Wanna be numb
 

I miss the numbness of alcohol. I don't want to drink anymore, but I hate feeling all these emotions. It has been over 2 months since I've had a drink. The last couple of weeks have been calm overall, but I'll admit that I'm tired of fighting with myself everyday. The last couple of days I have had the overwhelming thought that life isn't worth all the fuss and all I want to do is forget myself. I wish there was a way to get away from myself. I wish there was a way to numb it all so I don't have to feel it anymore.

What exactly is causing anxiety for you?
One thing that causes anxiety for me is the mistaken belief that when I feel a certain way, I must respond a certain way. That something is going to happen, and it will cause me even more pain.
My emotions are, firstly, my choice. I guess they largely determined by my conditioning, but I can change that whenever I want. Emotions are temporary, they will decrease in intensity on their own with time, I don't have to do anything to numb them.
The problem is I've conditioned myself to instantly stop all feelings by drinking. So I don't learn how to deal with them.

Congratulations on 2 months! Like you, I struggled to understand how so many people were able to find recovery and not obsess about never being able to drink again. I found that once I stopped fighting and I accepted that alcohol ruins any chance of me having any sort of quality in my life, things began to get a lot easier.

Have you made any changes in your lifestyle since you stopped drinking Giraffegirl? As I'm sure you know, there's no change without change.

Hang in, it will get better if you use the tools and listen to the advice from people here on SR, who have found long term recovery.

Congratulations on 2 months of sobriety!

I think it's important to make changes in your life and to add things to your life that bring you peace and joy. What do feel passionate about? Continue to move forward and be patient with yourself. I hope you some peace.

The feelings you're going thru are your mind and heart coming back to life. That's a good thing. If you stay sober, it will get easier. And by that I don't mean that they'll go away, just that they won't be as big a deal anymore. You'll be able to deal with them without them ruining your mood or your day. It gets better. I went thru exactly the same thing. Tired of the roller coaster, sick of myself, sick of the emotional pain, etc. Give recovery some time. It doesn't happen overnight, but in the end, it's worth it. It really is.

Oblivion does not fix life or emotions. We do. I go to meetings, see a counsellor and a psychologist and journal and post here and do art and .....anything and everything to work toward feeling better and never drinking again.

I have those days. Sometimes life is what it is in seasons. Somethings can't be fixed or adjusted much. Some things are out of our control. And the temptation to just escape hangs around. The problem is if we escape with alcohol and get sucked back into the shame, regret, and all the other things we hate about drinking, we will be back to truely needing rescue again from our addiction. So escape in a good book, or movie. Better yet find a great place to volunteer. It gives you happy thoughts to replace the urges.

it can be a bugger,GG. 60 days is awesome!!! but the thing that sucks is....welp....ya prolly polluted yourself and numbed yourself with alcohol for quite a few years,eh?
the mental mayhen aint gonna go away real fast
HOWEVER
there is already progress!!
" The last couple of weeks have been calm overall'

is that not already better than the first 1-2 weeks?

hows them AA meetings been goin?
been reading the big book?

AA meetings have been going well, but I need to start going to more of them. I'm down to 1 or 2 a week and that may be why I'm not doing so well. I went yesterday and received my chip. I plan on hitting 3 this week. I've got to get into the Big Book again. I must confess that I haven't been reading it lately.

Mainly just keeping myself busy with cleaning and running errands. I think it's time that I get involved in some sort of community service.

My insurance will kick in soon (just started a new job). I plan on finding a counselor ASAP. I think that therapy will help a great deal.

GOOD one GG. Meetings help me just to get out of my headspace.

Someone once told me we no longer can afford the luxury of feeling numb - and altho that sounded a little harsh to me at the time, it's right.

What I found was tho that the more feelings and experiences I faced sober the less feeling numb mattered to me.

It took a little longer than 2 months but I actively do not want to feel numb now - I even hate it at the dentists.

Keep meeting life full on and I reckon you'll get to that point too GiraffeGirl :)

D

Hi Girraffegirl,
The first thing that struck me about your init.ial post about wanting to get away from self is that that is exactly what the AA program is about. Third step,prayer ...Relive me of the bondage of self... etc. and around that, being convinced that self manifested in various ways was at the root of all our problems...

Sounds like you are ready to tackle step four, which is where we begin to solve this problem and also where most people run away. You probably already found that running away from self doesn't quite work eh?

My own experience at about 60 days I suddenly saw the need to take this step, realizing that I probably would not survive if I did not. The third step prayer seemed to give me that insight, and the courage to press on.

So I turned up on my sponsors door step and asked him to help me with it. We did it together on a Saturday. It took four or five hours and the next day I got step five done. My life noticeably changed for the better, my spiritual experience began, and by the time I was half way through step nine, a few weeks later, I realized the obsession with alcohol had been lifted, and it has never come back.

Sometimes it takes a bit of discomfort to get us moving. Sitting in meetings seems to work for some folk, but it is not the program, and for an alcoholic of my type, action on the program and working with others was essential for me to recover permanently.