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Casper, Wyoming U.S.
Posts: 241
Well, I'm drinking...again. I just can't seem to be able to stay away from the "broth" no matter what I try. The hangovers usually keep me sober the "day after" and the next day I feel like a new person but by about noon, the withrawals hit me like a ton of bricks. Yes, I've tried all the AA stuff, meds, councelling, etc. Nothing seems to work. I am religious and yet I feel let down by my "higher power". A lot of people in my family are alcoholics (it's genetic I guess) plus I've had a pretty tough life (long, long story which I suppose I'll have to tell some day). I have a lot of stress in my life and I have very, very bad nerves. Anyway, there's my bag of stuff. Thank you all for not giving up on me but sometimes I just feel that it's hopeless )-:
Need4Change
Need4Change
Member
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Out of my mind
Posts: 113
Please don't leave Need4change. No one is hopeless.
I've had 20 years of quitting and i think I may FINALLY have got it.
You can't quit quitting!!!
Stick around and talk it out.
We're here for you.
I've had 20 years of quitting and i think I may FINALLY have got it.
You can't quit quitting!!!
Stick around and talk it out.
We're here for you.
Member
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Des Plaines,IL
Posts: 187
Hi Need4Change:
Whether you know it or not, your personality comes out in your posts and you are a very likeable guy. I think that everybody here has made a connection with you and you will be sorely missed if you decide to leave. Don't give up on yourself, Need4, because if you do there isn't anything anybody can do for you at that point.
You may see your ship as sinking and not see any reason to believe that you are going to make it; you may think you are doomed. If you give up hope, you probably will perish because you won't have any will to live. OTOH, if you don't give up hope, you will do everything in your power to survive. You just might drift into a shipping lane on your life raft and be rescued by a passing tanker like Tom Hanks in Castaway.
It's called taking a leap of faith, Need4. It's called believing that you are going to make it even though you have every reason in the world to believe that you are doomed. You may abandon ship, but don't abandon hope because that's all you have left. Pull yourself together and take another stab at it, Need4; get yourself into rehab. There are places that will help you for free. We will figure out later who is going to take care of Daisy. The big question right now is who is going to take care of you if you don't take care of yourself.
Peace.
Whether you know it or not, your personality comes out in your posts and you are a very likeable guy. I think that everybody here has made a connection with you and you will be sorely missed if you decide to leave. Don't give up on yourself, Need4, because if you do there isn't anything anybody can do for you at that point.
You may see your ship as sinking and not see any reason to believe that you are going to make it; you may think you are doomed. If you give up hope, you probably will perish because you won't have any will to live. OTOH, if you don't give up hope, you will do everything in your power to survive. You just might drift into a shipping lane on your life raft and be rescued by a passing tanker like Tom Hanks in Castaway.
It's called taking a leap of faith, Need4. It's called believing that you are going to make it even though you have every reason in the world to believe that you are doomed. You may abandon ship, but don't abandon hope because that's all you have left. Pull yourself together and take another stab at it, Need4; get yourself into rehab. There are places that will help you for free. We will figure out later who is going to take care of Daisy. The big question right now is who is going to take care of you if you don't take care of yourself.
Peace.
Next stop: real life
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Madison, WI
Posts: 990
Originally Posted by ccirider 
Whether you know it or not, your personality comes out in your posts and you are a very likeable guy. I think that everybody here has made a connection with you and you will be sorely missed if you decide to leave. Don't give up on yourself, Need4, because if you do there isn't anything anybody can do for you at that point.
Lurker
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Western NC
Posts: 783
You may have a lot of baggage, but I would be willing to bet it is nothing you could not work through with the right sponcer and some sobriety. I know the cravings are tough, but the do go away if you work the AA program. There is a wonderful new life waiting for you. You just have to grab it.
61'st day sober as of:12/18/07
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Casper, Wyoming U.S.
Posts: 241
You know, I am really very touched by all of these posts and I don't say that lightly. I think the wonderful people on this forum and the fantastic support here is something a person would'nt easily be able to find anywhere else. All I can say is thank you from the bottom of my heart and I mean that sincerely.
I drank 10 beers yesterday evening (I counted the remaining bottles this morning). I woke up after having a very violent and frightening dream only to sit up in bed and look at the clock on my computer. It was 1:23AM. I layed back down...my head spinning. I felt like I just wanted to curl up into a ball and cry myself back to sleep but when I drink, I often get really bad insomnia and so I have to sit up all night and live through the worst part of my hangover rather than having the "luxury" of sleeping it off.
I said a lot of mean and hurtful things to my best friend last night. Got all emotional and overly-sensitive about silly and insignificant little things and blew them way out of proportion. Alcohol has a disinhibitive effect on the brain (think frontal cortex - which is the part that acts as the brakes when we are about to say or do something we may later regret). With this part of my brain effectively knocked out by the alcohol, I went on to say just about every spiteful and hurtful thing that came to my mind and now I feel really stupid and really bad. This is one of the worst parts about drinking for me.
I've always kind of thought that the vast majority of people on this forum were people who had already recovered and were just here to help others recover but I am seeing more and more (as I read) that this is not at all the case and that many of the people here are just like me - chronic relapsers. Maybe I'm a bit of a big baby when it comes to enduring the alcohol withdrawal symptoms. Maybe that is the only way I'm ever going to get through this - just tough it out. No easy way out. It really sucks big time that it has to be that way because when I've tried to detox in the past I get to the point where I feel so bad that I feel like I'm going to go mad in the head and I have never been able to find anything that provides me with even the slightest relief from the detox symptoms (ie, chocolate, medications, etc).
I hate coming here every other day and posting the same tired old nonesense about how I got drunk and ended up with a hangover...blah...blah. Several months ago I managed to get 28 days of sobriety under my belt and I got to the point where the thought of drinking never even crossed my mind - nor did I experience any cravings or other withdrawal symptoms. Then PAWS set in and I began to experience daily boredum, fatigue, depression, apathy, lack of motivation and more. I understood at the time that PAWS can last for years and it was so much easier for me to just pick up a beer and regretably, thats exactly what I did. That really sucked because I was just as proud of my newfound sobriety as some people are of thier shiny new car.
I think about Christmas and I think about being drunk and ruining it for myself and others. It's amazing how much alcohol alters/distorts your perception of things and twists your emotions. I even found myself re-reading a letter from my father last night asking me what I wanted for Christmas and for some crazy reason getting very angry about it to the point where I came very close to writing him a not-so-nice email back. I never did but it terrified me that I even thought about doing that.
Well, this is getting to be rather long so I guess I'll wrap it up for now. My head is still spinning...feeling faint...a bit of vertigo. I hate this feeling. Being an alcoholic and drinking yourself sick all the time is a bit like beating yourself in the head with a hammer to the point where you have a raging headache every day. It makes no sense. You hate it and yet you continue to do it even though you know it's slowly killing you. Somewhere out there I imagine there's a forum full of morbidly obese people saying pretty much the same thing. Addiction sucks no matter what flavor it is.
Well, I can't think of a "glamorus" ending so I'd better close for now and check my email and do other things. Thank you all for your patience, support and friendship.
Need4Change
I drank 10 beers yesterday evening (I counted the remaining bottles this morning). I woke up after having a very violent and frightening dream only to sit up in bed and look at the clock on my computer. It was 1:23AM. I layed back down...my head spinning. I felt like I just wanted to curl up into a ball and cry myself back to sleep but when I drink, I often get really bad insomnia and so I have to sit up all night and live through the worst part of my hangover rather than having the "luxury" of sleeping it off.
I said a lot of mean and hurtful things to my best friend last night. Got all emotional and overly-sensitive about silly and insignificant little things and blew them way out of proportion. Alcohol has a disinhibitive effect on the brain (think frontal cortex - which is the part that acts as the brakes when we are about to say or do something we may later regret). With this part of my brain effectively knocked out by the alcohol, I went on to say just about every spiteful and hurtful thing that came to my mind and now I feel really stupid and really bad. This is one of the worst parts about drinking for me.
I've always kind of thought that the vast majority of people on this forum were people who had already recovered and were just here to help others recover but I am seeing more and more (as I read) that this is not at all the case and that many of the people here are just like me - chronic relapsers. Maybe I'm a bit of a big baby when it comes to enduring the alcohol withdrawal symptoms. Maybe that is the only way I'm ever going to get through this - just tough it out. No easy way out. It really sucks big time that it has to be that way because when I've tried to detox in the past I get to the point where I feel so bad that I feel like I'm going to go mad in the head and I have never been able to find anything that provides me with even the slightest relief from the detox symptoms (ie, chocolate, medications, etc).
I hate coming here every other day and posting the same tired old nonesense about how I got drunk and ended up with a hangover...blah...blah. Several months ago I managed to get 28 days of sobriety under my belt and I got to the point where the thought of drinking never even crossed my mind - nor did I experience any cravings or other withdrawal symptoms. Then PAWS set in and I began to experience daily boredum, fatigue, depression, apathy, lack of motivation and more. I understood at the time that PAWS can last for years and it was so much easier for me to just pick up a beer and regretably, thats exactly what I did. That really sucked because I was just as proud of my newfound sobriety as some people are of thier shiny new car.
I think about Christmas and I think about being drunk and ruining it for myself and others. It's amazing how much alcohol alters/distorts your perception of things and twists your emotions. I even found myself re-reading a letter from my father last night asking me what I wanted for Christmas and for some crazy reason getting very angry about it to the point where I came very close to writing him a not-so-nice email back. I never did but it terrified me that I even thought about doing that.
Well, this is getting to be rather long so I guess I'll wrap it up for now. My head is still spinning...feeling faint...a bit of vertigo. I hate this feeling. Being an alcoholic and drinking yourself sick all the time is a bit like beating yourself in the head with a hammer to the point where you have a raging headache every day. It makes no sense. You hate it and yet you continue to do it even though you know it's slowly killing you. Somewhere out there I imagine there's a forum full of morbidly obese people saying pretty much the same thing. Addiction sucks no matter what flavor it is.
Well, I can't think of a "glamorus" ending so I'd better close for now and check my email and do other things. Thank you all for your patience, support and friendship.
Need4Change
Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 211,316
This place is for people TRYING to quit even more than it is for those who have some sobriety. (IMO)
I found your comment
Then PAWS set in and I began to experience daily boredum, fatigue, depression, apathy, lack of motivation and more. I understood at the time that PAWS can last for years and it was so much easier for me to just pick up a beer and regretably, thats exactly what I did.
We're good at making excuses and rationalisations to drink. The trick is to start to recognise and dismiss them...you and I both know where they lead.
You can get yourself out of this, but it won't be easy - you have to face up to some hard weeks, maybe months, and some harsh new personal responsibilities involved in keeping yourself sober.
If you find continue to drink easier for the moment, that's your call. But whatever you decide, there'll always be someone around here to listen
D
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