canguy

I don't care about it. You totally separate from any connection. You're not responsible, it was a effuck yada yada.

But you do know....that it wouldn't have happened if you were different.

soberlicious

You don't know this for sure. The devastation of losing a child could have happened if you had never been a drinker. I'm so sorry for your loss.

saoutchik

Thank you for talking about it canguy, it must be so hard to do this. The death of your child was not your fault but if other people are acting like it was that must make the grieving process really painful.

I hope that the passing of time will adjust your perspective enough to be able to start healing

canguy

It teaches you how to never care again.
From that point on it all changes. That life is gone.......the new one is not 9 to 5, it's 24 hour silence and it can drive you mad.

obosob

Hi Canguy,

My wife miscarried in Asia.
It was a mess, physically and mentally.
I too for a long time asked myself many of the same questions.

It was absolutely not you fault, you are not to blame.

Full support from me.

Get sober mate!

nomis

Yeah, that's alcohol for you all right. Reminds me of that scene from flight. Denzel Washington's character has just shown up at his union rep buddy's house, drunk as a skunk, after causing a scene yelling and hurling abuse at his ex-wife at her house.

His buddy says to him "You're under investigation by the FAA for flying a plane that crashed while you were drunk, and yet, you still continue to drink! What kind of crazy to you have to be to do that?"

It hits the nail right on the head. Our alcoholic brains have decided that booze is the answer to our pain and stress, even if the source of the pain and stress is booze.

In any case, mate, my condolences. Everybody is different, but drinking numbed me from the world. I couldn't handle my emotions, good or bad, and drank to deal with them. Now that I'm sober, life sure ain't always a bouquet of roses, but I can feel again. And that makes all the difference.

canguy

But I guess I don't get the caring / sharing approach. For me it's used / abused

Why do people do that to each other?

biminiblue

The best thing about sobriety for me is that my crazy spinning brain stopped spinning all the toxic obsessions.

Time away from alcohol will make all of your thoughts much more manageable, canguy. I'd tell you about my traumas, but there is no need. Suffice to say, I couldn't heal them while I was drinking.

I was in a swamp, up to my ears in terrifying thoughts that were trying to consume me. Only way out of the swamp was sober.

canguy

Obosob....

Thanks.

I've wandered thro Japan mainly. Tokyo is great. So much concrete it has its own climate, night is warm as day. Totally different time frame, nothing opens until 11 a.m. then goes way beyond midnite. Want a new shirt at 1.a.m? No problem. But the girl serving will be so tired and just wants the train home and cant understand why you don't want to take off your shoes to stand on the mat to try the shirt on.

Ok, new shirt....let's go out. You can spend a lot of money on this. If you are an alcoholic both financial and functioning....Japan is fabulous. They live for status, 'face'....so drinking is a social display, top shelf, branded spirits. Beer is a kind of adult soft drink, Available 24/7 from the vending machine at the end of the hotel corridor or around the corner from your house.

The 'izakaya'.....sort of 'drinking restaurant'. With girls. But no sex, not allowed. They are hostesses....some are singers. The singers are Filipino girls always....ever met a Fil girl that cant hold a tune? Me neither. You can buy them a drink.....but then there is another woman who sells dresses....and she really wants this one.....and if you come back tomorrow night she'll wear it and sing just for you.

On ethanol.

Whale sashimi really does taste like sh*t......but uni .......go to Japan, find a sushi place and say "futatasu uni kudasai" Eat the first one. Food will never be same again. Look at the second rollup, still warm. Welcome to the floating world.

thomas11

canguy, you are obviously intelligent, which can work against you (and I'm sure you know that). Smart or not smart, I like to break things down to their simplest form, as they are more understandable. I could think my way out of almost anything...still can. I couldn't think myself out of my horrible drinking habit. A rule I adopted was that if 20 people told me I was wrong, and I still thought I was right....I was probably wrong. Oh the horror, me wrong? Yeah, its true.

canguy

If I was intelligent I wouldn't be here.

If I had been intelligent it would have been different. I'd be home with a wife and family, intelligent people aren't wandering through Tokyo at 3 in the morning....endlessly sleepless hotel rooms and auto taxi cabs.

I've just become addicted and can't find a way out of it.

Midwest1981

I hope you can get some rest canguy and be safe tonight.

saoutchik

You are intelligent canguy. Being intelligent doesn't stop a person from doing dumb things or from being addicted, it just means means you can see more easily how dumb those actions were.

At this moment because of the awful traumas you have experienced you are feeling unable to take the additional stress of not drinking and so you continue, the spiral as you say.

I have not been through what you have been through so I cannot write with any authority them but what biminiblue wrote struck me as correct, that these traumas are more open to some sort of rationalisation when we are away from drinking

I feel sure that one day at least one person who knows you personally will be mighty grateful that you beat this

Fly N Buy

I have seen a lot of burning bush moments evident in friends lives who have gone through very difficult circumstances and come out the other side. Some how, grace perhaps - they found a way, a moment to step forward.

The loving God I know doesn't punish unsuitable wannabe parents by killing their babies. God related to the "unsuitable" It was why He sent His Son here.......

Many find a way out including myself. Nothing special about them or me - just wanted to be sober more than be a drunk and took some action to get there.

Change the channel, there are other shows.........

biminiblue

Alcohol causes trauma to seem overwhelming and like the only relief is more alcohol.

I used to say, "I drink to shut up my brain." I was an obsessive person, AND it was caused by drinking alcohol. I don't obsess any more. The thing is, it took a few sober months until I was able to wrangle my thoughts into line. I kept saying, "I want to crawl out of my skin," in early sobriety. Luckily that died down and things started making sense and the ability to let go of stuff increased exponentially.

"...Accept the things I cannot change." Like everything in the past.

All the trauma had been stuffed down/numbed out, and I never tried to come up with a strategy to deal with them because alcohol worked. Until it didn't.

In sobriety I am able to forgive others and myself, I am able to look at the big picture. I'm able to understand my past and to live in peace with it. To be more precise, I am able to live in peace from my own thoughts. My alcohol soaked brain would grab onto stuff and not let it go. Using it as a coping tool is not coping, it's running.

I agree with FlyNBuy, there is plenty of grace to be found in sobriety. The burden was taken, but I had to put it down.

Dee74

*Plenty* of intelligent people get addicted - addiction is no respecter of gender, age, nationality or IQ.

and plenty of very nice people have horrific things happen to them - I don't know why - but I know it's not a 'punishment from God'.

There's some great wisdom in these last few posts Canguy. it's time to stop beating yourself into a pulp.

D

canguy

Going back up there mid January. There's a girlfriend, but I think she's alcoholic too. She drinks gin late at nite.....the mails in the morning are angry scattered sprays....other times very caring. They are super bright, we sat in an airport lounge and she's tapping away on the Japanese phone, writing stuff down. I have a look, and it's not sums, not adding up what's in the bank account. They're doing equations. The abstract x y squared stuff. Mum and son do equations for fun....ok.

I think she drinks a lot. She came down here when I was sober and did not like it. 'Why you no drink with me?' Ever been with someone who gets angry when you don't drink.? New one to me.

Dunno....maybe should I just walk away from all of this?

Dee74

It doesn't sound like a situation conducive to recovery.

D

canguy

No, Dee....it's not.

It is a very pressured aging society where drinking is an accepted way of dealing with it. The pressure is enormous.....the son is academically gifted, socially defective...but on the way to the top medical school. The school system is unreal....a dress uniform for travel to and from, another for day classes. Hours of study, exams....weekend classes.....even the ping pong class turns into a traumatic competition where Mom has to practice for hours so son won't be humiliated.

The adults brought up in this love drinking.....they think we are all repressed and just need the medicine....and some more medicine. And on it goes. It is mad. You can walk into a restaurant and the air is blue with cig. smoke. Outside on the street there's a uniformed man...his job is to stop butts in the gutter.

Yeah.....not a good place for a drinking problem.

But then there is the quiet emptiness that can be full of silence where you can just sit. They do that well.....the most beautiful gardens and landscapes. It is a huge city with quiet corners that you stumble across. I sat in a moss covered temple graveyard.....a dragonfly came down and sat on my hand.

Dee74

I meant the girlfriend but I take your point.

Have you considered not 'going back up there' and into treatment instead?

D