FreeOwl

Over the course of your life, in what ways have you honestly looked back and seen alcohol impacted your relationships. Friends, family, lovers, colleagues?

When I dug in and did an honest and thorough Step One.... this was one of the questions given to me in the work by my sponsor.

I'll share mine.... but wondered about others out here.

If you've got some sober time under your belt a time or two - what have you learned after getting honest and looking at this question?

If you're a newcomer - pull up a chair and follow along, maybe even jump in with a raw and real look back on your own life..... in the Magic Rearview Mirror of Honesty.

LBrain

I had time to reflect during my time in rehab. It was enough to convince me I was done for good. Even though I had already made the decision to quit, looking back over the years reinforced that decision. I did an honest self-assessment. No need to share it.

PurpleKnight

The biggest realisation I had was that alcohol put a limit on my potential as a human being, I used to see myself as "functioning" but I was merely putting a ceiling on what I could achieve, on how life could be, on what I could create with the life I had been given.

When it came to people, they took a backseat to alcohol, where was my next drink coming from? when could I get get home to have a drink? is this person still talking? why is this person wasting my time when I could be home drinking? the obsession of alcohol dominated my life, my time, my interactions with people, the extent I never even realised until I looked back in hindsight, every decision I made, every choice I made to interact with people, which social events to attend, what family gatherings to participate in, was all blurred by the desire to fuel my drinking.

Some say alcohol makes people more sociable, but for me the party was on my sofa every night in front of the TV, and no one else was invited, it was a party with one ticket, and so I isolated myself away from others, I used to get resentful when others would take up my time, instead I wanted to be home alone with a bottle!!

To say alcohol wasn't destructive when it came to other people would be an understatement!!

Lusher

Hey FreeOwl-

I can say that I'm not aware of anything positive coming from alcohol, in respect to my relationships. I use to fight for the sake of fighting it seemed. Nothing violent, but just verbale, sometimes nasty, stuff that I usually regretted once the booze left my brain. I also know that when I dated a fellow 'alkie,' then that would go both ways.


Lusher

MIRecovery

Alcohol damaged everything it touched. I know I can't live in the past but it tares my heart out thinking of the wasted drunk days I could have spent with my daughter. She is dead and all I can do is cry

FreeOwl

I'm so sorry, MI....

Fly N Buy

Nice thread Free.....

I heard a speaker talk about the ripples in a pond and identified strongly with this.
If my life is a pond, and I think alcohol will only affect this one little drunk corner of it I am sadly mistaken.

The ripples that 10-20-30 years of throwing toxic waste in this pond are truly immeasurable. All people, places and things I come in contact with are affected until there comes a tsunami which over flows the pond.

Of course this is no ones intent. We are not bad people, just do bad things sentiment.
But, ( hope ) when I stop and start throwing sober things in my pond - working a program, staying sober, doing the next right thing, caring again - regenerating body, mind and spirit something else happens.

The pond may still have dirty water in it, but it's clearing - by grace, I get an opportunity to move forward and filter the dirty water......

Look forward to other friends comments.....
FlyN

MIRecovery

Thanks. So am I. I just wish people who are struggling could realize what a gift life is and what a waste being half there for the important things are.

Dee74

Ultimately, I've made my peace with my past and the wreckage within.

Thats not to say I don't have regrets - I deeply regret the pain I caused others, but I believe I've done all I can to make amends for that.

But getting back to peace - right now today I figure everything I did or went through bought me to here. Here is good.

I fashioned something good durable and worthwhile out of that madness

D

Soberwolf

In a 5 year period my drinking affected everyone around me

I had to be ready for ppl not to forgive and it took time but i have reconnected with my family my gf my next door neighbour

It took time and that meant staying sober finding the small joys in life

i remember my neighbour berating me after 90 days about the fire i stood there and took it she was right she finished shouting at me with its good to see you sober (it was getting noticed)

i still get blanked by some but they dont know me so i dont mind

my neice loves me !! she is going to do great things in this world she is a trainee teacher 2nd year of uni shes driving and she wants to know me lol all because im sober......i had to prove it eventually she was used to me constantly sober that was amazing

my other neice is 4 and im danny dog to her and my gf is candy cat lol

it takes time but im constantly trying to do whats right since getting sober and No 1 on that list is always no matter what i am sober i dont drink im cool with it i accept it

i dont miss something that nearly killed me i love being me again

heartcore

My loss was in the people I didn't choose to have as part of my life (and who didn't choose me), those that my drinking and drugging and smoking cigs would have automatically excluded me from.

Now that I am sober and don't use and don't smoke, I sure wouldn't choose someone who did to have a love relationship with...I have friends that smoke cigs, but I'm not close with folks who drink to excess or use drugs. I'm sure many, many folks made that choice about me (and I would have never known it, because they simply wouldn't have been part of my world...).

So, although I like to think that alcohol didn't impact my relationships, it eliminated any depth with (just guessing here) more than 70% of the human population. Who knows what those unspun webs would have created in my life, their life, the world itself?

Loss by omission. That's one that I've only recently begun to notice...

FreeOwl

Thanks everyone. Some great perspectives here and I see my own story in many if not all of them.

I also liked to believe that it didn't impact my relationships that much, but it did.

My love and connections to people were all covered in a haze. Though I had and retain many of those connections... I wasn't really present as my genuine self for many many years.

Alcohol influenced me to have affairs. To lie and let people down. It influenced me to be arrogant and to assume I knew more than others. To judge. While it brought people into my life.... Many of those people I no longer really see as close. The closeness was false. It was the warmth of shared drunkenness. It was years and years of acting in a play. When the lights went down and the curtain drawn... There I stood alone.

My drinking caused a fracture in my relationship with my sister. It led me to act in ways that hurt mother. It contributed to two divorces and yes... Surely it meant that there are many potential meaningful friendships I just totally missed out on.

I missed out on being fully present for people's special events... Their events were about me once I'd had enough to drink....

I don't dwell on these things and the post isn't meant to be a lament... But honestly looking at my life and relationships helped me really see how unmanageable my life was with alcohol and all that it leads me to miss out on.

Thank you all for sharing

gettingsmarter

I avoided EVERYONE as much as possible.

JanieJ

Some heartbreaking sentiments here (((())))

I'm wet behind the ears in all this, but I can catch a glimmer already.

Think I was Grand Master at avoiding things, mostly. People, emotions, love, commitments-especially commitments.

Hiding away, running away-

But as the late great Bob Marley said

You can't run away from yourself...

safeandsound

Purpleknight, I relate so much to everything. I think I was functioning at about 20%, as someone said on another thread. In fact, I don't even know how I kept my job--I was hungover and breathing alcohol fumes on everyone every day. I also relate to the "one-person party." That was me, all the time.

But I had to laugh when you described wanting to get away to drink. "Is this person still talking?" Such an accurate description but also funny!

Thanks FreeOwl for the thread. Good topic!

Anna

Fear and anxiety controlled my life and I made my decisions based on fear. (I had not yet begun drinking). For example, the program I chose at University was one I felt comfortable with, rather than the one I really wanted but was afraid to tackle. My anxiety grew when I became a military wife, and I held my children closer to me than I should have. I became very controlling until they became teens and then began my descent into alcohol.

I had no idea that I had something called generalized anxiety disorder. I just thought other people coped so much better than me, that others could easily accomplish what they set out to do. My self-esteem plummeted and I turned all the blamed inwards. I turned to alcohol.

I spent quite a lot of time doing the 'What if' thing, what if my parents had noticed or cared and I had gotten help. But, I know that everything that happened has brought me to this place and this is exactly where I am supposed to be. I am so very grateful.

safeandsound

As to relationships, I definitely missed out on some good ones. I distinctly remember going out a couple times to dinner with two girls I wanted to be friends with, and their looking appalled as I ordered my third glass of wine (for me, that was nothing! I thought I was being good!) And I hurt countless people, especially my husband, who was the target for self-hatred-turned-outward and abusive comments. And my family who were always worried about me. Co-workers, students, strangers, friends--sometimes just being thoughtless can affect someone. The list goes on. I love the ripple metaphor.

JT0626

In my case, I have lost friends due to my alcohol problem. I would put alcohol above my friendships. I became this flake-tastic person that would rather drink than follow through with plans. Several years ago I was supposed to be a bridesmaid in a wedding. I missed fittings & deadlines of when to purchase the dress because I drank my money away & cared more about getting drunk than my friend's wedding. Needless to say, my "friendship" with this person is now very distant & strained - we went from talking daily to talking once or twice a year. It was all my fault. I became reliably unreliable.

My drinking buddy, aka my husband, was just fine with me blowing off my friends to drink with him. He saw no problem with that, all is good as long as we were drinking together.

I am working on being more reliable now. I see how much priority I put on alcohol instead of putting that energy towards myself or sustaining my friendships. In a way, I am afraid of making friends now for fear of letting them down.

SereneEdition

Good thread.

I'm nearly 2 years in.

An inspirational talk on a completely different talk motivated me to stop drinking. At one point the speaker asked "What is the one thing that you're not doing today that if you did do would make the most positive impact in your life." For me it was quitting alcohol for all the reasons you cited.

By reframing it not about alcohol, but as the single most beneficial thing I could do to improve my life made it both stick and feel achievable. Essentially it's a variation of 'one day at a time'

This mantra has also scaled with me through recovery by keeping me on a path of making the most out of life - by definition there is ALWAYS one most important thing to either start, stop, or continue doing.

Yes, I lost a lot of time wandering in the alcoholic woods, but I am happy now to have found my path.

strategery

For me, I blame a lot of things on my drinking to where it just starts a vicious cycle of self-loathing which then triggers more drinking. I can think of colleagues that I may have been in contact with now if I hadn't started drinking, think I would be closer with my parents and family if I had quit drinking early on, would likely be more successful at this point in terms of my career, and may have achieved other things I tried so hard to do, but ultimately gave up on. I cannot absolutely guarantee things would be any different, but they could have. However, I'm on a new life-path, which I am okay with. It has made me humbler and has given me more empathy.