A really bad mood... "how about a drink?"
 

So, it is time to tell on myself. Yesterday I got home and was just in a BAD mood. A REALLY BAD MOOD. So, I thought I should get out of the house. Drove over to see my bf and just went off on him. Drove back home. Got into a bath and there it was. My beast said, "Get out of this bath and go buy a 12 pack.... NOW. Of-course your miserable. You have EVERY right to be miserable. You haven't had a drink in almost 6 months. Go get a drink and the rest will be fine."

So I sat down and ate dinner. Then I laid on the couch and felt sorry for myself: Sorry that everyone sucks and I am a victim of life in general. Sorry for myself for every mistake I made drinking that I cant fix sober. Sorry for myself that I am expected to work, raise a child, be in a relationship and BE NORMAL. I AM NOT NORMAL. And mostly sorry for myself that I cannot do what I want and just get wasted. I don't want a moderate beer.... I want to get so messed up that I cant walk, talk or think. I thought is this worth it? If so why am I so unhappy? Drinking is "what I do"... it's my one guilty pleasure.... INDULGE.

So there you have it. This thinking will get me drunk. I decided against it last night but, I do need to speak up before my AV is completely running the show.

I see this as beast activity but I don't care if your in AA, RR, or whatever... speak up and help me snap out of it..... I did not post in the secular area because I want everyone's thoughts. My thanks in advance.

Jess

Jess - think of the three S's - Shakes, Sweats and $h.ts :) Still fancy a drink? If so, fast forward that tape.

You did great, Jess!! You worked through it!!

Jess - I am only on day 10 today. However, I had a really bad urge yesterday and called my sponsor. I found hearing myself talk out loud helped the moment (hours) pass. Aside from this advice/suggestion, I actually agree with your post and my AV voice is telling me the same thing.

One word: PAWS.

Six months is awesome! I remember my 180-day milestone and I was so excited I wanted to throw a parade.

However, with the perspective of three years sober now, I know that six months is still early in the recovery journey. These ups and downs still occur, with less regularity, but with alarming strength. You did well to get through this.

Jkb: good for you for fighting back against those impulses and sharing here instead.
I come at things from a slightly dark perspective, so I won't be hurt if you skip to a sunnier perspective. Or, if it helps, you can picture me as a lined old woman dressed in tatters and hunkered over a field of turnips somewhere in Slovenia, muttering to myself.

At any rate, the below is how I walk myself through some of my most bloody-minded moments. Buddha wouldn't like it, but it helps me:

I identify with the feelings you described, and they suck. And your mood probably reflects real issues (be they emotional, logistical, hormonal, whatever) that will continue to irritate you even if you remain strong and sober. I mean, you drank to run away from something, right? You didn't make that stuff up. And, while drinking changed your brain in some fairly harmful ways, there's always life to deal with too.

That said, you probably know that if you break down and have a drink or 20, you're not going to get anything more than a temporary respite from your worries. When you sober up, you'll have (1) a headache, (2) the same clawing emptiness that made you take the drink to begin with, (3) shame at having done something you knew was pretty counterproductive, (4) shame talking to the people in your life who have supported your sobriety and for whom you'd like to stay sober, (5) extra anxiety of a purely neurochemical variety, thanks to the booze and the hangover, (6) a lot work to do helping your brain and body recover...I don't know how much progress one blow-out would reverse, but I'd guess it reverses quite a bit. And, (7) when you get back on the wagon, you'll always know that after 6 months sober you went out and got drunk. That would make me nervous, because it would be years and years before I'd feel able to trust myself and my sobriety again.

And, forget about normal. Who is normal? You know that line "most men live lives of quiet desperation"? We may not use it to mean exactly what HD Thoreau meant, but it stays present in our culture because, no matter how together everybody else might seem to be on the outside, most people are kind of a mess in one way or another. For all you know the perfectly dressed neighbor who seems totally content pottering around her garden planting tulip bulbs may be waging a very quiet personal war against despair, with the orderly planting of bulbs her strongest bulwark against a total breakdown. All she has over you (or me) is a more socially acceptable and less self-harming coping mechanism.

As I said, not sunny, but if any of that helps you, run with it.

And, despite your current mood, 6 months of sobriety is great. Amazing, actually. If you look back at your early postings (I haven't, but I remember mine) maybe it would help you remember how hard you've fought and how far you've come and how little you'd enjoy fighting the same battles all over again.

Jess, I saw my therapist this am and was telling her how great this site is. I have noticed something that I am sure a lot of other people have witnessed as well. When someone is headed towards a slip or a relapse they disappear. There were a number of people struggling over this past holiday weekend, but the ones that came and posted seemed to do ok.

I don't care what our resources are, but reaching out when you are in that mindset seems to be the difference between riding it out and picking up. I just posted this on another thread, when you are alone in your mind and in that place, you are behind enemy lines.

You have worked too hard to give it all back now.....hang in there friend!!!

You are all right on target.

Carl.... You ALWAYS know what to say and I am unsure why you put up with me. Have I told you :tyou for all the help you have given me over the past 7 months. You are such a great cyber-friend. And you are 100% right about PAWS. It is a b***h.

AllieB- I love your perspective. I often feel like wow I am definitely NOT NORMAL and then I wonder who really is? Everything you said.... so true.

(((Jaynie))) Thanks for having confidence in me.

think of the three S's - Shakes, Sweats and $h.ts Still fancy a drink? If so, fast forward that tape- ZoeM
Short and too the point. Playing the tape is what stops me every time.

So, with that said thanks to everyone.

You know what is silly. I initially quit drinking after the Superbowl because well...Beer and football are such a great combination. I am sooo MAD that football is back and I have to watch it sober. Really stupid I know but, true.

JKB....think of it this way, at least you get to cheer for the Broncos and not have go through the misery of being married to a Jet's fan......:gaah

Haha that is brilliant, I'll remember that

I may have told myself I deserve a drink after blah blah blah (Oh Poor Poor Me), but I deserve so much more than what that means to me. A drink just means getting drunk, and depressed and anxious and sick and miserable all over again. Do I really deserve that?

I deserve much more than that, and no thing or condition or situation or state of mind is ever going to take that away from me. I aim to have peace and joy and beauty and love in my life, states I will never achieve with alcohol. If I am sober, then I can work and get them, and I will have them.

Jess, when I've had my 'its not fair' frames of mind, I make myself think back to my last emotional drunken meltdown. When I felt so crippled with anxiety and self-loathing that I thought it was impossible to laugh or feel anything but pain ever again. When I knew that my marriage was on the rocks and that my kids didn't want to spend time with me. When I knew I was failing those who needed me, and the road ahead wasn't leading anywhere good. I was a mess.

So easy to forget with a little sober time.

You will have your own story. But think back to your worst time. Not the events so much, but the feelings and emotions that you felt then. I guess they must be similar for us all...hopelessness, anxiety, despair...

Much worse than you're feeling right now? Now it's frustration and self-pity...They will pass. Tomorrow could be a good day, next week could be fantastic. Don't throw away 6 months...

There is NO DOUBT you will regret it if you do xxx

@jaynie04- I am a 49er fan in a long term relationship with a steeler fan....:headbange uugghh...

Fresh- I may go home and pull out my copy of RR. :tyou

Jeni26- How very true and absolutely what I need to think about. When I was "done" the last time I was not in a good place. Now I am. It easy to forget with a little sober time.

And that's the thing. I am still in what my AA friend calls "the year of firsts". First football game without beer.... Just brought about more beast activity than I expected.

:ring Thanks for all the replies.

That's a great way to frame such things.

Sadly, some of us too often shrink from all these new "firsts" out of fear. They then never happen or we go back to our familiar way of dealing with fear.