Notices

extreme depression with guilt, help

Old 10-20-2010, 04:45 PM
  # 1 (permalink)  
Member
Thread Starter
 
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: New York
Posts: 69
extreme depression with guilt, help

Can somebody please tell me if it's normal to feel so much guilt after not drinking for almost 2 months. I am extremely depressed that I even wrote a "goodbye" letter yesterday. Not drinking is bringing up horrible feelings of guilt of what I did during the years of drinking. My most guilt is how I was as a mother towards my daughter growing up during those years of drinking.

The horrible feeling is so deep in my soul, I don't know how else to get rid of it. Is it normal too have all these feelings come forward after not drinking for a while. I'm at a loss.

Theresa
gr8t2bme is offline  
Old 10-20-2010, 04:50 PM
  # 2 (permalink)  
Administrator
 
Dee74's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 211,043
I think guilt regret and shame is normal, gr8t2bme but writing goodbye letters, at any level, is probably not.

Have you considered seeing your doctor or a therapist?

I hope you'll see someone - sometimes it is hard to let go of the past and an outside perspective, a sounding board, someone to talk to can help

D
Dee74 is offline  
Old 10-20-2010, 04:56 PM
  # 3 (permalink)  
Sunny Side Up
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Sth Australia
Posts: 3,802
Originally Posted by gr8t2bme View Post
Can somebody please tell me if it's normal to feel so much guilt after not drinking for almost 2 months. I am extremely depressed that I even wrote a "goodbye" letter yesterday. Not drinking is bringing up horrible feelings of guilt of what I did during the years of drinking. My most guilt is how I was as a mother towards my daughter growing up during those years of drinking.

The horrible feeling is so deep in my soul, I don't know how else to get rid of it. Is it normal too have all these feelings come forward after not drinking for a while. I'm at a loss.

Theresa
Hi Theresa
I think you might be going through the norm. My sister felt just like you, she felt incredible guilt, she was a mum too. My sister let the guilt get so far into her head though, that the addiction got worse and we lost her a year ago.

Please dont do that to your kids. Just please know, that your kids love you so much and all they want is a well mum. I guarantee thats all that everybody wants for you. Why not try writing a letter to yourself, and write down all those things you want to do with your kids right now and the future, that might help.
2 months is a great achievement and you should be so proud of that honey, and I bet your kids think it too. Keep going strong and talk nice things to yourself. You can do this for you. You have many years ahead to spend with your kids, so stop feeling bad and think of the nice future ahead.
JJ
justjo is offline  
Old 10-20-2010, 04:58 PM
  # 4 (permalink)  
Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: massachusetts
Posts: 2,216
Have you thought about AA? Part of the "program" is dealing with your past. This is what the 4th Step is all about. Speaking from personal experience, I (and probably every alcoholic I know) has experienced guilt and remorse. The 4th and 5th Steps (and others) are intended to free you from those feelings as well as make amends to those you have harmed.

I have 2 girls myself and I truly regret the way I behaved on occasion. They didn't deserve the pain, embarrassment and shame I put them through. Part of my "amends" to them is being sober and the best mother I can be NOW.

But like Dee said, counseling is also a good option. The WORST thing you can do, IMHO, is to tell no one and let this eat at you.
HideorSeek is offline  
Old 10-20-2010, 05:01 PM
  # 5 (permalink)  
Member
 
tmbg's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2010
Posts: 144
I do think that feeling remorse for the past happens--god knows I made a mess of my life while drinking, too. The thing is, getting sober can mean moving on and making things better. Two months sober is great for you (congratulations), but you are still healing.

My only suggestion is that you see your doctor and be honest about what you are going through. Guilt and depression often go hand in hand.
tmbg is offline  
Old 10-20-2010, 05:03 PM
  # 6 (permalink)  
Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2010
Posts: 20
It helps me to remember feelings and thoughts are insubstantial. For example bad memories, of which I have loads, are now really only fantasies I make up in my mind, and the bad feelings I get from thinking about them do no one any good.

I've done a lot of stupid, hurtful things, as well as being a victim to a lot of stupid, hurtful things. The past is dead in a very real sense. What is substantial? What you do today, positive things you do to improve things for yourself and others, and they are real, not imaginary mental images.
BrightLine is offline  
Old 10-20-2010, 05:05 PM
  # 7 (permalink)  
Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: ft. lauderdale florida
Posts: 275
When I stopped drinking everything I ever pushed down surfaced. It is part of the process of healing. Yes. guilt arrives, eventually I forgave myself you will too.
wow1323 is offline  
Old 10-20-2010, 05:11 PM
  # 8 (permalink)  
Administrator
 
Anna's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: Dancing in the Light
Posts: 61,328
Yes, I struggled with horrible guilt and shame for a long time when I stopped drinking. I hurt my family and I wasn't the mother I wanted to be. I had to learn to forgive myself and believe me, that's not easy. Nor did it happen in one fell swoop. It's something I had to do over and over again.

When I was really struggling with this, a wonderful person here at SR suggested that I journal about my feelings. I really didn't want to do that. I didn't want to see the words written down. Finally in desperation, I began to write and I kept on writing for most of a year. As I wrote about the feelings, they lessened. It helped. And, when I was finished writing, I burned the journal.
Anna is online now  
Old 10-20-2010, 05:28 PM
  # 9 (permalink)  
Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: massachusetts
Posts: 2,216
Great suggestion, Anna! I don't know when I started to keep a journal...2 years ago?? And I find it really, really helpful to write my feelings down. It clarifies them in a way that obsessive thinking doesn't. Also, a HUGE plus is that it shows me how temporary even the rawest of feelings are. I can see, almost from a distance, the ebbing and flowing of my life. So if I do have a bad day, I know that that is all it is....only a moment in the grand scheme of things.

Another thought for you gr8, is you might write a "letter to your children" in that journal. It might make you feel better. It's for your eyes only, unless you decide otherwise.

And lastly, congratulations on your 2 months. It certainly is a process, with many lessons and feelings along the way. Be gentle with yourself. Rome was not built in a day, as they say.
HideorSeek is offline  
Old 10-20-2010, 05:37 PM
  # 10 (permalink)  
Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 218
I went through a lot of guilt and depression in the first month or so, but for me getting into AA helped me deal with some of that and it is a bit better now (after three months).

I echo those who suggested talking to someone if you are having thoughts of hurting yourself or not wanting to be around anymore. No one should have to feel that way.

Journaling has helped me too! So has exercise and trying to eat healthy and take vitamins and all that.
LawMama is offline  
Old 10-20-2010, 05:48 PM
  # 11 (permalink)  
12-Step Recovered Alkie
 
DayTrader's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2010
Location: West Bloomfield, MI
Posts: 5,797
Same for me gr8...

I don't remember exactly the time but I seem to recall I was able to endure it 2......maybe 3 months. I was going to AA meetings, seeing a therapist, not drinking and trying my best at home and at work.......and I was ready to die in my sleep. I didn't have the courage to kill myself.....and I finally hit the point where I just HAD to do something about it or try to get the courage up to end my life.

Since I'm still here, it's obvious what route I ended up on (sometimes I make the mistake of saying "the route I chose" but I've come to understand that I didn't reeeally choose it, it chose me - or Something Else chose me. )

You don't have to feel that way. There are multiple ways out that are both healthy and proven. I sincerely hope you're willing to give some of them a try. I think you'll be SHOCKED at just how good life can get. Boy...... I sure as heck was.
DayTrader is offline  
Old 10-20-2010, 06:06 PM
  # 12 (permalink)  
Member
Thread Starter
 
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: New York
Posts: 69
I am reading all your posts through tears and I thank you for your advice and experience. It does help. And I will start journaling.
gr8t2bme is offline  
Old 10-20-2010, 06:28 PM
  # 13 (permalink)  
Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: massachusetts
Posts: 2,216
And, FWIW, gr8, two years ago, my youngest would have soon spit at me as look at me and now, we are closer than we have ever been in her life. The truth is, as everyone has said, recovery is a process and I think that there are certain stages that we must go through in order to deal with the next one. This may a sort of purge state for you. We DO have to face our pasts in order to move forward. But I think that we can move beyond our pasts. Like others have said, hang on, talk to someone, go to AA or another recovery group. It gets better. It really does.
HideorSeek is offline  
Old 10-20-2010, 06:28 PM
  # 14 (permalink)  
Member
 
wpainterw's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Massachusetts
Posts: 3,550
Theresa: All of us feel guilty. If you were not a nice and caring person you would not be feeling this guilt. The guilt shows that you have been really a very good person but one who has been sick. You have been ill and now you are better. The sun is beginning to come out. Anyone who has been through what you've been through would have some depression. But that will lessen with time. Hope you can share your feelings with others and they with you. It will be an upward path. Towards the sunlight.

W.
wpainterw is offline  
Old 10-20-2010, 06:50 PM
  # 15 (permalink)  
12-Step Recovered Alkie
 
DayTrader's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2010
Location: West Bloomfield, MI
Posts: 5,797
Gr8.... I'll add one part of my past for you to look at.... (sorry for the mega-long post...I'm a wordy guy. it's one of those defects of character that I haven't gotten past yet )

I was still drinking. Just got DUI #2. The previous 3yrs or so of my marriage were absolutely killing me mentally, spiritually, every way I could think of. She picked me up from jail Saturday morning and told me she wanted to "talk." 16yrs together had come to an end for her. She wanted out. We had tried counseling but couldn't seem to get anywhere. Now, as I'm trying to deal with arrest #2 and all that trauma, I'm getting divorced. Work had been steadily declining (I'm a stockbroker/financial planner) for the previous 5 yrs, my drinking was destroying me, I couldn't stop (and didn't really want to), "she" was leaving, I'd lose the house, the dog.....everything.

My life, from every angle I could look at it, was OVER.

I never.....and this isn't good.......but I basically never go to the Doctors office. 2 days later (the following Monday), I was at work, in my office.....trying to figure out what I'd do for a living after they fired me when the DUI was discovered (the stock exchanges watch for stuff like that on brokers and can revoke your license) and next thing I knew....my sternum, my whole chest, and both my arms started hurting like........man.....it was pain I'd never felt before. I was 37 I think.......maybe 36..... and I figured it was a heart attack. For a minute, I welcomed death. I figured it was as good a time as any to check out, ya know?

Well, I went to my doctor's office, got hooked up on an EKG machine (which was VERYYYY surreal, I gotta say) and everything looked fine. Doc talked to me for a while and I kinda/sorta came clean. I told him about getting arrested after having 6 or 7 beers (hey, that was the MOST honest I'd ever been......it was really closer to 3 quadruple rum and cokes, half a bottle of wine with dinner, 2 or three more quadruples, and 5 liquid cocaine shots over about 3 hours). I told him about the arrest, about probably losing my job, losing my marriage, losing it all.

I left there with a scrip for Ambien and some antidepressants. Those pills saved my life. I was close.......REAL close..... I'm SOOO thankful I had them and believe me, there was little question in everyone's mind buy mine that I needed help. This was just the best I could manage to get at the time....and it helped greatly....for a little while.

Unfortunately, they (the pills) did nothing to treat the root problem.....my alcoholism. That came about a year and a half later, after the divorce, when DUI #3 rolled around. I hadn't even been to court for the 2nd DUI (actuallty, there was a warrant out on me for skipping court - a tactical plan that backfired on me........lol, imagine that??).

So now it's 2 DUI's work is going to find out about, the marriage is already done and the divorce had been finalized for several months, I'm gettin' fired for SURE now, I had discovered my ex-wifes 3yr long affair with her boss, I was worthless going into arrest #3 and now I had even more proof that I was garbage.

...the purpose for this long-a$$ post.... get in to see your doctor. There ARE some temporary solutions to help you though some rough patches......but don't forget to consider that there may be more beneath the surface. For me, that "more beneath the surface" turned out to be not what I thought it was.

I believed, going into sobriety (which the courts FORCED me into), that stopping drinking wasn't going to solve my problems. I thought I might have a shot, with a clear head, at talking my way out of all the trouble I was in but the guilt, the shame, the self loathing, the feelings of worthlessness, the unstoppable compulsion to find my worth in what others thought about me, the inability to escape constant failure, the stress of feeling like I had to keep a dozen balls in the air and I can't juggle anymore cuz I keep taking shots to the gut.....you get the picture.... THAT stuff had been haunting me all my damn life - BEFORE I even started really drinking! "Not drinking" wasn't gonna touch that stuff I thought.......and I was right. When I stopped drinking that stuff seemed to literally consume my life.

I thought about going back on the anti depressants......I figured it was that or I'd take my own life sooner or later. Funny thing, the thought of paying some pharma company money to keep my thinking straight just pissed me off, so I didn't want to take that route. I'd gone to AA and had heard, over and over, that there were ppl who HAD thought like I did (all the guilt and shame stuff) for years....but now, by working those steps, they don't think that way now. Heck, I could see it on their faces that they didn't think that way anymore. They really seemed happy.

For whatever reason, God put some ppl in my life and those folks convinced me to give this AA deal ONE legitimate shot......really do all the stuff.....for once in my life, give this a REAL try.

I never........NEVER believed any of it would work. Honestly, I didn't really want it to work because I had dreams of walking into AA, telling them it was all a crock, and blowing my brains out to "prove" to them it didn't work (gee.... and I didn't think THAT sounded insane at the time...lol). For whatever reason, I started doing the stuff. ....and I haaaated doing it. I dragged my heels, I fought every single step, I wouldn't move quickly through them because MY thinking told me to do things MY way..... I resisted everything and my "defiance" was on high alert because I hated myself so much I was willing to risk anything just to feel a little power in my life - even if it meant breaking rules that would lead to me dying. ......but I did the work. I got a sponsor, I went to meetings, I told the truth at tables, I told on myself AT those tables, I did my 4th step inventory, I told the whole thing to my sponsor even though I wanted to tell my therapist or a priest, I worked the rest of the steps....... surprise surprise - I started feeling better along the way. I started feeling better than I could really ever remember feeling. It was pretty obvious that even though I still didn't like the program or the people, I liked the effect produced by working and living the steps.

Once that stuff became apparent to me...there was NO stopping me. Getting recovered is THE single best thing I've ever done. It's not a bed of roses every day.......but it's darn good 90% of the time and that crappy 10%, I've got this huge support system and a bunch of new tools and new ways to work through them so they don't take me down nearly as low anymore.

I know how you feel.....I've been there. Like I said before, keep your chin up because, if you want to get past it, you CAN get past all this junk. There's a live available for you that's....sheesh.....it's just beyond your dreams. ....and I've got a couple million people who'll back me up.
DayTrader is offline  
Old 10-20-2010, 06:57 PM
  # 16 (permalink)  
Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: massachusetts
Posts: 2,216
Well said, DayTrader!
HideorSeek is offline  
Old 10-20-2010, 07:06 PM
  # 17 (permalink)  
Member
 
LaFemme's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: New England
Posts: 5,285
Great post DT...scary but good...I'm glad things have worked out after a fashion...what would we do without you!
LaFemme is offline  
Old 10-20-2010, 09:14 PM
  # 18 (permalink)  
Dismember
 
Isaiah's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: The Mitten, USA
Posts: 1,641
Yes, it's normal. It's something I believe all of us go with. A lot of depression is a consequence of early sobriety, and it goes away in time.

But a lot of it, especially the guilt, can stick around. It wont go away; it needs to be dealt with. I can't tell you exactly how to go about it, but good suggestions are here already.

And writing a suicide note is a lot like finding a lump. It's often nothing serious, but you don't want to ignore it. If you think you may be having suicidal thoughts than you need to speak to someone in a medical/psychiatric field. There are often charitable and government programs run by specialists in many areas if you're uninsured. And if you are certain you are having suicidal thoughts, 911 or a hotline (don't be afraid to call them; I used to work for one, we're very nice and trained.)

But as I was saying before. Depression and guilt are things that can be lessened and fixed with some work and patience. And there are a lot of resources in psychology, self-help books, things like that, which can guide you through.

And DayTrader made a good suggestion of talking to a doctor about the possibility of medication.

Take care, you. Don't feel like you need to suffer through this. Help is out there and it wants to help.
Isaiah is offline  
Old 10-21-2010, 12:32 AM
  # 19 (permalink)  
Member
 
Kmber2010's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Germany
Posts: 2,058
Gr8, once I had some sober time under my belt I too went through the period of coming to grips with my past and what I was as a wife, daughter, friend, etc. Sometimes I had waves of just pure negativity come over me.

I found that it passed, writing things out made me feel much better and I also found face to face support to be tremendous for me.

What I countered those negative thoughts with was all the positive change that I was making. I am not that person anymore and I have hopefully many years to live a better life and that my friend is my blessing.

I will add that I think talking to your Dr. and talking to someone as others have shared would be beneficial. Early recovery can be a bit bumpy but if you feel that it is at times overwhelming and have had some dark thoughts then I suggest for yourself to get some help.

Huggs and stay the course. I found as I went along that added support where it was needed. You don't need to go this alone my friend.
Kmber2010 is offline  
Old 10-21-2010, 04:16 PM
  # 20 (permalink)  
Member
Thread Starter
 
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: New York
Posts: 69
Thank you everyone. Daytrader, that was a great post. I feel a little better this evening and I will attend an AA meeting. AA and the steps and support will be the only thing to help me through this.
gr8t2bme is offline  

Currently Active Users Viewing this Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are Off




All times are GMT -7. The time now is 09:57 AM.