deeker

Powerlessness. When I first heard this word as it relates to my alcoholism I dismissed it connecting it with weakness..

I was raised with some pretty messed up ideas.I was raised that you don't get sick and you don't whine or complain and you push through pain. Both emotional and physical.
Emotional pain,we just don't talk about it.Ignore the elephant in the room. Get over it I was told. Just forget about it....

Physical pain "deeker , you are a Sullivan and Sullivan's are tough.So I don't complain....

I got sick a few months ago , very unusual for me, I was raised you don't get sick, I can't even mention I am sick around my Dad. He just chimes in with "Fight It".

I can't even remember when the last time was I was sick except for hangovers of my own making....

I was raised to believe I was invincible.I drank over those stuffed feelings. I truly did not know what to do with those feelings, when my dad was saying you are tough I was feeling weak....

But I had to push through.I couldn't let him down....

I think the way I was raised to be strong actually prevented me from hitting a bottom sooner and kept me in denial believing I should have been able to overcome this by myself....

I still struggle with reaching out for help and telling people what's going on.

But those ideas of having power have to be discarded if I am to begin the process of recovery...

Lots of the ideas I was raised with have to be re-examined. Ideas like if you look good then you must be good and if you have money and material stuff it defines success....

If your house is clean you have it together and if your kids are dressed nice you are a good mom....

Or because of your Irish heritage you are strong .

I believe that some of our parents really were so concerned about image and vanity and how we looked to the outside world...

I don't blame them though because I know that they were also raised with these unhealthy ideas......

I remember my parents would go on vacations and never get in swimming suits with us cuz they were so worried about what others thought of how they looked....

Or they would be worried if we talked to loud, that we were bothering the neighbors. It was always about what everyone else thought...

They were prisoners in their own minds and they put these self imposed limits on their lives and because of that missed out on a lot of really good times....

They unfortunately passed alot of those ideas down to me. So I was also holding back from really being free.Always had to put on this good front.

I am convinced I am egotist with an inferiority complex.

I am becoming aware of those unhealthy patterns...

Today I have to discard all those old ways of thinking. Today I don't want to be held back from truly being my silly , crazy self. Today I want to feel those feelings, I want to cry if I am sad.Today I don't want to have those limits and I want to be free....

I don't really care what people think and whatever they think is really none of my business....

I know who I am and that is a beautiful child of God created for his purpose and I have been finding out what that is in recovery....

I know I acted out on these behaviors because I felt unworthy in some way. Not good enough. My feelings weren't important enough to be heard. So I escaped alot. Anything to feel different.


I am really scared because I know how close I am to a relapse. I know this disease is so baffling because when I am having those thoughts of the drinking/drugging my mind minimizes the fact that I am thinking about it and sometimes I don't always share that stuff with my sponsor. Because I am supposed to be tough.

My disease makes me believe that I don't need to share that stuff and those old ideas of being powerful make me think that I can think myself out of temptation without anyone's help. They are all lies. I liken this disease to the devil. It's pure evil and trys to entice me.

Or this disease will prevent me from looking at the possible consequences at all.

It's scary stuff. I don't want to go back to that desperate way of life of needing a drink or drug. The desperation, the sorrow, the fear.

It tried to get me again yesterday. Telling me to go to the ER for narcotics. I have been struggling with my bi polar the last few weeks and my meds need to be tweaked. But I am impatient and want to self medicate.

I must have made 4 turns back and forth towards the hospital and away again, but God did for me what I could not do for myself.

For some reason the thought came to my mind to drive down my old street where I lived, so I did and I came right up to the scene of a DUI I had a few yrs earlier.
I sat at that spot and thought about that day when I hit those trees with my truck and almost wiped the kids out as the bus stop. How my son saw me wrapped around the trees as he went by on the bus. How I spent 20 days in Jail going through severe withdrawals.

I thanked God for bringing me to that spot. I went straight home and called my sponsor. I got on my knees and thanked Him and then went to bed sober and clean and grateful.

One bad choice is gonna lead me back to a drink or drug. just one bad choice. It's pretty scary when you think of it.

Thanks Lord

Sapling

With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely.

Big Book.....How It Works...pg 59

That's a great post deeker.

hypochondriac

I was raised the exact same way Deeker. Not so much physically (though my dad's cure for any illness was exercise!) but definitely emotionally. My mum's motto was 'don't wash your dirty linen in public'. Everything was for the sake of appearances and any problems were ignored or explained away. I became the opposite in some ways because I was always honest about how I feel about stuff and not ashamed to admit to people that I suffered from depression etc... There were so many lies in my family that I decided I didn't want to live that way. I was honest the majority of the time. But I still have this residual fear of exposing myself, I feel like I should be invincible. It made me ashamed to admit to my alcoholism and to get help. I am still like that now. I don't ask for help when I really should. I always try and power through on my own. Stubborn.

Thank you for your shares here, They've really helped me ... Not that I need help though... xxx

jobei

Amen! Never forget it!

MidnightBlue

Thank you for the great post, Deeker.


I can totally relate to your story about being "emotionally tough". To keep "we are doing Ok/great" facade whatever it takes, doesn't matter what's going on behind the facade. Our little "Hatter's Castle". At some moment the life behind the facade became the hell, so "childhood memories" is never option for me to find an emotional retreat. Actually, I would like to erase it.

My feelings were always wrong. "Nonsense, you can't feel like that. It's just your imagination". So I learned that I should never tell about what I feel. And after some time I lost the connection with my feelings.

A lot of time I felt like an asset, not a daughter. And assets are not supposed to be weak, make mistakes, aren't they?

Wine dumped my hurtful feelings, but, at the same time, it was an attempt to get feelings out of prision.

I like Einstein's saying: "We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."


My best wishes to you, Deeker.

Take care of yourself.

deeker

[
Thank you for your shares here, They've really helped me ... Not that I need help though... xxx[/QUOTE]

Thanks hypo, Yah I was a bit rebellious too but I didn't open my mouth nearly as much as I wanted to when this was going on. Have a blessed day!

deeker

Thanks Blue, Yah hard to even identify my feelings somedays, kinda like I have to be broken down crying before I will acknowledge there is a problem and that actually never happens. Not sure how to let go of the old ideas cuz I act out on them when I don't even know it.

soberjim

deeker...Great post..Thanks for sharing...

Sounds like you have lots of support and are in a much better place than you were a few years earlier..

Jim