On the lash
 

Big session tonight.

Not sure if I'm an alcoholic and just no idea about anything really. Probably my third or fourth existential crisis at 31.

Why does life feel better numb?

I think that's the AV speaking to you. It wants you to believe life feels better numb, when in reality, being aware and present in life is far better.

I do think you need to decide alcohol doesn't belong in your life if you want to recover. I notice in another post, you mentioned stopping for about 100 days and then relapsing a couple of times and that the longest sober run you'd had was about 4 months. It sounds like you have trouble staying stopped with regards to drinking, which would I think, point towards you being an alcoholic. But, that's something you need to decide for yourself.

I don't think life feels better numb - and I don;t believe you believe that either Resurgence.

You're not here to pluck chickens, right? :)

You give good advice to others

let yourself take a little of that good advice too?

D

Hey Resurgence, I'm not sure I'm an alcoholic either; however I got to a point that I decided it wasn't worth messing around with alcohol . . . . yeah, I loved a glass or 3 of wine but there were too many messages/info/tales from way further down the road of drinking that didn't bode well for my future if I kept drinking.

Let us know how the session goes tonight?

I think when we're numb we don't feel better. We don't feel anything butpoison masquerading as sedation.
A sober life definitely takes time to get used to, but once you get the hang of it, the idea of going backwards - back to alcohol - is not remotely appealing or appetizing.

Life deserves a chance.

From my experience if you are here on SR and have even given the slightest thought to you maybe having a drinking problem then you do have a drinking problem.
Being an alcoholic does not mean falling down down passed out in a roadside ditch. Seek help now and you may just escape what many of us have already experienced which is pure hell.
It seems daunting but the alternative is way worse believe me.

Signing up for SR makes me think you're an alcoholic. It's the reason I signed up.

Being numb surely has an allure. But for me, it always came with terrible tomorrows. And no growth. If I could have stayed numb without negative consequences I probably would have. But I would have cheated myself out of the opportunity to live and to grow. I prefer growth and if I have to feel to do it, so be it.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to respond to my post, and I'm sorry if I offended anyone.

Spent most of the day yesterday in bed, but didn't drink.

Still feeling wobbly physically and emotionally, but ready to put this right.

Thanks again x

I'm sure you didn't offend anyone Resurgence. Is today Day 1 or 2? Hope you are hanging in there. Life is definitely better numb for about 30 minutes. But then what do we do with the other 23.5 hours in the day? We suffer, we are embarrassed, we decline and we let others down, we scare people, we drive around drunk with our young kids in the car because we can't find our house, we drunk-text, drunk-call and drunk-email, we spend the day in bed because we feel like death. We are a train wreck for 30 false minutes of numbness. Our dirty little AV's want us dead.

Yes, like someone said, signing up for SR is probably a hint about what's going on in your life. I played the "wondering if I have a problem with alcohol game" for 30 years. Normal drinkers don't do that. But having said that, a lot of alcoholics don't either. But it is an important question, one of the more important ones you might ask yourself. Eventually, you will know, hopefully sooner than later. Try not drinking for a week, if you don't go nuts, you may not be an alcoholic, but that doesn't mean that someday you won't find yourself in a drinking death spiral either. Things change as we go through life, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. There are tests you can take that are good indicators of alcoholism, but you could pass one tomorrow, and fail it 5 years from now.