ARABELLA

Hi everyone, some of you may know me from recent posts. I was 90 days sober and am just coming out of a major bender. This has happened before and to be honest i don't think i can stick to total abstinence.....i know i should, but after a few months the pressure mounts up and i find it literally impossible to stay away from drink. Then i go crazy for two or three weeks and start all over again. I can't stand the 'tedium' of permanent sobriety...i am praying that the compulsion will go away. Had to share this. Feel guilty, frightened and wretched. Thanks for listening folks.
I just can't stop..only for a few weeks..at the most 6 months.
God bless.arabella xxx
p.s.but i do know that i'm an alcoholic. No denial about that.

Bamboozle

Hello, ARABELLA. I've been struggling, too. Time really seems to slow down to an unbearable pace when I'm sober.

The longest I made it was a little over two months. I need to keep reminding myself that I need to give sobriety enough of a chance to work.

dirtyjerz08

I was stuck in that viscous cycle for a long time myself. I could put together a little time, and poof it was gone. All for what? Sure I stopped drinking and drugging, but I was still with the same crowd, in the same places as I had always been. I assumed just because I showed up at a meeting now and again I was "safe". It just got worse every time. Nothing good ever came out of the first drink or drug, it took and took and took. All it gave me was a bad reputation. sickness, mental anguish, pain, and in the end suicide attempts.

The pain of drinking and drugging had to get bad enough for me to give sobriety a chance. I too thought it would be a boring life. I would sit in meetings watching people joke and laugh, and just think they were full of crap. How could these people be having fun without getting high?

Now that I am clean and sober, I can see the simple joys of every day life. Things I never even gave a second thought to in my active addiction, because I was always focused on one thing. The next drink or drug, by any means necessary. I feel things I never felt before, because any feeling I had I blotted away. In the end I was blotting away my existence. Make no mistake, it was no life, just a pathetic existence.

In the beginning of my recovery I did not feel those good things, as I was still in a fog. I was just grateful to not be putting that poison in my system for one day. As the days went on I actually started to feel things, good and bad. The thing that has helped me to enjoy my sobriety the most is the fellowship of AA/NA. I go to a lot of meetings, and there I am with other people like myself. People who have been where I've been, and know what I'm going through. For me it's as much about learning how to live as it is about avoiding the first fatal drink or drug. I am still very much a work in progress, but I am putting effort into improving myself a day at a time.

That goes a long way into me enjoying my sobriety. I have also tried to rediscover some of my favorite activities. Writing is one, if you can't tell by the length of my posts. I have also found true friendship with a few people, something that I never really had before. Sure there were plenty of associates, but only because they had what I wanted. Or I had what they wanted. Overall there is a lot that goes into me enjoying my sobriety. I have to put the same effort into staying clean and sober, as I did to get the next drink or drug. That's a lot of effort . All in all the best advice I can give is to give it a chance, and make it a way of life. Nothing good is easy, and being clean and sober is no exception. Good luck in your journeys and God bless.

- Dirtyjerz

yeahgr8

Sorry to hear about you falling off, but isn't the problem that you are, in effect, a dry drunk when you stop drinking thats all you are doing? So the life you lived whilst drinking must be incredibly dull without it?

Don't AA say something like keep doing the same things and you will keep getting the same results...something like that?

Hope you find your way for you:-)

Dee74

I tried to quit many times over 15 years - never did for long.

I realise now that was because all I ever did was simply stop drinking for a time.

I could get sober anytime - to stay sober, I had to work on me and my life, discover why I drank, and try and find new and better ways to work out the underlying problems.

It takes commitment - there were many times I found excellent excuses to get drunk, or found sobriety tedious too - alcohol was my partner in everything, and bad for me or not, I missed it's company for a good few months.

That's basic psychology I think - you'll miss such a big part of you life - you just have to work through that, and actively search out new sober things to do to replace the old patterns.

I missed the instant gratification of alcohol too - it's still sometimes hard for me to have to 'work' on being happy, or not being angry, or whatever - but it's a part of the process of successfully staying sober, and the rewards are worth it, in my opinion.

good luck
D

Theresa

"I could get sober anytime - to stay sober, I had to work on me and my life, discover why I drank, and try and find new and better ways to work out the underlying problems."

That is really helpful, Dee. The next time I want a drink, I am going to remind myself of this line.

Arabella, the pattern I find I have is that while I love sobriety (especially its tedious lack of guilt and shame), if I start to drink "socially" again to lighten things up a bit, this action weakens my resolve and perspective on life, and pretty soon, I can discover all sorts of reasons to drink in an "unsocial" manner.

Reminder

Hi Arabella:

I wish you peace and contentment. The compulsion that won't go away and the feelings of guilt, fear, and wretchedness emanate from the same source - the ego. The ego identifies itself with wealth, power, strength, intelligence, beauty, youthfulness, pursuit of pleasure, etc. The problem is that all of those things are transitory, so when you start to lose the aforementioned, you start to lose your identity. The ego then becomes weakened and starts to turn on you. Negative internal dialogue replaces what once was positive. The ego, who used to be your best friend when you were on top of the world, has now become your own worst enemy.

What is the good news in all of this? The weakened ego provides an opportunity for the emergence of the true authentic self that was once marginalized when the ego was the center of attention. This is why pain and suffering often leads to enlightenment, but not always. The negative dialogue of the weakened ego provides an opportunity for you to put distance between you and your ego as opposed to the positive dialogue of the strengthened ego. It's very difficult to put space between you and your ego when it's telling you how great you are. The alternative is to be a shell of your former self. You may have stopped drinking, for the time being, but you still don't know who you are, so it's very difficult to not identify with the negative dialogue in your head. An alcoholic is what you are, but it's not who you are.


Peace.