SomehowIManage

I'm feeling so lost. Now more than ever.

Unwinding and drinking every evening was all I ever really looked forward to in my day-to-day life so without it, I feel no motivation to keep going. I don't feel overly tempted to drink, especially knowing that the medication I'm on will reduce the desired effect but I don't know how to fill my time. I'm off work on short term disability and while I'm trying to keep busy I still feel lost. I find myself often drinking 2-3 Energy Drinks late and the evening to stay up for no real reason. I know I need the time off from work for recovery and I'm not exactly dying to go back but without that routine I don't feel like I have a purpose and I see no light at the end of the tunnel.

Surrendered19

Why don't you drink anymore SIM? Other than unwinding, what were the consequences or results of your alcohol use?

doggonecarl

"...drinking every evening was all I ever really looked forward to...," pretty much sums up an alcoholic's existence. So it's normal in early recovery to feel lost and unmotivated. I'm sure you know how to fill up your time. But you can't wait until you "feel" like it. You just have to do it.

D122y

It takes years to somewhat normalize from addiction.

It has been the most difficult thing I have ever endured. I still crave off and on.

I learned I have permanent brain damage from my addiction.

I had to learn how to live without booze. Booze altered my brain's natural ability to enjoy life.

It is analysis vs emotion, Right brain vs left brain, an internal battle, off and on all the time. This equals insanity.

If a person doesn't really really really want to quit, it will be impossible. Taking rx meds can make the initial detox easier, but then the crave ramps up.

The av says...if I can feel great in 1 week...i can drink and get better in a week. But really, drinking after a week or whatever is really the crave taking it to the next level.

I had a tough day today, my old response would be to drunk out of my mind by 5 pm. The weekend would be ruined. My health would be ruined. My family relationship would be ruined.

Suffering and time are the only way out. Relapse and the hole just gets deeper. It turns exponential after a while. There is no mystery or magic, it is science.

Thanks.

Sober45

Life can and will get better if you stay sober. it’s hard to imagine right now, but there’s a YOU that is Waiting to be uncovered.

Anna

You can make the changes in your life that you need to help support your sobriety and recovery. Have faith that you can have a happy and fulfilled life.

Laura3

Maybe you dont need time off for recovery. Everyones different but recovery to me means living a better life not just accumulating days or reading books. I would rather be working right now than not working

Dee74

Hi SomehowImanage

yeah addiction can be a little like an abusive relationship sometimes - even when it’s over we can still find ourselves loving our tormentor, making excuses for it, and we may even miss it cos we’re scared of never finding something better.

Reading your threads, you sound like a man still in love with an ex. (IMO)

That’s not uncommon. A lot of us go through that.

The best cure for that is time, a little growth, continued abstinence and to find a new love - a new sober life.

If the problem is really simply unwinding and relaxing the news is good - you can find any number of much much healthier and non catastrophic ways to relax and unwind.

Exercise is good for me, or reading, playing and listening to music, watching Tv...relaxation techniques and meditation work for others.

Sohard

I felt this exact way in early recovery. I’m 431 days sober now. I used to believe I would always miss it at night and would never get used to not drinking and basically the rest of my life would be at bore. I debated drinking again - I thought maybe it was worth all the many negatives in order to enjoy my buzzed/drunk evenings. I am thankful to report that SHOCKINGLY I have actually gotten quite used to sober evenings and find them enjoyable. Do I ever miss the whole thing? You know, getting excited about going home to open a bottle of wine, drinking, passing out, etc. Yes, I do. But not much. Not nearly as much as I appreciate waking up sober, the fulfillment I feel from my nighttimes now (even if I’m just reading a good book or snuggling my pup), the safety and peace in my life, my new good health, etc.

I swear to you - it gets easier. Even EASY at times.

tornrealization

I’m close to my 1.5 years mark and I have to second what Sohard said. I really did put faith that it gets better this time on these boards. People will say it and you will read and now I can say it...it DOES get easier.

I felt that the obsession would never die down. I’m not gonna lie and say it was easy peasy for me. After awhile you do get used to it. Now I wake up earlier as well so I plan for that. My relaxation is a phone game I play or a tv show. I play with cats and I Remember it all. There’s also less de-stressing needed because my anxiety has significantly lessened from being sober as well. Sometimes you have to know it’s gonna suck upfront ...and for awhile. I felt better and better my first year. I’m finding it’s getting even easier having done all the first year holidays and what not sober. One year is long time, but it’s also a short time compared to my drinking years. It was worth the wait as faith it does get easier I heard from others. It really does.

Obladi

Five months in, what I've found is that routine is really key for me. I have a list of things to do every day and I attempt to just get those basic, basic things done. Most of the time, I miss a meal or my walk, but all of the time I get most of it done. That includes getting to bed at a reasonable hour. Every night. Boring? Yeah, a little. But it sure as hell beats the alternative.

When I was out of work for several months, I literally sat down and wrote up a schedule for every time block in the following day. I wouldn't always hit that entire list either, but it did keep me moving. I might decide not to clean out the junk drawer, but would instead mop the floor. I might do a crossword puzzle instead of read. Stuff like that. It helps me to have order in my life.

Here's my list nowadays, just to give you an idea.
It's on a whiteboard, and I check it off as I go along.

Breakfast
Meditate
Medication
Write an intention for the day, just one phrase or one word
Attend a meeting
Work
Lunch
Walk
Work
One household chore (my list specifies by day what it is)
Dinner
Read/Write or attend a meeting
Written inventory - how did I do meeting my intention today? Did I do anything I need to apologize for or work on straightening out in myself? How did I do with the list? (This is generally three phrases of writing.)
Gratitude list - I have a journal where I write 5 things that I'm grateful for, and try not to repeat
Medication
Bed

MaximusD

What Dee said is a great analogy. After I got divorced there was a HUGE hole of extra time and for a while I had no idea what to do with myself. Slowly but surely with continued abstinence I got better. Exactly like that with booze and ciggarettes to for me. Given time the hole will get filled. It will suck at first though you just have to push through.

MythOfSisyphus

I don't know how old you are now, how long you drank and what came before, so this is kind of generic but it probably fits. I drank compulsively for 25 years. In that time span I had hobbies and things I liked, or thought I did at least, but looking back my primary hobby was drinking. If you spend most of your waking, non-working hours doing that same thing, take that thing away and you'll be a bit lost for awhile. To be sure, I did things while I drank (watched TV, played a game, sharpened a knife, sat by a campfire) but all of those things were secondary to the drinking part.

You will have to get to know yourself again, or maybe for the first time. Over time things will emerge that interest you, things will reemerge that you used to be passionate about before alcohol stole every bit of other joy from your life. I can't tell you what that will be. Maybe it's music, maybe films or reading. Maybe you'll discover the great outdoors or take up woodworking. Maybe even just realizing you're part of a society and that this world has problems you could help fix.

You'll need to learn to be a human again. That's probably enough for a start.

MissPerfumado

I'm the sort of person who also likes to stay up late for no reason, often surfing the Internet for my interests and passions into the wee hours. When I was drinking, I would also drink when I did that and I would forget what I read or get lost down rabbit holes.

At first, I thought doing this wouldn't be fun without drinking, but it's actually been so much more rewarding.

At some point in sobriety, I made a list of all my favourite non-fiction books, and all the sites I frequent online that really pique my interest. I found patterns. I took these patterns and began to integrate them into my work and my broader life.

It's still a work in progress.

For example, all spiritual stuff fascinates me. So I started looking at how to incorporate spiritual beliefs ('woo-woo') into my job. Yeah - that was a challenge but it was a fun thing to do while sober and I needed to be sober to do it properly. Still working on it.

Another example - I am always looking at 'alternative' news sites. So I began to collate what I was reading to form a cogent picture of what I believe the world is about. I mean, some of that stuff is complete rubbish but some of it is plausible. Your mileage may vary on which is which! My current pastime is creating 10-minute presentations about controversial topics so I can say what I believe in and why. It might never go anywhere, but for one thing, it keeps me occupied and for another, I have so much fun doing it!

I read somewhere that, if you wonder what your passion is, ask yourself what it is that can keep you up at night wanting to find out more about it. That's kind of what I have done.

All of this is actually self-discovery, which can only be properly done sober... in my opinion and in my experience.

EndGameNYC

I got sober in NYC. I was fortunate. AA was the only practical option at that time.

I was working nights in a popular neighborhood restaurant. I had just come back from Bucks County, PA where I was acting in a play. I had nothing going for myself. The end of the run in PA was depressing.

There were meetings all day and night, all over the city. I couldn't and wouldn't drink, but I would become very anxious about being at home. All my friends were drinkers. Virtually every time when I was home alone I would experience progressively worse anxiety. Again, I could just run out and go to a meeting.

After I started working with a sponsor he would invite me (not really an invitation) to have coffee with a few other people from the meeting(s). Before that even happened, the thought of doing that had already become the worst nightmare in my life. It took me a long time to just feel okay when we went out.

I made new friends outside of AA and reconnected with friends from my past. That hasn't always been a good thing.

I did what I needed to do to get sober and learned a lot along the way. (Something I've rarely done while drinking.) I got interested in other things and continued to go to a lot of meetings. I went to grad school after three years. I started training in martial arts and taking better care of myself after three weeks. And I reintroduced myself to my love of reading.

Drinking the way I drank was an unsustainable way to live. Everything else I was doing before I stopped drinking was procrastination. I didn’t know how to take care of myself.

Getting sober is the thing. Nothing changes without that. Never. Not once.

Reality is still difficult. That’s its purpose.

I've learned what gratitude is. Again. The hard way. I continue to learn that the world is not built for the success of human beings. That life itself is a tremendous challenge. Why should I aim low?

MythOfSisyphus

Yeah, while I was drinking my existence was just killing time waiting to die.

SomehowIManage

Thank you everyone for all the support, it goes a long way.

That's definitely a good analogy and rings true. I did have a very very hard time parting with an ex and even though I'm happily married in a far healthier relationship I do still miss that other person. I had to mourn every nitty gritty little aspect of that past relationship, even things that weren't necessarily good memories. Because it became such an integral part of my routine, it really does feel alien without it. It's such a big life change that I'm having a lot of difficulty getting used to.

My drinking was separate from but so closely entangled with my other mental health issues and both continued to feed off each other making everything so much worse. By that I mean my time off work is a lot more complicated than just taking time for recovery from alcoholism. I had a very tumultuous relationship with my job and as much as it would be nice to have the familiarity of that routine back in my life, returning at this point would be toxic for my mental health and I'm 99% certain I would immediately fall back into unhealthy habits.