What do you think?
Member
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: NC
Posts: 1,737
Hi Raider,
I'm sorry for the loss of your sister. Losing my parents was one of the milestones of my addiction, it radically changed how I saw the world and how I reacted to it. Being in active addiction, that meant a turn for the worse; I had three more years of drinking ahead of me. Needless to say, it wasn't pretty.
I second other posters in flagging Xanax - physiologically it affects the alcoholics brain in much the same way as drinking does by triggering the amygdala and the brains reward pathway. In rehab, I was taught that taking medications such as Xanax and Valium resume or extend cravings and all the markers of very early recovery. Basically, it's not recovering - because the brain is not given the opportunity to recover. That neurological healing is critical to sobriety - until the brain settles down, we continue to experience all the brutal experiences that make up the first weeks and months of sobriety. Taking a drink or drug simply resets the clock to zero, assuming we survive the latest tango with our addiction.
Many folks in recovery talk about "people, places, and things" - in early recovery, some of them are simply more than we can handle. Only the person in question can decide where to draw the lines, but it seems to me that your past experience has been consistently bad with your visits to your parents/Alaska. In some form or fashion, it seems you need to change your approach or you will drink. Shorten your stay, stay in a different location, or don't go at all are all options... I don't know your story so I can't fill in those blanks.
At the end of the day, recovery is about two thins IMO: self awareness and priorities. We need to gain and accept what we find from self awareness, and we need to adjust our thinking and our actions to align with that awareness. Until we learn to do both, we continue to play Russian roulette.
Good luck Raider, keep posting.
I'm sorry for the loss of your sister. Losing my parents was one of the milestones of my addiction, it radically changed how I saw the world and how I reacted to it. Being in active addiction, that meant a turn for the worse; I had three more years of drinking ahead of me. Needless to say, it wasn't pretty.
I second other posters in flagging Xanax - physiologically it affects the alcoholics brain in much the same way as drinking does by triggering the amygdala and the brains reward pathway. In rehab, I was taught that taking medications such as Xanax and Valium resume or extend cravings and all the markers of very early recovery. Basically, it's not recovering - because the brain is not given the opportunity to recover. That neurological healing is critical to sobriety - until the brain settles down, we continue to experience all the brutal experiences that make up the first weeks and months of sobriety. Taking a drink or drug simply resets the clock to zero, assuming we survive the latest tango with our addiction.
Many folks in recovery talk about "people, places, and things" - in early recovery, some of them are simply more than we can handle. Only the person in question can decide where to draw the lines, but it seems to me that your past experience has been consistently bad with your visits to your parents/Alaska. In some form or fashion, it seems you need to change your approach or you will drink. Shorten your stay, stay in a different location, or don't go at all are all options... I don't know your story so I can't fill in those blanks.
At the end of the day, recovery is about two thins IMO: self awareness and priorities. We need to gain and accept what we find from self awareness, and we need to adjust our thinking and our actions to align with that awareness. Until we learn to do both, we continue to play Russian roulette.
Good luck Raider, keep posting.
Currently Active Users Viewing this Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
