Supposed to b a good day but I'm NOT OK
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2014
Posts: 1,869
Supposed to b a good day but I'm NOT OK
Hello: I am not ok. My hands are sweaty, so sweaty that I'm getting the papers I'm holding wet. My armpits are sweaty too, my mind is racing (monkey brain) and I feel like I could just cry at any moment. I'm trying my best to keep cool but it is getting hard. I have to get through a few more hours of work and then I'll get to go home. I thought... I thought I was "over it", I thought I could compartmentalize but the fact is that I cant. I have to deal with my problems but I am embarrased. I have kept everything a secret and it's burning inside today. I had to deal with a situation yesterday that has really hit hard.
I WILL NOT DRINK! But I have to do SOMETHING to deal with these feelings. I dare to say that this is the hardest day I've had in my sobriety journey. I'm tearing up and I'm at work. KEEP IT TOGETHER!!!
This too shall pass, right?
I WILL NOT DRINK! But I have to do SOMETHING to deal with these feelings. I dare to say that this is the hardest day I've had in my sobriety journey. I'm tearing up and I'm at work. KEEP IT TOGETHER!!!
This too shall pass, right?
Member
Join Date: Jan 2014
Posts: 8,637
boy oh boy have I been there.
It does get better. For me, I learned that what you're going through was / is anxiety. I never realized how filled with anxiety I am / was until I got sober.
It is getting better, but I still get hit with it.
At one point I consulted with a surgeon back in the late 90's about getting an orthoscopic surgery to slice nerve paths that would minimize hand sweating. I was so confused and embarassed about it.
The armpits, the hand sweats.... cold clammy hands.... anxiety and adrenal overload....
Things that have helped;
SOBRIETY - at first it gets worse, but over time it gets better
Counseling - cognitive-behavioral therapy to recognize and retrain the mind and body's response to stress and anxiety
Simply 'noticing' - "Ahh... I am experiencing anxiety. Interesting. There, my hands and pits are sweating again. And I'm self-conscious about that. Which also produces anxiety. It won't always be this way, but it is right now".
Reducing caffeine and detoxing the body / quitting smoking / reducing refined sugars - all of these things elevate the body's natural fight or flight response, crank your adrenaline, elevate cortisol, impair your hormonal balances and generally place you in a heightened state of sympathetic nervous system arousal. Over time, your body is pegged at such a high level of adrenal response, it just goes into overload and normal everyday situations give you essentially a panic attack.
Herbal and dietary supplements can help - adrenal support blends, holy basil, magnesium are some that have worked well for me. Consult your physician before starting any supplement regimen especially if you are on any medication.
As hard as it is, try not to 'fight it"..... "OH I WISH THIS WOULD GO AWAY!". It's ok. You're not a freak, there's nothing wrong with you, your body is actually functioning as DESIGNED.... If you're like me, you've abused and negatively impacted it for a long long time with alcohol, other substances and poor coping skills. It will take time to re-balance but this won't be forever and you will find yourself in a far more comfortable place in your own skin if you just keep focusing on sobriety and self-growth.
It does get better. For me, I learned that what you're going through was / is anxiety. I never realized how filled with anxiety I am / was until I got sober.
It is getting better, but I still get hit with it.
At one point I consulted with a surgeon back in the late 90's about getting an orthoscopic surgery to slice nerve paths that would minimize hand sweating. I was so confused and embarassed about it.
The armpits, the hand sweats.... cold clammy hands.... anxiety and adrenal overload....
Things that have helped;
SOBRIETY - at first it gets worse, but over time it gets better
Counseling - cognitive-behavioral therapy to recognize and retrain the mind and body's response to stress and anxiety
Simply 'noticing' - "Ahh... I am experiencing anxiety. Interesting. There, my hands and pits are sweating again. And I'm self-conscious about that. Which also produces anxiety. It won't always be this way, but it is right now".
Reducing caffeine and detoxing the body / quitting smoking / reducing refined sugars - all of these things elevate the body's natural fight or flight response, crank your adrenaline, elevate cortisol, impair your hormonal balances and generally place you in a heightened state of sympathetic nervous system arousal. Over time, your body is pegged at such a high level of adrenal response, it just goes into overload and normal everyday situations give you essentially a panic attack.
Herbal and dietary supplements can help - adrenal support blends, holy basil, magnesium are some that have worked well for me. Consult your physician before starting any supplement regimen especially if you are on any medication.
As hard as it is, try not to 'fight it"..... "OH I WISH THIS WOULD GO AWAY!". It's ok. You're not a freak, there's nothing wrong with you, your body is actually functioning as DESIGNED.... If you're like me, you've abused and negatively impacted it for a long long time with alcohol, other substances and poor coping skills. It will take time to re-balance but this won't be forever and you will find yourself in a far more comfortable place in your own skin if you just keep focusing on sobriety and self-growth.
Realising my life
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Dorset, England
Posts: 3,656
Stop. Take a deeeeeep breath. You are stronger than your urges and you can do this. 7 months is no mean feat and you've achieved that.
And you've posted here about your cravings. That, right there, is the action of a winner!
This too will most definitely pass, my friend xxx
And you've posted here about your cravings. That, right there, is the action of a winner!
This too will most definitely pass, my friend xxx
Living Sober
Join Date: Oct 2014
Posts: 555
Nowsthetime, although things seem to really suck at the moment, I think you'll find the fight is well worth it. I know I did. You'll feel strong as you move forward. You'll look back and maybe give yourself a pat on the back for not folding when things seemed so daunting.
You have the forethought to tell yourself "I WILL NOT DRINK!" That alone deserves a pat.
Hang in there and remember your forethought.
You have the forethought to tell yourself "I WILL NOT DRINK!" That alone deserves a pat.
Hang in there and remember your forethought.
EndGame
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: New York, NY
Posts: 4,677
For now, slow yourself down. Take a break if you can. Then try a paradoxical intention. Force yourself to perspire, to shake, to have your mind race. And give yourself some time to do all this. It might sound crazy, but fighting so hard to disregard or minimize these symptoms often makes things worse.
Right now, you're under attack. By attempting to force these behaviors, you can effectively take better control of them.
Right now, you're under attack. By attempting to force these behaviors, you can effectively take better control of them.
Do your best
Join Date: Aug 2014
Posts: 67,047
7 months is awesome sorry something has happened to make you feel like this hopefully this will help
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...-recovery.html
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...-recovery.html
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2014
Posts: 1,869
Thank SW and Dee for that list. I feel better now. Weird how there can be such internal turmoil. It's tough. Never realized this until now. I'm homecaring for my kid and that is the thing that makes me feel the most present. AV made me salivate though... There are some Guinness in my fridge. Saw them and salivated... Not drinking.
Thanks everyone for all the feedback. I really appreciate and listen to all your input.
Thanks everyone for all the feedback. I really appreciate and listen to all your input.
Member
Join Date: Jul 2010
Posts: 10,912
Hi Now,
I experienced intense anxiety and numerous panic attacks in the past. The way I learned to manage it best was to not resist and/or get mad at myself and my brain/body for generating these states. Just let it happen and observe, let it be, and let it go. Not freak out, while the symptoms can be definitely everywhere from unpleasant to terrifying, but know they cannot really harm me and are not truly dangerous. To make myself believe the latter, I saw doctors several times with anxiety and panic symptoms, being unsure they were really just anxiety and not something more serious. It always helped me calm myself to visit a doctor and eventually I did not have that intense fear and worry anymore. Like with addiction, I find it's best to face anxiety head on. I also do the mental games when I consciously restructure my thoughts and change how I react to my thoughts emotionally. A bit like CBT, but I do it by myself (I learned it from a psychologist friend though a long time ago). I learned this many years ago and now it's so automatic I don't even notice. Very helpful. I have not had the full blown panic attacks I used to have in the past, for several years now. And like everyone says, quitting drinking made all of it immeasurably better!
I experienced intense anxiety and numerous panic attacks in the past. The way I learned to manage it best was to not resist and/or get mad at myself and my brain/body for generating these states. Just let it happen and observe, let it be, and let it go. Not freak out, while the symptoms can be definitely everywhere from unpleasant to terrifying, but know they cannot really harm me and are not truly dangerous. To make myself believe the latter, I saw doctors several times with anxiety and panic symptoms, being unsure they were really just anxiety and not something more serious. It always helped me calm myself to visit a doctor and eventually I did not have that intense fear and worry anymore. Like with addiction, I find it's best to face anxiety head on. I also do the mental games when I consciously restructure my thoughts and change how I react to my thoughts emotionally. A bit like CBT, but I do it by myself (I learned it from a psychologist friend though a long time ago). I learned this many years ago and now it's so automatic I don't even notice. Very helpful. I have not had the full blown panic attacks I used to have in the past, for several years now. And like everyone says, quitting drinking made all of it immeasurably better!
EndGame
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: New York, NY
Posts: 4,677
Originally Posted by EndGameNYC 
For now, slow yourself down. Take a break if you can. Then try a paradoxical intention. Force yourself to perspire, to shake, to have your mind race. And give yourself some time to do all this. It might sound crazy, but fighting so hard to disregard or minimize these symptoms often makes things worse.
Right now, you're under attack. By attempting to force these behaviors, you can effectively take better control of them.
Right now, you're under attack. By attempting to force these behaviors, you can effectively take better control of them.
Viktor Frankl, neurologist, psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor, talks about this technique in his book, Man's Search for Meaning, in which he describes in beautiful and heart wrenching (to me) fashion how meaning can be derived from human suffering. One of his better known quotes, and apropos to SR, is "When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves." Frankl was not the first and is far from the only clinician who's devised and utilized this approach, but he is among the more noteworthy who have done so.
Many years ago I worked with a patient in his forties who despised his dead-end job as a salesman in an electronics store, but who could also not bring himself to find a more suitable job. He had virtually no social life, and had experienced repetitive failure when it came to dating and romance. He was extremely worrisome and chronically depressed. At night, he usually woke up after only a couple of hours of sleep or more and then proceeded to ruminate about all his perceived failings in life, most often around his day-to-day drudgery. His particular kind of insomnia only made his daily suffering worse, and he often struggled just to keep his eyes open at work.
After a few sessions, I came to learn more clearly about his self-loathing. He told me that he typically went to bed between eleven and midnight, that he usually woke up between two and three hours afterwards, and then spent the rest of the night tossing and turning as his ruminations took control of his thinking and made falling asleep futile.
I recommended that he set his alarm for 2:00 AM, and then allot between twenty and thirty minutes afterwards for going through the deadening and often subjectively painful events of the day. He was then to go right back to bed, reminding himself that he would again awaken at 2:00 AM the following night to do the same.
When I finished, he looked at me as though I were crazy, and I told him as much. "I'm already having trouble getting back to sleep! How can waking myself up help?!" I explained that, after all, his sleeping patterns had developed over decades of his life, and that there was no obvious loss involved in him consciously interrupting his sleep. I made no promises about his sleep, and left it at that.
This technique did not immediately take but, with time, he was eventually able to fall back to sleep following his nightly ritual -- ultimately and at some point entirely -- discarding his brief nightly meetings with himself. Doing what I suggested was hard work for him, as I imagine it would be for everyone in his situation. And I always commended him for following through, despite the outcome. What I had in mind was that, if at the beginning of our work he were to learn that he has much more power over his life, his worrying, his inability to act on his own behalf, that this would be a great foundation on which to tackle what he and I agreed were larger though less obviously pressing issues, such as his powerful sense of helplessness.
I think that, much like dreams, worrying is experienced as something that's happening to us, rather than something we ourselves are creating. To acknowledge that worrying is something that we're doing is the first step towards reframing our worrying and ultimately taking control over it.
Member
Join Date: Jul 2010
Posts: 10,912
I like this!^^
To express it a bit differently, I think the way it probably works, at least in part, is the classic mechanism of breaking a habit or pattern we do not choose and have no control over (his nightly waking and ruminating), and replacing it with a voluntary activity. This is exactly also how I think the "mental games" I mentioned above, work. I first had to learn to recognize a pattern in my anxiety, and how my thoughts and overthinking led to excessive worrying and imagining disasters. Many of it was pretty strong habitual mental activity that just "happened" or at least I thought so. Then learn to consciously influence it and change my reactions. With a lot of practice and repetitions, it had become a new habit and now automatic and unconscious even so I no longer experience "doing" it but that it "happens", in this case it's a positive and constructive reaction to anxiety. I think a common misbelief and mistake is that we get scared of anxiety and its symptoms and the automatic reaction is that we try to dissociate or ignore it. Which does not help, or it can make it worse. Instead, it can be learned to respond to it differently, and with time and practice, this rewires our brains for the long haul and also feeds back on the biological mechanisms that generate the anxiety in the first place. I feel it's a bit similar to what happens with cravings after quitting drinking or drugs. We learn not to respond to the cravings by feeding them, we learn how to react to them differently. And with time, they dissipate because the cycle receives no reinforcement.
To express it a bit differently, I think the way it probably works, at least in part, is the classic mechanism of breaking a habit or pattern we do not choose and have no control over (his nightly waking and ruminating), and replacing it with a voluntary activity. This is exactly also how I think the "mental games" I mentioned above, work. I first had to learn to recognize a pattern in my anxiety, and how my thoughts and overthinking led to excessive worrying and imagining disasters. Many of it was pretty strong habitual mental activity that just "happened" or at least I thought so. Then learn to consciously influence it and change my reactions. With a lot of practice and repetitions, it had become a new habit and now automatic and unconscious even so I no longer experience "doing" it but that it "happens", in this case it's a positive and constructive reaction to anxiety. I think a common misbelief and mistake is that we get scared of anxiety and its symptoms and the automatic reaction is that we try to dissociate or ignore it. Which does not help, or it can make it worse. Instead, it can be learned to respond to it differently, and with time and practice, this rewires our brains for the long haul and also feeds back on the biological mechanisms that generate the anxiety in the first place. I feel it's a bit similar to what happens with cravings after quitting drinking or drugs. We learn not to respond to the cravings by feeding them, we learn how to react to them differently. And with time, they dissipate because the cycle receives no reinforcement.
Member
Join Date: Mar 2014
Posts: 25,373
I definitely see anxiety/worry/depression as habits that are changeable.
I first learned this with a simple flashcard exercise.
1. Worry/anxious thoughts occur. Write them down briefly.
Look at them for two or three minutes.
2. Flip the paper over. Now look at a beautiful picture (already printed) on the back. Do that for two or three minutes.
It really was as simple as changing my thoughts. I just hadn't realized that I was creating the worry by allowing the endless rumination.
Another technique was to give myself 10 minutes a day to worry about my problem of the day, if it was something big. It was the same 10 minutes every day - it was scheduled. I would go to my computer and journal all the negative emotions and thoughts. When the timer went off, I put it away. All throughout the day, if the thoughts would come, I would defer them to my worry session. After a while, I didn't need the worry session. I said all there was to say and I was able to find a solution or drop it entirely.
I first learned this with a simple flashcard exercise.
1. Worry/anxious thoughts occur. Write them down briefly.
Look at them for two or three minutes.
2. Flip the paper over. Now look at a beautiful picture (already printed) on the back. Do that for two or three minutes.
It really was as simple as changing my thoughts. I just hadn't realized that I was creating the worry by allowing the endless rumination.
Another technique was to give myself 10 minutes a day to worry about my problem of the day, if it was something big. It was the same 10 minutes every day - it was scheduled. I would go to my computer and journal all the negative emotions and thoughts. When the timer went off, I put it away. All throughout the day, if the thoughts would come, I would defer them to my worry session. After a while, I didn't need the worry session. I said all there was to say and I was able to find a solution or drop it entirely.
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