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.

Hi wind hope all is well. We're here if it's not.

Hello. Nothing awful to report.

We decided to visit our nearest Ikea, (which is far enough away to check adults have been to a toilet before leaving). It was absolutely heaving, borderline scary, everyone felt like crying or shrieking and we ended up having to visit the sea lions at Colchester zoo to calm down.

Youngest became aware that you could feed giraffes at 12.30 every day at around 3pm and started wistfully tilting her head to one side and blinking a lot.

So I've not messed up or anything, just accidentally visited a Premier Inn on the M25 to be able to feed a bit of a bush to a giraffe in Essex.

Sounds like some fun family time!

How are you feeling physically these days? Is it getting any easier?

X

Giraffes are the most amazing creatures although they have creepy tonnes.
Sounds like an eventful trip - anybody who can get through a visit to IKEA without succumbing to mind altering substances has had their mettle tested and not been found wanting.
Kudos.

Hey bad :-). horrible,to be honest. Exhausted, fragile, floppy, BORED OUT OF MY MIND, empty.

I'm supposed to be feeling better, but it still feels like all the colour I could pour in for a few hours has been washed away and all I have left is a vague hope based on Mark Twain quotes.

Sorry to put a downer on it. All I have is hope. I hope that's enough.

Okay wind. If you're bored let's talk. 😊 Is there anything that you would love to do that you feel drink has prevented you from doing? Like for instance, I am losing weight and have currently lost 2 and a half stone. I go to the gym which I would never done before. But my weight in my mind, held me back from so many activities. So I've promised myself, when I hit my next target in Jan, I am going to go swimming for the first time in probably ten years. 😊 Still fat but you've got to live for yourself!

Hello iscestar - congratulations! You've come a long way. How much more would you like to lose?
I cannot even imagine enjoying swimming - I get so cold, so fast I hate every single second of it.

I wouldn't be surprised if my kids remember me as my most ratty self in tropically heated 'fun pool' with water slides and wave machines because I was so damned cold. I say this as a total piss head that can hold it together, up to a point, after a skin full during a disaster, but finds mildly tropical municipal fun pools utter hell. I start grumbling after 3 climbs up the water slide ladder and assume cats bum mouth on slide 9. I lie a lot about the dire consequences of missing a car parking ticket. So, swimming isn't a goal for me :-)

So, it would be fair to say that taking up swimming the English Channel is not on your list of your life's ambitions, then?

What you are going through is a marathon, not a sprint.
Pace yourself.
Look after yourself when you can: eat something nutritious (consider taking a Vitamin B supplement - really important to protect your nervous system/brain from the effects of alcohol use/withdrawal).
Get through the next minute/hour/day - whatever time unit you are comfortable with.

What is your life's ambition?
No matter how outlandish or impossible to achieve?

I yearn to travel - long haul, longer term and, of course, in 5 star luxury.
Is never going to happen, but hey ho.
I read a Sunday paper supplement that advertised a 122 night around the world cruise for £46k. Which also included the services of a butler
So, instead we are currently planning next year's summer holiday. It will be just slightly more humble and I cannot wait for it.

pacific I want a career. I never thought I'd be someone without a career. I don't know where to turn at my age.

What about when you get sorted with the drink issue think about becoming a counsellor?

Or a lifeguard......they don't go into the water much.

What career? What would you most like to do if you had the choice?

Early recovery is shit. Just saying.

Not as shit as what was happening before, though.

Hey wind

So glad you've made it this far!

Does your husband know you have stopped drinking? Has he or you mentioned it?

You are an awesome person. I have followed this thread from the start

Morning Wind. Hope your DD has a wonderful time feeding the giraffes today.

Plenty of people retrain/restart careers in their 40s. My own mother was one, began a very successful teaching career in her 40s. In my sector (arts/heritage) we welcome lots of women retraining after a break to be sahm. Would you want to go into a field relevamt to your research subject or do something completely different?

Wow Wind, what an amazing decision to do that so your DD could feed a giraffe! I fed one a few years ago and it was an amazing experience :)

Yes what sort of career do you fancy? I love talking all things career and looking at entry routes - I think my career should actually be career advisor!!!

Wind, just for a bit of inspiration, I retrained to be a doctor after a career in marketing. You can do anything you set your mind to!

Hello old books - giraffe thing was yesterday, we're all back here today having a bit of a duvet day.

bad that is astonishingly cool.

mrscog, I would work my socks of at any chance I was given at the moment.

I used to be a computer programmer ( I'm WAY out of the loop now with NO chance of catching up) Then I was a PA for a long time. I've been away from the work place for a couple of years now and the kids suddenly don't need me around the way they did, so I feel a bit useless. I've got a couple of degrees, one in English and one in computer science, and no bloody idea what to do next.

I've been wondering (largely based on the lovely things some people have posted here) whether or not I could eek out a living doing some copywriting. I am sure that there must be lots of sole traders that haven't got time to do small business marketing and blogging, but I am also aware it's a crowded market. On the plus side I could offer services for nothing to build a portfolio as I have so much time on my hands (and a desperate need for distraction)
I'd love to retrain, but couldn't access funding, and feel that a lot of doors have closed. So, a bit lost really.

I'm just off to a meeting - my favorite of the week: a nice group of ladies that have a good approach to biscuits.

Hi wind, I too am a lurker who has been following you with warmth and increasing admiration over the past weeks. I have to say that I am deeply impressed with the determination you are showing, and how wonderful it is that you also serve as inspiration to others on this thread!

I'm not sure if this will be helpful to you as I have no experience of addiction (other than chocolate); instead my constant struggle is with procrastination in dissertation writing. One thing that I find very useful though, and that I have been thinking of while reading your thread, is the mindset suggested in the book Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. I haven't actually read it myself, but essentially he says that we tend to overestimate what we can do in the short term, while we underestimate what we can achieve in the long term. The implication is that we should set ourselves very small goals day to day and be proud of achieving them (instead of expecting huge progress and feeling like failures). Also, we should be much more optimistic than we tend to be regarding where these small steps can take us eventually.

Regarding career changes, it is entirely possible! My mother retrained to become a physiotherapist in her forties, my best friend (like the poster above) has left marketing to become a doctor (in her early forties), and I am midway through a PhD in the humanities after having abandoned a corporate career (also early forties). Although funding is often an issue of course, I think the important thing is to listen to what you really want. (And, incidentally, I agree with everyone who has said that you should really consider doing something with your talent with words...)

My husband completed an MSc at SOAS recently and when we went there for his graduation there were a few posters up (with phone numbers hanging vertically ready to be torn off) advertising proofreading for dissertations and theses. I saw £60 for a dissertation on one poster. I wouldn't do it for free though as I think it would devalue your service. You can also advertise it on ebay. I almost did it while on maternity leave.

I have no idea about the world of copywriting but if you're offering services for free to build a portfolio then there would be nothing to lose.

I wonder if there would be any alcohol/addiction/homeless services (especially local ones struggling for funding) that would jump at the chance of a professional service offered for free, especially if it meant they were also giving a helping hand to a recovering alcoholic in return. It would be a novel way of pitching yourself too!

Could you start a blog (I know I've said this before, I don't mean to harp on ) documenting this whole process. It could be a portfolio in itself? Although perhaps you don't want to advertise yourself in quite that way....hmm...oh I don't know. Sorry, thinking out loud here!

Enjoy your favourite meeting, it sounds great.

Wind - don't be so sure there's no money in a pot for you to retrain. You could apply for funding for an MA in a field you're seriously interested in, that isn't connected to your first degree (a friend did a BA in Music and thirty years later an MA in neuroscience and is now working in neuroscientific field.) I did a funded PhD in a field connected to but not the same as my first degree.

But do give yourself a chance to get well first. Focusing on coming off the booze is the best priority you could have. (Would you have fed giraffes a few weeks ago, or would you have been too wooly and wrapped up in wine?)

The lack of enthusiasm will pass in time. I had it, as a by-product of a really severe depression. I thought it would never pass, then suddenly discovered i was looking forward to loads of things in life.

Are you taking any extra care of your health (not suggesting weaning off biscuits or anything disastrous like that) but a few extra B, C and D vitamins and iron etc could help you feel less down. Doesn't booze deplete them anyway?

Finally - please don't take this the wrong way, but no fellow copywriters will thank you for working for free. It's an overcrowded profession as it is and people are fighting for the right to be paid and not constantly pressurised to do stuff for free for 'the exposure'. (Which only exposes you to more, endless offers of slaving away in an expert field for no pay. Believe me, that wouldn't improve your self esteem long term.) If you look into setting up as a copywriter for local businesses etc (ime there is a market out there for this sort of thing) just start with an introductory price or a special rate for small or local businesses.

For what it's worth Wind I think you have at least one good book in you, the subject matter would need some thought (although I loved a pp's idea of a rough guide to AA meetings ) but it would be bordering on criminal to waste your talent for bringing characters and feelings to life on copywriting in my humble opinion. Your style lends itself far too well to a more entertaining format but I guess that path is dependant on ideas and whether you feel you have stories to tell. Copywriting could be a good way of getting you started and providing some structure and sense of purpose until you find your feet but please don't underestimate how talented you are, there's a voice within your writing people (other than us) would want to hear.

Hi wind, been away for half term with no wifi ( have booked kids in counselling for doing this to them) and now sat with a cuppa catching up with you instead of doing the mountain of washing, so thanks for the excuse. Great to see you're doing well, looking at careers - bet that wasn't on your radar in a serious way before you posted this thread! I also think you would be a brilliant fiction writer, I read non stop (. My escape from reality) and your writing has more life and wit than a lot of the books I read. Whilst you might want total fiction you also have a good base for a character overcoming an addiction. The way you have wtitten whilst feeling physically and emotionally at rock bottom just think what's inside you when you're feeling good.
Copy writing may be a job but would it hold your interest enough to be a fulfilling career?
Are you sleeping any better? How was a night in hotel bedroom with nowhere to hide?
That's it really, just checking in. Supporter 81

OP I haven'tread the whole thread- will do in a min. I think you are capable of quitting booze and it would help immensely. It's hard at first. I quit 9 weeks ago. If you would like to join the dry 15 thread in relationships, there are lots of us supporting each other, not just with staying sober but with life in general.
You are stronger than you think. Your children do love you... it's a difficult age. It seems to me your self esteem is low. Take care.

How about teaching? There's funding available for would be teachers.
Does that appeal?
I could see you teaching English, you have a natural ability with words.

Have lurked on your thread up to now, willing you on, hope you don't mind me sticking my oar in.