Trying

MDC · Senior Member

Trying

jonijoni1 · MIP Old Timer

Alcoholism is one of the only things that I know of, which can take away a human being's natural instinct for survival. That is why it is so serious and deadly.

How you deal with what you are experiencing is to NOT try to deal with it alone. Call someone you know from AA to spend a few hours with you, no matter HOW you feel, what your house looks like, what you look like right now, or whatever you are afraid of. Get some human contact with another alcoholic who is sober and can help you. Even if it is someone in AA who can just sit with you and listen to you, without judgment. If you stay alone in this, you will continue to feel alone, when really you are NOT alone.

Don't wait another minute to pick up the phone. And if your thoughts of suicide are serious, call for help-- 911 or whatever. Thoughts like that, which a whole lot of us have experienced, are no joke.

Take care.
joni

Doll · MIP Old Timer

You might try starting with getting honest - with yourself --- As it ALL counts. Honesty really makes a difference in the scheme of it all..........Prayers going up for you....Jen

Posts: 59
Date: 9:33 PM, 05/03/09

My first 60 days!
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I won't lie and say I haven't had a drink, A few weeks ago I tried 1 beer, to prove I could stop at 1. I did, but I learned I was playing with fire. 1 beer isn't any good. On the way back from South Carolina today, we stopped at a winery and had a sample ..........

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learning · MIP Old Timer

Mark,
Joni is right...... There probably isn't a person on this board who didn't go through a period of wanting out of life. I had thoughts like that.....and I didn't have a problem with alcohol or alcoholism. It came during the period of discovering AH's affair, went through the period of listening to all his promises that we were going to 'work on our marriage' and then his up and moving out/leaving. It wasn't fun!
Yet, I knew inside I was in trouble....me, myself....needed help meaning I apparently wasn't coping with the problem(s). This disease does effect others close to the consumer, too.
I 'wanted out of life'......thought I had no life.....ect ect. Yet I did get help...a kindly priest, my faith that those clouds would lift, AA and MIP. I had friends who all 'tried' to tell me the same as AA/MIP family. At one point I was so riled at one that I walked out on her and more or less was going to write her off. (What a fool I was and thank the heavens I apologized and we are still friends!)
The fact is you HAVE A CHOICE....just as I did. I made the choice to LIVE this life regardless of what came to be. I face problems each and everyday. I get worried at times as to how to handle some of them or will I ever get through them. That IS JUST LIFE!!!!
You are NOT alone! Again, Joni is right on, there. Pick up the phone, call for that help.
No life isn't perfect. There isn't a person here on anywhere on this earth who escapes some kind of suffering/problems/ect. The key is as "Doll" said look inside.....
Wishing you the very best. With sobriety you'll find you will have more than the other route.
Wanda

Dave Harm · Senior Member

Everyone has said the same thing in a little different ways. No one comes into sobriety easily or pain-free. Myself, I didn't become an alcoholic overnight and I wasn't going to get out of trouble overnight either.

Like Joni said - reach out - there is no reason to be alone...

johnn101259 · Member

MDC, I congratulate you for taking some action and the tips you are receiving are suggesting more, like getting out of isolation. Going back to basics:

I used to drink everyday and now I don't but I go to at least one meeting most every day and sometimes I go to more when I need it and it always helps. Ask someone there if they would be your interim sponsor until you get a permanent one and tell what you are feeling.

Using the phone is good like calling another alcoholic or calling from a phone list and making outreach calls until you reach someone and tell them what is going on.

Our basic text the Big Book & the 12 steps & 12 steps, which contain the steps. Give a man or woman a fish and they will eat for a day. Teach them how to fish (or how to work the steps). Bill's story and Dr. Bob's nightmare are always good stories to refresh.

There is a detox facilty in our next town and they have 4 open aa meetings a week and I need to attend them every once in awhile when I need the reminder of what it was like without having to go there. Shaking the hands as a greeter at a meeting getting there early and leaving later.

Steps 10, 11 & 12: write out your fears and resentments and share some of them in order to take some action. Prayer and meditation, and getting a commitment or being of service & getting a meeting commitment like setting up or braking down a meeting, talk to the secretary. etc.

Write a gratitude list, there must be something positive in your life. We have to give it away in order to keep it. Get some exercise & walk at least 30 minutes each day preferably with another alcoholic.

Good luck, & keep coming back. John N.

StPeteDean · MIP Old Timer

Hey Mark,
If you attend meetings daily you will feel better, especially if you share what you're feeling, just like you do here.
Make a weekly schedule with daily meetings and plan everything else around them. You may have to ask your employer for a little more time at lunch to make a noon meeting and start early or stay late to make up the time.
Many of us do that and our employer would much rather have a sober worker out of it. Or hit a 5:30 pm meeting on the way home. You will find that most of the sucessfully recovering AAs are going to the 7am, noon, or 5:30 pm meetings every day. After I got into my daily routine, I couldn't wait for my meetings because I got relief from stress until I learned how to deal with it. After that it was the fellowship that I acquired in the groups, and having 5 or 10 people smile when you walked into the room, genuinely glad to see me that kept me coming back. That's what you're leaving on table, and the differenc between being "around AA" instead of "IN AA"

Get Busy and you'll feel better. Sitting and stewing over your "problems" is only going to get your drunk. We have a saying "Poor me, Poor me, Pour me a drink".

Dean

pinkchip · MIP Old Timer

Mark, GO TO MEETINGS AND FIND A SPONSOR! You write that you are "trying" but where is the "I committed to going to meetings and I told them I need a sponsor"? Where is the "I found a therapist for myself"? You are getting good suggestions out the wazoo here and if you don't start following them, people here are going to get frustrated too and stop offering them. Trying for me was doing 130 meetings in 90 days with a 6 day a week job while moving out on my own, starting my own therapy and adjusting my meds for depression. YOU NEED TO GET OUT AND GO TO MEETINGS AND FIND A SPONSOR and more than likely your own therapist because you are right that you are dealing with more problems than just your alcoholism (though it is at the root of all of it). You now appear clinically depressed and have some serious transitional life issues...that's what your therapy will be for. Anyhow, I truly want to hear how you are getting help because none of us can drive your butt to a meeting and slam the message into your head. It's the weekend now. I would hit like 5 meetings on the weekend because that was free time I didn't know what else to do with. There are several people on here that care about you now, so show us that you value what we have told you and take the suggestions. If not, the answer from most of us is going to become "Okay Mark, guess you're not ready. Keep drinking and see where it takes you."

Dakota · Senior Member

I really want to expound on what pinkchip has said. I have been thinking about this and it is really neglected that the issues of alcoholism are not singular in the illness sense. There are a group of end results when we are alcoholic.

The symptoms MDC is experiencing are the hard core results of chronic alcoholism. You must realize that the thoughts during the drying out time are due to a myriad of physiological and neurological end points. What needs to happen alongside what Pinkchip has perfectly well stated is that a person can't just "try" but must attend , make appointment and GO to the doc.

Neurologically your central nervous system, Ie. your brain is getting a shock value treatment, simply by becoming sober. Not just the social recognitions, but the withdrawal factor puts a huge amount of pressure on a nervous system that just wasnt "aware" of it's normal functions, since before you started drinking.

Even a single drink can throw a nervous system reactivity into confusion. Thoughts and physiological changes go on alongside this path.

what is needed is a system or a regimen of getting the help from the outside. Looking to the professional for mental support, medical support and then the social adjustments at those fascinating AA meetings. Where miracles most as sure as you were born, are happening, ALL OF The time!

We like and Need attention for our alcoholism, but in that effort we must get down and dirty in recognition of what must get done.

#1, BLAME NO ONE. Take care of your personal business and get CLEAN. Feel the pain but know it will dissipate over time

Learn about forgiveness of the self and others. Ask anyone , we need to do this to become healthy.

Pray to be able to learn and to be able to truly make your strength in what you do.

toni baloney · Senior Member

Hi Mark,

Just want to tell you my thoughts on your Post title, TRYING, I was feeling sure that it was going to be about you going to a meeting. But everything here that is said, is so right on.

WE CARE, and you did say you have the kids too, right, but do you have someone that can watch them while you go to a Meeting???

Praying for you dear,

A Big Hug, Toni

MDC · Senior Member

OK, I wewnt to a meeting, not the one I'd prefer to go to. I saw someone there I know and talked with her for a few hours, cried like a little baby and felt like s***. k I got up this morning. Sun is shining, birds out and I'm still here. I'm going to cut the grass, and go fishing. Why not?? next meeting is at 7pm tonight. It's just so hard to deal with all this now. I thinkI'll just put the problems on the back burner for now, I can't do anything about them anyway. Thing to do today: cut grass, go fishing, get to meeting, and sleep.

Mark

Jane05 · MIP Old Timer

:90:

MDC!!

:103:

toni baloney · Senior Member

Hi There my friend,

So very happy you got to that one, and are going again tonight.

Once a Therapist told me when I began to cry, didn't want to, my thing was if I ever needed to, it had to be when I was alone, never with anyone.

Anyway the point that I never forgot, when she handed me a tissue, maybe she saw my extreme discomfort, anyway, she said, "Toni, Please remember to Celebrate all your Tears" Never ever forgot that.

From then on, crying in a meeting, never really bothered me, felt a little uncomfortable, but ignored the discomfort.

And about your plans, Birds singing, and you cutting your grass and going fishing, and then another meeting, WOW!, that would be a wonderful for anyone from my prespective.

Thanks so much for Posting, have been thinking of you.

Hope you catch some fish.

Hugs to you dear,
Toni

-- Edited by toni baloney on Saturday 16th of May 2009 12:49:50 PM

pinkchip · MIP Old Timer

Very nice. Now that is taking some action. Didn't mean to sound too harsh Mark, but this is the point where you surrender and just get as much help as you can. Glad you found a supportive friend at the meeting. That's how it works. Keep it up. Still rooting for you.

MDC · Senior Member

You weren't too harsh. Sometimes, I need a kick in the ass to get my attention. Thanks, It came at the right time, but you already knoew that.

StPeteDean · MIP Old Timer

meetings, did I hear someone say meetings?

DaveB84 · Member

Mark-

I know how you feel, I have been there and my mind still wants to go there at times. A guy like me has a whole lot more issues than alcohol and drugs. In fact, alcohol and drugs were never really my problem to begin with. I could never see it before but my mind, where the problem centers, is the real problem.

The scary thing is, I used to go to meetings EVERY DAY (sometimes twice a day) and I still stayed sick. This confused me because people told me that meetings were their medicine, a meeting a day kept the detox away, all those slogans that didn't seem to be true for me.

I can only share what has happened for me. It turns out that I needed a whole lot more than just sitting in a chair for an hour a day to address the issues that were plaguing me. I couldn't silence the noise in my head with booze and drugs any more because those things were killing me.

I'm a big book guy. I would never tell anyone who is REALLY struggling to "just go to a meeting and hang in there, it'll be okay" because chances for me, just going to meetings never made anything okay. When you look at page 52, it gives you a beautiful description of what's known as untreated alcoholism. "...we couldn't control our emotional natures, we were a prey to misery and depression...we were full of fear, we were unhappy..." (Alcoholics Anonymous, p 52)

Can you identify with any of this stuff Mark? Well I'm sure that you have heard "the promises" read at meetings. My concern with most groups is that they never clarify that those are the 9th step promises. Anyways, they sound like this: "We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness... We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace." (AA, pg 83-84)

The problem is, most people think you can just go to meetings and that stuff will magically happen for you. That might be true for some, but for a REAL alcoholic like myself it just wasn't the case. To go from the misery described on page 52 to the promises so beautifully laid out on pg 83, I had to do the work outlined on the pages between 52 and 83. This is a program of action for me, not just going to 90 meetings in 90 days. God was the only thing that would be able to fix me, not listening to drunk-alogs.

I needed a sponsor who was deeply integrated with AA's literature to show me the way and when I set out on the path, my life changed tremendously.

I wish you the best, Mark.

Thank you,
Dave.

DaveB84 · Member

Also, have you tried prayer/meditation?

MDC · Senior Member

Yes, I've been prayiny almost coinstantly for the past 3 months, at times I don't know how to pry or what to pray for. My prayers hve ranged from "God, let help me to be the Father and husband that I need to be" to "God, Help me" I know that he knows my needs. I think that part of my problem is thet most of my prayers as well as my sobriety has been centered arround keeping my family together instead of healing myself. Without me healing, I have no chance of keeping my family together. Like I've been told so many times in here, anything that I put above my sobriety (and I'll add God) I will lose.

Today is a new and better day. I got the grass cut, just before it started raining. Staied in the rain a bit (people can't see the tears when you're in the rain.) Relaxed and tried to just think of where I'm at in life and what direction I want to go. I felt some of the peace and serenity that people keep talking about, for the first time in a long while. Just watching the rain. I'm 39 years old and I should have 20- 30 more years here...what do I want to do with them? It's a new start for me, a new day in a new life.

I actually feel pretty good about myself right now. I know there are hard times to come, but there are also blesings to come. If I just take 1 day at a time, and keep my head on straight, and stay sober, I can do this. It may be without my job and without my wife, but you all have shown me that it will NOT be alone.

Thanks

Dave Harm · Senior Member

[video=www.youtube.com/watch?v=boFpC1wy2Bc&feature=channel_page]

Dakota · Senior Member

It is funny, I am not a Catholic but I just love Mother Angelica. I read a bit of her book every night. She has a great way of telling about Bible stories. She just makes them more human and real whens she talks. And she has a great sense of humor.

Anyway, at one part of the book she talks about how we are always telling God what he needs to do for us. We have to TELL God what to do~...I mean she is being facetious and God already knows what we need and he already is doing it!! It is just funny how we can't let go the reins, we need to feel in control of everything or we aren't satisfied..

It is a good book and I recommend it to anyone who loves God, Jesus, the Apostles and anecdotal stuff to go along with it.

It goes along with what you are feeling I think MDC. You want to be ok, you need to feel secure and loved and that your life will be fine, things will come full circle and you will do ok, and better!

Just trust , it will. (editing in) And it is seeing as you are feeling relief!!

Let Go and Let God

-- Edited by Dakota on Sunday 17th of May 2009 12:30:27 PM

toni baloney · Senior Member

Hi Mark,

Just so happy to seeing you having a better day, and all that you are contributing here, I applaud you for all your work,

Hope today stays "A better Day" all day.

Hugs,

Toni

Sobrietyspell · MIP Old Timer

Keep on keeping on, Mark. Some great suggestions here. I'm the type of alcoholic that meetings wouldn't fix & that they might help me feel better for a little time but ultimately I had to really soak up the literature basically all the time. I had to talk one to one with my sponsor. I had to shut up after I'd said my bit & listen to better advice than what was going on in my head. I had to learn how ingrained alcoholism was into my deepest nature. I had to let go of the thinking that I thought I knew best. I had to quit demanding to be better now because I hadn't drank for a few days, weeks, months, a couple of years lol

I was frustrated with how much effort I was putting into my program & thinking OMG is it, am I always going to be this way?? Am I ever going to be able to move on across that bridge to normal living or am I going to have to stay seemingly obsessed with putting this much effort in right now & for ever??? I was in a much worse mess than I even imagined as I had quite a high bottom so there was a lot of pride, ego & embarrassment for me that I even had to work this hard just to get some happiness nevermind peace! lol I am finding that because I've built such good foundations in my recovery I am able to do other things whilst looking after my spiritual condition too.

I'm sharing all this with you now to let you know that all the efforts that you pour into your recovery will pay & will pay handsomely. It's perhaps the first time you'll have ever really truly invested in yourself in such a concentrated way that for when the long run begins to come you'll be able to be so loving from the inside out & give all that you've gained away in copious amounts. But, for now.. Do it All For You. These are early days for you. There is much confusion & mood swings ahead. There is much damage to be undone & healed out but It is coming with all the effort you put in.

I would say don't 'try'.. keep 'doing' Everything you put into today in regards to your sobriety & recovery will return to you in much reward in the future. Keep your eye on the ball. Live sober for today 1Day@aTime. Don't waste any time. They say it takes 1 year to dry up, 2 to sober up & the rest of your life to grow up. I got a lot of hope knowing & seeing that others took various amounts of time & that the joys kept coming.

I'm hearing in your posts that gratitude is already coming for what you've gained already. I've found the more grateful I am for what I have already somehow God thinks it's ok to give me some more & when I've struggled at my worst & thought it wouldn't end I suddenly turned a corner & things got better with a little work & patience.

I gave up praying too hard to my HP just recently because I felt I'd slipped into being a bit demanding like 'I've said this to Him & prayed that so.. ' lol I think I was expecting what to happen just because I'd been having a private word. I don't think it works like that now. I've learned to accept & to be grateful for what comes & to stay open minded & willing so that I can be resilient & pliable for my HP to work with. All I can do is my best & God seems to do the rest. Having faith but tying my camel lol

I've been doing the Intermediate Certificate for Counselling Skills & recorded my practical today. It went really well & I've been so fearful & often doubting myself throughout. Should I be doing this? Am I kidding myself on my ability? Everything I've been learning & every effort I've paid into my life account has begun to materialise & become real. I couldn't have had this in six months sobriety. It takes such time but I'm so grateful my efforts are coming back with results slowly & 1Day@aTime. My future is coming true each day & it's all because I stick to my decision to stay sober & do whatever it takes to stay so.

A new alcoholfree life will happen for you too with all your efforts. This is a wonderful life unfolding for you & you will reach past all the pain & negative thinking in time. Pick up the program & let it do its work on your alcoholism. I'm glad you're feeling better in yourself Today. Keep on doing as is suggested. We're with you rooting for you ;) Danielle x

pinkchip · MIP Old Timer

I just wanted to say that I never would advocate that 90/90 and meetings alone will "cure" you. Like Dave said, I found myself feeling worse after 60 days or so. That is when I really had to apply what the first 3 steps were about and report on it daily to my sponsor....also, that is when I had to seek more outside help because the God thing wasn't working with me simply hitting my knees every morning. I read the big book early on, but garbage was coming out of my mouth when I tried to say what it meant. I had to talk a long time to get some pain out, then I also had to listen. I had to trust others with time in the rooms before I could trust God in any meaningful way. Only then did the steps and literature really grab hold of me. That's just me though. I had to have it pounded into my head by going to meetings and watching the whole thing in action before I could start to grasp it (and I realize it's still early on, so much I don't know, and that I need to always remain teachable). The book "Living Sober" made immediate sense to me and I would highly recommend that for other newcomers like me.

jonijoni1 · MIP Old Timer

Hope you are feeling a little better today, MD. Off to bed, but wanted to check in and say hello. Glad you are here to share with us. You help, by your admissions and feelings right now, to keep me sober another day, and I appreciate it.

Joni