Can I stay sober???
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 10
Can I stay sober???
Well i'm 3 days sober from mind altering chemicals. Big fxcking deal. The physical withdrawal that i go through with alcohol and heroin is painful but not nearly as bad as the emotional one. I have been on a terrible binge since the begining of July. I had 10 months of sobriety and i guess i just said, "screw it".
I intended to get drunk on July 4 and come back to the program. Obviously, today we are not even in the month of July anymore. Two weeks into my binge i was back in the housing projects buying drugs. The thing is i don't have the confidence to stay sober. I honestly want to stop but i feel i can't. I returned to meetings last month and continue my destruction. I started out patient treatment yesterday and hope that will get me on the right track. I also started taking my medication again. This is my FOURTH time in treatment and really feel like a complete and total failure as a human being. I realize and accept that i am a chronic alcoholic and drug addict, but you know what, sometimes i simply just don't care anymore.
I intended to get drunk on July 4 and come back to the program. Obviously, today we are not even in the month of July anymore. Two weeks into my binge i was back in the housing projects buying drugs. The thing is i don't have the confidence to stay sober. I honestly want to stop but i feel i can't. I returned to meetings last month and continue my destruction. I started out patient treatment yesterday and hope that will get me on the right track. I also started taking my medication again. This is my FOURTH time in treatment and really feel like a complete and total failure as a human being. I realize and accept that i am a chronic alcoholic and drug addict, but you know what, sometimes i simply just don't care anymore.
JUST DO IT!!
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Here Or There
Posts: 7,612
((((Sharkey)))))
That is me I live in a world of denial most of the days, but I do know that you can do this. I had some clean time also and went back out but this time has been so so hard to get back but I have hung in there, and yes three, four days is a big deal, hell just today is a big deal. I know that you can do this and we welcome you here to SR. Hope that you keep posting and we are glad that you are here.
Love VIc
That is me I live in a world of denial most of the days, but I do know that you can do this. I had some clean time also and went back out but this time has been so so hard to get back but I have hung in there, and yes three, four days is a big deal, hell just today is a big deal. I know that you can do this and we welcome you here to SR. Hope that you keep posting and we are glad that you are here.
Love VIc
Member
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 8,709
I relate sharkey. I said screw it too after fifteen months and intended to go just a two day run. Spent June and the first week of July practically locked up in my apartment with a bottle. Wouldn't even allow myself to feel any kind of withdrawal, I was so bloody scared. The first drink, is all it took...
Anyway, this line from your post hit me between the eyes:
They tell us in the rooms that the booze and dope are only symptoms; that the real problem is deep inside us. The more I think of it, I become convinced that part of the reason I'm an alcoholic is that I never learned to feel good about feeling bad; never accepted that part of being human means feeling disoriented by what I experience any given day.
At first, getting loaded was a way to not deal with that.
By the end though, even so called King alcohol didn't have the power to hide me from me.
Addiction is the funny mirror at the amusement park.
Makes you giggle at what is impossible to maintain.
Anyway, this line from your post hit me between the eyes:
The physical withdrawal that i go through with alcohol and heroin is painful but not nearly as bad as the emotional one.
At first, getting loaded was a way to not deal with that.
By the end though, even so called King alcohol didn't have the power to hide me from me.
Addiction is the funny mirror at the amusement park.
Makes you giggle at what is impossible to maintain.
We all need each other.
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: The road of happy destiny.
Posts: 2,294
Hello Sharkey--Welcome to SR. Glad you found us! ANY day an addict/alcoholic doesn't use is a miracle. Using and abusing is what we do. But we have the power to change our reality. As far as your times in treatment, when I was in rehab there was a woman there who was on her SEVENTH time trying to stay sober. She had a lot of shame wrapped up in that and had to work through it. But WE all knew how much guts it took to keep trying and trying again and again. I guess, technically, I have only relapsed once in my life, but that "relapse" lasted over 11 years. The fact that you are giving it a go again after just a few months is great. I know it is hard. Anything worth doing is going to be difficult, but you can do it. We are all here for you and wish you recovery....
Hugs--
Hugs--
Member
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Kingston, NY
Posts: 390
Hi Sharkey -
I can't add much to what the wonderful folks above me have said... but I do want to echo some of it.
First of all... please don't take to heart too much that it's your fourth go around with this thing. You're trying again. You want it. The number is irrelevant, and sometimes I think counting failures and focusing on them will only bring you more failure. What's done is done; leave it there and move forward. I can identify with you when you say you lack the confidence to get sober... that sounds like a good place to start in terms of shoring up your defenses. One of the things I've tried to work on is doing what needs to be done - at work, at home, in class, in life - when it needs to be done, whether I like it or not. This forms a base for self-confidence.... I'm doing the "next right thing," as they say, and it helps me to feel better about myself, even if I'm not out there saving the world or anything like that. Next, I try to take care of myself - physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. The healthier you are, the more confidence you'll gain. I use anything and everything available to me - the forums, meetings, friends, family, acquaintances, even strangers... books, the internet, volunteer work - anything to learn more... anything to get me out of my own head. All of this helps.
I'm afraid I'm not being very clear. I feel such empathy for you - I think we all do.
Another thing - you are worthy of sobriety. There's absolutely no question about that.
I hope you check back in and let us know how you're doing.
take care,
anne
I can't add much to what the wonderful folks above me have said... but I do want to echo some of it.
First of all... please don't take to heart too much that it's your fourth go around with this thing. You're trying again. You want it. The number is irrelevant, and sometimes I think counting failures and focusing on them will only bring you more failure. What's done is done; leave it there and move forward. I can identify with you when you say you lack the confidence to get sober... that sounds like a good place to start in terms of shoring up your defenses. One of the things I've tried to work on is doing what needs to be done - at work, at home, in class, in life - when it needs to be done, whether I like it or not. This forms a base for self-confidence.... I'm doing the "next right thing," as they say, and it helps me to feel better about myself, even if I'm not out there saving the world or anything like that. Next, I try to take care of myself - physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. The healthier you are, the more confidence you'll gain. I use anything and everything available to me - the forums, meetings, friends, family, acquaintances, even strangers... books, the internet, volunteer work - anything to learn more... anything to get me out of my own head. All of this helps.
I'm afraid I'm not being very clear. I feel such empathy for you - I think we all do.
Another thing - you are worthy of sobriety. There's absolutely no question about that.
I hope you check back in and let us know how you're doing.
take care,
anne
Administrator
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: Dancing in the Light
Posts: 61,502
Hi Sharkey,
You've gotten lots of great comments, so I'll just add that you definitely can do this. I was terrified of stopping drinking and what would happen to me, but I had to. It's hard to face all the emotional stuff that you've hid from yourself, but it's worth it.
You've gotten lots of great comments, so I'll just add that you definitely can do this. I was terrified of stopping drinking and what would happen to me, but I had to. It's hard to face all the emotional stuff that you've hid from yourself, but it's worth it.
Member
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: wherever my feet take me
Posts: 1,314
The pain we endure as addicts is sometimes enought to want to give up, it is easy to say you just don't care any more, but if you didn't care you would not be on SR , and you would not be making that attempt to stop. It is a common thing we share as addicts, and that is that we seem to go back to using over and over, no matter what the consequences are, but I see from what I have read here that there is alway's hope, and the cycle can be broken. focus on the time you had clean, and know you are not alone, all of us are, or where you are now. It isn't an easy road, but I think it is worth the travel. I have fallen many times, but I just trying again till I find something that works. Please Hang in there!!
Member
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: The Field of Dreams
Posts: 7,249
Originally Posted by DangerousDan
The first drink, is all it took...
I choose to live
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Antwerp (Belgium)
Posts: 390
Sharkey all I can say is hang in here...I got a lot of pain too at the moment and now It's my first day sober...I only could cry reading your post...(like I was cryin before with other posts)Love ya ....Please keep hangin round....
Member
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: London
Posts: 501
The more you are sober, the more the emotional problem will ease. For some it pretty much dissapears, for others it takes a while.
Dan said about intollerance of uncomfortable feelings - the need to escape - the need to not accept that its part of being human. Those feelings are part of being human, but drinking ourselves to death is not exactly pro the human race. When we put the drink down we enter the realm of humanity in a much more profound way. You dont have to be a drunk to be full of fear, or lonliness, or desperation. For me, sobreity is about turning myself on to my own life - actually ENJOYING the fact that I alive, full of troubles, full of challanges, full of excitment, stability, instability. Joy comes, it goes, it comes, it goes. So does bad feelings: come and go, come and go, come and go. And eventually, by living my life - like all others are doing - I replace my old life with a new one. That is my "spiritual" awakening. Its awakening from that stinking couch and realising that to find meaning is to search for it - through the uncertainty, the misery - its not meaning itself, or warmth, or revellation, or insight, or wisdom. Its purely the adventure of life. Deal with your life in a sober way, and as I have said: the rewards are endless. I like to call it "straightning out". We are not so damn extreme anymore.
Dan said about intollerance of uncomfortable feelings - the need to escape - the need to not accept that its part of being human. Those feelings are part of being human, but drinking ourselves to death is not exactly pro the human race. When we put the drink down we enter the realm of humanity in a much more profound way. You dont have to be a drunk to be full of fear, or lonliness, or desperation. For me, sobreity is about turning myself on to my own life - actually ENJOYING the fact that I alive, full of troubles, full of challanges, full of excitment, stability, instability. Joy comes, it goes, it comes, it goes. So does bad feelings: come and go, come and go, come and go. And eventually, by living my life - like all others are doing - I replace my old life with a new one. That is my "spiritual" awakening. Its awakening from that stinking couch and realising that to find meaning is to search for it - through the uncertainty, the misery - its not meaning itself, or warmth, or revellation, or insight, or wisdom. Its purely the adventure of life. Deal with your life in a sober way, and as I have said: the rewards are endless. I like to call it "straightning out". We are not so damn extreme anymore.
Member
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: midwest
Posts: 148
Dear Sharky,
Glad to hear you are back in treatment. It means you truly want out and if that is want you want you can do it. Don't feel so bad, all of us have had these hiccups, after all we are human. For God's sake stay out of the projects. If the drugs don't kill you, the projects just might. Good luck.
Glad to hear you are back in treatment. It means you truly want out and if that is want you want you can do it. Don't feel so bad, all of us have had these hiccups, after all we are human. For God's sake stay out of the projects. If the drugs don't kill you, the projects just might. Good luck.
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