confused2012

I'm an alcoholic. I know this. But, I still think I can drink, in moderation, or with friends..until I can't. I recently relocated, stupidly thinking like would be magically better. That a fresh start, a new goal would be good for me. But I'm just lost. What control I think I had on my drinking is spiraling out of control. I cancel plans with my friends so I can sit alone in my apartment and drink. It's not like I know anyone well yet, and god knows what they think of my frequequent disapearing acts. Some days I'm sparkly and social..and some days I can barely fake it. I'm torn between just running back home, or trying to make things work here. There's nothing for me there, nothing for me here yet really. Feel like I'm just falling without a safety net. I don't know what the point of this post is. I'm too depressed to stop drinking. I'm too depressed to even think about going to meetings and yet somehow I am sort of pulling of my daily life. But maybe I'm fooling myself.

How do I even begin to pull myself out of this hole?

I honestly am at a loss.

Sapling

Welcome...See if this little paragraph from the Big Book strikes a cord.

No words can tell of the loneliness and despair I found in that bitter morass of self-pity. Quicksand stretched around me in all directions. I had met my match. I had been overwhelmed. Alcohol was my master.

bb page 8

That did it for me....You can't really help yourself till you put it down...Clear up a little...Maybe a supervised detox...Rehab....Get a program...It worked for me. And I was right where you are.

Anna

Hi,

You can't run away from addiction by moving. It's true that a new job in a new place might help you to feel more fulfilled, but you'd still need to deal with your addiction. And trying to control your drinking when you're an acoholic is a lost cause. It's exhausting and it won't work.

If you're ready to stop drinking, we're here to offer support. You can live a good life without alcohol.

I alco couldn't stop drinking because of depression, and I honestly didn't care enough to make it work. My depression had existed long before my drinking started, so I had to get it properly diagnosed and treated. It could be that your depression would clear up as you begin to recover.

Scolova

Welcome confused, I (and many here) know how you feel.
I finally got sick of pulling myself out of the hell, over and over, I'd go on ~three month benders and try to straighten up for a day or so and right back into it. I had done that for about 12 years and the wear & tear on my mind & body began to show up big time. I realized the drink was not helping me in any way other than a very short relief each day, the rest of the hours was spent in agony. I drank myself to near death for the last time in Sept. 2011 and an incredible feeling\idea came to me and everything I had read here plus the understanding of everything I had allowed the drink to distroy flooded into my mind. I realized that I do not have to drink and at that point I felt like a free man for the first time in my life. Do everything you can, because the drink just ain't worth losing another moment of your life and your sanity.

Peter G

Stop drinking.

I was gonna leave my entire post at those 2 words, but I don't want you to misunderstand or think me unnecessarily crass.

Thing is, the beginning part of the end to all that grief and happy crap you are now experiencing is exactly and only that...

How to pull oneself out of a hole:

Pull #1 = stop drinking.

confused2012

Thanks for the responses. I'm trying to not drink tonight. I may actually cook dinner instead. I really haven't had a real meal in a few days. Everything has been an effort lately..any suggestions on how to get any sort of clarity here?

bostonluv

Thank you for being so honest. Alcoholism is the disease of loneliness. Going to meetings can be so hard at first. If you can't do it yet then come on here and share. Read the posts. This website is very supportive and you will get a network of friends in time if this is your goal. I'm glad you are here. Please keep coming back.

Dee74

Welcome to SR Confused 2012

I found not drinking gave me my clarity back - it wasn't over night tho...

if you've been drinking heavily and/or regularly for a while it take take a while for body and mind to heal itself.

Supports very important too I think - I'm not sure I could have made it without the support I found here.

And, if you have been drinking heavily and/or regularly for a while, it's probably a good idea to see a Dr.

Detox can sometimes be rough for some of us - it's best to be safe

D

Mark75

If AA is still something you are considering... Go to a meeting, get a big book and start making contacts and looking around for a sponsor.

I think you will find what you are looking for... But you gotta look!

And yea stop drinking. Stop running away from yourself... You will always be there.

jocata

Wherever you go, there you are. You won't lose an addiction with a geographical change. I moved from Indiana to Montana in the 90s and my addiction packed it's bags and followed me.

The change has to come from within yourself.

You can read about the many different programs people here use to stay sober and have fulfilling lives. It can be done. I promise.

AA works for me. I go to meetings, share, listen, and try to meet new people. Once you go to meetings for awhile, you get to know others and they get to know you. It's not easy at first, but to continue drinking is much, much harder.

Please keep reading and posting. We are in you corner.

God bless.

Peter G

My job placed me in the unique position of traveling to a new country every 4 months or so for about 10 years. Guess what? Every time I left one country and landed in another, my alcoholism found space in the baggage area and stowed away. And every time I left another country on to the next gig, I swore up and down to Gods, to walls, to my guitars, and sometimes even to the maid service at the hotel that it would be different in the next town.

It wasn't. Not ever.

Like everyone is telling you, it comes from within you. The only first move is to stop drinking. You're trying that. Awesome. Better even? Don't try. Don't drink. Full stop. Second, find support. Funny thing is you've already found an incredible amount of honest and caring support. It happened the moment you clicked on that confirmation email to tell you to log into Sober Recovery and enter a password. I am not joking. This site and the people hanging out here are golden. Some - I dare say - are angels in disguise. Hell, without this site I would have never found a way past what once seemed was my inevitably doomed life of active alcoholism.

So to answer your question "any suggestions on how to get any sort of clarity here?" Read posts here. Ask questions. Join in a discussion. Look for similar stories to yours, find something here that resonates to your problem and share in that thread. Or start a thread about your last drunken bender. Or about what you hope sobriety will be like in a perfect world. Anything. Absorb what comes from these conversations. Also, get to an AA meeting. Listen. Share if you want. Read the Big Book. Read Rational Recovery. Read. Lots. Again, absorb everything that has to do with the things that keep people who drink too much from ... drinking too much. Simple. Not easy. Definitely not easy. But simple.

Another site that was absolutely instrumental in helping me strengthen my resolve towards sobriety is here > XA Speakers The Lights Are On. Within that site is where you can find countless hours of speakers, alcoholics who's shared stories can both bring you to tears and drop you to your knees in amazement. What you will hear from those folks is poignant, tragic, sometimes heartbreaking, but more importantly, what you will hear is oddly creepy. Why? Because the stories are so familiar.

Go there (link provided above) and download some speakers. Doesn't cost anything. Don't even have to sign up and give out your email. Just click download and off you go. You can definitely find some clarity of purpose there. In fact, start with Earl H. Listen to Earl and tell us how you feel about his story. We'll listen. We'll respond. There's some more clarity. And as for Earl H himself, I've said it many times, if that guy can get and stay sober after the sheer amount of tragedy he's faced? Anyone on this planet can.

Worst thing to do is isolate yourself. Like Mark said, get to some meetings and make contacts. That will start some momentum for you. It might seem hard to get moving at first, but it is honestly more worth it than I can accurately describe.

There are resources all over this site, in the form of information and people who know what they're on about. Us it. Use us. We're here either because we want to stop destroying our own lives with booze, or because, having managed the feat of sobriety we care enough to share how it is possible, especially for those who think it isn't.

Bottom line is you're not alone.

NewBeginning010

Wow, you have already received some wise advice & a warm welcome so I will just add to the merits of posting here & reading the threads of others.

You will find an amazing amount of support here, actually... you alredy have.

Welcome

Threshold

Sometimes we can accept that we can't change the world, our friends, and some situations in our lives, but we can't accept that there are something we can't change about ourselves.

I mean, we SHOULD be able to control ourselves, change ourselves etc. It seems that we should.

But sometimes there are things about ourselves we just can't change. NO amount of will or rational thinking will alter it. An allergy for instance, if I am allergic to bee stings, I can read all I want about bees, watch them, appreciate them, learn about them...love them to death, but if one stings me I STILL will go into physical shock.

Some things are out of our will.

We can control ourselves by not picking up the first drink/pill, etc. Not buying it, not hanging with people who are consuming it and turning our thoughts to other things when we start thinking about it. THAT we can control.

But once we start drinking, like getting stung by the bee, it's beyond the ability of our mind to stop what happens next.

If we can accept that, we are doing ourselves the biggest favor ever.

Itchy

How did you do confused? Make it last night? I hope you did fine. Me, I could not get a morning alcohol free forget the nights. I was like you, and I had hit my bottom and I was waiting for the miraculous revelation to come and heal me from the sickness and total dominance alcohol had taken in my life. It never came. I finally realized that it was slow suicide, and that doing the same things over and over that did not work before weren't going to work again just fail over and over like they did before.

I realized finally that if I always did things, the way I always did them, I would always get the same results. Thinking I would get different results was insane. And no matter where I ran to, or how far, I always brought myself with me.

So it came down to doing a lot of things differently, and getting sober for good, or sinking down till death did us part.

I had admitted I was an alcoholic two years before I made the realization that I was literally in a life or death situation. Admitting it to myself was good. It made me feel a little better about having to drink in the morning first thing to get rid of the shakes and appear somewhat normal. I was an alcoholic after all, right?

I was so desperate, so disgusted with myself and my daily resolution to stop drinking . . . tomorrow, that I decided that drastic action and changes were necessary. I could not do it alone. I swore that if I could just get a head start, and safe detox, which scared me without even trying it, that I would never drink again. I meant it. That was my goal from the start. No fear of that, I was more afraid of what drinking was doing.

See I wasn't rich and could not afford a rehab for the stars, nor was I destitute enough to go to a place where the downtrodden and homeless went. I was what I called functional. NO trouble with the law, no bad behaviors at home, and no drunken nights or blackouts. Just steady drinking that I did keep just under the stage where I would slur and stagger. I had to drink to appear normal! That had just snuck up on me. Not all of us were binge drinkers or blackout specialists or totally uncontrolled. No one thought I had a problem but me, not even my wife!

So I finally had enough! I decided that I would talk to my docs honestly and that anyone learning of my issues was OK by me if it meant I could break free of the slavery I felt. So I up and went to the VA and set up an in hospital medically supervised detox and a rehab after which I attended for a few days then went home. I joined a local great little AA group for twice a week meetings and joined here on SR. I met with counselors, my docs, and my family and friends all knew.

I had the head start I needed and I wasn't going to waste it with any dumb relapses. I had terrible PAWS (Post Acute Withdrawal Symptoms) that I learned about here which would have scared me back to drinking had these resources not been available.

So rather that just "try" again alone with willpower, why not tell me what you are going to do different. See I "tried" to quit at least 360 days a year, before I did more than just try alone over and over.

I needed a recovery plan. For me it was a combination of face to face with AA and counseling locally, and online here at SR. As well as all the above. So what is your recovery plan? If you haven't thought about it are you ready to actually do it?

Sure it is a tough row to hoe. But many hoe tough rows and you see the results in the grocery store produce sections. But they did not just "try." They got the tools, (the hoe and the cultivator) the seeds that would grow in their local area that they may have ordered and learned about online. Then instead of sitting on those good intentions and before the planting season was over they went out and worked their plan. Made straight rows, spaced apart the right distance and planted the seed of their sobriety. Then they watered the seed for about seven days while it broke through some tough shells and hard ground to the light and needed our care and nurturing daily all along to keep it watered, protected from extremes and alive and healthy.

It takes a plan and work. Just getting some sobriety seeds and scattering them about won't work often. You need tools, timing, daily attention, and the determination to do whatever it takes to protect that sobriety and grow it tall and strong. Even if you have to call in the CoOp biologists, treat the soil and adjust it, fertilize it properly and buy irrigation equipment if that is what it takes to grow it. Might need pesticides when the rot tries to take it over from without.

I grew mine from one seed, and tended it with a passion I have rarely invested in anything in my life, and a focus equal to my best efforts in my career. I needed no sympathy, no pity, nothing but a hand to help me get up with my pride intact.

I found that it was all there waiting . . for me. All I had to do was ask for a hand up. I don't know why that is so hard for each of us. And why we cling to our excuses for why we can't reach out. I'll help you up, but you need to reach out to take it.

Take it!