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Terrified Newbie - What now?

Old 06-25-2021, 10:14 PM
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Terrified Newbie - What now?

Hi all.
Today has been 5 days since my last drink. . It is really, really terrifying and the cravings are insane.
I wound up in the ER on Father's Day because I thought I was having a stroke (I didn't, thankfully.) When the awesome ER doc asked about my risk factors, I was honest & said I'm a 40 year smoker, 30 year alcoholic, have HBP & cholesterol & am under intense stress at my job. He wanted to admit me for further testing and I initially said no and started crying.
The doc then asked me why I wanted to leave & I said, well... my job, my family, etc. This guy saw through my lies and asked what the real reason was. I said they'd have to detox me and he said ok, let's do this.
Here's the amazing thing. Hospitals here in NJ don't offer inpatient detox. They only help find you a facility that does.
After 30 years of addicted misery, I'd finally been trying to find a medically assisted inpatient alcohol detox for months that would accept my crappy insurance. I finally did & was supposed to enter treatment 2 weeks after I wound up in the ER. Seems my body didn't want me to wait another 2 weeks. However, they couldn't keep me a full seven days & the struggle is intense.
Anyway, the story could go on and on but what I'm really looking for is advice on what I do next. The hospital psychiatrist diagnosed major depressive disorder and severe generalized anxiety as well. (Go big or go home, right? Lol!🤣IOP? SMART Recovery, AA, get a sponsor...?
I'm lost & talking myself out of breaking into a liquor store.
All comments are appreciated and thanks for reading.


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Old 06-25-2021, 10:32 PM
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Welcome Janine

whats next? well reading and posting here is not a bad idea.

You'll find a lot of support and help here, I found just having people to talk to helped...

People here understand...You;re not alone
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Old 06-25-2021, 10:54 PM
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Welcome Janine. You have come to a good place.

It sounds like fate took you to the hospital that day and led you to a truly empathetic Dr. Maybe he is in recovery himself- takes one to know one. This is your time to heal, take everything offered.

Yes the struggle is intense. The cravings drive you to madness but do not give in, not even once. Slowly they will become less powerful. Pace the floor, walk, sing, scream anything you like but do not let the craving beat you!

Drink has been your crutch for 30 years, you have to relearn how to deal with life on simple non medicated terms. Stay vigilant at all times, happy, sad, bored,tired, hungry will all be triggers. Push past them, find your inner warrior.

Well done on the first 5 days, keep posting and don't drink, no matter what.

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Old 06-25-2021, 11:46 PM
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Janine, I highly recommend attending an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. There are all women meeting. You don't have to share, you don't have to say anything. What you will find is women that had the same problem you're having now. And they'll tell you how they did it and help you along the way. Welcome to SR, you're one of us now
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Old 06-26-2021, 12:56 AM
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Linking up with anything that keeps you focussed on abstinence is a good idea Janine. Women's meeting of AA sounds good. You mentioned SMART. Good idea also.

How about getting yourself a therapist? Your need to treat depression/anxiety is important.

Addictions counsellor?

The point is to be proactive Janine. Anything that assists you in not drinking is the way to go. To start. And it does get easier.

Hope you continue to post. You're worth it.

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Old 06-26-2021, 01:47 AM
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Recovery is not scary. I think you probably mean addiction is scary. Once I got over the hump and the cravings became manageable, I was no longer scared. My only fear was that I would slip, even though I was experiencing the euphoria of sobriety. Because after the withdrawal, which is a relatively short period, is when the dangerous mind games start. It takes a while to learn to ignore the mind games we play with ourselves and come to terms with the fact that we can never drink again and expect a different outcome than detox centers and emergency rooms.

Don't be scared of recovery. It's a new life, and a relief. Welcome to the forum.
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Old 06-26-2021, 02:14 AM
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Hello and welcome to SR! I am so glad you saw the doctor you did at the ER. The first few days are the hardest, and you are past that now, so staying sober means you’ll never have to do that part again. This website is a wonderful support, you should consider joining one of the monthly classes, all you need to do is post in that thread to join, June of 2021 is currently open, and July of 2021 will start soon. The nice thing about the classes is that you will meet others at the same point in recovery as you, and will also have the support of people with more sobriety under their belt, because they pop in to lend an ear, and offer suggestions.

Getting face to face help will also be good. IOP would be great for a bit, you will get lots of support and strategies, and that may be what you need for this next part of your recovery.

Reading and posting here daily helped me stay sober, and I’ve met wonderful people as well!
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Old 06-26-2021, 03:05 AM
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Welcome Janine. 5 days is VERY good. Well done!

I also agree with reading and posting here. It really helps me to stay on track. For me, I’ve found that once I became complacent and stopped nurturing my alcohol free life, the thoughts of drinking began to creep in. Even when I don’t have anything to say, it’s important for me to at least read the posts here. It reinforces my commitment.

As Delilah pointed out, the June, 2021 is a good thread to join. I’m in that class. We are all newly sober in June.

I would advise that if you feel you might cave, post here first and wait for folks to respond. Someone will be there to help.

Stay strong and close to SR. Everyone understands what you are going through. You are not alone. 🤗.
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Old 06-26-2021, 03:09 AM
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At the start, I had no idea where I was heading. I was just very scared of going back to drinking, withdrawals, hopelessness... It is even impossible to tell how much of the anxiety and depression is chemically induced by the transformations alcohol has done to your brain and body, how much will disappear after, let's say, three months sober. Fear kept me going forward for months. Reading and posting here, journaling, reading mummywasasecretdrinker blog; doing the 30 days challenge religiuosly with Annie Grace. I also bought a book on CBT and read a bit every day.

I spent hours reading about alcohol. On a few days it will be 2 years without drinking. I am not scared of myself anymore. My anxiety is totally under control. I am not depressed either because I don't hate myself or life in general. Whatever direction you go, you have done he most difficult part already.
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Old 06-26-2021, 04:21 AM
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Welcome!

What now?

Stick around here
Get a plan together on how to avoid, deal with cravings and triggers.
Don't drink no matter what.

That's a good start
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Old 06-26-2021, 04:54 AM
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There are a lot of sobriety podcasts. Annie Grace has one, "This Naked Mind," which is a series of short podcasts, easy to listen and digest. She's pretty good. There are also Youtube AA videos, look for Joe and Charlie AA 12 Steps on Youtube.

The first few months were super hard.

I understand being scared. I wasn't scared of sobriety, I was scared of my own thoughts. They get better, it does take some time.

Hang on, Janine. You're just going through the worst bit right now - it WILL get a whole lot better. Lots of us drank to self-medicate, and lots of us recovered from our depression, anxiety, and alcohol abuse.
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Old 06-26-2021, 05:42 AM
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[bimini] "I understand being scared. I wasn't scared of sobriety, I was scared of my own thoughts. They get better, it does take some time."

Being scared of your own thoughts is a good way to put it. I think we have become conditioned to believe we are controlled by our thoughts. For years and years, we have followed the pattern of thinking we need a drink to actually taking that drink. Think drink - Take drink. Think drink - Take drink. Intellectually, I knew my thinking couldn't control my behavior, but I knew that the thought always preceded the drink. And my brain pathways seem to have been accustomed to that.

So when we finally quit, one of those thoughts can be quite disturbing. They were for me, and even when I committed to life long sobriety, those thoughts continued to scare me. About 6 months into sobriety, an even scarier thing happened. I had one of those thoughts and for a moment, it seemed utterly harmless and reasonable. Seeing how easy it would be to fall prey to such a harmless thought scared me even more. It was then that I decided to stop being scared and simply think a thought like that through, regardless of how harmless it seemed. That made things a lot more comfortable after that, and I quit being scared.
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Old 06-26-2021, 05:59 AM
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Hi Janine:
Welcome to the forum!
I understand the uncertainty you must be feeling right now. You are not alone.

this link shows several real people going through real recovery and their comments each day for the first few weeks:
https://www.verywellmind.com/is-this...-it-last-80197

It really helped (still helps) me to read this regularly. (you can skim the first 3/4 of a page, the testimonials are where it’s at.)

So glad you’re here.

Keep posting.





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Old 06-26-2021, 06:05 AM
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Janine, I found that the cravings really subside from 8 days sober through three weeks.

Hang in there. Keep doing the next right thing.

Life has some peace and blessings to share with you.

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Old 06-26-2021, 06:15 AM
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Welcome Janine, you've just made one of the best decisions of your life. You seem to be doing pretty good at day five compared to me. I couldn't even type from the shaking or get my thoughts together enough to come up with something half way coherent. It's scary in the beginning but always remember that ultimately this is a healthy, positive hopeful step to a wonderful future. Immerse yourself in all things recovery right now and try to fill that void that alcohol used to fill with character building activities....You can do this...Hang in there and stick around for awhile!!
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Old 06-26-2021, 06:18 AM
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Welcome to the family. Read and post as much as you like. You'll find lots of support and good suggestions here.
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Old 06-26-2021, 06:19 AM
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What surprised me the most about AA was how much I had in common with other alcoholics. I went in thinking I'm different, my anxiety and all, im pretty messed up in addition to the drinking. Sure people drank in different ways, all day every day drinkers, every so many days drinkers, functioning, people that like to drink & drug, but we all have a somewhat similar alcoholic mind.

Many of us had some kind of anxiety and depression before drinking alcoholically. So there can be this illusion that drinking will get rid of anxiety and depression. It can be like the chicken or the egg. Do we drink because we have anxiety and depression or do we have anxiety and depression because we drink? Alcohol is a depressant and a poison. We always remember the ease and comfort but its not only the hangover its the following days. That depression and anxiety can just hunker down and linger. We can take a drink for some instant relief. After the instant relief the anxiety and depression grows again on the base it solidified with the last binge.

My first my thought was I will need some kind of medication or something, I just can't live in me! I underestimated how much of a role the alcohol played in accelerating this and what the 12 steps could do.
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Old 06-26-2021, 06:32 AM
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I got sober through AA, done al the work, sponsor etc. My drinking was less than 100 units a week when i stopped which is equivalent to just over a couple of fifths of rum a week which is why the docs never warned me about stopping cold turkey. I also had taken long 'breaks' from alcohol i my continuing attempts to get sober! My pattern sounds different to yours so can i tell you about a friend of mine?

The guy was a very successful captain of a boat for about 30 years, he retired about 15 years ago at 60. You can imagine the amount of drinking that was involved in being the captain of a boat as it wasn't quite the woke days we are living in now. Anyways he retired and his drinking picked up because he had no work so he would drink rum all day everyday. He had a son who no longer trusted him enoughto see his grandkids, etc so drinking wasn't helping at all. Long story short he was dead scared of detox, went to the docs and was finally honest after telling his son he thought he was an alcoholic. Docs said don't stop on your own and keep drinking until he could get into local rehand who would detox him too. He spent 3 months in rehab, saw the pink rabbits on the 3rd day without booze and all that, and in there they followed the AA way of getting sober, the step work up to step 5 etc. He left the rehab and has since been sober in AA and loves it, and they love him. One day at a time.

If you skip ahead to him leaving rehab or me walking into AA, you could hit a few meetings, buy a Big Book and start reading that, share at a meeting or ask someone on how to get a sponsor and explain your drinking history, but at this stage i think hitting a meeting is important in person or on Zoom. It's an option

One more thing i've got GAD and depressive disorder, it was there well before i started drinking and i used alcohol to self medicate so that's something, like me, you will have to address with medication/counselling in sobriety asap. I smoked all my adult life too, gave up a while back, after 100s of half assed attempts i quit?! In hindsight i wish i hadn't bothered with the 100s of previous attempts, or did they lead up to me being successful this last time, f*** knows lol
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Old 06-26-2021, 06:36 AM
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Hi Janine. It can sometimes be really helpful to deal with a sudden disturbing, scary situation, and it sounds like you had some good luck finding treatment. I recently struggled quite a lot with trying to find my way to stay sober, part of it was putting effort in the wrong things for me... much better now that I'm on the right track (again, had a similar stint last year but stopped it stupidly). There are millions of potentially effective ways to help maintain sobriety and deal with other mental health issues, you listed some classics in your OP. I personally use SMART (tools, meetings) and it works very well for me when I actively engage in it on a daily basis - just being aware of it and passively studying was never enough, unfortunately. Talking does not help me much either.

The other main aid in my recovery now is a daily guided meditation practice, using an app called Waking Up, created by a neuroscientist with extensive experience in exploring and training the mind to serve us better - this is currently probably the most useful tool for a variety of purposes, and it was sort of an accidental find while not even focusing on recovery. What I'm learning from this practice seems to be more useful to deal with my alcohol cravings and moods than likely anything else I've encountered/tried during the past year or so, it kinda blows my mind how effective / good fit it is for me, combined with the SMART tools (they are all very compatible). The key is doing these things every single day, no break, no distraction.

I've personally never been afraid of my thoughts - always been so interested in exploring my thoughts and feelings since childhood, so familiar with it, there isn't really anything that can scare me there. What I need to pay attention to is the space between thoughts/feelings and action, which basically contains the opportunities to decide "life or death", when it comes to the addiction.

You can learn a lot about recovery methods here on SR, and my suggestion is also to use your own instinct and imagination and be reasonably critical of advice as well, if possible. Best wishes.
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Old 06-26-2021, 06:37 AM
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Welcome!

Get to an AA meeting today and introduce yourself when the chairperson asks if there are any newcomers. Don't worry about a sponsor right now, that will come.

Join the monthly sobriety class on this website, you still have time for the June edition, but also join the July group when the time comes. And log onto this website everyday.

If you have after treatment recommendations from your detox, follow them. An IOP group (Intensive Outpatient) didn't fit for me. I'm a garden variety alcoholic, and the IOP group I joined had mostly people with significant illegal drug issues and all the group seemed to want to talk about was their legal troubles and court dates. Maybe another group would have been better, but I quit because there also was financial copay with my insurance which I felt outweighed any potential benefit I might get.

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