Serenidad

So I had a "light bulb" go off today & I'm positive it's nothing new to you guys, but for me it was a moment of clarity. It's not necessarily alcohol I want, it's to NOT FEEL anything negative! (Which at this point means I don't get to feel anything positive either!)

Sad but true. I've always been afraid to "feel", ever since I was hurt so bad as an innocent child. My spirit was broken, I'm sure of it. The world is dangerous. I'm am vulnerable & everyone is out "to get me" (says my screwed up head.) Thanks mom! Thanks for running my head thru a meat-grinder for the first 18 years of my life!

Anger=drink
Anxiety=drink
Sadness=drink
Fear=drink
Shame=drink
And so on and so on....

The hard part of early sobriety (at least for me) is you feel all of those things ten fold! Then you want to numb it. Then you drink again...then you feel...then you numb it again....

Horrible cycle! Just needed to get that off my chest. I know I was sober once for 5.5 years once but this is a new journey & it's much harder this time. Any hope anyone can provide just to help me through today? Can my spirit heal? Can I ever find peace? If so...how?

Thanks & God Bless!

P.S. I feel like I am so needy right now & all I do is post on here & ask for advice & help. Take, take, take. Some day, when I am whole, I will pay it forward! Xo

bunnezjp

Welcome to the club,

Bunnez

Anna

Yes, that's it, Serenidad. Alcohol is usually the symptom and so stopping drinking is necessary. But, then we have to deal with all the underlying issues, and for me that was a lot of work.

There are many things you can do to heal your spirit. Meditate, be still and quiet with yourself and you will reconnect with your soul and your purpose in life.

These two books can help you get in touch with your soul's purpose:

The Seat of the Soul by Gary Zukav
A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle

Della1968

Most definitely I drank to check out. Even when everything was going fine. It's like I feel everything good or bad too intensely. I am getting to the point that it is nice to feel again.

Dee74

For me it wasn't so much feeling my feelings as not being afraid any more to feel them.

I had to learn it was ok to feel them and, while it may be uncomfortable, they wouldn't hurt me, and they would pass.

If you have a feeling that unsettles you or terrifies you, it's ok to talk it out...it's ok to follow that feeling through, and work out where it comes from.

It's not ok to drink on it, or wish it wasn't there.

D

Mikie9

First serenidad, post all you want. About anything that is troubling you. K?

The numbing is what I miss too, in a way...

It is easier to not feel, but like you pointed out it doesn't just take away feeling the negatives, it takes the positive feelings with it too, which is why I stopped numbing. And in reality, it doesn't even take away the negatives, it just lets us pretend it isn't there for awhile?

I also have some childhood abuse issues, and there is no doubt I used alcohol and drugs to "hide" from those feelings. But I finally figured out that although it is challenging, facing these things is what is needed to be done to overcome them, and to fight the source of them.

I have been seeing a couple of professionals about my particular issues over the last year or so, and it has helped a lot. I don't know if you have sought out help in dealing with your past, but it does help greatly. It doesn't make it go away, but gives me another outlet rather than hiding from the feelings by catching a buzz to oblivion, which is abuse in and of itself. So, simple math I came up with. I was abused, so I abuse myself over it. SO I am being abused TWICE. I can't control the first time, but I can control where I abuse myself. This is pretty vague because I don't want to share what I deal with in an open forum.

Sorry for the ramble. I guess in short, find another way to combat the need to hide from your feelings about it. We tried alcohol and that doesn't work, only makes it worse really. It's like the abuser is still abusing us really.

Your post helped me rethink some things about my position, so you are already helping others, thank you. IF we had to be whole to help others, this site wouldn't exist

Arbor

That's the hard part isn't it? I'm only three months in and I'm still all over the place at times. Very solid in my commitment to sobriety but can't help but feel all these feelings all the time. The Good and bad. It's enough to make you want to silence them. But how? I read on here all the time to let those thoughts and feelings go. Just let them go. Don't lament them. It's hard to do day in day out. Some days I'm just drained. All I can do now is try to improve my life and be happy I have the chance.

JanieJ

Think this is THE big problemo, though isn't it ?

That's why we drank.

Feelings are a shock, it's like being hit by a train when we finally do feel, and that takes some adjusting to.

But if we don't feel, we can't heal, can we ?

Serenidad, post away.

Just by posting you are helping others xx

Jeni26

I went to a counsellor for a while and she helped me see that fear was my big issue. I would spent so long running from things because I was petrified that I wouldn't be able to handle them. I had to learn to keep things as simple as possible, and I still do that today.

I've recently started a new job and feel like I'm running on quicksand and if I stop for a moment, I will be overwhelmed and sink. It feels like that, but of course my rational brain tells me that is rubbish. So...every day when my addiction tells me I can't face it and need to drink, I stop and take time to recognise the chatter for what it is. And every day when I come home, and my addiction tells me...well done, you did great, time for a drink?...I do the same.

Life is full of emotions...pain, grief, joy, disappointment...sober I can see and feel the beauty in the world, and work through the rest.

What's the alternative? To live in a surreal alternate numbness...I've done that, and I'm not going to waste any more time there.

You, like me, relapsed after years of sobriety. I glimpsed that hell again and I will do whatever it takes not to go there again. Have faith. If I can get out of that hole, you can too x

mecanix

I found peace in acceptance of all this stuff and feelings .

I might feel certain ways but i don't have to act upon those feelings .

Sat there with my feelings i felt that if i didn't drink i'd go crazy .

I didn't go crazy ( i think ) , i didn't drink .

Change was hard and painful but i was determined to deal with it soberly .

Get help , learn how to accept and deal with it , work hard on it , you can live in freedom too .

Bestwishes, m

AlcoholismTreat

You are so true , my friend.
I had the same experience of numbing my feelings by alcohol. After starting recovery, feeling was something new to me and very uncomfortable. Specially sad feelings. I remember when I started to cry , I felt so worried that why I am crying? Am I going to be depressed after that? But I realized how nice it was, and today, although being a man , I cry often. When I see a sad movie, and I feel crying , I do!
When I see comedy and and I feel laughing, I laugh.

I think I have joined human race again :p haha

definitely your soul will be healed . Alcoholism is powerful , but for sure not more powerful than our spirit, higher power and the power of recovery groups.

Good luck , and be sober another 24 hours today. Tomorrow ask for another 24 hours of sobriety. Have no fear , have faith . we all support you .

cheers

tomsteve

The hard part of early sobriety....
Exactly!!!!!
And how many times has it been early sobriety for ya. How many times have them feeling been raw?
It WAS raw for me for a while. But it stopped being raw because I didn't drink. I let the feelings flow and learned about em, how to deal with them and even use some of them to my advantage.
And if I drank it was only gonna send me back to the rawness of day one again and I am certain I would have even MORE crappage to deal with.
So I trudged.

Keep askin for advise. That's good.
But not taking that advise and putting it into action...Welp....I'm thinkin ya know how good that works.

Don't quit 10 seconds before the miracle.

And here's something to think about.
Look back on yesterday(don't stare at it! made it through sober,right?

GracieLou

Early recovery is the time to ask questions and express those feelings, don't hesitate to post.

Bingo!

Sitting in pain is not something I was used to and I still hate it. Nobody likes it. Even normal people that have never had a drop to drink feel pain and most do not care for it but for the newly sober alcoholic it is so raw. It feels like the first time and it is so big and overwhelming.

I never learned to deal with negative emotions and when I found alcohol, it was my solution to that problem. At first I didn't feel that way about it. I was just having fun but I always drank alcoholically. Once the first drink was in me, I had no control.

Then you place problems, pain and life on top and wham! I was stuck in that cycle for 25 years.

Learning to deal with life, on life's terms unfortunately includes dealing with pain however that manifests itself. Anger, disappointment, sadness, jealousy, envy, anxiety, fear, shame..just to name a few.

The trick is not only deal with them but to deal with them well enough that it does not cause you to drink over it. Some times that is an hour at a time or a day at a time. For me it involves reaching out here or to a member of AA. It involves praying to my HP and letting him take it from me. It involves giving back to others.

I had no idea how to do this. I had to learn.

Willingness to learn is a big key to sobriety. To take the advice and suggestions that others give you that have walked the path before you and you pretty much have to put some trust and faith in them or in AA as a whole.

When I started this journey that was all I had, faith. Faith that the program of AA could help me. I did not trust any one but I did take suggestions and I found they worked, at least a little, I found some small relief, so I kept coming back.

There have been several times now that I told myself I had no idea what I am doing but it didn't matter, I just kept going and taking suggestions. There have been hard times and when I was in them, I could not believe I was not only sober but I was dealing with them.

Those hard times made me stronger, each one placed a new coping skill, a new way of asking and finding help, a new piece to the puzzle and as long as I stay sober, I will have them and be able to use them.

If I drink, all that goes away. The alcohol becomes the solution again and we both know it does not solve anything. It just robs us of more life. It will rob me of the chance to learn how to deal with that problem. I will not get the solution because I drank it away. I will get them, if I stay sober!

Hang in there! Keep asking, taking suggestions and keep swimming. Everything it going to be okay

scandy01

Gracielou, your post really resonated with me, I especially like how you phrased that about not getting the chance to learn how to deal with problems. That really makes me feel inspired to not only stay sober but also to learn how to have a happy life sober.

beach20

There is a workbook, "The Courage to Heal" by Laura Davis. My therapist recommended it and you may find it as helpful as I did.

I was sexually, emotionally and physically abused by my mother. I put myself in abusive situations of all kinds for many years without realizing it. I drank to deal with the feelings until I realized that the alcohol was not going to make them go away...just exacerbate the overwhelming rage, anger, shame, etc. I was scared to feel good as well.

I am by no means "healed." But through this book, which you can take at your own pace, I learned that feelings come and feelings go, thoughts come and thoughts go.

They no longer have the same power over me, but I have to work on this everyday.

I hope you continue to write about your feelings. My best friend always said this about feelings: "Better out than in."

I completely empathize with you.

Notmyrealname

You can't do much about feelings in the short term, but you can decide that you're not going to let your feelings drive your self-destructive behavior patterns. Then you have a plan. Executing that plan can be a large and complicated endeavor, but at least you know what you have to do.

Like, there are people who have anxiety who don't get crap-faced, right? And there are people who get angry with spouses but don't beat them? And there are people who get angry on the highway but don't road rage. The feelings are gonna be there, but you don't have to let your emotional engine sit in the driver's seat. We are men, not animals.

Also I should add -- my feelings got a lot better over time once I quit drinking.

esinger

The thing that helped me, and the only helpful thing I got from 35 days in rehab, was exposure to R.E.B.T. and working the practice in my daily life. Don't have time to go into it but google it

strategery

One of the things that has helped me is understanding what is triggering AV voice with my emotions and then identifying what is causing these feelings.
I've been battling AV due to self-doubt a lot lately. This came as a result for looking for jobs and applying for internships. Just giving a voice to what is being felt and understanding why I am feeling this way based on what is going on, has helped since it helps me realize that alcohol is not going to help with these issues.

While alcohol numbs things and helps to forget temporarily, it doesn't address any of the underlying issues and the emotions are still there the next day.

PurpleKnight

For me it was a case of not wanting to feel my feelings, hence the drinking.

Sobriety has taught me it is ok to feel things, that's the human experience, but we need to adapt and learn how to feel them and be ok with that.

It can be done!!

Manda33079

I am right there with you:-(