icelandic

Hello i am feeling completly hopeless
i am going to detox after 1-2 weeks to get of benzo klonopin
also get help with my alcholism after this detox
wich is extremly difficault i will go to a very good rehab center in the countryside
but i feel so hopless and helpless most of the time thinking that
i cant get of the klonopin,have someone of you felt so hopeless and with low self estem before going to rehab?
Thank you

Dee74

I never went to detox or rehab but I have had times when I felt completely hopeless for sure Icelandic.

You;'ll find a lot of support and encouragement here - welcome!

D

Try18

I know how it feels to be in that place of hopelessness, Icelandic. It is bleak and frightening.

However, you are taking a massive step going into rehab - well done! It is great you are getting help. Take all the support you can get and most of all believe you can and will do this!

Take it a day at a time, and before you know it the world will get brighter. This is the beginning of your recovery. So keep swimming, keep your head above the water. Much better days are not too far away

MidnightBlue

Hi, Icelandic.

Welcome to SR.

I haven't been to rehab, but I surely know a lot about feeling completely, absolutely, and devastatingly hopeless. And helpless.

You are taking the first step in the right direction - I think it's the beginning of a new hope. Take one step at a time, one day at a time, trust your step, don't look far ahead - and new hope will build up eventually.

Best wishes to you.

Keep posting)

Eddiebuckle

Icelandic, it took a whole lot of hopeless for me to finally do what it took to get sober. Some say that if you ever forget your last drunk, chances are good it hasn't happened yet. That might sound strange for people whose focus is sobriety, but although I haven't had a drink in four and a half years, I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that I am still as much an alcoholic as the day I went into rehab. That knowledge prompts me to work my program almost every day, and I believe that is a major reason that I am sober today.

Things are hopeless only when you refuse to make an effort to change. Good luck!

Grok

Hi Icelandic, yes I felt utterly hopeless on Tuesday of this week having been drinking for years. On tuesday I new something had to change, joined this community and read page after page of posts. Its the realisation that so many people struggle with this alcohol problem and so many of our stories are the same, or at least have the same core issue booze, it means that you are not alone. Today Friday will be my 4th clean day. Well done for coming here and doing detox. You have probably already taken the biggest and hardest step, deciding to do something about your problem.

Good Luck

DisplacedGRITS

I felt hopeless a lot. Even when i decided to go to detox, i felt hopeless. I think a big part of the problem was that i lived in the past and the future. The only living i did in the present was so focused on drinking and doing what i had to do to continue to drink.

I lived in the past a lot. I remember thinking i wish i could go back to being 8 again. 8 year old me had never tasted alcohol. It wasn't even part of my vocabulary. I scolded my mom for drinking a coke when driving because you shouldn't drink and drive. What an idyllic life. Except it wasn't. I fought with my sister constantly. I wasn't a happy child a lot of times. I had problems connecting to other kids. I lived on a military base in Germany so friends came and went. No sense getting to know someone if they're not going to be around. I used people and wasn't really interested in them. They just had to like me. That's all that mattered. And yet, i forget that and pretend that it was a perfect life because i wasn't drinking.

I lamented my past. I mourned the years i lost drinking. I replayed all of my mistakes over and over, hating myself for all of my faults. I hated myself. I hated what i was and who i had become. That was how i lived in my present. I let the fears and faults and angers of my past leak into my present and color everything a muddy grey.

I lived in my future. I didn't make too many grand plans, as i had let myself down so many times. No one wanted to hear my ******** promises anymore, including myself. I worried about my future. I worried about vacations to visit my family. How could i reign it in so they didn't really know? How was i going to get through the weekend? Could i get it together enough to go on a booze run to get a stash to last me to Monday? I couldn't really see my future past the next few days. You know when you fill out some BS application and they want to know where you see yourself in the next 5 years? I couldn't answer that. I couldn't see where i'd be in the next 5 weeks. Sober? Unlikely. Dead? Well, i guess that's possible. Drunk? I guess. Is it where i want to be? I don't know. No? Yes? What am i supposed to say? I just didn't know.

I felt helpless and hopeless, even when i checked myself into detox. To be honest, my primary feelings at that moment was desperation and shame. I don't know why i decided to be medically detoxed. I guess i'd been through one too many at home detoxes and i couldn't stand the idea of going through that at home. I got medically detoxed then had some time between my release and starting rehab. So, of course, i drank. My hopelessness was a constant companion.

I'd like to say that detox cured me but it didn't. It got me sober the first time around and i stayed that way for a few months. I didn't get any help after i was discharged so i eventually relapsed and spent several more months drunk. I went to rehab again. I didn't even make it through Intensive Outpatient treatment sober. I showed up drunk one morning and was kicked out. I was screwed. I paid these people and they wouldn't even deal with me anymore. So i finally turned to the one group i had left. I went to AA.

By "went to AA" i mean that i sat in the parking lot of a place called Unity Club. I checked into Foursquare so there was evidence that i had been there, sat in my car for about 50 minutes then drove off before the meeting let out. I did this the next day as well, telling my husband that i'd gone. By the third day, i realized that i couldn't keep up this charade so i went in. I...felt okay there. I was very different from the people there. I was a 30 year old woman who wore Dr Who and internet meme t-shirts. I felt very odd at first but then i started listening. They had the same fears i had. They had the same wild relationship with alcohol i had. They thought much like i thought. But they were sober. They were happy, despite their hardships. They laughed at some really tragic stuff and terrible thoughts. They were...happy? Yes, happy. They hugged me, despite the fact that we ran in totally different lifestyle circles.

They showed me kindness and they shared their experience, strength and hope. They shared their hope with me and for the first time, my hopelessness was eased. I borrowed their hope until i could develop hope of my own. Now, i want to share my hope with you. I wish i could say that "and i never drank again" but that's not my story. I've gone back out a couple of times but i came back to where my hope lives. When i went out, i found that when i went back to AA, they had saved my hope there. I just had to go pick it up again. I'm 81 days sober again. I believe that i'll keep it this time. I was a hopeless alcoholic. I drank round the clock, pissed myself more times than i care to admit, hid empties around the house like a drunk squirrel and let my existence revolve around procuring, drinking, hiding and withdrawing from alcohol. It was my master and i was a slave in my own life.

I'm a genuinely happy person now. I have my ups and downs but i don't see alcohol as an answer anymore. I have true friends now and a relationship with my husband like one i never thought i could have. My life is far from perfect but i go to bed every night, happy with the person that i am. I go through entire days without lying or hiding, which is huge for me. I wake up and look forward to my day instead of dreading it and/or disappointed about my previous evening. Sobriety and having a sober community that loves me and shares with me is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. It's given me so much and lets me have the opportunity to give back.

I think we all have experience with hopelessness. Just know that you don't have to feel this way ever again. If i can live a sober life, anyone can.

LBrain

more than once

Tang

Yes even in sobriety I have days where I feel hopeless and alone. This I believe is part of the human condition on earth. However, they are fewer of these sober then while a slave to alcohol.

KAD

I've lived with that feeling, Icelandic. The only time it ever subsided was during brief periods when alcohol actually lived up to my expectations and I felt the buzz. I'd say that was about 5% of the time. The rest was filled with feeling out of control, helpless, and hopeless. Add to that frightened, ashamed, guilty, useless, embarrassed, sorry... I think once you get through detox and rehab, you will feel a lot better about things. Be patient with it and with yourself. You won't always feel golden - who ever does? - but you won't have the specter of an active addiction hanging over your head anymore. That will be a huge load off your shoulders. Wishing you all the best.

leviathan

yes. hopeless. when i went to rehab, "i was thinking what the hell? cant get much worse. might as well give this a try."

i now realize that until dried out, my perceptions were not to be trusted. they just dont make much sense when skewed by intoxication or withdrawl.

benzo withdrawl can bring about a state that can only be described as walking hell. i would rather have no emotions, like a vulcan, than feel like that again.

what youre feeling is actually NORMAL. a doctor is involved in your weaning off the med, right? benzos and alchohol have cross tolerance, and your physician needs to know exact amounts that you are taking and drinking. this can be dangerous.

every minute that passes is a minute closer to you being able to smile, and see some hope.

i cant wait for you to get over this hump! you are a hero for fighting!

soberlicious

Hi Icelandic
Yes. I was so hopeless I could see no other way but to end my life. I did not know at the time that it was the benzo/alcohol combo that brought me to my knees and caused me to act on my plan to suicide. I thought that dark, indescribable blackness of pain and hopelessness was just me and it would never be any different.

That was over 7 years ago. While life has brought great pain and troubled times, it's not even been close to that blackness I felt then.

I'm so glad you're going to detox to get off the klonopin. It was once my true love, along with alcohol, but it was actually killing me. Literally.

You have a bit of a row to hoe here ahead of you, but you can do this. I'm here to tell you it can be different. You can and will leave the crippling despair behind.

FreeOwl

Hopelessness... Generalized Total Despair..... Fear and Loathing.... Sense Of Doom....

I've definitely been there.

It's markedly less in sobriety!!

Hang in there, it will get better.

Aellyce

Yes, for me the worst of it was about 5-6 years ago when I was utterly stuck with most things in my life. I was living in an environment absolutely unsuitable for me, did not like the job I had, and was in a very difficult relationship. My drinking also escalated during that time. I was suicidal on a daily basis but instead of getting help or doing something positive about it, I kept diving into the darkness more and more and more. I felt somewhat hopeful for a while that eventually things would work out, but in the end I got to accept they would not, not in that situation. So in the end, there were only two options left in my mind: either I take my life, or escape from the entire situation. I chose the escape (literally, relocating) and things started to get better but for a few more years it still did not work well because I did not stop drinking. Let alone "relapsing" into my old relationship many times.

Now finally I'm working on truly fixing the mess. It's been a gradual process for me over the past, I would say, 2 years. Drinking was only one component of the complex, and for me it wasn't the one I addressed first. But of course it's never very effective that way, so it's best to tackle the substance addiction first.

And it does get better! Don't give up!

least

Yes, I felt hopeless for quite some time, but now that I'm sober I don't have that feeling anymore.