Skotyb

This post and comments have been going around and around in my head since you posted it! There was even a time this morning when I woke up and could not get back to sleep and you popped in my head again and I was so frustrated with your responses and lack of understanding about all these people taking time out of their day to help a practical stranger understand that what he wrote in his OP was outrageous especially to a bunch of people living each minute on the edge of being sober or drunk!! If you can be honest with yourself and understand we all just want to help... Please come back after a stint of being clean ... I'm staring day 9 down ... Maybe a week will be enough and re-read the first half of your OP and honestly think to yourself how it makes you feel!!

One person says above that non of us really know if your throwing it out there carelessly or if it's a cry for help or if your rubbing how good the rest of your life is but this friend that has been waiting for you.. Makes you all warm and fuzzy!!!

And to top that there's a couple people that had to re-evaluate their sobriety cause one so called innocent "honest" post made us question our sobriety this early in the game !! Yet you reaction to this post is the most puzzling for me!! People are questioning there sobriety from reading your words... No that's all not on you!!!!, but can you get it!!! Can you understand !!!

You wrote" SR is great and has helped more than I can say, but some personal support would be nice. " personal support doesn't have to come with tangible experiences!!
Most people have access to Internet and/or a smartphone... You are seconds away from all these people on this site on any number of genres!! If you really aren't trolling us right now and can't see the love through the 80+ comments on this thread, than this friend you were so happy/ content to have back in your life, has really got you by the whatzits!! And you need these people and the personal support more than your clouded judgment can comprehend!!

One post said something about this thread turning into a group mentality and it might not be helping anyone. I would like to disagree whole heartedly!! If I ever come on to an addiction/recovery site and glorify my lost friend, I hope the whole gang comes down and boots my door in and fills me with the love and support and advice you 2much have been givin . It's been one day 80+ Comments , support,advice and you still can't see the forest for the trees!!

I will also bookmark these wonderful posts so as if I ever think about inviting mr jack or Jose over I have a plan !!

You don't owe any of us anything we are all here for the same purpose...If you do one thing when you get sober , please read this thread again from start to finish and comment about how you really really really feel!!

Take care
2muchpain
To thine own self be true !!

2muchpain

Oh how I wish that was true. I've been to a lot of meetings and although the people are nice, they are not friendly. A few sober friends would be nice;

eaglesa1a

2much, I am wise enough (not on many things) to tell you this much. Any body who says your original post makes them want to drink, is just looking for an excuse anyway. Don't get discouraged. If YOU are at the place you need to be,the blessings will surely follow.Think of all the negative comments as if we are talking to ourselves.

Dee74

I'm not sure you're really qualified to make that blanket assessment, eagle.

Let's steer away from a discussion about the responses and back to directing our posts to the OP.

Thanks,

D

azbluesgal

well you can also go to "meeting" where people are NOT nice. past experiences with "meetings" (oh 20 years ago when I was required to attend) were mostly warm and fuzzy - but beware of predators and creeps. It's hard to notice when you are detoxing yourself for the last time, but finally the moment of clarity appears. just because someone has been "sober" for two decades or so does not mean they have necessarily become better people. Some are just mean old crabby dry drunks.

Mountainmanbob

not sure if I wish to comment on the above or not
the two just don't seem to go together

I have noticed that after AA meetings
there will be small groups getting together and talking outside
my m-f home group usually has two or three of these
after the meeting meetings going on
if anyone walks up to one of these and mentions
I'm having a hard time getting sober and meeting ones in AA
I'm sure that some would be willing to lend a helping hand

getting a Sponsor in AA is a great idea
there are many there who love sponsoring

MM

yeahgr8

This is an entertaining thread indeed.

I along with say a third of AA members don't mind if you talk about drinking, won't judge you for drinking and have a solution to your problem. But you're not desperate enough to go to AA so fair enough.

Most members here are scared of taking another drink so you mentioning actively drinking now and doing so will never go down well. If you post about going to the gum and how you are going to exercise yourself into sobriety you will get support though, sometimes might be misguided support but like I implied as long as you aren't drinking.

You sound like me in my late twenties so what can you do?

You could keep going as you have always done and believe that magically one day it will all be ok. You could get a Counselor? You could go to the docs and be honest? You could go to rehab? You could go to whatever offshoot of AA you want to (I'm not listing them they sound mad)?

I did Antabuse also and all sorts of weird get sober quick stuff along the way.

Maybe see you in a meeting in the future, if you want to avoid a decade of misery...or maybe not:-)

jaynie04

Stockholm Syndrome:

A psychological phenomenon in which victims express sympathy and have positive feelings towards their captors. These feelings are irrational based on the danger and risk endured by the victims who mistake occasional lack of abuse for kindness.

2much…this is what your OP feels like to me. Alcoholism isn't about our gestures, it's about our thoughts.

You can't split your life into two…all the good stuff and then alcohol. If you could all of us wouldn't be here. It is an either/or situation. You have to choose and the longer you are defending your captor the longer you will remain a prisoner.

RobbyRobot

I relate, but not in the way you have expressed your relationship. You post in this thread as being very much on the love side of your friendship with alcohol. Clearly, you are being fooled by your own biased intoxication.

You seriously need to revisit your appreciation of what being honest with ourselves means while being in active addiction. Your alcoholic mind-set is doing all the thinking here. Your being owned.

The love-hate relationship was never fun n games for me. Alcohol was my friend too early on, but when hate came into the relationship, it never left again. My hatred for alcohol for being drunk really helped me quit and stay sober. There was never just love again after hate came to visit.

You seem to think you can choose between loving or hating alcohol? That choice is a mirage that has you seemingly loving alcohol as your justification to be drunk. Like other times drunk, you'll soon enough be hating it same old same old.

Sure, we can relate. On drinking though, I hope you don't believe your personal justifications mean anything to anybody else. They are yours to be responsible for and yours alone. You wanted to drink, and so you drank. This is not rocket science, goes without saying really. You could have gotten over that want and stayed sober. You didn't, and blaming the circumstances of your life, and personal issues with friendships with others, and all that will only help to keep you drunk. What you have called a bump in the road of a guy with a good life is wishful thinking when drunk. Its drunk talk is all.

I hope you can sober up and make the needed changes in your lifestyle to have a real life sans alcohol, 2muchpain. YOU can do this. Alcohol is no friend of yours anymore...

Skotyb

I've only been here a week, but this sure is amazing!! I wish I found it years years ago
I guess when the student is ready.. Right

It just seems to me 2muchpain that you are trolling all these peoples comments picking and choosing which ones and the parts you can try to defend or quick hit the thread with!! Your mind is just soooo closed to the big picture here!!

I'm not experienced enough in this subject ( getting sober)to keep going!!
I don't know what else could possibly be said to you to get you to open up to the fact that people here just want to see you succeed!!!
I understand the AV and the cloudy mind, I really do this is the first time I've been 8 days without in 8 or so years.

My wish for you is that one day soon something clicks inside you, before it's too late and you realize the all of this attention this post is getting is to help YOU!!

Good luck man

Mountainmanbob

a lot of good options listed there

I have seen all of those be successful in some when used

MM

Aellyce

Good post, Jaynie.

I have a similar point, 2much, which will probably sound like a banality because we read the idea that in recovery we need to change just about everything in our life and attitude, for it to be truly successful. We can read this all over on SR in many threads, especially from people with longer term sobriety - because it is true, I think. This is probably what you have not attempted at all, 2much.

We need to unlearn old habits and coping methods, develop new positive routines, and also remodel our thought patterns and how we react to events and even simple seemingly non-significant details of everyday life emotionally. This is hard in the beginning, because we are venturing into completely new realms that feel strange, sometimes lonely, just unknown. Inevitably, it creates a lot of anxiety initially, and we need to cope with that in constructive ways, too. Then, we need to work on maintaining the new regime so that it can reach a state when it becomes familiar, the new healthy patterns become our "best friend". Then it sticks much easier because it becomes our well known, familiar reality (inside out).

This is absolutely possible, as many members on this board demonstrate it by their example, but only through hard work, lots of work, long term.

2much, I think you keep going back to alcohol even before you pick it up, because you know well how the alcoholic lifestyle works. You don't know how a sober lifestyle works yet, and probably who you are as a sober person. But that can only be experienced after putting down the drink, not in between binges in only a few days or weeks.

I struggle myself with falling back into old thinking patterns quite regularly that could lead to a relapse if I let it progress that way... They are very stubborn for sure. But this is where support and external help can be of utmost importance. Being mindful of our own thoughts and feelings as well.

I have followed your posts for a while, and one thing out of the many that strikes me is that you somehow can not see that people genuinely are moving towards you with the intention of being compassionate and helpful. You have repeatedly expressed your disappointment in others and said that you would want friends... but how is it possible to make friends if you don't let anyone close? It seems like you have lots of unconscious walls around you and while you keep coming back to support groups, they don't truly work the way they could (and do for others!), because you do now allow it to happen.

I was very much like that in the past. Unfortunately the only the only thing that could change it was a pretty serious break down into a major depressive episode, and I did not seek help for that either, did not stop drinking, so it progressed into a state where I was unable (and uninterested) to perform even some of the simplest daily maintenance activities, let alone the complex tasks that were expected of me. Textbook for depression. Only then, when I had no choice, was I able to let others come to me and help move forward - that's when I learned the power of support. Still would not seek professional help or stop drinking. And I am in a psychiatry related profession. How ***ed up is that?

We really don't need to go through all that, but need to change our resistance. We should stop "defending our captor" as Jayne said, stop defending our prison walls also. Only then can real change be initiated.

dSober

Right! That's certainly been my experience.

dSober

Your best friend missed you too. He wants you DEAD and wants to be right there to watch you die.

He or she will never stop trying until you treat him as you must: Your worst enemy... next to yourself.

LadyBlue0527

Well 2muchpain it seems that you figured out how to get the number of responses and attention that you were looking for that will make up for your "sorry to bother you" thread. You nailed it here, perfect subject line and perfect post.

I don't deny you that, if it's attention that you need I think this thread proves that people do care. People are more than willing to reach out to help.

What's bothersome is now that you have those responses you seem unwilling to listen to them and to be honest with yourself. You come back with such a callous attitude.

Sorry, just telling it how I see it. Still care about the fact that you're drinking but unsure about your commitment to sobriety as opposed to being satisfied that people are responding.

So what is it that you seek? Support in your endeavor to remain sober or just the attention?

Verte

2muchpain -

This post is more for me than it is for you:

I'm a grown woman with 12Days of committed sobriety to my name. Last night I cried like a baby, went through a string of emotions, my heart ached and I could not fall asleep.

But it is not your picture hanging above my (spit-shined) toilet at which I throw darts.

Crying out loud, feeling like I'm howling at the moon - so painful at times. There is a whole lot in life that I do not like or need, especially right now. Your original post is but one of these things.

However, today I woke up more committed and with stronger resolve to maintain sobriety one day at a time. Staying away from seemingly determined happy drunks (anywhere) has now been placed on my list of things to avoid at all costs - until I have more resources to handle the wells of pain inspired by that lifestyle, that is. This bleep will pass. It will not always feel like this - a few things I have taken to heart from those who have been there, the majority, on SR. Still I do not know you and you do not know me.

My heart aches a little less today. One day at a time. This is what I hope for anyone struggling to do what they must in order to remain sober.

Totally worth it. Even with all the expletives bouncing around in my head. Totally worth it and I take great comfort in knowing that I have like-minded friends here on SR with whom I can laugh and cry. Both a gift and a privilege.

Skotyb - I'm going to keep this thread in my 'toolbox' as well for times when I need it. Good idea!

Mountainmanbob

in the above quote an excellent comment made
and
the greatest of questions asked

if nothing else
this thread causes me to be very grateful that I'm sober today
instead of the old days in which I cried out loud
poor me poor me poor me another beer
knowing that it never worked (not for long anyway)
proven by many failed attempts that I could not drink like a gentleman

MM

Eddiebuckle

Willingness, honesty and open mindedness are the essentials of recovery. But these are indispensable

The risk is that you won't hear what you expect or want. This is why alcoholics have such a hard time recovering without outside help - we can't see through the lies we tell ourselves. I sincerely hope you find what you are looking for but I guarantee you won't find it in a bottle.

Amazingglazier

Sorry you picked up again 2 Much, you say you are glad to be back with your old friend and the posters on here are negative! You need to see that your OP was not a bit helpful to other newbies here and very possibly could make them also think alcohol was their friend too! Remember 2 Much, you have to be a friend to have them. You were doing so well and I told you in PM's , and I also told you to PM me anytime you felt lonely or felt the cravings. I even told you i'd buy you your 6-pack(of soda), you didn't reach out for anything but alcohol. You need to dump it again and start over , it's hard but if you choose survival, you must first choose to give up that particular friend! Stay Strong and Well ! Bobby

gardendiva

You want honesty? For 30 years I put myself, my children, and countless innocent others at risk of losing their lives with my choice to drink. I drove drunk, blacked out, fell down, passed out and puked in front of my children. My choices were selfish, despicable and heinous. If I posted this here, I doubt one person would use such harsh language against me, or try to shame or gullt me in any way.

However, if I posted that I had decided to drink again, with all of the aforementioned risks that this choice entails, I hope like hell that everyone would tell me whatever they thought needed to be said to keep me from making that choice. Tough love? Bring it. Hell, if you think cruelty is the only thing that would keep me from drinking again...bring it.

There is nothing anyone here could say to me that would hurt me more than the choice to drink again would.