Early Anxieties Dispelled by Long Term Recovery
Member
Join Date: Oct 2013
Location: Illinois
Posts: 9
I'm in a weird place right now. I kind of stopped going to meetings a while ago but still follow the AA principles and pray and ask for help every day. I really haven't had issues with not drinking until very recently. I had my 24 year AA anniversary on Monday and find myself not wanting to drink but feeling very stressed and moody recently. I started a new job exactly 1 year ago that is very stressful and I'm sure there is some correlation to how I've been thinking and feeling. Maybe I have been taking my sobriety for granted but I find myself wanting to go back and read the big book and joining this forum. Has anyone else ever gone through these feelings? I don't even know why I stopped meetings. For sure I know better than this but I feel like I just forget where I came from and what got me here.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Massachusetts
Posts: 3,550
Inspiredbypete wrote: "I had my 24 year AA anniversary on Monday and find myself not wanting to drink but feeling very stressed and moody recently."
I've got a bunch of similar sobriety and still I have some tough days, "not wanting to drink" but still feeling stressed like you say you are. Today was such a day for me. My wife has had increasing health problems, along with the two of us aging and, with the passage of time, each of us feeling increasingly isolated and lonely even though we live together as we have for 56 years. Time has changed us. Many of our friends have died. I retreat into books, old movies and my dog. She does a lot of reading and still enjoys nature. But each of us seems to live in a separate galaxy. A microcosm of what happens in the universe, galaxies retreating from one another with exponentially increasing speed.
Nothing is certain, except that, if we drink again we shall go over the cliff. But aside from drink I feel, as never before, an adversary within myself. And against that I have to be ever on my guard. Some might say that it is a "dry drunk". I don't really care what anyone calls it as long as I can stiil find happiness and ways to control and possibly mature the child which lies within. I think that that child is inside everybody and those who ignore it do so at their peril.
W.
I've got a bunch of similar sobriety and still I have some tough days, "not wanting to drink" but still feeling stressed like you say you are. Today was such a day for me. My wife has had increasing health problems, along with the two of us aging and, with the passage of time, each of us feeling increasingly isolated and lonely even though we live together as we have for 56 years. Time has changed us. Many of our friends have died. I retreat into books, old movies and my dog. She does a lot of reading and still enjoys nature. But each of us seems to live in a separate galaxy. A microcosm of what happens in the universe, galaxies retreating from one another with exponentially increasing speed.
Nothing is certain, except that, if we drink again we shall go over the cliff. But aside from drink I feel, as never before, an adversary within myself. And against that I have to be ever on my guard. Some might say that it is a "dry drunk". I don't really care what anyone calls it as long as I can stiil find happiness and ways to control and possibly mature the child which lies within. I think that that child is inside everybody and those who ignore it do so at their peril.
W.
Member
Join Date: Oct 2013
Location: Illinois
Posts: 9
Thanks W. The "dry drunk" theme has been rattling around my brain recently. I guess I have to remember that we're not immune to bad stretches in life just because we're in AA. I'm going to get back to the basics of the program and see if I can get back on track emotionally. Maybe every once in a while life gives us a kick in the butt for a good reason.
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