DoubleDragons

I just finished Jason Bale's book. I like books/methods that logically break down just how idiotic drinking alcohol is and why we are better off never putting that poison in our bodies. For some reason, these "ways" resonate with me and put my cravings off . . .

jaynie04

The worst breakup I ever had came after 4 years of dating a guy in my late 20's. He traveled a lot so I would conveniently break up with him before, date until he got back and then get back with him. Horrible I know. It sounds colder in the abbreviated format. He was ready to get married, but i was having too much fun.

At the end he dumped me...for a well known model. I won't elaborate let's just say you can't write this crap, but it was a spectacular, crushing, everything I am not dumpage........I was the queen bee of my single girlfriends crying on their sofas, watching Melrose Place (I know all you youngsters are going to have to Google it).

The day I found out who he was dating I went into a boardroom in my suit and high heels at the firm I worked for,locked the door. I crawled up on the long shiny desk and laid on my back flat out in the middle of the mahogany and called my best friend on the speaker phone wailing. I think my boss thought I was giving birth in there.

I didn't really want the guy, but omg, the fact that I couldn't have him, call the National Guard.

I elaborated on the similarity of this feeling to the idea of booze a few weeks ago in therapy. I realized I was going back in time and thinking (ok, I may be elected alkie of the year) that I really should have drank more, and appreciated it before I "crossed over". The same way I did after I got dumped. I feel like if I knew it was going to be taken away then I really would have appreciated it more.

Normal people do not think about alcohol like a long lost beau.......

courage2

Fabulous thread AO.

My brain seems to be trying to lead me down the toilet too. I don't even WANT to drink but my head is trying to tell me drinking is the only possible path for me, it's my fate/doom/nature. I don't deserve better than pain and humiliation & (at best) oblivion.

There's no doubt I drank to get over other mental issues, and they got worse because of the drinking. Now I have to own them. I don't want to. They scare me. That's why I want to drink. (Rinse, repeat.)

All I can do is keep my head down and try to do what's worked so far -- SR, AA, and ice cream.

alphaomega

Exactly. Some days I swear it's completely behind me for good. Forever. You can actually hear the theme song from "Rocky" playing in my aura.

Then, just like that, it switches. And I'm like Vinnie Barbarino in Welcome Back Kotter saying "gimme drugs". Then I yell at myself, no Vinnie Barbarino, you can't have any drugs because you are an alcoholic. But I'm not trying to hear that at that point.

How can you have TOTAL RESOLVE, one minute, and the next, poof - GONE ?

jaynie04

AO...only you could liken sobriety as something akin to the existential battle between Rocky Balboa and Vinnie Barbarino!

alphaomega

Don't even get me started on Heidi Fleiss and Sir Isaac Newton...

Eddiebuckle

AO,

I found a book when I was newly out of rehab that really helped: Under the Influence by Robert Milam. It came out in the 1980's so it is somewhat dated in lacking information on the neurobiology of addiction. Yet it describes the process of getting addicted and getting sober, and reading it and realizing that I wasn't bat# crazy really helped. It's OK to have those mood swings, rage out of nowhere, want to cry for no reason, etc.

What was most reassuring was to know that all of that is transitory. They DO pass. But until I read that book, I had no way of knowing that it would get better, that what I was experiencing was my central nervous system stitching itself back together. And that it would take months, but it WOULD end, if I did my part and not drink again.

I have no idea when you last took a drink, but "thanks" to the kindling effect, we very quickly drop back to where we started neurologically. It's almost like we have ruts in our psyche, into which we fall again when we drink again.

But most important is to know that it's normal to feel like you do. Don't panic, just ride the wave knowing that it will pass under you soon enough. The crazy thoughts are OK so long as we don't act on them. Like boiling bunnies. That's just wrong ; )

Be good to yourself.

Eddie

alphaomega

I've read that cravings only last something like 8 minutes or something.

To use a phrase from my buddy Nuu, I'm calling bullsh*t on that one.

I've had a non stop craving for 3 godforsaken days. Thinking of drinking when I never have in the past. For me, there is validity in the whole "if I can't have it I want it even more" theory. I'm literally OBSESSED with it 24/7.

I don't even want to drink per se, but tell me I can't, and whoa Nelly.

Argh !!!!

kadidee

AO, I totally relate to this. I've been daydreaming about my friend pinot noir a lot these days.

I have a mental image in my head of myself all of last year, as my drinking got progressively worse and out of control. It's an image of bloated, hungover me agitated in the morning because I've bargained with the snooze button until I barely have time to get to work on time. 5 more minutes, won't wash my hair. 5 more minutes, hey, who needs a shower? 5 more minutes, well...I can be just a little late today.

Bloated, anxious, hungover, un-showered, late me arrives harried to work in lord knows what because all of my clothes are getting too tight with the weight gain from too much alcohol and bad nutrition. Unprepared. Irritated. Foggy. Determined not to drink for just one night. The day goes on and before noon I already know I'm going to drink that night.

Newly sober me is a very different person from above, but sometimes I just want it all. I want to be this 'me' and also have the wine, but I know I can't have both.

We have to ride it out...love Eddie's post above. I need to hear that

jaynie04

Great post (as always) Kadidee! I am struggling because I haven't started to really unwind the damage done...I am just unmotivated, I feel like a slug. Today I had a purple sweater on and I felt like Grimace. And I have phone calls and piles, and part of me feels like I am throwing a temper tantrum by being lazy because I can't have what I want.

And I have been thinking about white wine, which is weird because I was kind of drinking vodka at the end...so I wonder if it is sugar thing? I need to get exercising in a huge way.

kadidee

jaynie, I'm unmotivated as all get out (i.e., the guest bedroom turned hoarders closet). I'm envious that you actually have piles to sort through instead of one big heap.

p.s. what's wrong with Grimace?

EndGameNYC

Having resolve indicates that we're at war with someone or something. We don't win every battle, but for most of us, we have to continue fighting until we at least achieve a draw.

I like the college boyfriend analogy, and jaynie's story about getting ditched for an A-lister.

When I relapsed, one of the first things I did was contact a woman I'd broken up with about a year before, while I was sober. I often didn't like being with her, and sometimes wanted to kill myself when I was with her. But all my alcoholic thinking told me was that the sex was occasionally good and that I'd be able to tolerate all the drama and other nonsense if I just didn't pay too much attention. She was thrilled to hear from me.

Well, in a very short time, we were talking about living together, and my drunken self was all in. I never drank the first time we were together, and she seemed to like that I was drinking when we started seeing each other again. Probably something to do with controlling me. Anyway, she wised up quickly about my "drinking habits," and left me standing at the realtor's when it was time to sign a lease.

My point? Because she was good for me at one thing -- and there were plenty of times where she was just completely insufferable -- and just a few times at that, I was willing to feed my failing and love-starved ego with the stale crumbs she offered, even though the only things at stake were my sanity, my self esteem and my overall well being.

Nuudawn

Ohh-em-Gee but I love that post Endgame.

I too have found myself wanting to reach out to insufferable exes in bouts of loneliness that apparently summon amnesia.

Whether it bad relationships or booze (perhaps that's redundant) both can be beguiling in our weakest moments.

soberclover

OMG times two....I posted a former fling on facebook just prior to reading this. Argh!!!!!

alphaomega

Then, I wake up in the morning and after struggling all night last night, I have the deepest sense of gratitude for my sobriety. With 100% full conviction that I will never poison myself again. Heart beating nice and calm, got a really great prayer and meditation session in, so happy that I didn't drink.

But just you wait until 5:00 pm. Everything I said above will be teetering on a bald faced lie and I will be manipulating my thought process to find a way to have maybe just one.

It's almost primal in a sense. Instinctual.
Screaming at me "Human beings need to have a reprieve damn it".

Give me my paci and a **** and swaddle me. I'm outta control.

This is exhausting.

Nuudawn

I doubt I am ever 100% convicted of anything..especially sobriety. I have come to embrace uncertainty I guess and only try to make "good decisions". A good life is built on good decisions. All I can do is pray for the strength to keep making good decisions...even when I don't want to. I have authored most of my life based on how I "feel"... my feelings have dictated my decisions. (e.g. I feel like a drink so I will have one, I feel like you are an ******** so I will break up with you or delete you from my friendlist on Facebook ; )

I have lost faith in my "feelings" as my greatest advisors on life. I have learned that fear sometimes feel like premonitions which they aren't.

Instincts are neutral....feelings are well...a sideshow freak a lot of the time.They need to be minded and tamed not listened to like a grand authority on everything. I wish I figured that one out a while ago.

lessgravity

AO!

I know you are staying strong but I'm still sending you my thoughts.

It doesn't ever leave us, does it? That bottom-belly craving for sweet oblivion - where we lose ourselves and the thread of our sober lives in the dulling wash of another druken night.

But those hours of drunkeness are ruined hours. They are lost hours. As you know and say, they bring us nothing, give us nothing, relieve nothing, neither aid, console, nor comfort us. They are just brutal holes in our lives that the booze demands.

And yet, and yet...I know that crazing crave so well, irregardless of it's irrationality. It sucks.

Here's to the getting through. I hope you find some peace and some peace finds you.

WhitePawn

AO--I think it is important for us to know or learn our triggers, I had no idea that a bad weather forecast would have such an effect on me that it did yesterday. It was the closest I have come to giving in to my AV in my 3 short weeks of sobriety--and it really scared me, as it shook my self-confidence.
Last night I had dreams alternating between drinking again and my old job (nightmares really) which I retired from 6 years ago--so maybe it's a little PTSD. But this morning I'm recharged and I take motivation from lessgravity's post as we all know it's truth.

EndGameNYC

My ramblings...

In retrospect, I dodged several bullets by her checking out. I'm certain she feels the same way.

She and my most recent ex during my relapse seemed to have taken advantage of the relationship protection program.

This time, with little more than two years sober, I've never even thought of dating. I think this went a long way in helping me to work on myself. I rarely if ever think about being with someone. This is due in part to my recent ex being the love of my life (actually, my third LOML, one in sobriety), and I simply lost interest in trying to "replace" her. Just not interested. Never heard from her again after the split. I'm still heartbroken that not even my feelings for her, her generosity with her feelings and the good life I imagined having with her were not nearly enough for me to get sober, but the pain continues to lose its power over time.

There was a time when I was much younger, before I first got sober, when it seemed that every woman I dated went on to bigger and better things after the inevitable breakup. This wasn't completely true, but the couple or so updates I knew of placed them in a great life. So, if you want to live well, date me for a time, put up with all my drunken bullschit for a while...when you leave, you're good to go.

I was skimming over a research study last night in which it was found that lab rats spent more time in a maze on the side that offered Oreos than on the side where cocaine was available. More pleasure centers in the brain lit up with the rats enjoying their cookies than those choosing cocaine. And, they ate the creamy part first.