jessie65

Good morning all, or afternoon

I'm just over 10 months sober (alcohol). I've noticed more recently that I am feeding other addictions (food & shopping mainly).
I tend to even hide it from others. There are times that I binge eat, feel ashamed, and hide the evidence. sugar is my weakness there, I can kill an entire bag of candy corn in a half hour, then I hide the empty bag. Next morning I feel sick, and vow to not do it again.
I've got issues still I suppose.

I over shop, it gives me a 'high' at the moment, but then I stress over hiding it later. This is all similar to the drinking shame actually.

Are we all just born with this trait, an addictive personality? I've heard of that, lol, and often wondered if I'm just destined to always be battling addictions, I know I've always 'overdone; everything I do. I can't just do something (like birthday parties, or just buying gifts, etc)
I always Over-do. My kids have brand new toys in their closets from Christmases years ago, they got too much... Funny thing is my oldest just told me recently that he wants to donate all these new toys he has, I was stunned, I didn't even know he had them still not opened (!!!), but hey he's a good person wanting to donate right? .

Sometimes I find 'doing the next right thing' so boring. I resent having to behave all the time, lol. I'm a grown woman though, so I guess that thinking is wrong. I don't know, I guess I just want to have fun and let go sometimes, it seems since I got sober I do find life monotonous (sp?).
Ugh, I'm just babbling now, can anybody relate to any of this?

Berrybean

Know exactly what you mean.

And I too find THE IDEA of doing the right thing really boring. Actually though, when I do it, it never as bad as I'd expected. Much of the time I enjoy it more than I would have done caving in and having the indulgence.

Some things, I know that once I start it'll be a bugger to stop doing. Eating sweets. Spending (esp online shopping). And other things that can easily get out of hand.

As part of my recovery I'm learning things that will make me feel good that aren't physical, or 'having stuff'. Fruits of the spirit I suppose.

jessie65

Yes, online shopping! I try to figure out what's easier to hide, bringing it home or getting it delivered. Haven't figured that out yet, lol.

I know what you mean though, I wish I could just be happy with life as it is but I never am. I deal with chronic pain, a messed up marriage, fighting kids, demanding pets, a demanding business, endless errands....

I want relief I guess and sitting outside listening to the birds isn't cutting it.

tufty13

Yes, yes & yes!

I'm smoking more, can't for the life of me kick it, another attempt getting lined up this week, probably my twentieth day one.

And because I'm smoking more tobacco, I'm smoking more joints, several a month where it would have been several a year before I quit the booze. The worst of it is, I know the only reason it's not several a week or a day is because I'm "controlling it". Got to knock that on the head too.

And bizarrely, I've started buying lottery tickets. What? Where did that come from? Bloody lottery tickets of all things.

I've come so far but I've still got so far to go too.

january161992

i aint no saint

entropy1964

I'm sure there is something to the 'addictive personality' idea. Nature, nurture, phenotype, genotype? Nothing really has been proven scientifically.

I know part of what drives my addiction is the 'hole in my soul' idea. I have to find a way to fill this hole with something other than a substance or negative behavior. For me that is my program of recovery, my higher power and yes, doing the next right thing (putting my big girl panties on is one of those things ) If I simply remove the alcohol and don't attempt to fill my soul I'll just engage in unhealthy thinking, behaviors and substances. I most certainly am still working on this

I resent having to behave all the time, lol. I'm a grown woman though, so I guess that thinking is wrong. I don't know, I guess I just want to have fun and let go sometimes, it seems since I got sober I do find life monotonous (sp?)
Right, wrong? Dunno. But I know I have to redefine my definition of fun. The ways that you are rebelling against yourself don't sound like fun to me.

Good luck. Oh and its great that your kid wants to donate his stuff...unopened...doesn't even know what it is. Wow. I would say that's a definite indication they have way more than they need. Maybe this year try doing some volunteering at Thanksgiving at the local shelter. Sounds like they would learn a lot.

Soberpotamus

It was fitness (running and weightlifting) for me for a while. And then it was online shopping.

In both cases, I was avoiding unpleasant feelings and underlying issues. I was dealing with accepting that I was turning 35 and realizing I was approaching 40 and trying to get a grip on my identity and how much importance I'd placed (or bought into the societal pressures) on physical appearance and attractiveness. Some values had to be rearranged in my mind as soon as I got sober. I realized I was holding onto things from my early 20s and it no longer made any sense. I had to let go of some ideas and ideals.

With the shopping, I was dealing with feeling the need to 'catch up' after having neglected myself and my new home (bought in 2008). I was just drinking in this home, not taking much pride in being a homeowner, and kind of spinning my wheels and stagnating. I felt pressure suddenly to make the house look nice. I kept buying and things got out of hand. My husband has some clutter/hoarding issues as well, and I realize now, I was feeling helpless and a loss of control to have things arranged in my house the way I wanted. He came along after I bought my home, and I was very resentful he was cluttering up the place and taking too much space for all his things. He forbade me to move or throw out his piles of stuff, and so I bought things to feel as if I still had control over the house.

So, when I looked hard enough at what I was doing, I saw what I was avoiding, and how I was avoiding dealing with it.

Now, I will spend the next few years paying off credit card debt. But I am no longer delusional about my youth, my beauty (or lack of it), aging, controlling the space where I live, and controlling my husband's problems and issues.

jessie65

I do believe there is something missing in my life and I am trying to fill that hole.

Tufty, lottery tickets, lol, isn't it strange, just out of the blue. I've been doing that too, just strange cravings or obsessions, I'll wake up the next day and, just like in my drinking days, I'll lay there and think I will NOT do that today!! And by mid-day I'm justifying why I can do it one more time. It's crazy!
Maybe I really am just nuts?

Soberpotamus, I Wish my obsession was fitness. Oh, how I dream about becoming a fitness fanatic. I too, am too concerned about how I look. When I was almost 40 I lost a large amount of weight, felt and looked better than I ever had. It was like reclaiming my youth, I was dressing like a 20 yr. old again, lol.
Then I started drinking, how strange is that? And I put on about 40 lbs.

I did start caring about my home more too after I quit drinking so that's where the shopping came in. My closet is so full, I will die if my husband goes in there... My shelf in there already collapsed once.

My kids did open there gifts, I meant they are still in sealed boxes (Lego sets and such), they do have too much, they've actually told me I always bought them too much. I was a bargain shopper though so I used to hit every toy clearance when they were little.

Glad to know I'm not alone though, I need to get myself together again, I was doing So good too! I feel (and look) better when I'm taking care of myself and doing 'the next right thing'.

SnazzyDresser

I've been abusing caffeine some since I quit drinking, nonstop coffee drinking. Sure not proud of it, something I'm working on every day.

Delizadee

I have that problem too. The more I find ways to put a stop my addictions, the more strangled I feel at having no way out and nothing to fill the void.
For me it feels like a loss of power, and getting my brain in the delusion of keeping control of things by doing things that are not right, is a way for me to avoid feeling the bad emotions that I've never learned to deal with.

I'm sort of working my way through the melee of emotions and baggage that has accumulated in my life. It is heavy work but it's not all bad and sometimes just being is actually ok now.
I think Berrybean and Sp nailed it for me, it's the working on doing the next right things and accepting where things are at.

Sometimes when I think of myself and my ping pong addictions (or whackamole as Bunny so eloquently put it) it reminds me of Fight Club, when Edward Norton is suffering from insomnia and meets Helena Bonham Carter when they're bouncing from one late night support group to another.

tufty13

I'm firmly in the "nurture" not nature camp for how and why we have a predeliction to addictive behaviour.

The book "why love matters" (link to synopsis below) maps out how the child's brain develops differently when certain aspects of nurture are missing from the child's early months/ years of upbringing. It's not necessarily lack of care, more lack of love. Subtleties like touch, talk and crucially eye to eye contact are critical for the healthy development of the brain. Without them, as adults we are more likely to struggle with depression and other psychological struggles.

Admittedly this fits perfectly with my own story so I'm inclined to be sympathetic to the authors findings anyway.

In my post above I only mentioned my current struggles but that's the tip of my, albeit small, historic addictive iceberg.

Before alcohol it was money, I became obsessed with it, I taught myself macro economics and got interested in shares & then share dealing. I saw the financial crash of 2007 happening two years before it hit the news and made a fair bit swapping cash to gold & gold mining shares, oil futures and then back to cash again after the dust settled on financial meltdown. Didn't do me much good because my wife divorced me because I was drinking so much! You've got to laugh. Broke but gleefully happy now.

Before money, it was exercise. Sometime in my mid thirties I decided to get fit. It started with jogging "round the block" (I believe the more familiar term for block for our American friends would be neighbourhood) and ended with me racing over mountains in two day completions, carrying a rucksack and provisions. My pulse rate at rest was down to 47bpm at one point.

Before exercise it was work. I left school at 16 and got a job manual labouring with a big company. Basically shovelling sh*t. Within six years I was the youngest ever manager in the history of the business in charge of 14 people and entire responsibility for a several million pound operation. I was only 22, took one day off a month and worked 10-12 hour days for all those six years.

Between the money & alcohol addictions it was sex. I won't go into detail because it's not necessary. But it was an addiction alright.

it would appear my latest addiction is writing long & rambling posts!

Here's the link.....


https://www.theguardian.com/books/20....booksonhealth

Stay happy everyone :-)

keeppushing

This is a big problem for me, but it not only leads to substitutes, it completely demotivates me. I actually just posted about this 5 mins ago, but since we're here, does anyone else face complete listlessness? Ice cream isn't good, but listlessness severely impacts my job.

Thanks,

KP

Delizadee

KP I've struggled with it every time I'm sober.

I think, for me anyways, I have to remember how much effort I put into keeping my addiction going. And I have to put at least that much effort into getting momentum of my sobriety and recovery going.
It's all fine and good to have a list of healthy things to do, and I keep my emergency stuff on hand for when I need them, like my gum, my candy, my ginger ale and bubbly water, etc.
But the getting up and DOING it is what matters, and I know for me really keeping busy especially in the early days really helps.
For me, staying on SR all day, sitting around spinning my wheels, not filling up my hours with productive activities at all, really is counterproductive for me and sort of compounds the depression and lack of motivation.
Sometimes it comes right down to, do the next right thing, and the next right thing might be getting your rear in gear even if you don't feel like it.

I struggled with it in my job too. I'd fool around most of the day and leave things till the last minute and rush around in a panic getting it done (which usually results in a lot of errors when dealing with measurements and math).
I think part of that is a subconscious manifestation of addiction. It is a habit that I'm looking for the rush of adrenaline caused by stress so I intentionally create it for myself, more often than not. I KNOW I'm doing it. And I have to work really hard to do things at a steady pace instead of all at once at the end.
The difference between sipping one drink over the course of an evening vs chugging 12 of them over the course of 3 hours.
Sometimes it's an all or nothing solution, or so we think. That's what it was like for me. Some things I just plain let go and walked away from (even worse)
I didn't do my job well in early sobriety and ultimately lost it anyways. (They quit me when I was on sick leave) and I don't get to go back until I am 'well' and 'recovered' and have done treatment. And I think part of recovery is learning how to live life normally on life's terms.
That's what I figure anyways. I find the more work I put into my recovery the more motivated I am getting to change other aspects of my life.
Just some thoughts of mine and where I'm at on this road.

Soberpotamus

I love Bunny's whackamole analogy. And Fight Club, yes, such a great movie and the support group hopping they did was funny and so strange. But I totally get it! After IOP, I felt this way too. I wanted to keep going to group therapy.

Delizadee

I have been going to my day program (mon-fri, 1pm 4pm) since September 2nd. It's a 6 week (30 day) drop in program. I should be done on the 20th with the days I've missed, but I'll likely keep going as long as I'm not working and not in treatment.

And the first rule about Fight Club.... gee that kind of sounds like what we say when we open sharing circle...

bexxed

I smoke way more tobacco, and like a good addict, I totally hide it. I used to do a lot of cocaine but stopped in 2003, with one slip on new years 2006. I have "food issues" which are not too pronounced right now, but could be, especially if I went all out and kicked the tobacco. When I was drinking I started using melatonin and benadryl (read about someone else here who did this, when they stopped drinking) - I did it because when I was drinking, alcohol didn't let me sleep. I'm thankful I don't have the shopping problem. If anything I had that when i was drinking much more than I do now.

I'm noticing my addictive traits though. The secretive behaviors especially. One day at a time...

B

DolAndel

I've been whittling away at my trinity of substance (booze, weed and caffeine) all summer. I definitely feel like I've been playing whack-a-mole with my addictions thus far. That is a great way to describe it! Whether it's food, drugs, shopping, sex... just about anything that activates the brain's reward center has an addiction potential I'd suspect. So many moles in this lousy arcade game! :-)

jessie65

Love everybody's responses, thank-you

I thought today would be the day that I could get back on my healthy routine and I blew it already. After a stressful morning, I went and bought my favorite junk food.

Try again tomorrow. I don't have any other substance problems so I guess that's good, never did drugs, not even pot, and I don't smoke.
I'm such an angel now, lol.

Thanks for the link tufty!