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I fully intended on drinking yesterday.

Old 06-23-2016, 07:44 PM
  # 21 (permalink)  
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Hey leezer

I'm sorry for your loss. I knew my post was brutally honest.....and demented, or I think I said distorted. But I was thinking it, and that's not the first time. I wish I could cut my family off, but I don't have the balls. So it's the dreaded annual visit. It's very complex. Bad things happened to me in the house I will be staying in, the house I grew up in. Flashbacks and nightmares are intense when I'm there. It's just rough. I'll survive.

Frankly I don't think it will be harder for me when they are gone. But I really don't wish them harm in my heart of hearts. But it's all very painful.
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Old 06-23-2016, 08:42 PM
  # 22 (permalink)  
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I'm not a big believer in the idea that people's higher power is looking out for them when circumstances intervene and prevent them from getting loaded when they have put themselves in a bad situation.

In my experience, the power of my understanding has looked out for me by giving me guidance and direction. Choosing to follow that is up to me.

In my opinion, you got lucky. You can't count on that to keep happening. As my fellow gamers would say - "keep rolling the dice, and sooner or later you're going to roll a 1." I've seen too many people who were depending upon their higher power to look out for them die. In my experience, we resist following the suggestions of those who have more practical knowledge than we do at our own peril.
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Old 06-23-2016, 08:54 PM
  # 23 (permalink)  
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Hi Thomas, that took some willpower to buy booze and not drink it! Good for you. I see others here challenging you on not telling your family or whatnot....I think you need to do what's right for you. You don't owe anyone an explanation for what you do, say or think.
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Old 06-24-2016, 04:04 AM
  # 24 (permalink)  
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Originally Posted by uncorked View Post
I think you need to do what's right for you.
uncorked, I understand where you're coming from but please understand every response on here is meant to help. It's called reaching out. Nobody is jumping on thomas, it's all coming from a place of care and concern.

Plus, when I did was I thought was right for me it usually led me back to the same place. Often I needed to hear from others on here in order to wake me up. I might have not always liked the answers but I understood why they were being said.

thomas, one of the hardest things I had to do was to tell those closest to me that I do not drink anymore. It was the only way I could safeguard my sobriety. If I didn't do that the door of considering drinking was always open.

Stop feeding the dragon, it's the only way it's going to give up and leave.
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Old 06-24-2016, 08:26 AM
  # 25 (permalink)  
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After reading all of your comments, I think it would be wise for me to stop being aloof regarding terminal uniqueness and commitment-phobia. I value your opinions quite highly as many of you have been at this far longer than myself.
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Old 06-24-2016, 08:40 AM
  # 26 (permalink)  
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Close call for sure. Yet you didn't follow through so that's some sobriety skills shining down. I caught myself romanticizing a beer or two the other day. It was hot and sunny and I was thirsty. Shut the AV down and carried on but hey it's a constant be wary and ready situation, one little slip and BLIP! I'm dog meat.
Way to go brother. Thanks for the post. Stay sober.
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Old 06-24-2016, 09:07 AM
  # 27 (permalink)  
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Here is my thinking around "tell the family:" With all the enmeshed stuff in your family, I think you need to assert independence and autonomy from your family. I've followed along, and I realize you have a difficult and complicated relationship with them - but it doesn't sound like you've ever successfully broken the bond of parent/child.

Especially in the case of a difficult parent such as your mother it is necessary to verbally and emotionally separate - I know because it was the only way I was able to heal my life. I had to take my power back from my family. The interesting thing is that once that was done I was able to take my power back from all relationships. I stopped giving a damn about what my mother and others said to me, because I understood on a basic level that no one would ever fully understand me and as long as I made healthy choices for ME, it didn't matter what anyone else said. I certainly could not affect what they thought of me, and I stopped trying to be everything to everyone. They're gonna be who they're gonna be.

It is really freeing to step away from that type of relationship dynamic where I cower or worry or give in or hide/lie/cover-up, argue, mind-read. Honesty is the way to go for me. If I'm not hurting myself or others I don't give one hoot about what other people think about the nuances of my life.

Full disclaimer - I don't talk about my sobriety or my past drinking with new people I meet AT ALL unless I can trust them to be non-judgemental, so I get why you would have that fear with your parents/mother. But I did tell my mother about my abstinence. It seems like you consider your family as a reason to drink. Take away the opportunity to drink around them and you'll find ways to not drink around them. And yeah, my mother made snippy "comments," and I was able to see them as just another story line in her twisted convoluted story of, "How stuff is."Just because my mother (and my other family members) say something, doesn't make it true. I know myself and my truths. That's all that matters. She kept offering me alcohol every time I saw her for ten years after I quit, and I kept telling her, "I don't drink anymore." She was so much in her own head she couldn't even remember that.
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Old 06-24-2016, 09:52 AM
  # 28 (permalink)  
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Originally Posted by LadyBlue0527 View Post
uncorked, I understand where you're coming from but please understand every response on here is meant to help. It's called reaching out. Nobody is jumping on thomas, it's all coming from a place of care and concern.
Of course. I just meant that we don't really know his (or anyone's) family situation and advising him to get real with them isn't for us to say.
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