Sober....but depressed.
 

Sober a month and 6 days so far.
Since I quit, I've been so, so depressed. I didn't have this depression before.
I've been active for the last 6-7 months going to the gym 5 times and week, and getting 10000 steps a day. I work a 9-5. Other than that, I sleep. On the weekend I have been sleeping all day and night. I'm depressed. I don't want to get up, talk to anyone, or see anyone.
I want to drink.
Did anyone else go through this? I need it to stop or I see myself drinking in the near future. Depression sucks.

What have you been doing to treat your alcoholism?

I have been going to AA and counselling as well.

For the first few months of my sobriety I was barely holding on and not doing much of nothing except for hitting a few AA meetings.

Finally one day I pulled the air conditioner off of our motorhome and repaired it and put it back on I kind of had my mojo back felt good hang tight till then.

M-Bob

1 month is great but it's still early in recovery. I remember when I was at that point and thought all my problems should be working themselves out by now. It didn't happen. But things were slowly getting better, if not on the time frame I wanted. It does get better. And as you continue this journey and look back you realize that there were a lot of changes. Even though at the time it didn't feel like it.

How are you doing with the steps?

Hi Anarock,

Congratulations a month is awesome!

Why don't you go and see a doctor? your depression may be treatable

don't drink please:):grouphug:

Fighting the depression is painful, but it was part of the mourning process for me. I had to give up something I held dear, even though it was wrecking me.....I missed it, am still from time to time mourning it. It seems to be improving, but it takes time.

How long had you been drinking before you quit? Maybe I missed that.

But anyhow-is it possible you were drinking partly because of underlying depression? Many people drink when they feel depressed. Just a thought. At any rate, awesome job on one month and hearing that you just want to sleep and isolate doesn't surprise me actually. Your emotions might be raw or you might feel edgy and don't want to be around people or too much stimulus.

Hi Anarock :)
This is just my experience but it took me about 3 months to feel mentally good again.

If you're worried about this why not see a Dr, get a checkup?

D

I don’t think it’s uncommon what you are experiencing

I hit the wall and was exactly the same albeit a bit later on in my ongoing recovery

See a doctor , they are there to help you and will

I did it and it was best thing I ever did in helping myself along , it’s a tough road your on and no shame in getting whatever help is needed to push through

Good luck

It takes some time but hang in there- it gets easier.

Feel and acknowledge the depression rather than trying to push it away or resist it. You've given up something that used to "lift" you temporarily. Now you have to get used to living life without that chemical life, and it takes time.

Not great. Step one is hard.

I am already on medication for anxiety/depression. Was doing well but when I quit drinking it all came down on me.

Hey Anarok, I appreciate your honest answers. It is possible you have more than one issue going on here, and one, depression, is something I don't have the experience or qualifications to help you with. The solution ther would lie with professionals and your complete honesty with them.

Alcoholism, and recovery is something is have some experience with, and I can relate very strongly with your original post. That black spot you describe is very much like an experience I had. If I think about it, most of my efforts at sobriety ended because life sober was so miserable.

The experience I am thinking of is when I was discharged from treatment. I found it incredibly hard to function, I got progressively more miserable and in the end couldn't get out of bed. I had let everything go. A nurse from the rehab visited and in his report, which I saw a year or two later in my medical file, described my living conditions as absolute squalor. He diagnosed depression and gave me some pills, which had no effect.

A well meaning friend suggested I try pot, as I was such an awful person on the booze. I had a puff, and within seconds a drink was down my neck, and another bender was underway. What I was suffering was what we in AA call the spiritual malady, more so than depression, though they are hard to tell apart. Alcohol was always my solution to that. That momentary and eventually elusive sense of ease and comfort which came from the first few drinks. The AD didn't work but the alcohol provided instant though temporary relief, before it began destroying me again.

Spiritual malady is another word for untreated alcoholism, and as long as I was on the wrong side of the steps, my alcoholism remained untreated, and I continued to drink. In the end it was the drinking that gave me step one. I sometimes say work on my first step started with my first drink. I had to be totally convinced that I was powerless over alcohol, and it took a long time to convince me of that fact.

However, until I was convinced there wasn't much reason to do anything about it. How could there be. When I came to see that I had a progressive terminal illness that always got worse, that would only end with me being locked up, covered up, or sobered up, when I really saw the seriousness of my situation, then step one became a no brainer. All it really does is identify the problem, and for some reason I was the last to see it.

Step two was a no brainer as well. Over the time of my drinking I had come to believe all sorts of things would fix me, like new town, new job, new girlfriend, counseling, rehab etc, and nothing had worked. The only thing left was this spiritual business with AA, and I had met some people through the meetings who seemed to have a real solution for me. So step two became my choice of a solution. It could have been anything, but in my case I had come to believe that it was at least possible that the same power that helped these folks could work for me too.

Having identified the problem and the solution, I made a decision in step 3, to put the solution into effect by taking the rest of the steps. From step five onward I never experienced that sober misery again. A whole new world opened up to me.

Notice I don't say after x months, or x meetings. I know a lot of people with many months and many meetings who are still miserable. My experience was that my progress in recovery was closely in sync with my progress in the steps. I got to step five after about six weeks, I would guess. And my life changed forever.

In your position, I drank. I had no solution, no insight, and could see no alternative. I had to learn the hard way. Maybe you don't. Perhaps you can see the truth of your situation. Maybe you need to find a sponsor who can move you on through the steps, and as your recovery progresses, so will your ability to deal with any other issues. Treatments for other disorders always seem to be more effective if the patient is sober.

All the best.

I remember discovering that when I'd quit drinking for a while, this "depression" would well up inside of me until, eventually, I'd drink again. It turns out my depression wasn't depression - it was untreated alcoholism. Ya see, when I stop drinking, alcoholism kicks into high gear and hurts to the point that I eventually drink again. The drinking is just the last phase. Funny thing though, the act of drinking treats my alcoholism - it makes me feel better (at least temporarily - kinda).

Hooking up with a solution to all that crap that "drives me to drink" when I'm dry.....that's recovery. Like is says in the AA Book "...main object is to enable you to find a Power greater than yourself which will solve your problem." It didn't take me long to discover that drinking, while a serious problem, was not THE problem - there was something deeper that caaaaaused the drinking.

And for the recovery police out there - I'm NOT saying people don't have real "clinical" depression. I am saying that depression and untreated alcoholism look amazingly similar. What I thought was depression for me, was in fact untreated alcoholism. Just like any 2 illnesses with different treatments, it's important to know which one one has. ;)

Congratulations on your recovery.

Alcohol is a depressant and the depression you're feeling could be related to stopping drinking. If so, it should clear up in the next month or so. If not, it might be time to talk to your dr.

My suggestion would be to try to put something enjoyable and fun into your day, even if you don't really feel like it.

This has been a great thread for me, as I progress through the slow recovery process. At times, I don't feel much like getting out of bed either, but I make myself and note that at least I'm not sick to my stomach anymore and my mind is a bit sharper with every new day. Let's hang in there! It's better then drinking and feeling worthless.

only as hard as ya make it.
step one in plain english:
alcohol will kill me.

maybe explain why ya say its hard,eh?
hard to admit youre powerless over alcohol?
or that your life had become unmanageble?

whats your sponsor have to say?