How are you today AO?

Same question!

Hi everbody. :hug:

I am totally overwhelmed at the genuine outreach and kindness.

It's soooo hard to admit when I am drowning.
When I have made a wrong turn and just started just spinning in circles.

I'm ashamed and forlorn.

But I honestly feel a smidgelet better because of the energy that I am garnering from the outpouring of love and random acts of kindness.

Thanks for just being there and hearing me.

Hi, AO. There is a lot of really good advice in this thread. And there are a lot of people here who know you, who remember you, and who care about you.

On a whim, I went back and looked at the first thread I ever posted here at SR, nearly 4 years ago.

I was a mess. And I was so alone. And so despondent. Just like you.

My first post here was my first plea for help. And I just noticed that you, AO, were the very person to respond to my post. The very first person. That meant a lot to me.

So, while the journey is yours to make, know that there a many, many of us who are willing to walk beside you - just as you were willing to do for us. :grouphug:

Big hugs AO. Love you long time!

AO, I remember you well and am glad you are coming back to SR. It always makes my heart sing to see someone who dropped off the radar pop up stating they want to give sobriety any other try. It's when people don't say that I worry.

I want to thank you for sharing your feelings and frustrations with us here, so later we can all share in your triumphs. Sending healing thoughts your way.

AO, so sorry to see what a tough time you're going through right now, with things feeling so hopeless for you. But you've already seen in the posts here that you've made a real difference to other people with the support you've given them. And while you've fallen back into drinking, for a long time you were sober weren't you? That's a real achievement. Something to be proud of. That doesn't suddenly disappear just because you didn't yet have all the pieces in place to make it permanent.

My own belief is that everyone can change. You've done it before, but there was just something missing from your plan. From that list of work you've done I couldn't tell if counselling was something you've tried? It does sound like there may have been issues from your past that perhaps you were using alcohol to try and cope with? Drinking certainly make things worse, but stopping doesn't make any underlying issues disappear if there were any. If it isn't something you've really committed to before, perhaps therapy could be the missing piece your plan needs?

I'm glad you came back here, AO.

OpenTuning had some good insights.

Take good care and know that there is a world of support here for you.

AO - I just got home from a necessary, but difficult visit. Your posts are helping me so very much. Oh how lonely I can feel and you articulated exactly how I was feeling today.

Welcome back, alphaomega. Fall down 1,000 times, get back up 1,001.

AO , :) , not happy you're 'back' , but glad to see ya :)

I had a [very brief] boyfriend once in my sophmore year of college. Only had a few dates and then it didn't go anywhere. I ran into him one day and asked him how he was doing. He said, "Life's a bi*tch and then you die." And I was just like....okay....I detect just a smidgen of bitterness there; perhaps sour grapes....but anyway...I never forgot what he said to me that day and I felt it was HARSH. As he was nowhere near death at that time. But, perhaps he was just in a place where he felt life was a real b*tch, ya know. (Or maybe he was thinking I was a real b*tch). He did teach me how to play pool, but anyways....And then another saying I came across by an older retired probation officer who said, "Sh*t happens; sh*t's arranged." Okay...that got me scratching my head. Ya know, I have a hard time accepting those sayings. Like what did they mean? Well, that's what they were honestly feeling at the time and we all have days like that. I don't know that anyone is spared, though some seem to have more than their fair share....I don't know what happened to the old boyfriend. But the old retired guy? He wasn't bitter. Maybe he came to a place where he realized that no matter what we "arrange" ourselves, there seems to be another "arrangement" in the works.

Life's a bitch and then you die
 

RIP Earnie Larsen!

AO, I've missed you too. Seems you've lost yourself with the booze. My advice is just to stop drinking and come back to SR. Simple, not easy. Booze is a depressant that used to make me feel desperate and inconsolable. I'm sober over 1 year now. We need you here. Maybe more than you need us :)

Xoxo

i think one of the biggest things that helped me get and stay sober is humility. admitting i didnt know jack **** about jack **** about living.
humility lead to teachability.
and the ability to admit and accept i dont have all the answers nor do i feel i need all the anwers today. but i have the answers for living MY life on MY lifes terms today.

I've been in circles / relapses plenty of times--no shame in that
because I didn't quit quitting and won't ever.
Be a bit kinder to yourself.

I also have had to give up looking for answers AO
For me, the biggest act of captial F "Faith" in my life has been accepting not knowing.
It isn't easy, but it gets easier.

Your mother and her needs are a big part of the problem here--
your new sobriety plan needs to factor that in, dear heart

Been there (as you know) with the soul-draining self-centered mother.
Consider your resources and what you need to do for you, and put that in the plan.

What is the plan, by the way?

I don't know how to not know.

It's how I defined myself for all these decades.

I'm the one who had the answers and if I didn't I knew where to find them. My whole life has been parsing together the nasty bits to try to make sense of the big picture.

That's what frightens me the most. I feel like a stranger in a strange land. Literally no answers. None.

As far as a plan ? I'm not there yet. I'd love to say I'm going to march right in and dive right down and buckle in and hunker down. I have said that, what, 600 times before ? I even meant it. Believed it. Owned it. Took the meds and did the therapy.

For, oh, decades.

The meds worked to numb me out. Which would be AWesome Right about now. But I tried to start them up again and got soooooo dark it scared the hell out of me.

Couldn't do the time. Again. Just. Couldn't. Wait. For. It. To. Work.

Call me a fatalist, but right now I see ZERO point in making a plan when the failures just keep adding up.

Perhaps this is what they mean when they say "I don't have another quit in me" ?

Jesus.

I just re read my tag line.

That was the old AO.

That girl doesn't live here anymore.

No way missy, we are not going to buy that. I don't think you do either. If this one was gonna get you, you wouldn't be here.

Put the bottle down, and work this one day at a time with us. We'll help you. So you can help yourself. Xo

AO, if you have nothing else, you still have a way with words. Which means you have something worth saving.

Stop clinging to your despair. Pour out the liquor.

THE HOUSE OF BELONGING

I awoke
this morning
in the gold light
turning this way
and that

thinking for
a moment
it was one
day
like any other.

But
the veil had gone
from my
darkened heart
and
I thought

it must have been the quiet
candlelight
that filled my room,

it must have been
the first
easy rhythm
with which I breathed
myself to sleep,

it must have been
the prayer I said
speaking to the otherness
of the night.

And
I thought
this is the good day
you could
meet your love,

this is the black day
someone close
to you could die.

This is the day
you realize
how easily the thread
is broken
between this world
and the next

and I found myself
sitting up
in the quiet pathway
of light,

the tawny
close-grained cedar
burning round
me like fire
and all the angels of this housely
heaven ascending
through the first
roof of light
the sun has made.

This is the bright home
in which I live,
this is where
I ask
my friends
to come,
this is where I want
to love all the things
it has taken me so long
to learn to love.

This is the temple
of my adult aloneness
and I belong
to that aloneness
as I belong to my life.

There is no house
like the house of belonging.

~David Whyte