Has anyone ever sorted out a completely, utterly, fucked up life?

[WindfallenArch]

I've no job, no friends, a disastrous marriage, no money, family all dead. I have two tween kids who used to make it all worthwhile, but now look at me with contempt and have no interest in being in the same room as me let alone doing something together. I'm a 42 year old fat alcoholic and I'm utterly pointless. I drag myself sadly through each day and I see no joy in anything at all. It hurts in my heart all the time I'm awake.
Has anyone ever sorted themselves out after fucking up everything they touched?

Sorry for the self pity. Today is particularly excruciating.

Other, better things will follow too. Meanwhile we're all here, supporting you.

I've got clean, ironed cotton pyjamas and clean sheets. I think I've done all I can to sleep . No physical withdrawal anymore, which I assume will last? Once it's gone, it's gone presumably? No hallucinations for 36 hours, with the exception of some odd light bursts this afternoon. Frightened of my own shadow, but jumpy rather than hysterical. I hope for sleep and imagine I'll crash out quite soon, but I'll wake up. And then it'll be a long night, but I will survive.

I'm talking to myself for later. Ignore :-)!

You'll be fine. You know enough to be brave enough.

Windfallen you absolute trooper! Good for you. I went sober 8 years ago. Best thing I ever did. That, and anti depressants. That misery in your head is an illness clouding every single aspect of life.

Love my life now. You can too. Sleep well

Ps the more physical exercise the better you sleep.

Bravo!

I knew you were a winner.
It's been a though day here, had to take my son to hospital with breathing problems, he's OK, but got a real scare. Reading your news has really cheered me up.

Xx

Brilliant op, and you did it without the trepanning!!

Ok I have another suggestion which might not be helpful but I will say it anyway. Your dh hasn't given up on you. He has created a space where he can be happy and still be there without leaving you.

Please could you reach out to him a little when you feel able? If alcohol has been your best friend for so many years your dh might have felt left out. Just tiny baby steps is all you need. Make yourselves a cup of tea or ask if he'd like to go for a walk or anything just to try to connect again?

There is something called the Marriage Course which is really useful as it's a video based and one evening per week, there are lots around the country and it is amazing, you don't have to be religious to do it (I'm not) but I can't tell you how helpful it is to reconnect.

It's so easy to become isolated and hard to connect but it is so worth it. Just doing tiny, thoughtful things for everyone in your family will be like seeds being planted that will eventually blossom.

Please give it a go x

Hope you've slept well OP. You are inspirational. You are doing so amazingly well

Good morning, WF. I hope you managed to get some sleep

well done x

I hope you had a restful night.

Just courage
and hugs
and a prayer, if I may, that you never have to know this despair again.
But knowing it you become uniquely placed to helps others who have looked despair in the face.
Btw I pm'd you my number the other day - you can use it when you feel as terrible as you did last night if you want to. I know it's something else you never would have done before, and I'm a daylight loving introvert too. But if it will help get you through....
I've made horrible, perhaps unforgiveable mistakes. But you have been nothing but immensely kind to me. Be as kind to yourself, jft.

Have followed your thread op and have been cheering you on from the start, I'm beaming from ear to ear for you. Massive well done. My parents were both alcoholics and my mum sadly died of cirrhosis almost 10 years ago. I miss her every single day but you learn to live with it. I wish she'd had mn back then for the support.

Wind you absolute superstar!

I haven't been able to log on for the last day and a half. Coming back to hear how amazingly you are doing has lit up my morning!

Loneliness is a hard, hard thing and it sounds like it has been a catalyst for drinking through the years. Do you know there are so many people who are lonely like that though? It's nothing awful about you that has caused it, it's just unfortunate. I guess drinking has allowed to crawl into a safe space and lick your wounds over the years, but it has also kept you isolated. Oh, and I think it can feel hard to let others like you when you don't feel you are worth it. But you are, and that can all slowly begin to change now.

Do you think you could make friends with you husband again? Even if you feel you marriage is dead and you are just co-parenting, doing that as genuine friends is a great thing. I have no idea really about the state of your relationship, but from what you've said (the routine kiss and hug when he says hello) it sounds like he genuinely cares about you at the very least.

This is the longest I've been sober in nearly ten years and what is the point?

Your future is the point. All that pain of the last years and more? It doesn't have to feel like that for the next ten, it can feel better. Actually enjoyable. You can start to like yourself again and feel happiness.

Are there any hobbies you have always fancied taking up? Not right now perhaps, but to have some plans to look forward to for when you get a little further along with the AA etc. Salsa, art classes, a musical instrument, joining a gym, volunteering? Or things you can do at home alone like drawing, reading etc. Without alcohol hovering in the background you can start to think about what you would like your life to look like, instead of all this looking over your shoulder and feeling sad.

Wind
I have been reading through your thread(s) this morning and have got out of bed to come on to the computer to write.

Firstly, great news to hear you travelled across town to get to an AA meeting. It's the first step and I pray and hope you go again.

I cannot relate to the things you are going through but my experience is from my DH's perspective which I wanted to share. His DF died 10 years ago due to alcoholism. He was given chances and he had his whole family wanting him to overcome it. He just couldn't. My DH doesn't hold any malice towards him, still talks fondly of his childhood (although with some questionable stories and decisions made by his dad which wouldn't be normal to me), and he continues the hobby that his dad had. There are some self esteem issues deep rooted but overall DH is good, he's happy and I'm proud of him for overcoming, what was a difficult childhood.

The point to the above, is that I wanted you to know your children will be ok if you make the choice now to get yourself better.

The other thing I wanted to comment on is that it is evident you feel lonely through your posts due to no family or friends. I wanted to highlight that 75 separate mumsnetters have commented on this thread, rooting for you to get better; giving you advice; sharing their stories; offering their private numbers to chat but more overwhelmingly, everyone wants to you to overcome this addiction.

I felt a pull this morning just to highlight this fact - you have got people to lean on. Use those that have offered their personal help. They too once had help when they were in the position that you are in and they will want to pay it forward and help someone else. In the main you are not alone.

If you don't believe 75 separate people have commented, I even wrote their usernames out on a word document and copied them over so that visually you can see that you have people here to help you:

1 Alegretto
2 Alleygater
3 AllTheShoes
4 Atenco
5 Austernotanumber
6 Badgoushk
7 BantCustards
8 Basket75
9 BblackberryStone
10 BeMorePanda
11 BluePowder
12 Bobbinogs
13 Brankolium
14 BuckingFrolicks
15 Bummyknocker
16 Carnation2531
17 Catra
18 CharleyFarleyy
19 CurtainsforRonnie
20 DailyMailPenisPieces
21 DeathpunchDoris
22 DeirdreDonkey
23 Derxa
24 EddieStobbart
25 EdithBouvierBeal
26 EnidColesalw771
27 Everstrong
28 FantasticButtocks
29 FenellaMaxwell
30 Flappyhat
31 FriendofBill
32 GeorgeTheThird
33 GinBunny
34 Ginslinger
35 GoMeGoYou
36 Hagingoutatthedofmywick
37 Helenatroy
38 HidingtoNothing
39 Idefix
40 ItsNotUnusualTobe
41 Joanne90
42 Lapinlapin
43 MaggietheMagpie
44 Marriednotdead
45 Me2017
46 MnPeasantry
47 MrsMagWeary
48 Mum2TwoUnder4
49 NorksAreMessy
50 Notagiraffe
51 Oblomov16
52 Odfod
53 Oheysiam
54 PacificDogwod
55 QuiteLikely5
56 RB68
57 RickOShay
58 Room101isWhereIUsedToLive
59 Sami2885
60 Scattercushion
61 Scortja
62 SheldonsSpot
63 SpongeCakeBigPants
64 StrongTeaHotShower
65 StubbornstainsOhyesiam
66 TemporailyLost
67 TopToe
68 Trafalgargal
69 User1474781546
70 VanellopeVonSchweetz99
71 WhatsGoingOnEg
72 WombatChocolate
73 WontLetThoseRobotsDefeatMe
74 WotooDoo
75 Yakari

And me, which makes 76

All the best wind you can do this.

So you've made some bad decisions
Now make a good one

TrafalgarGal I have to say that is one of the wisest things anyone's ever said I think I need it on a massive poster above my bed for when I wake up with the 4am regrets!

Keep going Wind you're doing brilliantly. I've been trying to cut out alcohol too and your progress is inspiring me

Another one posting to simply say - you have people to lean on. Here for you x

We have all made mistakes in life, bad decisions that we wish we had never made and the important part of that is that you now accept you have punished yourself enough for doing what you did.

It's done. It's over.

I'm so proud of you. Please keep going

In the least fanfare like announcement possibly ever made: ' I went to bed last night and stayed there, until this morning, when I got up and had a cup of tea and some Cheerios'
So it would appear I've put a foot on a path that might take me somewhere. Who knows?
I'm so touched - honestly overwhelmed - that so many people were prepared to hold my hand. I know, for a fact, that I'd eventually haven given in last night. Sitting there on. Saturday night listening to other people's televisions and laughter was driving me into the darkest place . Its not going too far to say you caught me just before I went straight back in the wrong direction.

brank alley fantastic hiding wot blue badgoushk ohyesiam and so many kind people - I've been humbled and grateful for every word. I really am. You have no idea how much difference you can make when someone has nowhere to turn. (I'm having trouble pitching this correctly - I want to say thank you, but I realise there is a whiff of Sally Field about me this morning, and don't want to Gwyneth Paltrow myself for essentially climbing up some a flight of stairs and putting my pajamas on. Basically, Thank you, you really did help me)

basket I'm sorry about your mum, and your childhood. You have done an amazingly selfless thing to forgive her enough to miss her. Can you talk about it?

Gah! DrLockhart! I'd just given up on that task and crossposted with you doing exactly what I should have been doing and you did for no other reason than to be generous! What a lovely thing to do - good grief that's really humbling.

I've got to get dressed for an AA Meeting - sorry to be so rude and run!

Yes you can. I'm doing it! Everything was wrong, I got a job, left my partner, moved house...slowly but surely building up a new life for me and my children. They still look at me with contempt on occasions but they're teenagers so expect it really. Difference is im getting my own life so doesn't matter. You can do it. Write down what's wrong and how you want it changed. Then a plan how to get there.

Wow. What an incredible thread. Windfallen you are so incredibly brave. Well done for last night - hold onto your pride in yourself and use that. This could be the first day of the rest of your life. Carpe Diem!

Your posts have shown you to be such an intelligent and articulate woman and I think you have a talent for writing which could be useful to you as you turn things around. Someone suggested a blog - maybe that might help. There is a website called Soberistas (here that you might find helpful and inspirational. They have blogs on there that you might identify with or wish to add to.

You can do this. In fact you ARE doing this.

I am once again humbled by the strength that can be garnered from caring words on a keyboard, and am delighted to see them helping to lift you from such miserable depths. Wind, you can absolutely do this

I am soo excited for you Wind. Because you've been so rock bottom you have been unable to see the point in life and seen no point in getting better.

You will slowly find as the depressive haze lifts that there are tiny sparks of light and happiness for you to discover.

At first they will be covered up and you won't be able to find them easily, but you will soon discover that by doing little acts of kindness first to yourself and then to others (however small and insignificant) will start a new chain of action which will hep guide you out of the bottomless pit you feel you've fallen into.

As I said in my first post, tiny positive steps is all you need so you don't feel overwhelmed.

Writing things down can help. You have a whole world out there waiting to be discovered. Try and find those sparks of joy, you have a lovely sense of humour so you could explore looking at life's tribulations through that lens rather than a negative one.

Perhaps ask your dh to be your companion/mentor while you try and get fit? I think keeping it lighthearted so that if you don't first succeed you don't get despondent woud be key.

I think your positives which have shown themselves clearly throughout all your posts on here Wind are your sense of humour, your intelligence, your eloquence, your fear of a bleak future and your determination.

I think your positives (plus rl and virtual help)are going to help you get you through this so that you can start seeing the point in life, the point in being alive, the point in being healthy, the point in being happy, the point in being there for your dc, the point in recreating a happy family life for you, your dh and yourself.

It's all waiting to be discovered, or even uncovered. Try looking for them now. Try planting the seeds to a happier family life, a happier you. You will reap what you sow and it is never ever too late. Consider yourself a farmer that has her autumnal fields to sow. It doesn't matter if previous seasons' harvests mounted to nothing. You can choose whatever you want to grow.... You are done and dusted with alcohol and all it did was leave you at the bottom of the barrel while promising you happiness. You know now it led to nowhere and was all a lie.

Tiny achievements mount to success. Tiny seeds mount to beautiful flowers, trees and gardens. Yes you will have storms, torrential rain, slugs and snails along the way but tending to yourself and your family with little daily kindnesses will allow the sun to start to come out for all of you x