Kabukicho

Yeah. I agree. But it's so hard, isn't it? Sure, you could go for a 30-minute run. Or you could spend months developing a meaningful relationship with a loving girlfriend. Or you could spend years building a career that is self-actualizing and personally meaningful.

Or you could crack open eight beers and chill in front of the TV.

Hard to resist, isn't it?

jaynie04

My mirror indicates that I have been taken the latter route lately…sans the beers of course.

Dee74

For the first ten years of my addictions I clung to that idea too - but looking back now I was never running at 100% in anything - not career not relationships.. You can't when a big part of your life is secret and a big part of your energy is invested in that.

Then...for the second ten years, I lost it all and become a very public drunk.

Not any more

D

Upward2Enlightenment

My sentiments exactly Dee

Kabukicho

I just threw up a glass of whiskey in the bathroom. Drank too much tonight.

Thank you all for being here for me. Thank you understanding me and being considerate and tolerating my nonsense.

I want to get clean but I don't know how.

curliQ

Well, Kabukicho, I have never hit "rock bottom" per se. Like you, I have a great relationship with my significant other. I also have three great almost adult kids, I have a great job and I function quite well in society, thank you very much. .

When I was confronted by my daughter a couple of weeks ago, I didn't realise how much I was not present until I actually was.

Rock bottom is a relative term; it is different for everyone and that should not be a benchmark. You are rationalising.

savarna

Being clean and sober requires a new way of living that each of us need to learn for ourselves

StormiNormi

We are all terminally unique.

AlcoholFree66

Kabukicho - we are all unique. Since I joined this forum a week ago I've sometimes thought 'wow that person must have been worse than me' but that's a mad (addict) thought. My drinking was as bad as it needed to be for me. In a very short space of time (months) I went from my family accepting my drinking to the point where I would lose them all if I did not stop. I never took pills but that doesn't make me less of an addict than you. You wouldn't have come looking at this forum if you weren't concerned about your behaviour and reliance on substances. From my experience once that seed was planted in my mind it was hard to push those thoughts away. Maybe temporarily I found found enjoyment but often I questioned my abuse of alcohol and would regret situations. The roller coaster has started and only you can choose when to set yourself free. Not drinking alcohol is freedom for me because as a practising alcoholic my thoughts so often involve having my next drink - such a waste of time and energy that I can spend productively.

Notmyrealname

I think a lot of people don't quit because they're basically without hope. The mountain is just too damn big to even consider the possibility of climbing.

One thing SR showed me was that people can and do make it over the mountain, everyday. That was huge for me, and I have heard it is rather helpful for a lot of other people. And that is just one of the myriad positives you can find here.

Addicts tend to blame their continuing addiction on anyone but themselves. When I quit drinking I came to the realization that it wasn't anybody's fault or responsibility that I drank except my own, and that my blaming my drinking on "external" causes was actively undercutting my efforts towards sobriety.

I'll say it again: my blaming my drinking on "external" causes was actively undercutting my efforts towards sobriety. Maybe I should explain that further in a new thread one of these days.

To conclude - I don't think blaming Sober Recovery for your continuing substance abuse is a reasonable position. Respectfully, I must disagree.

ontherightpath

Thank you for this thread! Kab, I didn't have a rock bottom event either. I lives happily with alcohol, and then something happened and I didn't anymore. It created pain in myself and my family. But mostly, the pain it caused my family wasn't discussed until I did what I do again and the conversation had to be had.

I have struggled with maintaining sobriety for the better part of 1.5 years.

I am a successful woman, married with 2 kids, full time job, own a house, have 3 dogs and a white picket fence appearance. But my mind thinks substances, like alcohol, ease the pain of everyday life. The chaos of the debate in between my own ears is so loud sometimes.
No one can see that, I feel it. I hear it. And at the end of the day it's my choices on how I silence it. Everyone else only sees the action of picking up or not picking up a drink. No one sees the struggle in the same light as me. Except, the people around the tables, in the aa hall. Ya know, the ones who I'm not as bad as? (Lol... Completely joking.... But I didn't think I was like them, and then I realized I was one of them)

I do hope for your sake you can wrap your head around everything that you are telling us. If you are open to suggestions, then may I suggest you quit for a week, or a month? It was suggested to me at one point that I attend a funeral home and choose my casket, my outfit, and basically
Pre plan my own funeral. Wow. That hit me. But yet again, I have chosen to drink again.

I would take a bullet for my family, but that drink keeps ending up in my hand. How sad is that?

Kabukicho

I am indeed rationalizing (as we spell it here in the States). I am engaging in all sorts of classic addict-thinking. "Oh, I need a drink to get through this." "Oh, I can't life without my substances." "Life is inherently terrifying, therefore I need my substances." "My drinking isn't THAT bad...there are many people worse off than me."

These are the lies that we tell ourselves. These are the lies that fuel our condition.

I say that as I drink a glass of Bushmill's at 10:00 AM.

Croissant

Not really. You are a drunk and an addict.

Not complicated. Get sober.

Too hard. OK. You are right, it's too hard. Wait til you hit the imaginary bottom because drinking at 10am, that's not anywhere near bottom, is it?

I bet you can stop.

I know you can.

caboblanco

everything is a trigger it seems and quite frankly it gets annoying when people on this forum are blamed for triggering people to relapse. i had one person say if I don't agree with a certain person that i'm not being responsible to his sobriety. i can't keep track of everybodies triggers and I really think mostly its hogwash.

Kabukicho

Thank you, Croissant, for your cogent and realistic response.

Drinking at 10:00 AM is not normal behavior. Although my life and career may be in top-shape, I am indeed at my rock-bottom.

Let's clean up.

I am going to need SO MUCH support...

Kabukicho

Perhaps this information will prove helpful.

I am a lean, athletic, attractive 26-year-old. I am an American but I work at an advertising agency in Tokyo and, thus, split my time between the U.S. and Japan. I have a beautiful, incredibly hot girlfriend with whom I have sex frequently (when I'm not too drunk to get it up). My life is on the course that i want. I am the master of my own ship. My family has money and I will never have to worry about financial issues.

Yet I suffer from crippling anxiety and depression, which traditional (SSRI) medication has never healed.

Without alcohol and benzos, I live each day in dysphoria and fear.

I want to heal.

DoubleDragons

You are obviously capable, talented and lucky in terms of resources available to you, to do difficult things. Try the difficult, yet rewarding beyond belief, route of sobriety. Give sobriety enough of a "try" that you can do a fair comparison of what your life is like now versus what your life is like sober. (not just white-knuckling dry, but sober in a recovery sense) Give yourself that real opportunity and life truly will be your oyster, not just externally, but more importantly, internally. Work the internal, my friend, and you will be free.

caboblanco

what does being such a self proclaimed hot shot have to do with having addiction or mental health issues?

unless we are talking NPD here

Kabukicho

I am not a hot-shot. I may have NPD, but that is not the main issue.

Good sir, the point is that I am in an immense amount of psychological pain. I am searching for answers. Income has nothing to do with it. Societal circumstances have nothing to do with it. I am an addict looking for a way out of my pain.

Please respond with calm, contemplative words. Don't respond with attacks and insults.

Kabukicho

I come very humbly to this forum to seek advice and comfort. I am as crippled by anxiety / depression / addiction as a double-amputee is crippled by his loss of legs. I am truly, truly ill.