Dependent Drinkers and Alcoholics (recovering or active) Support Thread

[BrassicMonkey]

The last thread will close soon, but I want this one to be about everybody, not just me. So Hidesit, Earlgrey, SoSo and anyone else that needs support please post and keep me company.

I've lapsed again tonight, which is a shame as I hoped I'd be able to start this off on a postive note.

Link to the last thread.

Hello all. I hardly dare show myself at the moment. I have drunk a lot over the past few days. Of course it hasn't helped anything. I think I am getting depressed again. It's a very physical thing and I don't seem to be able to shake it off. I don't know what to do and I'm getting so fed-up with everyone. Perhaps I've already mentioned that the people who were going to be moving into our house are no longer going to. I felt very bullied by them, and they never asked us anything about what we were leaving or what they could use or anything. Anyway I've felt quite bad about saying I really didn't want them in my house although I really don't!

I will hear at the end of the month what this lump in my boob is made out of.

I'm just so fed-up with so many things to do and lots of cleaning and decorating and packing and estate agents in different countries who have deals for local people and deals for foreigners. It's all climbed on top of me and jumped.

I expect I will stop drinking for a while now, but I don't expect I am going to feel any better. It's horrible. Sorry.

Ach hellobello, Just want you to know that I'm thinking of you, and hope things improve. I understand how it is to feel like you're living under that black cloud...I could never envisage feeling any better. It's maybe a good thing that you ended that business relationship before it started. It may have caused you bigger hassles in the long run and they sound like a bunch of chancers. Where are you planning on going? Can you try to just focus on that and put your energies into getting there? IS there anything you can do that would make you feel better in the short term? I'm thinking of an activity, or distraction (which isn't drink) that gives you some sort of pleasure? How about your art? We're here and please keep posting despite what you feel about yourself, we're all the same really. Except I have probably disgraced myslef to a greater degree in anyone on this thread .

Which reminds me Brassic, re the thing about feeling fearful about telling folks about what you've done etc. Theres this blanket fear that seems to exist when folks start talking about the step 4 (inventory) and step 5 (sharing), but if it's done correctly, it's more of a structured process than a whole baring your sole to no end. One of the best things someone ever said to me is that anything you've done has been done before and much worse.

I felt like I had to achieve some thing first before I went and examined all my failures, you know, because how would I compare me in recovery and me as an active alcoholic if I didn't feel there was any difference? It would make me feel worse. So it has been very much about learning about myself and coming through somethings in sobriety, where I can see the person whom I'd become on drink wasn't really me at all. I couldn't have been so objective early on, I had no "achievements" to speak of. Does that make any sense?

By achievements all I mean is keeping my affairs in order, developing meaningful adult realtionships, generally stuff non-addicted people take for granted. Just building myself back up again. This, of course, is only my own personal experience and in no way the right (or wrong) way to do it. Find a structure that works for you and stcik to that.

How's everyone else doing?

Apologies for typos

Hello people. Sorry to hear you're feeling low HB but try not to feel guilty about how much you've drunk over the last few days and just focus on tomorrow. I've managed two whole days without a drink, the first time in a long time but know that it'll probably be a struggle tomorrow. And I'm going to a party at the weekend and thinking that no way am I not going to drink. It's all so confusing - am I an alcoholic or aren't I? Sometimes it's so totally obvious and then when I can go for a couple of days without, I wonder what I was thinking. It would be so much simpler to just stop and then I wouldn't have to go backwards and forwards all the time.

I know exactly what you mean mocca. When I don't drink, I rarely miss it, but often when I do drink, I drink like a fish. I do not think I am alcohol dependent and I am not physically addicted to alcohol. I think it is very easy and very quick to go from drinking too much to dependency. On the other hand, I would say that my relationship with booze isn't healthy. Yes it may be easier to stop drinking altogether! I really enjoyed that aspect of pregnancy! but I'm a real alcohol facist the same way some people are about smoking.

It's so odd about smoking - I haven't smoked habitually for 4 years now. We've been happy about having smokers in the house as long as people don't light up when the babies are about. I have smoked an occassional fag and I'm far more pragmatic about that. I don't worry that I'm suddenly going to become a smoker again, and it's very more one day at a time. perhaps it's a matter of hitting the bottom with something. I'd really had it with smoking and could barely breathe.

Hi everyone

I haven?t posted for a few days, but I?m sat at my computer desk while DS and EX-P snore away in my bed and I thought it would be good to bump this up.

I?ve found a couple of new meetings this week that I really like and I?ve met another woman from my home town who?s new to AA as well, so we?re going to meetings together. That is great as I was terrified of meeting anyone local before, but I don?t know her even though she lives round the corner from my mum and she has admitted that she has all the same insecurities as me.

I told my mum about my drink problem during the week. I took the opportunity when we were talking about my sister and it came out as something like this: ?I can go without drink for ages, but I have problems with stopping once I?ve started?. Then she told me not to worry her again like that, fretted about there possibly being something in our family and then said that she knew I was a ?good girl? and that I wouldn?t let her down. [sigh]. At least I said it though and I feel that if she does find out that I?m at meetings, well?I?ve done my best to prepare her.

Mocca ? good luck for the party coming up. Try and stay sober, but if you don?t manage it please don?t feel that it defines you. Keep posting on here regardless.

Hi Kokeshi. I am really fearful about everything, not just step 4. I don?t share at meetings because I?m scared of exposing myself, even though the chair has spoken about things that I never did and other members have shared things that make me feel like I?m in the right place. I?m really holding back because I?m just too afraid of letting go and?well, being a grown-up really. People keep saying to me that we?re all different and I don?t have to talk if I don?t want to, but I DO want to, because it?s part of admitting what I am and I don?t feel like I?ll really become a member until I do it. I don?t know how to get the confidence to do it and I?ve thought recently about chucking it all in because if I can?t share how will I ever be able to do service or give a chair? I?m worried about it and being told to keep it in the day isn?t really helping that much.

Hope everyone else is doing ok. Have a good weekend

Bizarre, I came on here on the off-chance I could find this thread again and here it was at the top of active convos! Good to see you BM, I'll just read your post now.

Hi Kokeshi - this is just like what I'm always being told at AA - 'there are no coincidences'.

I'm having the weekend off of AA, well, untill Monday afternoon anyway. We're meeting up for soft drinks on the common

Seriously though, it's been on my mind a lot lately that I'm not really moving on with recovery because I don't share anything...and I don't share because I'm scared too. I haven't been pissed for my entire adult life but I haven't done anything that's taken courage to do without a drink inside me. Speaking in public takes courgage and I can't see my doing it without a drink. It depresses me really because I know it's part of the reason that I drank in the first place - to avoid any fear.

Ach BM, I know exactly how you feel. Really. I'm not just saying that to placate you...it took me ages to actually speak; then to speak about myself; next to speak openly and non formulaically etc etc. I found my confidence to speak in public really took a knock when I lost my hearing and I'm slowly building myself back up again. I suppose I've closed down a bit compared to last year, and I haven't done a table or chaired for a long time.

Whereas before I would beat myself up about not being like this person or that person, comparing sobriety etc, now I know that this all has to happen in it's own time and when I'm ready. I don't feel as much as inadequate as I did when I first came through the doors. Many of my close friends in AA didn't do the programme for years, others as soon as they walked in the door.

Think about this objectively; look how you've come in the last few months. Could you ever have believed this was possible? So the same thing happens as you go along in recovery, everything seems to come together. If you read the 12 promises (I scoffed at these at first by the way - I am a natural cynic), it's amazing how many of them have been realised for me. And I really haven't worked that hard for it.

You are continuing to be willing work on yourself and that's fantastic. If you want to contact me off board at all (to email or msn or whatever) please do. I don't have any great insights, but I do understand how you're feeling.

my email is k0keshi at hotmail dot com . I don't check it regularly so please do let me know if you've been in touch. If you want to keep it on board, that's absolutely fine too. I hope you feel safe enough to post honestly on here. Same goes for everyone else too.

Kokeshi - I'll email you. It's not that I can't be honest on here - I can about most things. I'm just worried about being too honest in case I put people off of starting their recovery. However shitty I feel some days, it's always better than the shame that I lived with when I was drinking.

I hate these nights when I can't sleep and I want to talk but I have no-one to talk to. I really crave booze at these times because my social life was based around being pissed on MSN after DS had gone to bed. Now that I'm sober I don't have a social life apart from AA, and I feel so inadequate that I haven't been able to share yet. I need to find the courage to open up and be myself but I'm so scared of boring people. When I was drinking all the time I never considered anyone's feelings and I think that was what I was looking for. It used to smack me in the face when I sobered up though and I was left wondering about what people really thought of me. And that just spurred me on to get drunk again...and drunker and drunker.

Exactly! No co-incidences! I'd best get off to bed, I've been invited to a 13th AA birthday celebration, well, today, which involves a whole lot of spiritual, esoteric type stuff, with a dash of creative writing (the lady in question is now a qualified reiki therapist/healer etc) and I'm a bit nervous about being in the group situation. Being in a large group of people is the worst listening environment so I'll have to work hard. Oh and I'm not exactly a social butterfly anyhoo

Great, look forward to receiving your emails. I do the same thing with other people (write at all times of the night) and I know it helps me to crystallise my thoughts.

Nighty night xxx

LOL kokeshi. Sounds scary!!!

I've added you to MSN, but I'm unsure about the zero or alphabetical O in k0keshi so I won't send anything yet. (Wouldn't want anyone to think I'm a nutcase or anything if I got the addy wrong lol).

Enjoy your 'do' tomorrow. I think I understand how hard it is for you, but I feel like an arse for saying that. I don't know what it's like to have hearing loss afterall. (Funnily enough though a woman at a meeting on Wednesday night showed me her hearing aid and I told her about my 'friend' with a cochlear implant and how she found it strange to hear her teeth clattering when she was eating and her keyboard clicking when she was typing - then I thought 'shit, I'm a saddo')

I've added you as k0keshi - let me know if that's wrong.

Speak soon xx

Morning all! This week's been ok really. For the last couple of nights, dh and I have shared 3 tins of beer between us. I have still woken up in the night thinking I was pissed. What's all that about? I don't even NEED alcohol to get the feelings of being drunk.

When I was pg and not drinking at all, I found it just as easy to feel the awful post-party guilt - When I was drinking, I could feel really bad about not remembering what I'd been yacking on about and inventing terrible things. When I am sober, I can as well feel really bad that perhaps the person I was talking wasn't pissed enough and had understood what I was saying and that I'd been rather rude.

I am a seriously unpleasant non-drinker. I find it very difficult to be around people who are getting drunk, and even the merest whiff makes me sad that it is so self-destructive. What a hypocrite am I.

Hi folks, just popping on to say hi, had a very full day and am shattered. It's a zero between the two k's by the way. Hope you're all having a good day.

Hi HB. You?re not a hypocrite or an unpleasant non-drinker. I don?t know anyone that doesn?t find it difficult to be around drunk people when they themselves are sober ? drunk people aren?t usually good company!

I know what you mean about still having the self-hate feelings even when you?re sober. Sobriety would be so much easier for me if I didn?t have to socialise ? and in truth I don?t really like socialising much anyway. I?m always paranoid about what others think and in my head everyone is unforgiving of me if I happen to get something wrong. I also worry about whether I?ve been rude to people too, or more often if I?ve overlooked something. I find it really hard to read between the lines and tend to take everything at face value, often missing the point of what someone is saying. Then I over-analyse it all and come out of it feeling that the person either thinks I?m an arsehole or that I?m an idiot. It?s the scariest aspect of AA for me ? having to communicate soberly.

Hi Kokeshi. I?m exhausted too. We took DS down to Brighton this evening for a walk along the sea-front with a bag of chips. My feet are killing me now as I stupidly went for a paddle in my new sandals and got salty sea water in the little blisters on my toes [ouch]. I felt a bit sad walking past all the bars knowing that it?s not likely that I?ll ever have the confidence to go anywhere like that now I?m sober, but it was just a fleeting emotion really. It pisses me off that my default reaction to everything is to look at what I?m leaving behind even when it?s not relevant. I haven?t even been in a place like that for years and I don?t even want to go there whether sober or drunk anyway. It was a lovely evening though and I feel healthily exhausted now due to the sea air. I?ve emailed you btw.

Hope everyone else has had a good day too

BM, just to let you know I got your email - thank you . I want to give you a coherent reply and I'm far to tired to make any sense right now. Will get back to you soon, don't want you to think I was ignoring you though. And, you're still doing great by the way.

Hi all,

BM, have replied to your email. How are you doing today? The whole idea about speaking in meetings has become this huge deal for you. But, when you do it, you'll wonder what the problem was. Seriously, most of what we go through is in our heads, and no-one (including the polished ladies and suited and booted blokes) come through the dors with all the answers.

Someone was talking to me yestrday (at the meditation/writing/kinesiology event) about how we can only get a snapshot about people from being in their company: most people are accomplished in creating masks for the world. So it's no wonder we feel like shit when we see how "well" others are doing. It's like comparing their outsides to our insides. Not a fair or accurate comparison, they're probably just as scared and confused as the rest of us! That helps me a lot to remember that.

HB, BM is right, I don't think we're alone in finding drunk/merry people intolerable. I know how it irritates me now so I just try to remove myself from those situations.

How are the others?

I'm very glad to be reading all your posts girls. I had a terrible night on Friday, downed two bottles of wine and did some stupid stupid things. Shouldn't be drinking at the moment (or at all probably) because of my divorce and being really upset about my soon-to-be-ex and his new girl-friend. Somehow or other the new g/f ended up in my living room being all nice to me - god knows how that came about but in the morning I of course felt utterly wretched (was in bed with my shoes on, a first!) Decided to take myself to an AA meeting on Saturday lunch-time - it was a very positive experience and I was even able to share at my first meeting. I didn't say much and even cried but was very touched by everyone's concern. I don't think I've ever been with a group of people where there was so much warmth, understanding and humour. And everyone who shared said something that I could identify with. Please don't feel you should give up BM because you don't feel you can share. It's obvious from the way you write that you have so much to express and do it very well. I would love to be at a meeting listening to you!

Anyway have not drunk over the weekend but am nervous about tomorrow because going to stay with drinking friends. Hard to get my head around not drinking ever again so just trying to take it one day at a time. By the way BM, you refer to your ex-P - do you have a good relationship with him and how does the child-care work? Do you have a new partner?

Hi. I have read some of the posts on here with great interest. I am a dependent drinker and as from tommorrow I really want to stop.

My problem is I can't just drink one or two glasses of wine but I have to finish the bottle off and on some occasions crack open a second bottle (really not good eh?).

I can't handle the simplest of stresses that life brings us all so crack open a bottle around 5.30pm-6pmish to relax me.

I seem to have a problem that once I start drinking I really cannot or don't know when to stop, this is obviously not good so I hope you don't mind me posting on here for some support?

I think it's a case of all or nothing with me, so it's going to have to be nothing. I will probably be six foot under by the time I am 40 otherwise.

I hope you don't mind me joining this thread.
I have been posting on the 'share your drinking habits thread'. This one is obviously very appropriate also.

Hi Barbiegirl. Do you drink every night? Yes your pattern is very similar to mine - I tend not to drink every night because I'm hungover but my consumption has gradually crept up to a point now where I sometimes consume 2 bottles in one sitting (or staggering about rather). I too have realised it's probably all or nothing and if it's all, then the slope is going to get more and more slippery. Do you ever do crazy things when you're drinking? Talking to other people is a start and I went to my first AA meeting at the weekend and it was a revelation to see so many intelligent, warm and eloquent people in one room together. And all unified because they know what poison booze is and want (or have) done something about it. You can just go and listen if you want and they make you feel very welcome. I'd say that the only person who knows whether or not they have a problem is you and since you've admitted this to yourself, then you almost certainly have.

Hi, everyone

Got your email this morning Kokeshi. I?ve wrote a reply out but I?m trying to scale it down to an appropriate size. I find it helps me to type it out as I think it, and then try and simplify it and explore where the feelings are coming from. I?m paranoid of getting it wrong in email as well as saying it out loud at meetings.

Mocca ? good to hear from you again, and congratulations for getting to the meeting and sharing. The situation with your (soon-to-be) ex-h sounds really painful. Feel free to post about it on here if you think it might help. I?ve posted about lots of things that aren?t directly related to drinking, but things that I believe to be my triggers.

I know the situation with my ex-p sounds strange. The romance fell out of our relationship after DS was born but we carried on living together, trying to re-kindle it, and pretending to everyone else (and ourselves, and each other) for a few years, before we both agreed to end it. Then we had to move and then DS started to have developmental problems, so it take ages for us to be in a position where we were able to separate in a financial, emotional and practical sense. I was able to hide/control my drinking habits when he lived here, but when he moved out I had no-one to hide from and it got completely out of control. He?d only moved out in February of this year and didn?t mind moving back in again to support me and help look after DS. We?re both single and shared childcare during the time when we were living apart. Now he?s back here we carry on like most couples do, just muddling through and sharing childcare and household chores. The only difference is that we both know he?ll move out again soon and neither of us want a reconciliation. I know I?m very lucky.

Hi BarbieGirl. Welcome to the thread. I haven?t seen the other one but I?ll have a look in a minute. I don?t tend to look in Active Convos anymore.

Of course you can join in here ? it?s good to have you. I think we all have that problem of not being able to stop at a sensible level. Keep posting!

Great post mocca, and I'm glad you're seeing the potential of AA so soon. I wish soooo much that I could stop my heart pounding, palms sweating and paranoia when I think about sharing. Good for you that you're doing it.

Thanks for making me feel welcome Mocca and Brassicmonkey. I sure can do with the support to give up the booze.

The hardest time of the day for me is around 5.30pm-6pmish when we have our evening meal and more often than not crack open a bottle of wine, which leads to 2 bottles or even 3. Our drinking is creeping up more and more and our intolerance levels have increased (very worrying). Breaking the habit is going to be the hardest part.

How did you do last night BG? And Mocca, when are you going back to AA next?

Please post even if things didn't go as planned. I should have admitted to it before but I relapsed a couple of weeks ago. It was bloody awful during and after and I'm so glad to be back to abstinance again. The shame and guilt were worse than I remember and the cravings were much more intense than I'd got used to. Even after I'd sobered up and all the alcohol had left my system, it was so much harder not to give in to it, all over again.

So at least I learned one thing. The cravings are short lived and get easier every day. I don't think I really had real cravings after being sober for 2 weeks. I just felt pissed off occasionally and felt like a drink to make me feel better. I wasn't craving the taste of alcohol or the drunk feeling though, but those feelings did come back when I relapsed.

Hope everyone enjoyed the long weekend.