It hit me like a freight train today.
 

Hello friends on SR.

Well, Today was a good day, productive at work , and within 10 mins of getting home, the anxiety began again.
So many years of drinking , so many nights avoiding life.
Anxiety , regret , guilt.

My rational head tells me that they are just emotions, and feelings.

Feelings are not what the real world is, it is just my interpretation.

I drank because I didnt like being lonely, and I know that the alcohol made me alienate everyone.

Behaviour I detested. Drink and dial, driving drunk, sending emails to anyone in my recipients list, at any hour , about any subject.

As I write this thread , I feel a little more settled .

To be honest, my first thought was to drive back to town and buy alcohol.

I guess I cant help the first thought, but I can make a choice not to react to it and choose a more appropriate course of action.


Thanks for reading .

I appreciate being a member of this forum

L .

Well done for avoiding the temptation to drink on your loneliness. Hope you found it helpful to share on here. I too am feeling lonely at the moment but I am trying to go to an AA meeting every day and for coffee afterwards and this is helping to keep me centred and not to isolate.

Good for you! Dealing with the BS without a drink (which makes it worse) is what its all about. i see so much of myself in your post. Im guilty of every one of those bad behaviors. Its nice to be out of that prison.

Lipitor, Thanks for the post ! I came to the conclusion that my compulsion to drink and my depression were both "phantom emotions" like the amputee has phantom pain, they still have sensation from the limb that is no longer there. I have these emotions and feelings from a part of me that is no longer there. Just like the amputee, all I can do is ride it out. Don't know if this makes any sense or not but it helped me.

All the best, Ron

Thanks for sharing Lipitor,

This works for me too, if i just get it out a big weight seems to be lifted, the one thing i have learned is these bad times will come and they will also pass.

p.s. well put Ron

Ron I really like your analogy:)

Lipitor...I'm glad you are well enough to be back to work. Be gentle with yourself...you are still getting over pneumonia. Physical illness can in reader the feelings of loneliness in my experience. You can always come and hang out here...but if the loneliness is a big problem is there something you can do to mitigate it?

Hugs

When I was having similar struggles, my sponsor told me to consider this:

Our feelings are real. They are just not reality.

Running from, denying, or "stuffing" my emotions was fruitless - they are like mushrooms, they thrive in the dark. Acknowledging them without giving into them worked for me. It's hard to do, especially when they come from out of the blue like that proverbial freight train. But like the train, if you just step off the tracks and stay present, they pass. I had the weirdest stretch in early sobriety where I was doing fine all day and would wake up in the middle of the night, sweating and physically aching for alcohol. It frustrated the hell out of me, I was thinking it would never end. It DOES end, and those nighttime bouts of anxiety and desperation happened less and less frequently and with less severity. That phase lasted a few weeks.

Hang in there Lipitor, it helped me to visualize my addiction as an unwanted guest, willing to lie, cheat or steal to get what it wants. Don't invite it into your home/soul and if it should appear, don't listen to it.

I totally relate about writing emails to people when under the influence -- LONG ones, in my case. I thought I was the only one who did that!! So thanks for saying that!

Nice to wake up without a hangover AND without embarrassment, isn't it? :)

This temptation to drink, I think, will always be authentic for some of us. At this point I cannot imagine that there will ever come a time when it doesn't gnaw at me. If it wasn't authentic, I (we) wouldn't be in this space, and there wouldn't be millions of people in AA.

It's an authentic desire that sucks the authenticity out of experience.

It's Thursday again and I'm in the middle of a hellacious week. I am panicked about what I will do on Friday after the last horrendous meeting. We are hiring a faculty member. I am now on the committee but for years I was one of the applicants. I interviewed and received one-year appointments for my job EIGHT times before it becoming real. So making these decisions breaks my heart. The first two rounds I just bawled about it. I know what it means to people.

So Friday at 2:00 we will narrow our pool from 220 to about 15. I will have had a hand in those decisions--some perfectly logical, others seemingly capricious. Oblivion will look good to me.

It will be all I can manage not to just go home, get my husband and go drinking. Then I become this other person who is light-hearted and clear in her decisions. Inauthentic authenticity.

I will need a plan I guess. I sort of thought I would sew, as I haven't had the chance lately while reading these files every night. I don't think I can go out even for dinner though--too dangerous. Maybe my first women's meeting...but Phil will be waiting for me to be available to him after this week.

Thanks for listening. I'm scared. I got 13 days before blowing it last Friday. That release just takes over.

Glad you made the right choice!

Think of us as door #1. Always pick door #1..we are here. Once a little time goes by the thought is no longer overwhelming. Glad you are here!

I

Yes It does , thanks Ron. Ive always analogised it to "burnt toast".
Long after it is gone , there will sometimes be a hint of it .

Same deal for me.

The thing that concerns me is, these "immature" emotions, and I guess that is what they really are because of the alcohol and the way it stunts emotional growth. Anyway, these immature emotions have quite a bit of clout. I dont know whether you have seen a movie called "Firefox" with Clint Eastwood. He suffers PTSD , and when It hits him he is almost frozen.

Mine is not that bad , but it certianly has the potential to immobilise me.

Thanks so much for explaning the phantom pain theory.

I GET IT > :c031:

Kind regards

L

Thanks SB .

I guess the hardest thing for me is "waiting" for them to pass.

In every other aspect of my life, I seem to be cool and quietly confident with things.

Nothing really phases me , Except what happened yesterday .


Thanks for taking the time to reply . I appreciate it

L

Lipitor,

You are a rock star to me, who is still trying to get sober. Thanks for resisting...for yourself, and for me.

Hi LF. (T)

THanks for asking about my health . Yes I still have pneumonia, My GP calls it idiopathic atypical pneumonia,,, translated , means , He has no bloody idea.

A plethora of medication , and get back to work, move , exercise blah blah . So im taking his advice.

Lonliness is a thought , I dont manage that thought very well at times , and have to keep check on what I call "The wanting mind".

I have found that if I let myself and my thoughts wander off, into what if land, I can become very ungrateful.

The reality was , I came home to a beautiful 1880s fully renovated home , with great views across a park , gorgeous garden etc.
My 3 daughters are only a phone call or 25 mins drive away , and I know if I called them , any one of them would jump in their car and come to see me,my friends all live close by . etc etc

I think the booze numbed what I would call a "normal" emotion, and I kept numbing it to the point where it became a metaphoric monster.

Thought management ...

Thanks for writing back..

Kind regards

L :c031:

I appreciate what you wrote....Mushrooms. Very true.

L

I am tempted to brush that compliment off because I feel like im not getting anywhere at times ,,,but I wont.

I will say a heartfelt THANKYOU . :tyou


I am grateful that my exprerience can positively impact on you . Im glad It has.

Kind regards

L

Not knowing what you know, keeps a lot of people in active addiction. Too many times do I see people unaware of their actions, mindlessly repeating the same ole same ole. Having no clue at what one is doing, keeping one in the dark and destitute.

Thank you ...It seems logical to me that ..."If someone cuts me off in traffic. I would like to knee the ******* in the balls "......A first thought.


The second thought is ..." It is just traffic, **** happens, be patient, hang in , dont worry so much , Im lucky I can drive a car and not have to walk"


I realised this one night when I got home...

And then , I realised that normally , I react to the "first thought" When alcohol is involved..

Get rid of anxiety at all costs....

It is not right to feel bad

I should feel good all the time

Why me


Those last 4 lines are waffle. Who do I think I am that I should not feel the normal range of emotions that a human being feels. ????

I dont to AA . I cant get it .

I do , however , believe that , We are all ...ILL say it again .

IM SO MUCH STRONGER THAN I EVER BELIEVED>

All I had to do , was take it out for a test drive.

It seems to work.

Thanks for your kind sentiment

L

:thanks This is nearly exactly how I have felt very recently. thankyou for articulating it far better than I could. :thanks