MythOfSisyphus

Way to go, GetMeOut! Congrats on the milestone.

witchy

Just wanted to say I'm seriously jealous! I'm on 21 days tomorrow, so your time sober seems like a massive achievement to me. Xxx

KAD

This week alone, in AA meetings, I saw one guy pick up a 6-year chip, another a 7-year chip, and a 91 year old lady up the road from me will be getting her 55 year chip in August! We'll get there, witchy. Time has nowhere to go but forward. All we have to do is live, and stay sober!

KAD

We're on step 4 now, but we've gone through steps 1 - 3 a couple of times (after relapses). My sponsor considered that, since I've just spent 65 days at a faith-based rehab, we could pick up where we left off. But, he also advised me to go through the first 3 steps again, especially after seeing the amount of seething resentment I still have toward my ex. It's almost all in regard to the fact that she is blocking all communication with my kids, even cards and letters. Although I did send them a card while I was in rehab, after not hearing from them on Father's Day. Whether or not she actually let them see it, I don't know. (There was no bitterness in the card. I apologized for failing them and asked their forgiveness. Still no response, though. She controls every aspect of their lives.)

I don't know if I can expect order and a systematic process in regard to working the steps. In fact, I wonder if my expectations of order, i.e. control, are a big part of my problem. My position in life right now is one of total chaos and disorder. The house of cards has crumbled. I don't want a house of cards anymore. I want a solid foundation, and I'm hearing, repeatedly, that that can only come with surrendering my fears, worries, anxieties (need for, and loss of, control) to my Higher Power. That is, so far, the most difficult thing for me to do because I still have many doubts. Unbelief. I rely heavily on my senses - external stimuli - and base my emotional and spiritual well-being on orderliness and predictability. Right now, not much of anything in my life is orderly or predictable. Except that if I don't work, I'll soon run out of money!

Aellyce

Well, you know what? I am very much the textbook agnostic, and a very curious one. I have tried to investigate and test the idea of God (saying "an idea", but in fact I see it, or Him/Her, much more as an ideal) in my teens. In all these investigations (lots inside my own mind) I never detested God neither got to a conclusion that He or She does not exist. In many ways I was like a little Nietzsche, and many of my friends told me this actually, but not about God. I have never been an atheist. Nor the opposite.

You know how it works for me, as a sober adult? When I have thoughts and desires of doing crazy things... Somehow they immediately get filtered through what I like to call my internal value system. And then I usually very quickly have opinions and decisions about my initial idea or wish. Sometimes I break this, but usually I am very aware that I am breaking it, and feel uncomfortable. Even everyday small things, little lies... I often feel very uncomfortable, saying the least, behaving against that "system". These moments are what typically remind me of God now. I am fully aware the feelings are internal, but my goal is to follow as I really trust this value system, no matter where it comes from. And yes, sometimes I question whether it's just my internal value system and nothing external, higher order whatever. But I don't usually go further in my reasoning about this, not right now. Yet I feel pretty strongly that I want to follow the voice of my own mind, my faith, minus addictions.

EndGameNYC

It did get better for me, but only after I dedicated myself to getting sober -- which was decidedly against my intentions -- and not all at once. Most times, I could only appreciate my progress by looking backwards.

Many of us are poor examples for delaying gratification and practicing patience. I needed to put myself through a rigorous plan of sobriety on just about every level in order to get through most days. My recent past at the time -- losing jobs due to my drinking, my shattered relationship, social and familial alienation, virtual homelessness, and physical and financial ruin -- were right there with me every day.

I suffered deeply, and thought of it as karma, that my suffering was a way to balance what had gone wrong with me. I had low expectations and little hope, and I was struggling with daily cravings for about ten months. I did virtually everything that people who I trusted recommended that I do. I walked nearby but never into the liquor store. I planned out what I thought would be my inevitable relapse. I bemoaned my fate as a means of accepting it. The thing that gave me the most comfort was my self-loathing, an aspect of my personality with which I had become very familiar. I had no illusions about happiness or fulfillment. One of my goals was to acquire a minimum-wage job, live in a flophouse and then to die alone. I was supposed to be in pain.

I'm now gainfully employed in three different areas of my field. I live in a very comfortable space, and I have friends who I can rely on, and who rely upon me. My family has been completely supportive since I started working hard to get myself back on my feet. And I'm available to help other people to achieve sobriety, or to lend an ear or a hand when people are struggling with other issues in their lives.

There's an expression, I don't know who it's attributed to, but it's something like, "If you're without humility, then you will be humbled." I'm no saint. I had to be humbled, humiliated, in order to start over. That's just how my drinking and my drinking behaviors were. I didn't go from despair to redemption in ten seconds, and redemption for me remains an ongoing process.

There is never a good reason to drink. There are simply too many excuses to drink but, even in total, they are all only excuses.

We're not generally given too many chances in life to turn things around. Each time we decline these cosmic invitations, we degrade ourselves and only make it more difficult to set things right at a later time that may not come. Using the language of "right and wrong" when it comes to relapsing misses the point, and interpreting these events as "learning experiences" or experiences that carry "silver linings" are acts of bad faith.

We need to be bigger than the moment, each and every moment, in early sobriety. Not knowing or believing that you have the courage to live a better life is not reason enough not to make the effort. You can do this. And when you do, everything I wrote will make much more sense to you than it does now.

KAD

It could be said that that's the medium through which God speaks to us. Some people might call it heart, soul, spirit, etc. but it's really our minds that do all the thinking, feeling, intuiting, or whatever. It happens whether or not we think of the source as God. One thing I definitely believe, and this in spite of what they told me in my last rehab, God is not threatened or angered by our questions or even our disbelief. He doesn't require human validation in order to exist.

KAD

It already makes more sense than you think. Very good post, and one I'll reread many times. It's a keeper. Thanks!

ardy

Congratulations on this mile stone.. get better.. a little ...not sure if you are the Mom or Dad... but as a Mom... I miss the kids more and more every day.. and they are all over 40.. Love and prayers kiddo you can do this why.. because your heart is giving you pause to reflect on what has been and the future to see .. could be so much brighter... check with a church near you ... they might help with that car... maybe knock and the door shall be opened and ask and it shall be given.. prayers and so much love ardy...

KAD

I am the Dad. My girls are just 14 and 11. We really have some good memories together, and that's what hurts the most now. I know they must be sad, confused, hurt, angry. I want for nothing more than to be able to talk to them, but their mother won't allow it right now.

Thanks for the congrats! I have gotten involved in a local church, as well as AA. No one has produced anything like a car yet, but it does help to have people to talk to who care and believe in me.

KAD

I'm no saint, either, but having just spent 65 days in a faith-based recovery program, I think one source of what you quoted above comes from Matthew 23:12: "For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted." I'm sure there are other sources, but that one was the first that came to mind.

Aellyce

GMO, have you considered "using" a HP that is not supernatural, if you have problems with that? (I just read another post from you also about this on another thread.) Many people do that, there were also threads about this here on SR. It would be so sad if now your doubts about God would get in the way of your using the AA program to help achieve lasting sobriety. The fact that your rehab program was faith-based does not mean that you must stick with that now forever if it does not suit you, I would think, if it's not helpful to you and makes you question everything.

On humility, well I don't see anything in a drinking lifestyle (the way we drink) that would not be humiliating, the longer we drink the more. When I was in college, I had a professor that I really liked and used as a mentor in many areas of life far beyond just my studies. He knew me quite well and told me a few times that he thought I had great potential to live a very fulfilling life, but I would need to learn humility to do so. I think he was absolutely right about that even though I had problems grasping it back then.

Also, on (not) seeing your kids... well the year of no contact could well be used as a motivation to stay sober and work on putting your life back in order so that you can reconnect with them later. What is a year in the grand scheme of things, really? I know that emotions do not submit to rational considerations like that, but it would be sad if you let yourself get lost in that feeling instead of working through that year sober and remain sober for life so that it never happens again.

KAD

These days it seems like the only thing I feel certain of is sobriety. I know, especially around here, that comment causes eyes to roll. The last time I drank, I was sick within just a couple of days, whereas I used to be able to drink for weeks or months before I experienced those kinds of feelings. I'd have hangovers, but they'd pass within a few hours. My last drinking spree had me so sick I called the paramedics 3 times before being admitted to a hospital. I was then strapped to the bed for 3 days, and kept an extra 3 days because my liver enzymes were so high. (Incidentally, I am currently awaiting results of blood samples taken last Friday.) I know plenty of people have continued drinking, even in the face of death, but plenty others have stopped.

When I'm facing the possibility of foreclosure, bankruptcy, and homelessness, strangely enough, drinking does not appeal to me in the least. There is far too much to lose. I don't have a car right now, so at least I couldn't crash again. But, as pointed out already, my body can't handle alcohol anymore. I would most certainly risk losing access to my kids for good, not to mention breaking their hearts yet again, friends and family would lose what little shreds of trust in me remain.

I want to believe in God as a Higher Power. I can't conceive of anything or anyone else I could honestly place in that position. I'd have a much harder time making my AA group my Higher Power - humans can fail you - and most certainly not some inanimate object. (As an aside, one problem I always had with AA is that we are first to accept that we're powerless over alcohol, and then turn our addiction to it over to a Higher Power. But doesn't that make alcohol an option as a Higher Power? I get it, but I've heard others say the same thing.) My conception of God might not match exactly what others believe, but I feel the need to believe in a Supreme Being.

So many people are trying to help me, but I get conflicting advice and sometimes I just feel overwhelmed. For instance, at my last rehab, they told me to surrender my fears, worries, and anxieties to God and if I continued to dwell on them, I wasn't trusting God enough. But my counselor also told me to surrender those things to my Higher Power, but that pain is a natural response and I have to face it and deal with it, without drinking of course, in order for it to go away. The latter feels like the default, but I'm so overwrought with fear, worry, anxiety, hopelessness, etc. I can't focus on much else. Sometimes I just collapse with fatigue!

airwick

I KNOW you will be alright, God and many people are on your side. Just look around

Aellyce

All that sounds good, I am glad that you are determined and want to make this work adamantly.

I've never worked through the steps myself so no first hand experience, but from what I have heard and seen from others is that the relief and lifting of those fears, guilt, frustrations, hopelessness etc is something that is most often experienced being into the process, especially after the steps that require action, when you are really interacting with the process and with the power you've put your faith in. I guess that requires some patience, something most of us addicts are not very good at.

I would maybe say it's our addiction to alcohol, not alcohol itself. It's how we react to it. But you don't want to put your trust into the power of your addiction to let it guide you now, do you?

I think it's certainly possible to have many different beliefs and belief systems, and clearly not all of them will guide us constructively and for good purpose. This is why, when we want to recover, we most often need to change our belief radically. Like what EndGame's sig line says. In this sense, I think it's great that you are now exploring something that, while it may not be entirely new to you, it's definitely different and new in the context of the last several years and in the context of your alcoholic way of being.

I'm personally finding that I still need to change many things about my motivations and how I deal with things, because for me alcoholism is just one part of a much larger complex of obsessions and dysfunctional coping mechanisms, and even when I successfully beat parts of these, the skeleton and still there, intimately intertwined with my thought processes and just generally with who I am and how I function. It's a slow process and it does not progress in a linear fashion for me at all, it's also sometimes hard and painful to let go of things I was so attached to and so used to letting it determine my reactions and behavior. I find it's working though because I certainly feel I am making better choices now and am more able to stop behaviors that don't serve me in a healthy way.

I was also thinking that perhaps a bit of mindfulness training might be interesting to you... for example, learning to just view those worries and insecurities as they arise, exist, and dissipate in a dynamic way. That sometimes a good strategy is not to fight these feelings and thoughts and want them to go away, but accept them as parts of yourself. Like it's being said here on SR often, feelings and thoughts are only truly powerful when we act on them. I think it's also possible to learn to manipulate our awareness in the moment, based on what we really need to do and what can affect us negatively. Self-defense strategies exist for a good reason, without them we would not be able to go for a month with our sanity intact, I think. And I believe it's possible to learn to apply (at least some of) these strategies in a conscious way. Compartmentalizing can be quite helpful, for example, if not done excessively: allowing ourselves to fully experience our feelings at certain times, and putting them aside a bit to be able to deal with things that need our immediate attention at other times. This way it's not that overwhelming and out of control and we are able to focus our attention and actions better on where it's required in the moment.

KAD

All I know is I'm having a particularly fretful day and, again, the only good thing about it that I can come up with is that I don't have any desire to drink. A desire to crawl in a hole and disappear, maybe, but not to get drunk.

I think part of the problem, other than all my money going out and none coming in, is I don't have a meeting tonight and nowhere else to go. I don't like having nowhere to go, or being dependent on other people to take me when I do have somewhere to go. I did have a good encounter last night, though, at the local church I've been attending. It was at a satellite location of the church in a neighboring city. One of the guys from there gave me a ride. There was a big dinner provided and he and I got some time to talk. He had drug and alcohol problems in his teens and his father died from cirrhosis, but he managed to get his life back on track at a young age. He said, at first, he was afraid I wasn't serious and was just looking for liquor money or some other kinda handout but, after talking to me, he could tell I was the real deal. That made me feel good.

But then I had to go back to my house full of ghosts...

Aellyce

I totally get not being comfortable with having to rely on others for transportation etc. I lived like that for a while in the past in another city, and was generally so reluctant to ask for help and even accept it being offered to me that I ended up living in a completely isolated way, and of course what did I do: got drunk and hung on the computer all the time.

Do you have contact info for a few other sober people that you met in AA, in the church or elsewhere, people who would be open to meet and do things with you sometimes when you feel lonely and want to go out? Or invite them over? Have you considered trying online meetings? I used AA online and did not like it much, but there are also many meetings on Skype, for example, with people from all over the world. There are also chat meetings here on SR (I think Tuesday and Friday). All this virtual stuff is of course not the same as f2f meetings, but perhaps better than nothing?

KAD

Sometimes being on the computer actually highlights my loneliness and I start feeling even more uneasy. Seriously, I hate having to be the sensitive sort! When I was in rehab, there were, at various times, between 50 and 75 men there. Not one of them seemed to be nearly as upset and out of sorts as I did. Sometimes I'd encounter someone else outside in the middle of the night, but they usually went out to have a cigarette, then they'd go back to bed. On weekends, lots of guys would sleep the afternoon away. I wasn't able to sleep during the day. Every time I closed my eyes, I'd drift into a dream about the kids or something and wake up in a panic. God, it sucks so bad, but I wasn't able to stop it.

There is one woman who lives in the neighborhood who will sometimes drop by with the 91 year old woman up the street (55 years sober) and visit for a while. I go visit the 91 year old several times a week, too. She's funny without even trying to be. I give her rides to the store or other place she needs to go, and she returns the favor by allowing me to drive her car to places I need to go. It's a good tradeoff, but she has health issues and I hate asking her too often to use her car.

I have done online meetings a few times. (Refer back to the comment about being online when I really want f2f.) I'm apparently a whole lot more social than I ever imagined I would be. My sister, who is otherwise just like me, is the opposite. She says she generally doesn't like people very much. I might get annoyed with some of them, but I find them interesting, nonetheless. It beats being alone. I've found it comes down to this for me: I want to be alone when I want to be alone, but I want to have the choice of not being alone when I don't want to be. Make sense?

Aellyce

Yes makes perfect sense. You do always strike me as a person who needs meaningful human connections sober. Quite the opposite to what this thread title says, actually

thomas11

The very fact that someone 91 years of age and got a 55 year chip is all the evidence I need to understand how serious alcohol has impacted people's lives. Just ponder that for a moment (I am at least), alcohol was so powerful in her life that 55 years later she is still attending face to face meeting to remain sober and engage in support. That's amazing. Great post GetMeOut and congratulations.