Terminal Uniqueness
Member
Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: Reno, Nv
Posts: 411
Glad somebody revived this...I'd never have found it otherwise 
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I think it's a paradox, you know: we ARE all unique, but also the same. Maybe we're not unique in the ways we think we are, and the same in ways we don't dare to imagine...
. I think it's a paradox, you know: we ARE all unique, but also the same. Maybe we're not unique in the ways we think we are, and the same in ways we don't dare to imagine...
Member
Join Date: Mar 2016
Posts: 483
This is a great post! And very true! Think the moment I actually got sober was the moment I realized that people have problems way worse than mine and are not a complete drunk over it. And realizing that yeah alcoholism can and did take me over and kick my butt I was not somehow immune. And that I am the only person who can be responsible to stop it. Again great post and great information!!!
Member
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: UK
Posts: 6,902
Not sure why it would matter that it's an old (couple of years) thread. It's talking about a problem that has, and will continue to exist, as long as there are alcoholics.
It's a topic close to my heart as my terminal uniqueness in the first 6 months of my sobriety meant that I only allowed myself to do white knuckling peppered with a few meetings, leading my partner to despair for my mental health, my boss to put me forward for a counselling program and myself to not want to be alive any more, and myself to live in a tsunami of negativity. No one (not even me, truth be told) could understand how awful my life was. Whenever I was alone tears would start sliding down my cheeks. Whenever I was with others I felt separate from them, and more lonely than when I was on my own. I just could not function. Then someone must have turned my ears to on mode in a meeting one day and I realised that if I wanted to get better LIKE THESE PEOPLE, I'd better start doing some recovery work. LIKE. THESE. PEOPLE. My ego run riot was keeping me stuck in the problem, and I needed to be the one to right-size it and start listening, learning and working on recovery. And if that meant that I had to do things that I'd never done before or wasn't keen on doing, then so be it. I wanted to live. And what I'd been doing wasn't Living.
Yes, i was entitled to do things my way like the special flower that I liked to think I was. But when it came down to it, I wasn't as different from everyone or as unique as I thought I was, and holding myself apart as special and unique had ended up making me almost suicidal. I thank God that something changed that day and I actually heard and processed what people were saying, and got ready to grab the life raft and let the others help me climb out from that mire, and i kept safe in the middle of that SR & AA lifeboat. I'm still in that lifeboat, and intend to stay thete, both keeping myself safe, and helping any others who are ready to be helped.
It's a topic close to my heart as my terminal uniqueness in the first 6 months of my sobriety meant that I only allowed myself to do white knuckling peppered with a few meetings, leading my partner to despair for my mental health, my boss to put me forward for a counselling program and myself to not want to be alive any more, and myself to live in a tsunami of negativity. No one (not even me, truth be told) could understand how awful my life was. Whenever I was alone tears would start sliding down my cheeks. Whenever I was with others I felt separate from them, and more lonely than when I was on my own. I just could not function. Then someone must have turned my ears to on mode in a meeting one day and I realised that if I wanted to get better LIKE THESE PEOPLE, I'd better start doing some recovery work. LIKE. THESE. PEOPLE. My ego run riot was keeping me stuck in the problem, and I needed to be the one to right-size it and start listening, learning and working on recovery. And if that meant that I had to do things that I'd never done before or wasn't keen on doing, then so be it. I wanted to live. And what I'd been doing wasn't Living.
Yes, i was entitled to do things my way like the special flower that I liked to think I was. But when it came down to it, I wasn't as different from everyone or as unique as I thought I was, and holding myself apart as special and unique had ended up making me almost suicidal. I thank God that something changed that day and I actually heard and processed what people were saying, and got ready to grab the life raft and let the others help me climb out from that mire, and i kept safe in the middle of that SR & AA lifeboat. I'm still in that lifeboat, and intend to stay thete, both keeping myself safe, and helping any others who are ready to be helped.
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