I realize I've been posting pretty often here lately....
I've been trying to stay extremely positive about sobriety, taking into consideration what everyone here has said, as well as my girlfriend who is supportive, and overall - just what the booze does to my body/mind/spirit.
I just can't help but point out that, of COURSE.....for the past 5 days of being sober......i've run into the WORST LUCK EVER.
I've overdrafted my bank account due to transitioning into a new job a few weeks ago and being out of work for a few weeks....completely struggling with money.....
I've lost my keys, and was stuck in the rain for 5 hours yesterday, waiting to be let in....
I could go on and on, but it feels like, regardless of how "up" i'm feeling, ultimately, SOMETHING brings me down to feel low - which is when I feel like all i want to do is pick up a drink.
What do you do when you CAN'T get to a meeting, or you CAN'T leave work to call someone, etc etc etc? When will this urge pass???? :(
I've gone anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours wanting a drink. No matter how bad you want a drink occupy yourself or talk to other alcoholics to help you through it. You did the right thing coming here asking for advice. Whatever you do don't drink....this too shall pass!!! ((((ElectricTwist))))
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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Rheinhold Niebuhr
Aloha ET...Simplest for me is when my power isn't enough? Get some Higher Power. The outcomes have usually been beyond my wildest imagination and what is wilder than an alcoholics imagination? LOL Higher Power INDEED!!
Hey ET, sorry to hear about the bad luck. Sometimes, despite our best efforts, things just go wrong. The good part is that with AA either in the rooms or on here, we don't need to drink about it today. We also know that drinking kind of tends to make our bad luck even worse.
Comin' on here is a great way to reach out to others in the Fellowship when you can't get to a meeting.
Some of what's happening has nothing to do with drinking/not drinking but some of it does. When we quit drinking it definitely throws our nervous system into shock, more or less, and we lose a bit of coordination, focus, ability to problem solve, and our stress level goes up. The thing about alcohol (and mood altering substances) is that they remove stress very well. So well that we lose our body's natural ability to deal with (mitigate) stress, therefor setting up a dependency on the substance (alcohol). Along with the loss of ability to handle stress, our tolerance to stress goes down so that we have a hard time differentiating between more stressful and less stressful situations and they all register as big stressful events. So we have to train ourselves to "no big deal" everything until our body's natural ability (and our learned ability) rises.
As for what to do inbetween meetings? Well first you need a meeting schedule. Daily meetings are usually at 7am, 12 noon, 5pm, 7pm, 8pm and some AA clubs have 10pm and midnight meetings. Often AA clubs are open all day and there's often people there waiting for a meeting. The club that I got sober in (The Unity Club in Falls Church, VA) is very nice. It has 7 meeting rooms and lounge/juice bar with some food and stuff. I practically lived at that place my first year. I was too out of it a lot of times to keep up with what day of the week it was and were to go for those particular meetings. The great thing about clubs is they have meetings every day all day.
I wish we had clubs here. But, all we have are meetings. Usually noon, 7 & 8 pm daily. I've never been to one of the clubs but sounds like a good thing when there's not a meeting at the time & you need some support.
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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Rheinhold Niebuhr
Dean - i think you hit the nail on the head. I just re-read my OWN post and realized how silly i probably sound, complaining about losing my keys for a mere few hours. That's an every day occurrence for a lot of people, who probably brush it off and think, so what? Better luck next time, i guess. For me, I kept just gritttttting my teeth and thinking that it was the end of the world. How SILLY, i know!
I think that, at this point, i'm now realizing that despite the fact i keep going on and on and on to everyone that I'm not suffering from the shakes, withdrawal symptoms, physical pain, etc.....this might, undoubtably, be the effect that the LACK of booze has on my brain, mind, body, soul. All i keep thinking is that a few beers tonight probably really wouldn't hurt - but i KNOW that that's not the case, and as people have said - that will DEFINITELY make my problem worse.
For now, i will breathe through it and look forward to another sober evening, with a movie, with a good meal, and some fresh lemonade.
Hello ElectricTwist! Welcome to your "new way of life".Congrats on 5 days!Literature tells us 'God willing,we may never have to deal with drinking again,but we will have to deal with sobriety everyday!!I also agree,keep your support group close,put numbers in your cell or have available to use on break time etc..,take a moment to get in touch with someone,just don;t drink you will amplify the situation a 1000% more...A major part of our recovery is dealing with 'LIFE ON LIFES TERMS without using...Surrender your will to the care of the God of your understanding and step back... Take this one day at a time and stay close to people in recovery.Glad you showed up here,great step forward.Let us know how your doing :)
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Selfishness-self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles.
Yea a meeting is when 2 alcoholics sit down and talk about sobriety. I talk to my sponsor about once a week for 20-30 minutes on the phone, which is about a meetings worth if you subtract the time spent on the readings, passing the baskets, and handing out chips. There's been many a time that I and one other person showed up to a meeting on the wrong night or no one else showed up and this stranger and I had a meeting on a park bench. Same thing happens in clubs in between meetings.
I realize I've been posting pretty often here lately....
I've been trying to stay extremely positive about sobriety, taking into consideration what everyone here has said, as well as my girlfriend who is supportive, and overall - just what the booze does to my body/mind/spirit.
I just can't help but point out that, of COURSE.....for the past 5 days of being sober......i've run into the WORST LUCK EVER.
I've overdrafted my bank account due to transitioning into a new job a few weeks ago and being out of work for a few weeks....completely struggling with money.....
I've lost my keys, and was stuck in the rain for 5 hours yesterday, waiting to be let in....
I could go on and on, but it feels like, regardless of how "up" i'm feeling, ultimately, SOMETHING brings me down to feel low - which is when I feel like all i want to do is pick up a drink.
What do you do when you CAN'T get to a meeting, or you CAN'T leave work to call someone, etc etc etc? When will this urge pass???? :(
Practicalities - just how will having a drink improve your finances or find your keys. There is no situation in the world that a drink cannot make worse! Look on the bright side, you have somewhere to live, with a door that locks, you have a job, you have money coming in.
Youcan't get to a meeting? why is that, don't they have a bus service in your town? You can't leave work to call someone- don't you get breaks? Sometimes you have to hang on until you can pick upthe phone.
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It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you got. BB
I just keep going to meetings.Im losing my house, My coworkers hate me because apparenty I tried to fight one of them last week at our local pub ( hence the broken ribs). My Friends are giving me shit for not answering my phone,My Jeep is screwed up from running it over a parking block drunk last week... I just keep going to meetings.Im sober 6 days so That tops all the bad stuff...I figure I can sort that stuff out after I sort myself out.
-- Edited by LastOneLeft on Thursday 25th of February 2010 06:02:50 PM
The whole purpose of the Steps and meetings is to help us learn how to live without drinking, one day at a time, and still cope. That's the difference between "abstinence" (which sucks) and "sobriety" (which doesn't).
If all a person wants is abstinence...a doctor can prescribe anibuse. If a person wants to live in sobriety, AA can help with that but while you alone can do it...you can't do it alone. It's working for me and I've never been happier.
I appreciate your comments. I really, truly do. I woke up this morning, and the first thing I thought was that i HAVE TO GO TO A MEETING, and before that (while I'm at work) i NEED to check this board. I am so so thankful for all of you.
Aquaman - there truly is a difference between abstinence and sobriety. I know that now. I REALLY DO.
I am going to post a new thread, shortly, as soon as I get some work done and have a chance to.
THANK YOU EVERYBODY.
LastOneLeft - you're doing great :) I admire your courage and the way you're REALLY getting into the program and living your life. Good for you.
ET - a change of thinking is in order. Okay, we as alcoholics to tend to suffer from that "poor me" mentality. I am personally always on guard of it cuz it can lead me to very bad places. Yes, the things you talked about do suck, but you know alcohol is messing up your life. In essense it is poison to you. So...knowing that. Do you really thing it makes sense to go "Something bad happened. Some poison for me will really help this situation." ? This is where the insanity of alcoholism occurs and this is what AA helps us build defenses towards. Without AA and a program, I/WE have no defense against that first drink.
P.S. Hope this doesn't sound too harsh but I am just trying to pass on what I have learned. Stay openminded and learn to share problems and let go of them properly through AA and the steps.
Mark
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
This is certainly not too much for me to here - it makes complete sense and you're RIGHT on target with how i'm feeeling/thinking and how i'm suffering from "poor me" mentality. It's totally true. I tend to be pretty reactive and rather than sit and think of solutions, my mind IMMEDIATELY goes to wanting a drink, or basically just being impatient in general. It's something I need to work on.
Thanks for the words of encouragement. I appreciate it.
Regarding my stinking thinking as we call it...With lots of meeting and a sponsor it went from the immediate "I need a drink" to "I immediately need a meeting" or "I immediately need to call my sponsor." Sometimes it was "I immediately need to dump this and write on MIP" and that is how this site helped me in conjunction with those other things. Now it's starting to go to "I need to pray on this" along with still doing those other things. That's just how it worked for me...still learning...still new...but that is that hope I can share with you with just shy of 17 months sobriety. I am grateful for the slow progress I have made and it's good that I have more to learn.
Mark
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
Mark - your posts have been very helpful. You're completely right about changing my way of thinking and rather than thinking, "oh woe is me, poor me, this sucks, get me a drink...." I need to think that things can certainly be worse, and that i'm very lucky in the grand scheme of things, and that having a drink will only poison me and my mind/emotions/body even more.
Thanks again.
I also need to keep everyone else's advice in mind as well and think in terms of "one day at a time" rather than, Oh no, can i make it through the week/month????
