Dee74

I reckon it's not about other people in the end, it's about us and what we want ourselves to be.

There's a great life out there waiting for you ipaid - don't get bogged down in what other people think.

do your part - stay sober...rebuild the life you want...and I guarantee things will look a lot better and brighter 6 months or a year down the track

D

sugarbear1

my family had an intervention for me when I was getting sober for a few weeks already......I did have a bruised nerve in my back at the time, though and was scheduled for a doctor appointment on Monday, they intervened on Thursday.....

I do suggest that an intervention have a specialist present......

Spacegoat

x2 but actually that was more like the doctors for me. A lot of convincing. It was them then who decided to involve my family in my problems not me.

Which was not a good idea in retrospect. I was depressed & suicidal and wanted to find out why. Drinking for me was just a way to numb all that out.

rockstonic

Hey ipaid! Sounds to me like that's fear talking. A year ago I was pretty sure that I had messed things up so badly that the future looked like a black hole. A hopeless, dead end shell of a binge drinker at 25. Things were never going to get better. I know now that it was the fear of this being true, rather than the reality of it being true, that kept me drinking. Don't let that fear keep you drinking.

A year (and a lot of therapy later) I'm almost six months sober and the future has opened up in ways that I truly didn't expect. What kind of support do you have right now? Have you thought about therapy? That extra support to work through these things can really help

EndGameNYC

Hi iPaid.

I don't recall whether or not you're getting any help, but if your drinking disturbs and being sober makes you feel crazy, you may want to consider rehab or outpatient treatment.

tomsteve

That rit there is priceless wisdom.
When I finally got into action getting sober, it was for me and me alone. Wasn't trying to do it for anyone or anything else, which in my past I had stopped/ slowed down for them reasons and that didn't work for crap.
And people believing I had stopped drinking and was working on fixing me? Welp, there was my sister and her family who I went and visited about two weeks into recovery. Their reaction? Pretty much," yeah...sure...right." and of course it was going to be that. They heard so many lies out of me over the years there was no reason to believe me. It took some time for them to stop wondering who was going to show up at their door when I showed up- drunken Tom, hungover Tom, or desperate Tom.
So, I got sober through AA. And can ya believe it took a few months before people who had time sober believed I was serious? I still recall the man who's now my sponsor saying after a meeting about three months in," yup, your serious about sobriety."
Through footwork at changing me and my family and others seeing my actions change, they started believing it.
But even if they didn't, I wasn't doing it for them. I was doing it for me and I actually started liking me and life.

MIRecovery

5.75 yrs sober and I still get you eyes look funny from wife every month or two.

The only person I answer to is me. If I know I'm sober I'm sober. If not, fooling others is only lying to myself

wehav2day

Ipaid, there are so many of us on sr who wish with all our hearts that we had gotten sober at 22. Most if not all of us felt like our lives would not get better. But we were 30, 40 (in my case), 50, etc.

Mood swings are extremely common in alcohol withdrawal. And PAWS, post acute alcohol withdrawal, can weave in and out of your life for months. The only way to get through to the other side is to stay sober. It is highly unlikely that your state of mind will stay this way. But every time you drink you are back to square one. Your mind and body don't register that you have been sober-ish for 4 months. As far as your mind and body go, it's been a week. Your family on some level may sense this.

If you can get through each day sober, your life will improve . Mine is ridiculously better. It sucked for a couple months, but I wouldn't trade it for the world now.

Maybe this will help you... Have you heard of HALT? We tend to get bad cravings when we are hungry, angry, lonely or tired. If you want to drink, check to see if you are one of those and if so, fix it. The cravings usually disappear!

ipaidwithmylife

Sorry to revive this thread again, but I just want to say that: while I do have the first feeling you describe every single day, I can't relate to the second part: I was sober for 3 months and 2 weeks and felt just as bad at the end of that as on my day one. All those months never made a difference for my suddenly lost mental functions. At first I was trying to stay positive, just be healthy etc... but my resolve just faded, when the good changes didn't happen for me soon enough: hence the relapses.

Also, to the person commenting about PAWS: I have "PAWS" all day all the time and it's frustrating. At first it annoyed me, as I was still trying to fight it, using everything I had. Now, I'm just apathic, too tired to give any *****. And when I do, I get terribly depressed and feel like I'm on the edge of a breakdown.

I go to a therapist, but I'm still on my own, in the end and I hardly feel like discussing this with her each week.

Everything now confronts me with my handicaps and I'm tired of living like this.

SixStringZen

Consider it karma for the times you got away with it!

ipaidwithmylife

wow, thanks a lot: that really helps me... no seriously: why would you tell me this? To make me feel even worse?

EndGameNYC

Again, it sounds as though you need to add something to your recovery plan.

site1Q84

Almost sounds like now that you've convinced them you have a problem, they're overly concerned.

That's not a bad thing. If they're watching that closely maybe it will make it harder for you to relapse?
Also, if you have recently relapsed, can you really blame them for their thoughts that you're drinking again?

The first few days/week my entire brain was in a fog, so maybe after you get some more time under your belt you'll feel better.

ipaidwithmylife

Yes, you're probably very right, but can you give me any tips as to what I could add? Just curious... Thanks in advance.

wehav2day

I'm sorry you feel like giving up. I've been there, it's no fun. But let me ask you this... You think your life sucks right now, do you REALLY think it will suck less drunk?

If you aren't done drinking, you will go back out and there isn't a thing any of us can do about it. But if you are over feeling this way, don't drink. I know it's hard to have a positive attitude when you feel bad for days, weeks, 3 months. I started feeling better at six. I felt so good I went out and drank. Whaaaat? Yes I did that cycle three times. Every time it took me six months to feel better. Talk about dumb! Want to know when my life started getting better for real? About a year.

I'm not saying that to discourage you. I'm just being real. It takes time, patience, a life makeover. It takes not picking up a single drink when it's all you want to do. But you can get through it. I've never ever heard someone with a year or more sober say "dang, that wasn't with it! Think I'll just drink my life away."

lighter

Don't discount the possibility that you might be an alcoholic+ .

E.g. alcoholic+depressed.

Obviously, being sober will help. But if your abuse of alcohol was to avoid another illness then being sober wouldn't be enough. You'd still have the original condition and would need to treat it.

Going to your doctor *when sober* would help in that case.

EndGameNYC

I'm certain that there's a link here somewhere that describes different kinds of programs and treatments for recovery such as AVRT, SMART and AA.

As things now stand, you seem to be extremely isolated with what you're going through. You also stated that you don't like repeating your struggles with your therapist every week. Well, that's what we're there for. Healing begins only after we talk about what huts us, what makes us suffer, and never before.

SixStringZen

Absolutely not! Just trying to interject some levity...I wish you nothing but the best...

Berrybean

I do feel for you. I remember that feeling of helplessness and emotional turmoil. The washing machine head as well. I think I probably did act crazier at the start of my sobriety that when I was drunk. I suppose I was a functional-alcoholic and a disfunctional-drydrunk.

The change (for me on my journey - which is all that I have to share with you) was when I went to AA and got support and understanding from others who understood me. People who could look into my eyes and see through my bulls**t before I was able to do so myself, because they'd walked in my shoes. Maybe years before, but they still remembered it. Through the AA program I went that step beyond stopping drinking (my dry-drunk phase was only a month - I couldn't have stood that much longer) and started learning how to Live and find contentment in sobriety. Finding better ways to deal with the blows that life deals us than using alcohol to make it better. Learning to love and value myself and others without alcohol having to make me 'prettier, wittier and tittier'. Learning to push back against my character defects that threaten my happiness, relationships and sobriety. Learning to let go of my resentments, and to recognise and deal with my fears. I am still learning, but can honestly say that the meetings and the 12-steps have made my life richer after 14 months than it ever was before in 42 years.

I also read some good books which helped as well. Living Sober and Monkey on My Shoulder are both great, and can be bought from Amazon very cheaply.

Hoping that you find something to add to your own recovery plan that can enrich your recovery and strengthen your resolve and self-knowledge so you can live happily in sobriety. Take care.

Gottalife

My experience might have been similar to yours. I relate to being sober for a period, three or four months, when I was 20, and at the end I felt worse than when I started. SoI went back, chasing that elusive good feeling that came with a few drinks. But that good feeling had gone for good.

I was 22, feeling hopeless. Nothing I had tried had worked. Sobriety did not look attractive, based on my experience. But I was desperate for the suffering to end. I had lost the plot to the extent that actually trying to stop drinking was not the goal, just stop the suffering.

I rang AA and got to talk to someone. I had resisted the idea of AA ever since I first heard of it. It was absolutely the last resort and I really did not believe it would work for me. Something happened, the picture changed somehow, and after starting the program in earnest, I never needed to drink again.

At 22 I thought it was all over. It turned out to be just the beginning of a wonderful life.