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Old 11-28-2009, 11:11 AM
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Saturday

Let me get one thing clear; I ain't gonna drink.

But I am getting a little fed-up of the same old routine of being sober and having to just get through the weekends and being all nice and even-keeled but frankly bored. I miss the peaks man, the lows I hated but the peaks were great. I miss that I cannot connect to music like I previously could. I cannot/do not even want to listen to lots of my old music I used to listen to as it makes me sad that it's all over.

I have a week off around christmas and the thought of that has been getting to me also as I am feeling so bored, NYE too, sure there are AA meetings but I mean wtf has it come to?. Sure try new activities you say and that's cool and I am going to AA meetings but I am missing the "excitement/buzz" of the anticipation of a seshion and the rituals around this. Man the same old same old is getting to me. It feels at times like my life is over at the age of 23 in terms of what a part of me still craves ie- jack the lad excitement/thrills. I am a little tired of appearing Mr sensible but at the same time I know that I am an alcoholic/addict.

There is that part of me that thinks do i want to be a sober person though I know that as soon as I would be back on the sesh again I would hate myself and want to be where i am now again.

I guess it's normal to feel like this as a 23 year old male all alone and not able/comfortable to go out into environemtns where most people of my age will be. Is it always gonna be like this?

I am just writing what I am feeling and at times I wonder what it all for, I know what it's for but that anarchistic/wild side of me seems to have died and I feel sad about that to be brutally honest.

Oh well.
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Old 11-28-2009, 11:16 AM
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Sometimes I feel that way too, but I've found the best thing is to "think it all the way through" and realize that if I drink, at first it will be fun, then comes the inevitable CRASH. People like us cannot be reasonable about drinking- we always take it too far. Whenever I feel depressed that I can't drink, I talk myself out of it by thinking of all that not drinking brings...no hangover, no ugliness, no wasted evenings, no being embarrassed of what I might have said...the list goes on.
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Old 11-28-2009, 11:25 AM
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I think what is getting to me is that living for tomorrow appraoch as opposed to living in the second as it is when bang on the booze and drugs and just mashing it up listening to tunes.

Sure on paper everything is working out as a result of being sober and going to AA meetings and applying the steps in my life. I have a full time job and have never had a day off sick, I am applying for University next year, I have my driving license back, i have a car that is taxed, insured with fuel in. But I cant help feeling I am too young to be doing all of this sobriety and AA at my age and something just feels uneasy and just too clean and well-mannered about it all.

I never thought I would be at home with my parents on a Saturday night at 23 when i was younger. WTF. Sometimes I just get bored and sad and wonder...

I ain't gonna drink but I just feel so scared and unable to meet with people as drinking and the banter that comes with it is where i feel at home. Sure i can talk well and come across well but something just feels missing.

I guess I'm just bored and I ain't sure at 23 I want to be filling that void with a higher power/meetings etc. Can all get so depressing at times.

Is this just my alcoholism talking to me? or is this just the normal, rational thoughts of a 23 year old male who is afraid to commit to doing/seeing anyone as he is petrified of that first drink but at the same time has so much in common with people in general in regards to partying/drinking and feels like he is having to cut all of this off.
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Old 11-28-2009, 11:52 AM
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I'm not a 23-year-old male. I'm a 41-year-old female. So, take it for what it's worth when I say I can relate to you, at least in the way I felt in early sobriety (I was 34 when I got sober, single mother, with disabilities -- not that I'm trying to set myself any further apart from you). I'm with you on the lows -- those, I could do without, but where on Earth was I going to feel the rush if I didn't have booze and drugs to fuel it? There are a few threads on BPD (borderline personality disorder) around here. I haven't replied yet, but I can tell you, that was me -- diagnostically and literally. I did not feel comfortable unless there was something going on and I was right in the middle of it.

And I'm probably in the minority of 12-step folks when I tell you that I love my emotions. I embrace my emotions. They are mine, damn it, and I refuse to short-circuit them because of some insane fear that having emotions will cause me to drink. Now, I'm not talking about resentments or fears (those have no constructive value, plenty of destructive potential and arise out of ego) -- but passions? elation? true my-friggin-heart-is-broken sadness? Those emotions are mine and they're what make me human. The problem comes when I think I can't experience them without chemical enhancement, as though being the human I am isn't enough. If alcoholism/addiction could be treated the same way bi-polar disorder is (better lop off those highs and lows!), why the hell would we need the steps?

I'll tell you what I discovered. By taking and living the steps, I can experience the full spectrum of healthy human emotion because the steps remove my selfish egocentricism from them. I can sing and dance and laugh and have a good time -- or feel sad and grieve and experience loss without the fear of getting drunk over any of it.

So, this old lady is telling your young self to hang in there, ground yourself in the steps and make them the way you live your life -- and when you get to school, you'll find lots of healthy ways to swim in the stream of life without fear of drowning. There were points in my first year sober that I was bored stiff, and I'm glad I didn't give in to the urge to "make something happen." Things happen every day without any instigation from me, and I get to be a positive part of them. I can't tell you how awesome that is (so you'll have to just hang in there and experience it for yourself).

Peace & Love,
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Old 11-28-2009, 11:56 AM
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I'm 32 and feel the same way. I bet there are some here who are, but not quite, at the age of senility that feel the same as both of us.

Soooo... yeah part of me died too when the party ended and I got sober. And that piece of me is screaming for another party. I got that too. I can hear all the chaos in the backround from others who keep wasting their life away but my decision is final. I'm not going back.

I accept my own decision and I accept that I will be troubled from time to time when I am bored, lonely, angry or sad. I do the best I can finding new hobbies and interests that I honestly thought were too stupid to be of any interest to me... some cost nothing too.

I am also looking to go back to school with no other intentions except for some enrichment... I discovered I also like to learn.

You may be at a crossroads of some sort. Until recently you had alcohol and drugs provide for your entertained without much effort on your part. NOW you need to provide for your own entertainment. ITs not an easy skill in the beginning... trust me! It goes along the lines of re-inventing yourself.
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Old 11-28-2009, 12:00 PM
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Sugah is on the money Neo. I'm a passionate guy - all or nothing. There were time in my first year I thought 'mmm, ok, so this is as good as it gets...'.

Eventually tho I assimilated the not drinking bit, I made it part of who I am - and then got on with living.

I learned my life is what I make it - there's no rule that says you have to be at home on a Saturday night, no rule that says you can't do fun or exciting things.

No rule that says you have to do any of that either LOL.

The only 'rule' is...if you care for yourself, your life, and those who love you - don't drink

D
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Old 11-28-2009, 01:02 PM
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I know i will feel better tomorrow morning and my outlook will be different and I will be "gratefull" for being sober.

But it is this endless "playing it through" living which is sort of doing my head in. Surely if you apply to anything in life that you will feel better for not doing it after you've done it then you wouldn't ever do anything. I feel like I am Mr mature and i am uncomfortable with that, but how do i regain that release I want without the booze/drugs. To be fair no amount of 12 step work is gonna give me that. It is the music side of it which is really getting to me the most, I find it difficult to really get into listening to my tunes without pining to increase the enjoyment and bring me "closer" and more intouch with it without chemical aids. it just ain;t the same without it although i appreciate the playing it through approach can be applied but that is just doing my head in a little.

I have nearly 5 Full months sober and I know that if I was to drink in the future then ultimately I would have blown what i have built up. I don't truly want to drink genuinely and am applying the one day at a time theory to my difficult periods ie- weekends but it just seems really hard to not think that I am denying myself a pleasure, even if it is one that will ultimately destroy me. Maybe people outside the UK don't realise the associations with booze and masculinity/identity that it has in England. I feel kind of like a fraud drinking a pint of coke or lemonade in a way, I dunno I am struggling to see how I will ever be truly comfortable with it TBH.

I am sober though and have no intentions of drinking. TBH the thought of taking a drink petrifies me as I have no control and besides I would have nowhere to drink either. i couldn't realsitically drink at home as I just couldn't do it to my parents again and I wouldn;t want to go out as I don;t want to be drinking around others/police/bouncers so it would have to be alone in a hotel room or pub outside my town. Everyone I know knows I am sober/AA so I would just be full of paranoia or guilt, I guess my mood would be pretty dark in a blackout to say the least.

I really struggle with this time of year undoubtably too as I cannot feel I am alone and am incapable of finding someone who i truly connect with and have no chance of ever meeting them as I am petrified of the first drink so don't go out and know that i only have stuff in common with drinkers/partyers anyway do i just sit in my room and go to AA meetings. Oh dear I am a barrel of laughs tonight!! LOL. Poor me!!haha.

Peace.
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Old 11-28-2009, 01:13 PM
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Neo

I say this respectfully - but from my experience I can't agree with either of these statements

I find it difficult to really get into listening to my tunes without pining to increase the enjoyment and bring me "closer" and more intouch with it without chemical aids. it just ain;t the same without it
As a musician, I enjoy my music more sober - both listening and playing - when I lose myself in it - and I still do - I know whats happening, and that makes the enjoyment greater for me - for me I'm not just aimlessly floating anymore, I'm surfing the waves.


and this one is particularly absurd, mate.

Maybe people outside the UK don't realise the associations with booze and masculinity/identity that it has in England. I feel kind of like a fraud drinking a pint of coke or lemonade in a way, I dunno I am struggling to see how I will ever be truly comfortable with it TBH.
I get it. I looked at life differently when I was 23 too - it was a lot more about fitting in and how I looked, especially to other people. Now I just couldn't care less.

I hope it takes you a lot less than the 20 years it took me to get to that inner security.
Doing the steps and working on yourself you have a great head start, Neo. Keep it up.

However you do it, eventually you'll find the fear of drinking is replaced by a calm, a certain knowledge that drink can't hurt you...all you have to do is not drink it

D
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Old 11-28-2009, 02:30 PM
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In terms of the music thing... I know what you're talking about -- get a good buzz on, not really drunk but juiced enough that those emotions get able to be stirred up. Fire up iTunes, run through some of the songs that always have meant something to you, but when you hear them this way, it's so much more. Sometimes it's like hearing them for the first time. Just you and the song, headphones, I dunno... maybe a little weed on the side? You can totally lose yourself. I've totally been there.

For me though, had someone had a birds-eye view of those moments of mine, all they would see was a drunk slobbery goo-ball, home alone, lost in his own little cocoon, deep in his own headspace, introspective to the point of isolation. About as social as a rock.

(My apologies if my experience has missed the mark. However, if it hasn't...)

Ironically, that sounds similar to where you fear yourself now: Alone and incapable of socialization But that is not where you are. You are simply seeing the world through new eyes and hearing its music through new ears. It's OK. Nothing has been taken from you. Instead of spending more time in your head trying to "play it through" and obsessing about the future, try to just be OK (and maybe more than OK) with your experience as it is right now. If you need something to get excited about, try this: You're 23. Please -- give me one night to walk back into any social situation 14 years ago as a sober version of my 23-year-old self. I will OWN it.

And dude, the music will always be there. It will sound better as time goes on then it ever did while rockin' it drunk. Music is one of the truest things our pure human souls ever created. It needs no chemical to be expressed in its highest form.

Neither do you.

P.S. Who said you had to be even-keeled?
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Old 11-28-2009, 02:51 PM
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Thanks Chrisinaustin for that post, I can relate totally to what you say and it helps to know I ain't alone. Cheers dude.
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