If I stop drinking...

[PooNaNa]

How do I cope with the disappointment, bitterness and loneliness?

I don't know, I'm in the same boat and finding really difficult. Hope someone can offer advice but you're not alone x

I'm going through this now.

Therapy, time, being kind to yourself and feeling the feelings rather than squashing them down with drink.

It's worth it though as alcohol just allows the cycle to continue. All the best xx

How is drinking helping you deal with those feelings? How do you feel in the morning when you wake up - do you have the shame of drinking again added on to them?
(not meaning to sound harsh, asking from a place of support)

Are you drinking in the evening - every evening - or round the clock? I speak with zero judgment as I was a 24/7 alcoholic but sober many years. AA worked for me but I appreciate doesn't for everyone. Distraction techniques, substituting alcohol either something else (sugar is recommended in the early days). The opposite of addiction is connection - so finding like minded people helps massively.

Who will be disappointed? And why, or about what?
Who will be bitter? About what?
Answers are easier to find once you understand the question - and I mean YOU, not someone else understanding your question.
Loneliness - alcohol is a false friend, but I'm sure you know that. Do you have, or can you find, some people instead who care about you? Maybe friends or family - maybe people who you haven't met yet?

There isn’t a lot of detail in your post, but my experience is that the disappointment and loneliness don’t go away when you are drinking, they are just on hold for a while (and come back with a vengeance with a hangover).

I suppose it’s a case of building support networks - either through hobbies or the sober community, finding your people and creating a life you want to live.

I realise that sounds a bit twee and over simple - it’s a lot of work but very rewarding.

Sleep.

Have a read of The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober by Catherine Gray and This Naked Mind by Annie Grace.

Go to a counsellor and talk through why you feel this way. Alcohol only delays the real stuff, it’s still there when alcohol numbs it.

Look at support in your area eg Via or CGL type organisations. They will provide you with a keyworker and offer free counselling, support groups etc. You can self refer and it isn’t earnings related.

It's there all the time. From morning until night and even then weaving through my dreams. It never heals, never goes away.

You can’t do this alone so seek support from professionals. Look up your local support services tonight and start the referral process 🤞

This sounds like a mental health issue with drinking as a side effect. Whatever path you chose you will tackle both. Sending hugs though - it’s an awful feeling, but alcohol only makes anxiety and depression worse.

Reach out, either to your GP, mental health or alcohol services (eg CGL, smart recovery)

The first steps are hardest but there is help there.

They become easier to deal with because you don't have the added stress of hangover, withdrawal and fuzziness. They're still there but you have your wits about you and so can cope better. Once you stop drinking you can, if you choose, access more support and therapy, plus you can make connections with people which you couldn't before because you were drunk, needing a drink, forgetting things and generally being a twat and useless (talking about me, not actually you).
It seems impossible but life does start to get easier.

I can feel your anguish in your words. I can imagine why being numbed to it seems like a temporary reprieve.

When the drinking stopped working for me and I was long enough sober I had to make myself sit in those feelings of bitterness and disappointment. Relive the parts that were most hurtful and face them down. To my surprise in it all I found the person I was most angry with was me, the me then, who allowed myself to seem foolish, the me who trusted people who said they loved me. But it wasn't her fault. I needed to forgive her and stop punishing her all over again for something she didn't deserve. That she was me, for good or for bad that's how I handled the cards I was dealt then. I needed to let go. Show a bit of compassion to the me I'd been mentally beating the hell out of for so long.

She wouldn't have believed what we've survived since then and I'm kind of proud of her now.

I hope you can find peace

You just do, but more easily. I’m so much more resilient now that I’ve given up drinking. I’ve recently been diagnosed with stage 3 cancer and am looking at quite a lengthy treatment and recovery period. No way I could have coped with this drinking.

When I was drinking, it was like a form of self harm. I’d drink and I’d ruminate on all the pain and disappointment and rejection and the loss. It was like being stuck on a roundabout unable to get off. When I stopped, I could finally heal. It was like I stepped off the roundabout. I stopped the cycle of drinking and focusing on all the pain, and I let it go. And now I rarely think about it anymore. I don’t hate my life (because I’m not drunk all the time) and I don’t want to stay obsessing about the bad stuff. I can see it for what it is (other people too messed up to deal with their stuff) and I’ve stopped making it my fault (because it’s not).

Because despite what your brain and the alcohol industry tells you, drinking doesn’t relax you or make life easier. It tends to make you more anxious, more short fused, more tired, more likely to get stuck in these self-harming spirals. Now that I don’t drink, I actually look forward to stuff I used to dread. It doesn’t happen overnight though. You do have to push through the early days. It took me about 3 months to feel like everything was finally easier. But it’s worth it.

Why do you think you will feel that way?