daphne

Failed
I am a failure
Lasted until last night and then circumstances (social thing) gave me the excuse to drink( I know there is no excuse)
Not a lot
3 large glasses but how rubbish is that. Did i enjoy it not really.tbh.

Last time I did 6 weeks
This time a pathetic attempt
Has anyone else been in this situation?? as you read so many people her have done weeks, months, years without drinking NOT days
After feeling positive I am now back to feeling the "destroy me" feelings that I had when I had an eating disorder, stuffing myself with toxin to try and extinguish the flame, to suffocate me , kill my core

bugsworth

Hey daphne...if you are still finding excuses to drink then you will always drink. You can't drink daphne...not if you want to be sober.

intention

Hi Daphne,

You know we have all been in this position, that's why we are here.

What can I say, quitting drinking is impossible for some people to do on their own with will power.

I know it doesn't look like it right now but failure may actually be good for you. The process of admitting you have problems controlling your drink is hard - the more you fail at it on your own, the closer you get to that stage.

Anna

Daphne,

I know I have been where you are, and I remember it well.

I think the reason that recovery is so hard for some of us, is because it means we MUST love ourselves. For me, that was impossible for a very long time, and it has been a long process.

Learn from what happened. For me, I completely avoided social situations and anywhere where alcohol was involved. I had to.

ghostgirl

hi daphne. i second what anna said. i have cacooned myself for a while; if not, i know i'll want to drink even more than i do right now; and everyone i know drinks, so it would be so "easy". and yes, i think about drinking a lot!!! but like anna said, it can be so hard to love yourself; i've engaged in some seriously self-destructive behavior in my life, and drinking has never made me feel any better about myself. i thought it did for a while, but it got to be so much, and i found myself in a place that i knew i didn't want to be in. please keep coming here. don't give up on yourself.

gg

daphne

I agree as I said NO excuse

daphne

thanks for your support
million dollar question .......how do u love yourself??????????

Dee74

Daphne

I tried, and 'failed', with varying degrees of intensity for 15 years.
Its tough to change your life - especially when other people don't have to change theirs.

You're not a failure...or weak...or whatever.

You just have to find the resolve in yourself to stay committed - I think Anna's right - learning to love yourself is a major part of that...and finding support, and using it, is too.

Every experience helps Daphne - even the bad ones - if we learn from them

Pick yourself up and get back on the right road
D

tyler

I'm also in the same situation. I'm only just now starting to "like" myself, still working on the whole "loving" thing.

My co-workers keep inviting me "out" to parties, to hit the bars, etc., and I keep turning them down. It's hard. It's a new job and I want to fit in, but I have to look out for myself. Even though the drink wasn't my DOC, it still leads me to seek other stuff. I just can't trust myself "out" at the moment. I wish it were different, but it's not, so I just have to deal with it.

Take a look around you. See what is causing you temptations, and try to find a way to close those doors. If you have to come off a bit "bad" for the moment right now, so be it. It's really your life on the line here. You can't expect most people to understand that, and you probably shouldn't even try to explain it. Just do what is best for you and deal with the outcome. You know what the outcome is when you drink, it can't be worse than that, right? Take care.

Mark75

IDK... How do we love ourselves? There are spiritual solutions and perspectives to that question, but they may not have relevance in this thread.

I didn't really begin to put some self esteem together until I had some sobriety. Is sobriety contingent on self image? I don't know, I'm just asking.

Mark

c49

Stop being hard on yourself. Make a conscious effort enjoy life right now and not worry about tomorrow so much.... LIVE, don't dwell! Stop thinking of sobriety as prison or punishment - its not - its living a good life!

Hevyn

I kept doing that same thing for many years. I'd begin to feel better, then out of nowhere I'd sabotage myself once again - usually for a very lame reason. I'd also feel as you did, it was not worth it. I tried so hard to feel that warm, happy glow once again, but the euphoria of my early drinking years was never coming back. It was like ending a long love affair - bittersweet, but necessary.

What finally did it for me was the feeling that I wasn't going to live much longer if I kept going the way I was. I'd been at it for many years longer than you - so my health was deteriorating rapidly. Wanting to live was what brought me back around & made me pour that last one down the drain. I wish it hadn't had to come to that. I know you're here to avoid that happening. You're still posting, so you haven't given up, and I don't think you will.

Anna

It's a good point Mark!

I was able to stop drinking without a spiritual connection, but I needed to find one very quickly or I never would have been able to recover. I had lost my soul and I needed to find it again, or the motivation I had wouldn't have stuck.

Dee74

That really is a million dollar question

I can only try and explain how it worked for me.

I hated myself for most of my life - not drinking forced me to examine all that debris...I had to, or I felt I'd go back to drinking.

I also found that doing the right thing, not drinking, trying to be a better man, and especially helping out here regularly, really changed my perceptions of myself - and helped me look at all that debris in a whole new light.

Put simply, I wasn't trying to love myself.

I was trying to do the right thing - but I ended up rediscovering who I really was...accepting me for who I was, flaws and all...and liking, and eventually loving, that person anyway

D

Stayinfree

Once...a long while ago...you were a newborn baby...and absolutely PERFECT.....you are still that perfect human being. Yes we make mistakes, yes we've had a sh*t life..but ..THAT is why were are here..to learn, develop and grow.

This is the way I look on life and I share it only to answer your question.

In the very centre of me..there is my soul...just like a newborn baby. My body is the vehicle that gets me around...some have scooters...some have mercedes .....no matter...just a vehicle.

This body also has a mind which uses free will and leads my soul to learn what it has come here to do...to learn the lessons it decided it needed to learn before I was born..but this mind / body also has a personality...which adds to the struggle....You, Daphne, have a perfect soul...just like each and every one of us...that's how you can start to love yourself xx

intention

I would say that your previous eating disorder and your inability to stop drinking alcohol are one and the same, which is why you feel the same now as you did then.

Speaking as an alcoholic and a compulsiver overeater this is something I have recognised for myself. If I put down the alcohol, I will pick up the food and if I put down the food, I will pick up the alcohol.

I have seen this many times in Overeaters Anonymous (members are overeaters/bulimics/anorexics). They stop using the food and then something else becomes a problem in their life, something they never expected.

I have also seen people who have recovered from alcohol (AA) and/or drugs (NA) who have walked into the rooms of OA finding that they have developed a addiction to food, having never had any issues with food in their life before. It can be baffling. Its a question of whether they have recovered or replaced.

(BB readers will know it advises use of chocolate/candy/sweets to combat alcohol cravings in the book. In OA we joke "to recover from compulsive eating, follow all the directions in the Big Book, except Pg 133 & 134 )

All of these issues with addictions are using external factors to make ourselves feel better. I note you also have to be busy all the time, can't sit still, have to cram your life full of things to do. Again these are external factors being used to change how you feel.

None of them work. The only way to find a solution is for it to come from within.

Personally my solution comes from where I orginate from, my Source, God. I find God within me and this fills the void or the "restlessness" that has me reaching for external solutions which never work. Ultimately this enables me to love myself as I feel God's will (love) flowing inside me. All of this I find within me......I would never find it in a church so this is why, to me personally, this is not religious.

Now I know you don't get the God-stuff and I understand. But you have the same problem and you need the same solution - you need to find that within you. Counselling may very well be your answer and it does do it for some but you will need to be honest and open-minded to look within you.

When I first walked into OA 11 years ago I was just about as anti-God/religion as you could get. I was desperate for help but listening to all the talk of God and Higher Power freaked me out.

I actually thought I had walked into a cult (AA seems tame in comparison). At the end of the meeting everyone stood up in a big circle and held hands and said the Serenty Prayer. Then they waved arms up and down, still holding hands, chanting "keep coming back, it works if you work it, and don't pick up, because you are worth it." Remember the Hokey Cokey? - it was like that.


I don't know about "keep coming back" but my friend (who came with me) and I looked at each other thinking WTF, trying not to laugh. Then everyone and I mean everyone in the meeting came up to us and hugged us individually. In fact everyone in the room hugged everyone else. I had never seen anything like it and my mind was telling me this bunch of people were insane (of course I was completely sane ).

....but at the end of that meeting I was given one tiny piece of advice. I was told that I didn't believe in God then to act as if I did. So I did and I prayed every day for a couple of weeks and guess what?......I found him. He was there all the time within me. He had always been there, just waiting for me to get in touch.

And I went back to that meeting. I still thought they were crazy but I loved them all and I grew to love those hugs. I realised later why they did it. They were loving me because I couldn't love myself.

So while you are waiting to see the counsellor shut yourself in a private room and act as if.
Pray to a power greater than you to show you it's will and then just let go.

Keep trying it and see what happens. If it doesn't work, you have nothing to lose. It's in a private room and no-one will ever know except you.

Shifty

Still working on that one, but I do know that I'm coming closer to it in sobriety than I did whilst pi*sed. When drinking, I never had much zest for life but at least without the booze I can see a microscopic little seed that I'm grasping with both hands in the hope that seed will start to grow.

fragrantrose

thanks intention! that is a very timely post for me as I put down the drink then go back to my lying cheating alcoholic partner then binge drink and feel sick and soooooooo remorseful I even go to church and cry out to god in despair!! God hasnt seemed to have heard me yet so maybe i needed to go through more self inflicted painDAY 3 of recovering from sickening binge.
Please dont be hard on yourself Daphne as You are not alone! I feel the same but every slip just peels away another layer of understanding! (I also binge on chocolate if not drinking)
I have battled low self esteem all my life and thought i was not worthy of counselling as i would tell myself there are much more people worse off. At the moment i feel sick with despair, Alcohol poisoning and regret that I let that cheating man back into my life even for a moment
Despite myself I am going to FORCE MYSELF TO SEEK HELP AS WE ALL DESERVE IT. If you have kids would you want your kids to feel like we do.?
So I say Nuture yourself "Fake it till you make it" As looking after you is your gift to the world!
and an example to your kids (if that applys)

intention

Hi Fragrantrose,

I have replied to you in a new thread so as not to deviate too much from Daphne's orginal post.

daphne

some great advice on this thread thanks again
I relate very well to this, my partneer has commented that I don't allow myself to be "happy" when things get really good I look for ways of sabotaging it. I am not consciously aware of this but looking back on life I have done this in a whole host of ways.
Underneath it all if I am truly honest I do not deserve to be happy
I am have abused my body and tainted my soul screwing up my right to a decent life
I deserve to suffer