beeme

On October 1st, I will have gone a year without drinking. I was a mainly social, beer and wine "aficionado", weekend warrior-type drinker who always wanted just one more than everyone else but wasn't dependent or totally out of control. But I felt some concern at times about how much I loved it and noticed a HUGE difference in the way I would feel the mornings after drinking; it felt like my body was getting less good at processing it (I'm in my mid 40s).

It started as an experiment. I wanted to try 90 days to see if I would feel better without it. After the first 6 weeks or so, I barely missed it.

Now, all of a sudden, I miss it a LOT. After a long weaning period, I came off of antidepressants about 6 weeks ago (I have other health stuff and side effects that make me pretty determined to stay off of them), and my emotions are all over the map.

I feel somewhat lonely and isolated, and anxious, and mildly depressed with some life stressors and other things going on. I have supports and spiritual practices but have been feeling much more emotional lately, almost as if everything I numbed for years is arising at once in me.

I find myself thinking "maybe I'll just have a glass of wine" thoughts occasionally. I was blessedly free of those thoughts for so long. I know that having a glass would become a habit and I would be back to having to decide every day "am I going to drink or not?" It is so much easier to just not drink. I am not planning to pick up but I know I needed to speak what is going on in my head "aloud."

Any thoughts, resources, or words of wisdom or kindness would be so appreciated. Also, if anyone has success stories about going off antidepressants in particular. Thanks in advance.

Zanna

I've noticed from reading around the forum, that when people have a milestone looming, in come the cravings again. I'm sure when you get a few days past the year, you'll be fine
Perhaps also have a chat with your Doctor, re: the mild depression - depression is bio-chemical and it's possible you came off them slightly too soon.
Hang in there! Imagine how you'd feel going back to day one, now x

Soberwolf

Are you coming off the anti depressants with a Drs help

beeme

Yes, I have a doctor's help. I took 8 months to wean off and was taking almost nothing at the end.

SomeSortOfHuman

Congratulations on approaching a year! I'm very new to this, but am reading a book called This Naked Mind (having seen it discussed on these forums). If you haven't read it, it might be worth a try? It basically deconstructs our reasons for drinking - so it might help to re-focus things? All the best - and congrats again. Hope I get there too!

beeme

Some Sort, you are the second person who I have heard discuss that book and it sounds great. Off to Amazon....

Ruby2

Every milestone I hit I'd start having cravings. A year wasn't any different. It's pretty momentous that you've made it that far, why not congratulate yourself? At least, that's somewhat along the lines of what the addictive voice told me. I wasn't doing enough to support my sobriety and was getting restless, irritable and discontent. The pressure kept building. I think that may be what you're facing, plus going off the anti depressants.

When I was facing this I had to buckle down on my recovery efforts. I came on SR a lot. I went to AA meetings. They may not be your thing but I find the face to face camaraderie and support to be valuable. I examined things that weren't working for me and changed them if I could. But above all, I didn't drink. If I have thoughts of drinking, I buckle down again. Changing and redirecting and tweaking things as I go along.

Hang in there.

MissPerfumado

Congratulations Beeme!

Lately I've been wondering about looking deeper into the reasons I drank, doing some therapy or even the AA steps (I've never been to an AA meeting before but am not against it).

Like you, I'm not planning to pick up, but I feel the need to do some further work on myself, to shore up the progress I feel I made in the last 9 months of sobriety. I have the support and spiritual beliefs, yoga helps, but something MORE beckons.

I don't know if it's a similar thing.

beeme

Thanks, everyone. Yes, I need to be extra-careful right now and remind myself of why I am sober. I also would like to have some sober support face-to-face.

August252015

First, way to go! Second - sounds like a great time for AA. You have a clear head, so it might be a super additional "tool." I am almost 7mo sober and a devoted AA-er, and I have read here about others coming to it later, once they are sober, and strengthening their sobriety then. IMO, any and all tools in our sober box are worth having.

Keep going!!

BrandonInCO

First of all, huge congratulations to you, beeme! One year is amazing, and you should be really proud of yourself. I'm looking forward to eventually celebrating that milestone someday.

You are currently going through what I'm really afraid of going through, myself. I haven't even hit a month yet, and I'm already wondering how I'll see things in a year. I'm worried I'll think I have things under control by then, and "treat" myself, which will turn into a bender.

It's good to know others have experienced the same thing, so I can build on what they did and get through it.

Sorry for sorta hijacking the ideas here for my own purposes. I just thought it was really relevant and wanted to say it has been helpful for more than just the OP. This forum has been awesome, and I know I'll need to lean on it a lot in the coming weeks and months.

Dee74

Abstinence and control are not the same thing.

The longer we're sober the harder it can be to remember things the way it really was.

I know a few times I confused abstinence with control...'I don't have to drink anymore...so I'll be fine to drink...'

My life was good because I'd rid myself of the toxic relationship I had with alcohol...not because I'd learned to somehow 'control' it.

D

D122y

What kept me clean for these 16 months was lingering anxiety.

It comes and goes each day. It has gotten better since quitting.

Life stressers ramp it up, but i don't drink over it.

I put it out of my mind by telling myself...let my higher power deal w it.

I am tired of fighting w anxiety. It is in God's control.

That is all i got.

Berrybean

I'd def recommend giving AA a shot if you like the idea of some face to face support. AA isn't there to stop us drinking as such. It's a fellowship of men and women who work a program of recovery which means that sobriety can be, for each of us, comfortable, sustainable and preferable to drinking. It's about learning to enjoy life sober. I tried the 'just taking booze off the agenda' option and I felt like I was going crazy.

If you look at the 12-steps of AA you'll notice that Alcohol is only even mentioned in the very first step. The rest of the program is about Living Sober.

GroundhogDay

My husband went off antidepressants about 15 weeks ago. Like you, his emotions are all over the map. It has improved over time.

He went on a really long taper under the supervision of his doctor. He was on a very low dose when he finally quit. His earlier attempt last year failed. He attributed it to coming off the antidepressants too fast with too compressed a taper schedule.

hpdw

Beeme thank you for reminding me to work on recovery always . While I don't want to incessantly drag the past up I don't want to forget where alcohol took me .

Dee thank you for explaining abstinance / control

LBrain

congrats on the upcoming year of sobriety...

just a reminder: alcohol IS a depressant ...

be wary of the one year cured syndrome... that is the AV (addictive voice) speaking, many experience these types of thoughts, as Ruby mentioned, over the various milestones of sobriety...

some folks think that they made it a year and will be able to control it now... even those who were not 'end of the line' drunks discovered that after taking 'time off' then going back to drinking it gets worse.
You may not notice it at first and think you will be able to control your drinking. I won't throw out an imaginary percentage like 99.99%, but it is very high the number of people whose drinking got worse after a sabbatical. I can attest to that myself.

And, you must always go back to the day you made the decision that you needed to stop drinking. After a period of time, we tend to 'forget' why we wanted to, needed to stop. The saying of "play the tape through" comes to mind.
You are feeling the benefits of not drinking. Why would you want to change it, or undo the progress you made?

People always talk about how it gets better the longer you are away from your last drink. It does. It also gets worse when you go back to drinking. It does.

Bird615

I thought after 30 years, that maybe I could handle it again.
I was very wrong about that.

beeme

These reminders are SO useful. Thanks, everyone.

What I miss is the numbing AND what I know I need is to be with my life without numbing anything. That is actually what I know I am being called to do by everything that is going on.

The bigger, better part of me wants sobriety and it wants to feel the full range of human emotions, even the hard ones.

MLD51

I miss the numbing every once in a while. But I also would miss the sharp clarity of sobriety, and I know I cannot have both. I'd rather deal with the uncomfortable things as they come up, even though it's hard, than risk losing all I've gained in sobriety. Plus - things that used to seem unsurmountable and catastrophic just don't seem to be as difficult as they used to be.

One of my favorite little quotes from the Big Book :
"We will intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle us."
This is from the promises. It's one of the promises that is definitely coming true for me.