FinrodFelagund Introduction
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: Mannheim, Germany
Posts: 11
FinrodFelagund Introduction
Hi All,
First let me say, great website here, very glad I found it. So good to read and feel the struggles, the triumphs, and the strength through our stories!
By way of introduction I thought I'd post a little bit about myself. I'll post my whole story sometime later, but for now a brief introduction will serve.
I started drinking and using at 14 in what I thought was a social manner but in retrospect was a problematic pattern from the very beginning. Like so many of us, I had serious social anxiety issues which drinking and using seemed to take away. That feeling of belonging, of being someone somehow BETTER than I was usually, was the initial pull for me. Initially drinking defined me as one of the "cool" kids, living on the edge, acting and feeling older, wiser, and (in the way that only teenagers can aspire to) more jaded.
As i grew up I experimented with painkillers, and a long affair with opiates were born. These, even more with alcohol (I thought at the time) turned me from a socially anxious quasi-nerd into an eloquent, witty, and well-liked person. It is so typical of the disease that we have that, although I had this perception of myself as a james-bond-esque cosmopolitan when I was high/drunk, most people saw a shady, high-out-of-his-mind stranger.
The affair with opiates carried on to its natural conclusion, culminating last year with a trip to a rehab center to detox (I got myself kicked out because I was convinced I had things licked). Through it all I had managed to graduate from a good college and hold down a solid job by the skin of my teeth, even being accepted into a top MBA school in Germany.
Coming out of rehab, I stayed squeaky clean for a few months, then relapsed briefly, but thankfully not long enough to get a true monkey on my back. The biggest misconception at this point in my life was that my problem was opiates, not alcohol, and I was quick to believe those around me who, although supportive of my recovery, believed alcohol and opiates to be completely separate entities (buckets, as consultants would call them), mutually exclusive and individually addressable.
Thus began the ultimate "Geograpic cure"--a move to GER, a new life, where no-one knew me, working hard in school, making new friends, acquiring a new language, and generally having a good time--bolstered with heavy drinking on the weekends. Then, as many of you are probably guessing--guess what! I became an alcoholic. Whether I always had the tendency in me, and it was only put on the back burner by my preference for opiates, or whether I had primed my body for alcohol addiction in some way through my opiate abuse--these things are irrelevant.
I finally admitted to myself, shaking and desperate, that I had a problem, and went through one of the worst periods in my life in a German detox facility, surrounded by strangers and barely knowing the language. I got out, got directly back in AA, and did a couple months sober with no problems. Then, arrogantly enough, I began to think, again, that I had the problem licked, and experimented again with alcohol. I told myself all sorts of silly stories--even relying on some of my knowledge of the human body and research I'd done--twisting the conclusions to my own ******** ends, to tell myeslf that they weren't the shakes, it was simply sugar imbalance in my body, etc.
So the pattern ran that I wouldn't drink for a month or so, then I would pick up 1 drink and go on a wicked bender. Time and time again my amazing girlfriend would pull me out of my apartment and sit by me as I shook for 3 days and pulled myself back together. After a last bender on April 4, 2011, I decided to stop for good, took AA seriously, and have been on the ride up ever since.
It's amazing how fast your body and mind start to come back, but I am now aware that it's true that it takes a couple months (at least) for everything to level out. For those newcomers--months seem like a long time to wait (since as addicts we want everything NOW!) but it is a pleasant process and you don't really notice the time going by.
I've lost weight, my libido is back, I'm getting good grades, and people have remarked (to my delight) that I look and sound better, that my German has improved, and that I am generally far more fun to be around than before.
My biggest challenges lay in two areas: friends and the temptation to drink alone. After coming out of detox and discussing the issue with my program management, I decided to only tell 2 people in my circle of friends about my problem. The rest thought I was in the hospital with a kidney infection. However, I realized that this gave me "eine perfekte ausrede"--a perfect excuse--to go out with a different group of friends and try to drink normally, to try to belong. Needless to say, this is how my last bender started. I didn't decide to go on a bender, as it were, but it started out socially (in what was, I admit, a great night out on the town). But that is for other people now, not for me.
I had TONS of anxiety about coming clean to other people, but sitting there, shaking and gasping, on my girlfriend's porch, I made one of the hardest but most satisfying phone calls of my life. I called each and every one of my hard-drinking german buddies, and explained to them that things, for me, have gotten a little bit out of control, and I was going to stop drinking for good. Much to my surprise, they were AMAZINGLY cool about it. Two of them even asked how I was at that moment, and whether I needed a ride to the doctor or anything. The AA book "sober living" has some awesome ideas on page 65 for how to deal with these social situations. The take away from this, for me, has been--exactly as the book says, 1)other people's drinking is not what we think it is and 2) most people don't care whether we drink or not. Every now and then, some people who don't know my situation will press the issue, but it is very rare. In the rare case that someone does get in my face, my pride always sort of rears its head and I'm not above making a snarky comment or two (but, like, I said, it's rare
)
The other temptation is that temptation to drink alone. Many triggers exist for me, especially pertaining to things I used to do, like watching movies in front of my computer or reading and eating while drinking. Silly things, but I don't do them anymore. I find reading the book helps--a quick story from the big book or a couple of pages of sober living clears that right up. The other invlauable thing I learned from a german AA colleague is "think it all the way through"--don't just think about that firs drink, but think about the END, think about where it will take you, three days from now, even if you stop having only 3 days of shaking to look forward to. That's usually enough to snap me right back in line And then, of course, for those of us who are religious, God (or whatever you call your higher power) is not above a little pass-interference play from time to time. My GF had a party recently, very stressful for me, and I wound up deciding to go home and drink some of the booze left laying around. I actually had that **** in my backpack, ready to go, when her stupid friend puked all over the floor, and i had to clean it up. That took so long, and gave me so much time to think and re-gain my strength, that i was able to find my mind again and go back, put that **** back, and go on home.
So today, almost 90 days, feeling great, and thanking god for divine puke intervention.
Great to be here, thanks guys!
First let me say, great website here, very glad I found it. So good to read and feel the struggles, the triumphs, and the strength through our stories!
By way of introduction I thought I'd post a little bit about myself. I'll post my whole story sometime later, but for now a brief introduction will serve.
I started drinking and using at 14 in what I thought was a social manner but in retrospect was a problematic pattern from the very beginning. Like so many of us, I had serious social anxiety issues which drinking and using seemed to take away. That feeling of belonging, of being someone somehow BETTER than I was usually, was the initial pull for me. Initially drinking defined me as one of the "cool" kids, living on the edge, acting and feeling older, wiser, and (in the way that only teenagers can aspire to) more jaded.
As i grew up I experimented with painkillers, and a long affair with opiates were born. These, even more with alcohol (I thought at the time) turned me from a socially anxious quasi-nerd into an eloquent, witty, and well-liked person. It is so typical of the disease that we have that, although I had this perception of myself as a james-bond-esque cosmopolitan when I was high/drunk, most people saw a shady, high-out-of-his-mind stranger.
The affair with opiates carried on to its natural conclusion, culminating last year with a trip to a rehab center to detox (I got myself kicked out because I was convinced I had things licked). Through it all I had managed to graduate from a good college and hold down a solid job by the skin of my teeth, even being accepted into a top MBA school in Germany.
Coming out of rehab, I stayed squeaky clean for a few months, then relapsed briefly, but thankfully not long enough to get a true monkey on my back. The biggest misconception at this point in my life was that my problem was opiates, not alcohol, and I was quick to believe those around me who, although supportive of my recovery, believed alcohol and opiates to be completely separate entities (buckets, as consultants would call them), mutually exclusive and individually addressable.
Thus began the ultimate "Geograpic cure"--a move to GER, a new life, where no-one knew me, working hard in school, making new friends, acquiring a new language, and generally having a good time--bolstered with heavy drinking on the weekends. Then, as many of you are probably guessing--guess what! I became an alcoholic. Whether I always had the tendency in me, and it was only put on the back burner by my preference for opiates, or whether I had primed my body for alcohol addiction in some way through my opiate abuse--these things are irrelevant.
I finally admitted to myself, shaking and desperate, that I had a problem, and went through one of the worst periods in my life in a German detox facility, surrounded by strangers and barely knowing the language. I got out, got directly back in AA, and did a couple months sober with no problems. Then, arrogantly enough, I began to think, again, that I had the problem licked, and experimented again with alcohol. I told myself all sorts of silly stories--even relying on some of my knowledge of the human body and research I'd done--twisting the conclusions to my own ******** ends, to tell myeslf that they weren't the shakes, it was simply sugar imbalance in my body, etc.
So the pattern ran that I wouldn't drink for a month or so, then I would pick up 1 drink and go on a wicked bender. Time and time again my amazing girlfriend would pull me out of my apartment and sit by me as I shook for 3 days and pulled myself back together. After a last bender on April 4, 2011, I decided to stop for good, took AA seriously, and have been on the ride up ever since.
It's amazing how fast your body and mind start to come back, but I am now aware that it's true that it takes a couple months (at least) for everything to level out. For those newcomers--months seem like a long time to wait (since as addicts we want everything NOW!) but it is a pleasant process and you don't really notice the time going by.
I've lost weight, my libido is back, I'm getting good grades, and people have remarked (to my delight) that I look and sound better, that my German has improved, and that I am generally far more fun to be around than before.
My biggest challenges lay in two areas: friends and the temptation to drink alone. After coming out of detox and discussing the issue with my program management, I decided to only tell 2 people in my circle of friends about my problem. The rest thought I was in the hospital with a kidney infection. However, I realized that this gave me "eine perfekte ausrede"--a perfect excuse--to go out with a different group of friends and try to drink normally, to try to belong. Needless to say, this is how my last bender started. I didn't decide to go on a bender, as it were, but it started out socially (in what was, I admit, a great night out on the town). But that is for other people now, not for me.
I had TONS of anxiety about coming clean to other people, but sitting there, shaking and gasping, on my girlfriend's porch, I made one of the hardest but most satisfying phone calls of my life. I called each and every one of my hard-drinking german buddies, and explained to them that things, for me, have gotten a little bit out of control, and I was going to stop drinking for good. Much to my surprise, they were AMAZINGLY cool about it. Two of them even asked how I was at that moment, and whether I needed a ride to the doctor or anything. The AA book "sober living" has some awesome ideas on page 65 for how to deal with these social situations. The take away from this, for me, has been--exactly as the book says, 1)other people's drinking is not what we think it is and 2) most people don't care whether we drink or not. Every now and then, some people who don't know my situation will press the issue, but it is very rare. In the rare case that someone does get in my face, my pride always sort of rears its head and I'm not above making a snarky comment or two (but, like, I said, it's rare
)The other temptation is that temptation to drink alone. Many triggers exist for me, especially pertaining to things I used to do, like watching movies in front of my computer or reading and eating while drinking. Silly things, but I don't do them anymore. I find reading the book helps--a quick story from the big book or a couple of pages of sober living clears that right up. The other invlauable thing I learned from a german AA colleague is "think it all the way through"--don't just think about that firs drink, but think about the END, think about where it will take you, three days from now, even if you stop having only 3 days of shaking to look forward to. That's usually enough to snap me right back in line
And then, of course, for those of us who are religious, God (or whatever you call your higher power) is not above a little pass-interference play from time to time. My GF had a party recently, very stressful for me, and I wound up deciding to go home and drink some of the booze left laying around. I actually had that **** in my backpack, ready to go, when her stupid friend puked all over the floor, and i had to clean it up. That took so long, and gave me so much time to think and re-gain my strength, that i was able to find my mind again and go back, put that **** back, and go on home. So today, almost 90 days, feeling great, and thanking god for divine puke intervention.
Great to be here, thanks guys!
Member
Join Date: Oct 2008
Posts: 6,947
Awesome, thanx for sharing and welcome to SR.
I also found that reading the Big Book, either something in the first 164 or a story in the back, would get me through that urge to drink alone when I was early on.
Keep posting!
I also found that reading the Big Book, either something in the first 164 or a story in the back, would get me through that urge to drink alone when I was early on.
Keep posting!
SR Fan
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Mississippi
Posts: 7,910
Welcome and congratulations on your (almost) 90 days!! Looking back on my earliest drinking days, I realize I probably had many of the signs of being an alcoholic/addict too. I'm glad you've decided to get sober and have joined our community. I come here every day and read a little even if I don't post because (for some strange reason, haha) I still have those blank spots where I forget the misery of my drinking days.
"Divine puke intervention"...... that's a good one! Isn't it amazing how different it is to see someone drunk once we're sober? Not exactly the "life of the party" we once thought we were......!
Keep up the good work!
"Divine puke intervention"...... that's a good one! Isn't it amazing how different it is to see someone drunk once we're sober? Not exactly the "life of the party" we once thought we were......!
Keep up the good work!
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: Mannheim, Germany
Posts: 11
Thanks for the welcome guys!
@ Artsoul--it is so, so funny to observe. You really see the people who like to get hammered making fools of themselves, but, before I pass judgement, I always have to say "that could SO easily be me, it's not even funny."
I see people, sometimes, on the street, shaking and dragging themselves to the liquor store, and I always just have to thank God--we hear in AA all the time "but for the grace of God, there go I...so true!"
Once again thanks for the warm welcome you guys, looking forward to lots more posting and reading in the future!
--FF
@ Artsoul--it is so, so funny to observe. You really see the people who like to get hammered making fools of themselves, but, before I pass judgement, I always have to say "that could SO easily be me, it's not even funny."
I see people, sometimes, on the street, shaking and dragging themselves to the liquor store, and I always just have to thank God--we hear in AA all the time "but for the grace of God, there go I...so true!"
Once again thanks for the warm welcome you guys, looking forward to lots more posting and reading in the future!
--FF
Forward we go...side by side-Rest In Peace
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Serene In Dixie
Posts: 36,740
The final paragraph on page 43 in our BB has saved my recovery manytimes...
Your experience with the vomit I'd consider a God Shot had it happened to me.
From your share...I think you do too...
All my best to you and your girl....Welcome...
Your experience with the vomit I'd consider a God Shot had it happened to me.
From your share...I think you do too...
All my best to you and your girl....Welcome...
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