Asperger's and Alcoholism
 

Welcome, Josephine, to SR; glad you found us. You will find support, encouragement and understanding here.

I don't have any experience with the situation you described but would like to congratulate on your sobriety.

Hello JosephineDeym Welcome

I dont have any experience with Aspergers but hopefully i can learn from you

14 years sober is amazing

im sorry a meltdown happened

your 5 months sober this is exellent

Josephine, welcome! Glad you are sober and five months is fantastic!

I am sure someone who can relate will be along to share with you. I believe I have heard many who have expressed having aspbergers and drinking to deal with it. You are not alone..by any means.

good luck, keep up the good work, and take good care of yourself right now especially.

hugs
chicory

Josephine, my son has Asperger's so I know how difficult life can be for someone on the spectrum. If you are like he is, dealing with the social world and the unexpected, causes great anxiety. Are you seeing anyone for your Asperger's? If not, I would suggest finding someone who specializes so you can learn better coping techniques. There is also appropriate medication that can help you.

Congratulations on 5 months of sobriety!

Hi, Josephine. I've recently self-diagnosed and currently seeking out someone to evaluate me. I'm in my thirties so it'll probably be difficult, as the mental health professionals don't seem to always be aware of how it presents in high functioning adults, especially females.

I've known that I mostly self-medicated by drinking for years now. I do have the occasional meltdown. I hum constantly as self-stimming. I'm also OCD in many ways, have social phobia/anxiety, and used to have panic attacks. I was able to work on the panic disorder in my late teens/early twenties and managed to put a stop to them so thankfully I no longer have the panic attacks. I do suffer from depression though I've never been down for the count, so to speak. I always seem to work my way out of it, thankfully. My grandmother must've had depression and she taught me many little tricks to deal with it.

I think my mother might have also had Aspergers (she was also an alcoholic and committed suicide four years ago). I think it comes from my grandfather and his side of the family.

Anyway, I just wanted to pop in here and say hello.

Asperger's and recovery
 

Hi J,

My first post but I wanted to commiserate as I too am a diagnosed Aspie who was managed variably with alcohol for twenty plus years. I am recently sober - and really couldn't say I am sober as yet I guess.

My only thoughts are that alcohol served a real purpose in tamping down the Aspie issues. I think it will (has been) difficult as many people use substances to be more social comfortable or deal with situations that could pass or be managed better over time.

Asperger's is part of who we are - not something that happened to us or that can be understood in relation to experiences we have had. It also makes anxiety almost a certainty on a daily basis so a ready fix is hard to pass up as the condition and its manifestation are always with us.

My approach at this time is that I want to be my best version of myself and accept that I have to be who I am in this life - Aspie and all. Alcohol helped dull who I am so I could have relief. Giving up alcohol also means there is no relief other than in understanding. Really no rest for the wicked as they say, because we are outliers in society. Of course we and others do not think we are actually wicked but there is always a price for deviating from the mean. That price is higher if you are an Aspie with our sensitivities.

Alcohol insulated me from the world (both internal and external) but until I allow myself to experience this all at full volume and unfiltered I cannot live with integrity, but instead I would continue to live a divided life - and that became unsustainable too.

Hope this resonates a little.
JED1

Welcome Josephine and Jeed :)

D

I was looking into this also when I was younger, because I vaguely identified with some of the traits, mostly regarding social life. But in my case, it's not really social anxiety... I don't experience that much, although definitely have other forms of anxiety and some pretty strong. I also have some mild OCD tendencies.

One thing that tends to come up for me whenever I do assessments for personality disorders, for example, and I think it's a bit similar in manifestation in some ways: some schizoid traits. When I did these kinds of assessments, it's always the schizoid that tends to come out with the highest score, followed by OCD, and then everything else is pretty far. I am apparently not too close to diagnostic criteria for any of these. That schizoid stuff is definitely closer for me in terms of the social life thing, and was far more prevalent in my childhood and early adolescent years. I think it's a bit similar to what the Asperger's symptoms are regarding socializing, minus the anxiety in this context. It's more indifference / detachment. Adolescence really made a huge change for me in this and I never had problems relating to and forming close bonds with specific people that I like since then, but I needed experience to learn this.

My brother has aspergers (diagnosed at age 49) and celebrating 3 yrs. at his club this week. He almost lives there and everyone in the family is grateful. Truly. He does not use the net or I could put in a mention. He's a very changed person. Very giving. He also faithfully attends drug court reunions. I should go call him.