Jeff, you are choosing 'destitute and despair' in your life. You could choose peace and contentment if you want to. It's the mental part of recovery. You can stop drinking and recover during the pandemic if you choose to. Have you considered talking to a therapist online? It might be something that works for you. Jeff, I'm always in your corner and I want you to succeed. :)

Me too. I was always "fine" except the times I wasn't. And then I'd get back up and do it all over again. I'm not bragging, but my therapist was honestly impressed (not in a good way, but in the more pure sense of the word) that I was able to keep going like that for so long. So was I, in an incredulous, "I can't believe this is still my life and I'm getting away with it" kind of way. It sucked. It was physically grueling, mentally exhausting, demoralizing in the extreme.

So, Jeff, you can keep going like this if my experience is any indicator. It was just about a decade for me. My counselor at IOP eventually shared with me (during one of my very promising spells of sobriety) that he'd gone out for 14 years. It can be done, but it's completely unnecessary. When I woke up from all of that, I was exactly where I always was - right back with the self that I could not escape no matter how hard I tried. Every. Single. Time.

Or you can put on your big boy pants, firm up your upper lip, and get some help. You have a lot of junk in the closet that needs to be sorted through, boxed up and given or thrown away. I couldn't do that without a lot of help despite (or maybe because of) my ability to continually get up again no matter how many times I got beaten down.

O

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Hi buddy,
I hope your okay. Life is short and alcohol is certainly not the answer. Stay safe and well.

Yes. I was.

You can choose your fate, not the other way around. And you can find a youtube video to help justify whichever choice that might be - good or bad.

It is not about winning an argument either - you cannot negotiate yourself out of addiction. Think about it - of all the ailments we might be subject to ( cancer, disease, natural disasters, etc ) - addiction is really the only one we have absolute control to change the outcome of. We can't "cure" our addiction, but we can make choices that allow us to lead a life that thrives in spite of it.

Imagine being a doctor breaking the news to someone and their family that they were just diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer. And then in the same sentence, telling them that they can make some changes in their life that will 100% guarantee that it won't affect them long term. That's the option you have been given - all of us have.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCA_Ea2qdCg

me. vs alcohol. who wins?

I kind of always thought I was the smartest person in the room (gonna **** off some here). But i have met my match ScottFromWI. You guys got me. No way out of this one.

I liked the Elton John number better than the egocentric Johnny Cash one Jeff. :) A softer approach from Elton. Gawd, Johnny was a drag. Self obsessed, with delusions of grandeour. Silly old man. I like him, but..,,

Thinking maybe you're the "Tiny Dancer" Jeff? But so long as you're were dancing I was happy for you. We're all trying to learn the dance of life Jeff. Time to put on your high heeled sneakers, and actually dance.

Maudlin songs aren't going to get you there Jeff.

If your drinking, I'm sorry. But I want to get sober.

No room for dreamers.

I used to hope that by continuing to drink someone in my real life would notice my pain and get me help.
Or, that I’d crash and burn so badly one day I’d be hospitalised and treated.

There are problems with both scenarios Jeff.

People noticed but they didn’t offer help...they berated me or ignored me...or, when things were getting too real and interventions were mentioned I lost my nerve, ran away and told them I’d deal with it myself....but I didn’t.

I just waited for the spotlight to move into someone else.

I crashed and burned a lot of times too...I had my own falling down the stairs incident, falling through a glass coffee table, splitting my head open from another fall...I could fill a page with physical and emotional disasters but just like you, those crash and burn moments didn’t keep me sober themselves, or sober forever.

Lessgravity often says ‘no one is coming to save me’.

He’s right.

That doesn’t mean you should throw your hands up in the air and decide you’re too far gone to help yourself.
That doesn’t mean you have to do it alone either.

But it does mean you need to pick a side.... and it does mean you need to decide you’re worth saving.

I think you are Jeff and so does everyone else here who posted.

I hope you’ll join us on Team Jeff, man

D

It's not a contest Jeff, and I believe you know that. In the grand scheme of things, we are all far more alike than we are different and I'm just a pretty regular guy who has made a lot of the same mistakes you have. From the outside looking in, I see you making this into a contest between your ego and the simple ( but not easy ) act of just admitting you are an alcoholic. I could be totally wrong on that, just making my best attempt to help you based on my observations and my life experience, which has a lot of parallels.

I guess if you are looking to this community as a place to pit yourself against our collective knowledge, you likely won't see any benefit.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pWhj4sVeVD0

I'm goin' out with a bang Jeff.

Here's one from Australia.

I got smart. Hope you do, too.

And then a whimper. :)

Paul Kelly again. His wife leaves him, and he goes to "The Buttery", a rehab here. "Stays about a year."

Then, jumps into a "silvertop" taxi, and heads back home sober.

Don't know if it worked out or not. Hope so. :) Can never be sure with these things.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Vzd_bcVDnJQ

Wow. Dee, you are a special person. Just wow. I am going to go cry now. I'll be back. I'm a fighter.

Love the aussies....I've done all the dumb things.

Ain't we all, Jeff?

Done all the dumb things, that is.

I'm the dumbest person in the room. I swear to god.

The rest of them don't look a lot like Albert Einstein either, so I'm happy with that, so long as I'm sober.

And with each passing day of sobriety, I get smarter.

I wish you would reach out to your cop friends Jeff. They are surrounded by and immersed in addiction and problematic rage. If I didn't already know different, and read all of your threads on SR, I'd lay a healthy bet you are a cop. Cops struggle with some of the same things you struggle with. Get with one of them and talk about a rehab or a therapist that has worked for them and their friends and family. I assure you they all have deep experience with the whole dynamic of what you are going through.

My sense is that when drinking you become obsessed with certain songs, even to the extent of the minutae of certain chords, moments in the video etc, believing that they hold some deep inner wisdom. Well, maybe they do or maybe they don't but it's not worth drinking to find out, the price is not worth paying for us types. The reason I understand this is that I used to do the same thing in the latter stages of my drinking. I bet when you're sober those songs don't hold the same 'meaning' to you, am I right? I bet they are just good songs and no more than that.

This article here is worth a read, it explains the science behind what happens to us, in understandable terms:

https://www.theguardian.com/news/201...e-over-my-life

this article was a good read. Thanks for sharing.

Good call. I have the "leader" of this groups phone number and he told me to call him whenever, I think I will. He's been through a ton of stuff himself.

The author is an excellent writer. That was an article that I wish at times I had not read, but glad i did. wow. Thanks for sharing that.

Yes, we alcoholics have issues, I'm no exception.