taplow

I always start my own thread because I....well I don't join in. I'm not helpful really, I just don't know anything, so I'll just post here and it does me some good. If you reply I'd love it but if you just read it, that's good too. But remember that if you do reply I won't take it in, I never do. So, even though I can't be helped because I won't be helped, I still come on here. Also, those people who don't read this, then that's some trick you're pulling.
Whereas with alcohol I've dipped my toe in the water recently, now I know I'm back in the familiar pattern. I woke up at 8.00 and straight away thought about drinking. I made some coffee then left it and went round the shop and bought some lagers. There's all this queueing outside nonsense. Everyone's patient and I'm there in my place, shuffling and making complaining noises with muttering swearing. It's clear I'm disturbed. I know where I've got myself again.
I d love you to give something to help me but then of course I won't accept it anyway. I don't fit in, but then I don't want to fit in. Why am I here if I won't accept any help then? I don't know. I've got to be somewhere. I think an insane person believes things that are irrational and obviously untrue - like the Pope is banging on their windows at night or something. Well I'm not that, I'm not insane, but I am at breaking point. I know what I am and I know that I'm changing. It's all unfamiliar and I'm the edge of something. Something is like, real at the moment. I'm actually feeling like I'm in the present, really in the present you know. It's just now. You know, not thinking of the future.
I guess I'm sounding suicidal but nothing could be further from the truth. When people say they don't want to live I don't think they've gone deep enough. Life; you can't get out of it.
Anyway, I just wanted to post something to no one in particular about nothing in particular. I have nothing to ask. There's no "please help me" message. I'm just covering up the white rectangle.

BeABetterMan

Maybe you’re not ready to quit Tap. Maybe you need to suffer more. Of course it’s always recommended to quit ASAP, but maybe you need more tragedy, more strife. I mean, or you could quit before all of that happens, but it’s 100% up to you.

One thing that’s becoming apparent though, is if you are going to quit, using just your own willpower isn’t looking like the best plan. Gonna probably need some help friend.

taplow

Thanks BeABetterMan. I don't know. Do I need to suffer? I've suffered. I've suffered my whole life. I think I'm the suffering kind, I want to suffer maybe. That's what I am. I'm always suspicious. I might not have been tortured or something, but my life hasn't been what I'd call happy. But happy isn't events, happy is what you are.
Drinking, I gave up for nearly 8 years once.
That's a jumble.

taplow

BeABetterMan, also how my willpower won't be enough is something that won't register. I won't have help like professional treatment, I know that. I think if I can't do it myself then I won't understand it. I'll feel like I've been indoctrinated or something. I have to understand and do it myself or it doesn't have any value to me.

taplow

I don't want to be hammered into shape. I want something that gives me the answer. I know no one has that. I'm absolutely lost. I'm here and I want help but there is none. I just have nowhere to go.
That sounds desperate - cat stuck up a tree stuff - and I don't mean that. I'm really not, well I don't know what I am. I just know that I have to have something to sort this out; and it doesn't exist.

Cityboy

Taplow

"those people who don't read this, then that's some trick you're pulling." - At least you got that off your chest.

You want to be helped or you wouldn't be on a website for recovery immediately after picking up some lagers.

You are helpful to us, at least to me, I assure you.

taplow

Cityboy, thankyou man. Yes of course I want to be, have to be helped, but I can't be. Problem is that I'm seeing that help is sort of wrong. I don't know if you get that. I'm in a real corner. I can't explain myself but I sort of know what I mean.
I'm here asking for help while knowing there isn't help. I'm in some kind of awful chess situation.

Reread your post, I'm helpful to you? I'm glad. Maybe that's it.

nez

I think this is true for most folks. I know it is true for me. Many times for me, my understanding improves after doing. Many times after doing I will see the value. If I don't do, how will I ever know and understand?

I didn't understand nor value the experience of riding a motorcycle until I actually did it for myself. I didn't understand nor value the experience of wearing full leathers when riding a motorcycle until I went down at 50 mph. Up until that point, I thought the value in leathers was to keep me warm. I now better understand the true value to me of wearing full leathers when riding.

taplow

Hi nez, I have to know it, experience it for myself. If I don't get it, it doesn't mean anything. Someone says this is the truth I might go along with it but it won't plant itself. I appreciate the motorcycle metaphor butI don't get the leathers thing though.

Calicofish

Hey Taplow - I totally get the "I don't need help or want it". I have finally asked for help for some terrible anxiety I was experiencing. I was trying my best to get through the ordeal on my own, but it just kept getting worse. I finally sought help and just the act of asking for assistance has made a difference. Now, I still have work to do, but instead of struggling on my own, I have support.

Everyone on this list is extending a virtual helping hand - grab them. This is not a practice life.

kenton

Hey Taplow, I was driving somewhere for work this morning and saw a sign for a place called Taplow and it made me think of you. I actually thought, 'I wonder how that awesome, funny writer on SR is doing'. You say you're at breaking point but you don't want any help... Or you think you can't be helped. It's a tricky one. I'm not as deep a thinker as you Taplow but for what it's worth, these are my thoughts... From this moment in time ... this breaking point.... things could get a lot worse or they could get a lot better. We all know that drinking makes everything worse so if you want things to get better, the drinking has to stop. But you already know that. Beyond that, why don't you try to check in here everyday instead of drinking. Maybe the help you don't think will help you is waiting here for you ....in the unwritten future pages of this thread. Maybe you just don't know what that help looks like yet. Keep writing Taplow and keep connected to all of us here. It might not help. But imagine if it does? I reckon it's worth giving it a go.

Surrendered19

Everything you say makes perfect sense to us Tap. I did it like that too. So much awful avoidable suffering. I had to do permanent damage to myself and be at death's door before, as you say, it made sense to me. I had to experience it for myself. I had to feel death breathing down my neck. I didn't have to do it that way but that's the way I did it. What you are describing is very familiar to all of us. It isn't mysterious and your internal struggle isn't difficult to understand. Your solitary existence in this world is how your AV wants it - I can't be helped, I won't be helped, the truth can't be planted, it is wrong to accept help, etc. You inquired above if CityBoy understood where you are coming from. Trust me. CityBoy understands.

nez

I get the leathers things because I experienced it for myself. My leathers were scratched and destroyed from top to bottom, which would have been my skin if I didn't have the leathers on. People, due to their own experiences, in an effort to help me; had suggested leathers to me long before I ever went down. Prior to that, I had perceived leathers as only a cold weather solution. I hadn't considered all the possible benefits to leathers. Maybe all those people who had offered suggestions to me, were onto something. :~)

Help is all around me, but many times my mind isn't open enough to perceive it, for what it is. When that happens, I am best served by thinking in terms of what could be. What haven't I considered yet? Are there benefits that I might not be seeing?

Nathan57

Taplow, there was this old, famous comedian, Sid Caeser, who had a terrible problem with alcohol. He went to therapists after therapists trying to figure out why he drank. At the end of the day, he said he'd never figure it out, if it was his family, heredity, who knows? He just said, at the end of his rope, he wanted to stop, and he stopped.

I did the same thing, Tried to analyze it, tried to figure out what went wrong. But it didn't stop until I just got fed up, ,admitted I'd never figure out why I drank so much, and stopped. And I was drinking around the clock. I just got tired of it.

I don't think you are ever going to figure out why you drink so much. I think you want to quit, that's a truth, and I'd hold onto that and quit.

I just so sick of it I just quit. I have no idea why I drank so much. I don't care anymore.

Just my experience.

RecklessDrunk

Many times I've heard the phrase or something along the lines of when I came to AA I felt like the round peg in the square hole.

I first came to meetings thinking oh boy this will be really be a challenge for me. I'm different I have mental health issues. Then I realized I'd be different in AA if I I DIDN'T have some kind of anxiety or depression. My life was pretty messed up yet not all that out of the ordinary. Different than other AAs ? Kind of yes and no. What I didn't understand until after getting sober and doing some research and the observations of a previous girlfriend. I likely have a high functioning form of autism. My father died soon after I started middle school. Even before that "experts" knew there was something wrong with me so they just slapped on the emotionally disturbed label. The answer to my little kid question of why I can't be in gifted class if I'm competitive with them in math games. I was kicked out of school after school and spent much of my teens in reform schools.

I think many of us need to try and figure out what our purpose or purposes are. Get out of self and understand what our roles are. How do we serve this World we are blessed to live in. I started to realize this World does not owe me anything and everything I have is a gift. Ok, so I'm a nut but I can use the way I am to serve a company. The company can serve the community with goods and services and jobs. I focus on what my role is and how I serve the company. I use to focus on why I didn't do this and that differently and why are people younger then me in my field getting better positions.

My purpose isn't to isolate in my free time and either be hungover, too drunk or in that brief period of a buzz with the illusion that everything is still going to be ok if I continue living this way.


Something obviously greater then me put me here on this earth. Maybe there is a reason. He, she, it has scared the absolute daylights out of me sometimes but hasn't given me more then I can handle. I can do my best but I've never been in full control of the results. So I try and do my best and live with whatever comes along.

Anna

Taplow, I understand your need to do this yourself. But, asking for help just means you have someone to lean on to support you. It still means that you have to do it yourself. I do hope you reach a point where you want to stop the pain in your life and to recover. I'm glad that you are still here and reading.

Cityboy

Taplow,

Do you think you're the only one that's had it tough a couple of times, doesn't fit in, backed into a corner, no help possible? Of course you don't. The alcohol compounds these feeling, then brings additional reasons to feel backed into a corner, and takes you to the "breaking point", all with the false promise of "relief". If you quit for eight years before then you already know this. Just something missing perhaps?

You have helped me, perhaps more than you know. You've reminded me of all the feelings I had while still drinking in a way that no one else possibly could have. Any trace of romantic thoughts in the back of my mind about a cold beer are now gone for a while.

Stick around and maybe we can help each other.

vkf

"It still means you have to do it yourself!!!"

finally figured this one out 6 weeks ago. 20 plus years looking and wondering and saying the same stuff as you Taplow. You gotta be willing to put in the work. From one hardheaded person to another it's worth the effort man.. I got 0 regrets. Give it a go, you may find it's way better than you think it will be.

nez

When I was drinking, I was painting myself into a corner. I don't know if I wanted to. I don't know if I needed to. I don't why I did, I just did. There were people on the outside that were working on cutting a door into my self imposed corner. I just needed to join in the efforts.

Fusion

Tap, where there any mindset strategies, life changes or support, that you utilised when you achieved nearly 8 years abstinence?