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new to myrecovey….exploring. I am an alcoholic.
I find that when things are going well in my life, that is when I turn to alcohol binges. I do not hear much of people turning to alcohol to numb the good feelings. I think I understand my history. My childhood has disappointments and such that I can understand why I would suppress good feelings. Staying numb to avoid disappointment.
I need help. I would like to connect to others with this experience. I am 50 years old and feeling very challenged in life. Actually feeling lost and alone and my life and world are falling apart. I have tried to stop drinking but have not managed it for more than 2 or 3 days. My body and soul feel poisoned.
I would like to add on to this post and share some bits about my day today. I was drinking wine at 9AM this morning. I was feeling awful because I had about 8 or more glasses of wine last night (and the night before that, and so on). So I started drinking this morning to feel better. I attended the online meeting this morning. I continued searching on the web for help. I continued to drink. All the while I keep thinking to myself that I don’t want this life. I don’t like where I am and the condition I am in. I know what I need to do, but I haven’t been able to make it stick. I have been struggling for several years now. I am so overwhelmed with all I need to fix, things I need to do, emotions I need to address. I feel the weight of all that work and I just give up. Sometimes I have made positive steps and just when I start feeling better about my life, I turn to alcohol again. As if I am afraid of being happy or changing my life.
So today while all this drinking, searching, and struggling was going on this morning, I was also kicking myself that I had not studied for an exam I have tonight. I also wondered if I was going to stop drinking in time so I could safely drive. Heavy snow is predicted for tonight and I kept checking to see if classes were cancelled, but no message yet. (yes this is north carolina and snow predictions actually cause places to shutdown before snow even starts) I was thinking I would continue drinking this wine (I had a box) and blow off class. Why not? I have been screwing up everything else in my life.
Then I received an email from Positive Outlooks Blog. Today’s message was “Today I close the door to the past, open the door to the future, take a deep breath, step on through and start a new chapter in my life.” This was around 2:00 when I read it. I decided to throw out the wine…the entire box…and I started studying. I was determined that today I would change my story and begin doing the things I need to do stay sober and get my life back on a path I could live with.
At 4:00 I checked school system. The class was cancelled. Now I have more time to study. I feel like this is the universe talking to me and supporting me. The universe reinforced my good decision to stop drinking today. This is not the first time that I’ve felt the universe. Unfortunately I have often turned my back on it (me). I want this time to last. So I am telling you all this because I don’t want to go into the trash can to retrieve that wine box. I don’t have a support group that I can talk to. I don’t talk to people about my drinking. This is all new for me at this website and I kinda like it. Even if no one replies, it feels good that I am communicating this out and not keeping it as my dark secret.
I feel that by telling you I will not retrieve and drink that wine tonight, that I must keep my word.
so thank you.First off, know that you are not alone. You did the right thing by reaching out and saying that you need help. That is a big step. I’m 54 years old and last year was in the same boat you find yourself in now.
You said you need help. It’s time to get help. From the sounds of it you may be an alcoholic who may go into withdraw when you stop drinking. Please know that withdraw from alcohol can be very dangerous and deadly. Seriously consider going to an emergency room today. They can admit you to the hospital and can be medicated and monitored during the dangerous withdraw period. While going through that process, you can work with the hospital staff to identify a treatment facility.
The hospital can save your life; treatment can show you a life worth living. If you’re wondering if you should go to an emergency room or not, go anyway. They can determine if you need their assistance.Feeling lost and alone is very common for active alcoholics; in treatment you will find yourself surrounded by people who feel like you do and can understand what your going through. When I went into treatment, I thought I was the only person in the world who hid bottles of vodka in the garage and in the office at work. Turns out, I was in a treatment facility with dozens of guys who did just that. Being connected with people just like you brings the world back into focus.
An AA based treatment program that emphasizes spiritual recovery may work well if you have a soul that feels poisoned.
There are thousands and thousands of AA people out there who are just like you and me. We all have one thing in common…a desire to stop drinking, whatever it takes. Look up the AA groups in your area. Call them and tell them what you’ve written on this post; that you realize you need help. A person on the phone or someone in your area will make sure you get the help you’re seeking.
If you can’t do that, keep posting here. Just know that I and everyone in recovery are pulling for you!
Thank you Tom G. There is AA meeting at my church and many others nearby. Not sure that I am ready for that yet. I am a very quiet person who does not like to talk about herself much. I like this web format for right now. I will build up to going to an AA meeting. Thanks again for you words and support.
What a great post Tom! We are are here for you Yellow! Keep reaching out, we are here to help!
Hey Yellow…how is it going?? I saw your post with Tom and it brought me back to a little over 5 years ago when I first was walking into a creepy basement of a church I didn’t know, with people that were staring at me(so I thought) and dingy smell of coffee and smoke(I smoke so I’m not saying it’s a bad thing I just could smell it everywhere). I was sweating bullets…I didn’t want to introduce myself and I didn’t want to talk about anything going on in my head…heaven forbid I talk about feelings, I hated it! When I got into the room I saw all these people hugging and going on about how everyone’s day was…okay, how do I fit in here…I don’t even like TALKING about my feelings how am I going to ever HUG someone!? I understand how you aren’t at the step yet…I don’t think I really was even when I walked in but I knew I didn’t want to die so it was either creepy basement or 8 feet under…the creepy basement seemed like a better idea! I am so grateful for that day…it changed my life forever! Happy, sober and free for over 5 years now! 🙂 I hope you are doing well and look forward to hearing how your days are going! Heidi
I’m throwing this out there for discussion…
Yellow posted that she was’t quite ready yet to take action to begin the road to recovery. Ms. Q posted that, even though afraid, took the first step into recovery by walking into a dingy church basement for an AA meeting. I, not being able to do for myself what needed to be done, had a wife and son who took me to detox and then to treatment – even when I didn’t think either were necessary.
I think the difference between Heidi and me was honesty. I’d guess Heidi was able to be honest with herself; she knew she was on the road to death and was willing to save herself. I, too, knew I was quickly heading down that same road, but because of many reasons (shame, embarrassment, dishonesty) I wasn’t able to save myself. I wasn’t honest with others (as the doctor was taking chunks out of my liver for a biopsy, I told him I was a social drinker – even though I drank on the way to and way home from the hospital!) and I wasn’t honest with myself.
In AA, we talk about “hitting bottom”. What was your “hitting bottom” like? And, what did it take for you to accept that you were powerless over alcohol (or drugs) and that your life had become unmanageable?
Tom/Yellow –
Great post Tom….I honestly was very glad my bottom was what I see some bottoms to be like. I get to see/hear bottoms of sponse’s and people walking into the rooms all the time…I feel very grateful that my bottom was…okay I’m either going to die or I have to get the courage and strength and fight this because I wanted my life back. I knew the people around me and me were all I had left and I had to fight for that and I knew I had a lot of fight left in me…so I fought, for my life! This disease never ceases to amaze me and make me sad all at the same time. Even after 5 years I still have hard days but I use every tool AA has given me to combat that. Tom reading part of your story was very helpful for me today…sometimes I get wrapped up in the little things that are bugging me and really I should just be grateful I get to wake up every day…healthy, alive and free. Everyone’s bottom seems to be different in my experience which I think makes us all unique and has helped me learn over the years and for that I am truly grateful! Hope you are all doing well!I would say I hit my bottom while sitting in a chair too drunk to move and not able to pass out. I realized it was over as my young daughter tried in vain to help me. I knew at that point I could not stop and that the party was over. I’d been at this point before but this time was different.There were no promises that I would quit this time. I knew I could not quit. I had told my sister-in-law some months back when she offered her help, that I was an alcoholic and no one help me.
Thirty some years earlier my liver failed due to alcohol and I was given my last rights. That was not my bottom,my bottom was that night in July of 2005 sitting in a chair, I hit my bottom. I did not drink again for 90 days. During that time I counted each day. On October 25th 2005 I took my last drink and had my last drunk. My sobriety date is 26 2005 and that is when I went to my first AA meeting. I knew I needed a replacement for alcohol if I wanted to stay sober and AA was that solution for me. The big book opened my eyes and showed me a solution that worked for not only me but millions of other people. To this day I am forever grateful to AA, the people who trudge this road with me and the sponsorship I have found.
~N
nena –
Thank you so much for posting this…I was struggling desperately this last week and if I was totally honestly with myself the last two months. I sometimes forget in the midst of life how bad it use to be and how blessed I am now…there are so many things I can’t even count now. I know if I would not have God, my husband, family, the fellowship of AA, meetings, my job, friends and everything that makes me up today that I would not be where I am. I had ice in my soul when I was using and I was empty, a shell of a human. All the promises I have received from the program of AA have gotten me where I am today. Reading your post gave me chills as I have had multiple friends relapsing and I feel myself getting pulled into anxiety and fear wondering if some day if I will be in that place. After picking up more meetings, talking to my sponsor and bumping up my fellowship I have started to realize I can focus on today and that IS IT! Today I was sitting at fellowship with 15 other people from AA and it was all I could do to smile and say…you know what…let the anxiety melt away, life and everything it throws at me I’m going to have to let it go and let God because I am not in control. My stomach has been in knots for weeks but today was the first day I could feel it melting away. I am as good as I am going to be, this is me…no more and no less and I have to be okay with that. Again, thank you for telling and keeping me sober today! 🙂 I hope I get to read more from you! -HeidiGood morning and Happy Easter to all,
I really like this forum. Being able to reach out and connect with people who are just like me and have shared many of the same experiences (near death experiences?) brings me back to the reality that, even though I feel alone most times, I’m not. I’m just a computer ‘on’ button away from being uplifted by what others share; saying they struggle or have feelings of not being ‘alright’ reminds me that I’m not the odd man out in this world.
I look at my hitting the “bottom” as really just the beginning of a rebirth into life (kind of appropriate given the approaching holiday!). I was on a mental and physical downward spiral…even though the exit door was right next to me the whole time. Maybe it was loneliness and lack of self-worth that kept me from realizing I was ‘savable’. Maybe my bottom was God saying, “Enough!” And sending his angels, my family, in to not only show me the exit door from my path to hell, but opening that door and welcoming me back into this world.
Stopping drinking was the easy part of recovery. The physical addiction and mental obsession were gone once I fully accepted and lived Steps 1,2 and 3 of AA. I’ve realized that Step 4-12 are all about taking the hole in my soul and filling it with something positive; something other than loneliness and lack of self-worth.
That’s my day-to-day struggle…filling the hole in my soul. Thanks to God, my family, and fellowship with my AA brothers and sisters I’m reminded that sobriety (being sober, happy and hopeful) is possible. It’s something I need to work on each day. Sobriety is a gift that requires maintenance…daily, hourly and minute-to-minute.
Being able to post here and read what others post is part of my maintenance program. Thank you for letting me post this…I’ll be pretty good the rest of today!Awesome Tom!! Thank you for your words or strength. Have a great Easter and keep spreading hope! 🙂
What an inspirational post Tom! You really hit home for me and I really like how you described Steps 4-12 as filling the hole in your soul! I cherish the spiritual connection that I have today that fills me up!
wow…thanks Tom! I’m glad I read this today I needed it. Being sick always gets me really down and listening to this helped today. Thanks for posting in the forums! Keep coming back! 🙂
Heidi
