I am at the end of my rope, literally, hanging on by a thread. I do NOT want to drink, but I also do not want to go on this way emotionally. The grief over not only my relationship, but over my mother, grief at the person I have become, I am in more pain than I have ever been and I am F--ing SOBER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am angry and horribly depressed and hopeless and miserable and in PAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AAAAAARRGGHHHHH!!!!!! God grant me the serenity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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~Your Higher Power has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
I hear your frustration.. I am going through something similar.. my whole world has tipped upside down... PAIIIIIINNNNNNNNNN!!!!
the only thing thats keeping me going at the min... is stuff + drink = much worse! every day is a good day compared to my last day of drinking...
its good that you cried out... recognition is good... my sponsor always drummed it into me.. when ur back is against the wall, turn the key of willingness.. ask your higher power for help... his will will help, ur will wont!!!
as it says in the book (from a story i vaguely heard whilst in alot of pain).. when you are in a black hole.. there is a way out.. a ladder in the shape of 12 steps!!!
I just said a Prayer for you...........Grief is a real bitch, and as far as grieving the Person you have become, did not understand that one.....From my eyesight and a Post you made about just throwing yourself back in the Program, and more importantly the person you ARE, she happens to be one of my dearest of friends, and she is a wonderful, loving, giving, and caring soul.
They just don't make em better that you, that is my feeling....
Riding the roller coaster, with an upcoming divorce and all the grief that goes with it......you will get thru this, one day at a time, go to your next meeting and cry your eyes out, and tell the group about this pain.....
Also remember what you said just a few days ago, that you will stay with the emotion, cause there is a built in Guarantee that it will turn into another emotion.....
Wish so much I could sit next to you, you cry on my shoulder, and I would tell you quietly that everything is going to be ok, Joni, if we dont drink, God is watching and HE is there whenever you Reach out in Prayer.
For me, and what I have experience with horrific emotional pain, that right at that center of that pain, is EXACTLY WHERE We will FIND GOD.....
Love you (((((((((((((((((((((giantic hugs))))))))))))))))))))))))))
Yes as Sandy just wrote, your worst day sober, is far better than your best drunk.......the difference being in one scenario, you are present, and the other scenario, you are not there.
Joni, they say pain is the touchstone of spiritual growth, as in get in enough pain and change will happen.
I have been in your shoes, on more occasions then I would like to admit, and unless addressed it is always prolonged and revisited, and each time I drank, therefore putting it off, the next visit was more painful then the last.
This is why you see me write over and over and over and over that drinking isn't our problem that drinking is a symptom, that alcoholism isn't about addiction but an untenable drinking followed by an even more untenable sobriety, that our pain leads to drinking which causes so much pain that the only answer is to stop, which leads to so much pain that the only answer is a return to drinking....and so on.
It sounds like it is time to get down to causes and conditions and get those out of the picture before they kill you, because this is what it looks like and feels like when I didn't.
I remember last time I went out, it followed a 4 year slow downward spiral of dealing with my family, so I drank for a few months and when I came back I was working the steps again and was rereading step 3 and there it all was, and I was like "Why didn't anybody tell me?"
They did, I just couldn't hear it, the answer was in front of me the whole time, I just needed to get in enough pain to see it for myself.
The whole "worse day sober is better then my best day drunk" wasn't my experience, it was the exact opposite of my experience, my worse days sober were worse then anything I have ever experienced, and my best days drunk were damned good, but I stopped having best days drunk, alcohol turned on me and I spent years trying to recapture that best day drunk, it just wasn't happening any more, in my experience there is NO bottom like a sober bottom, nothing like being wide awake and coherent while the worms were eating my brain.
Trick is to heal that stuff, to address it, to take it away so the stories have nowhere to take root, alcoholism is like mushrooms, it flourishes if you leave it in the dark and feed it shit, put some sunlight on it, open it up to fresh air and it has nowhere to grow.
Next we launched out on a course of vigorous action, the first step of which is a personal housecleaning, which many of us had never attempted. Though our decision was vital and crucial step, it could have little permanent effect unless at once followed by a strenuous effort to face, and to be rid of, the things in ourselves which had been blocking us. Our liquor was but a symptom. So we had to get down to causes and conditions.
Therefore, we started upon a personal inventory. This was Step Four. A business which takes no regular inventory usually goes broke. Taking commercial inventory is a fact-finding and a fact-facing process. It is an effort to discover the truth about the stock-in-trade. One object is to disclose damaged or unsalable goods, to get rid of them promptly and without regret. If the owner of the business is to be successful, he cannot fool himself about values.
We did exactly the same thing with our lives. We took stock honestly. First, we searched out the flaws in our make-up which caused our failure. Being convinced that self, manifested in various ways, was what had defeated us, we considered its common manifestations.
It aint drinking that defeats us but "self"
Time to toss all that old tired shit out the window before it kills you kid
-- Edited by AGO on Monday 24th of May 2010 05:37:17 PM
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Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night, light a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
Thank you so much sweet friends. I don't know what I would do WITHOUT the ES&H of spiritual people in my life..... God, we are so LUCKY to have this program, where a person on the other end of the internet from thousands of miles away can FEEL along with me, and offer deeply enriching support and help. I am going to meetings like gangbusters, and talking to my sponsor 24/7, and shit, I am STILL going to feel everything I have to feel, until it is time for me to "feel something different", like you said, Toni.
Last Friday at a meeting, an old friend, a male, told me I looked great. I have known him for 12 years, and we went to a wedding once as friends, never any of that "other" kind of chemistry.
After the meeting, he asked me if I wanted to go for a ride on his motorcycle. Without even thinking, I said, "sure". I smoked a cigarette and talked to another friend for a little bit, and not 10 minutes later, the sky got pitch black and it started raining in TORRENTS. It has not rained that hard since last year, within minutes the streeets were like rivers. So there was obviously not going to be any motorcycle ride.
I came home and told my sponsor that I was thinking about it on the drive home. And that the rain was a blessing because even though my intentions were innocent and "off the cuff" about the motorcycle ride, I am still a legally married woman, and I have no business on the bck of another man's motorcycle, none whatsoever. That I know I am still married, and that I intend to ACT like it until the divorce is final, even though my husband is NOT taking his vows seriously and has yet another "flavor of the month" hanging around at his new place. It does not make it right, in my soul, for me to do the same. That is just MY need right now within me, and I would not judge anybody else for choosing to feel different.
I am blessed right now, I am blessed with a hunger for spiritual growth and real recovery. I am blessed with a conscience, and a way to clear that conscience through the steps. I choose to do the things today in my life that will invite blessings. I choose to attract healthy people into my life, not sickness. And I will not be riding on any man's motorcycle or even entertaining the idea of "getting too close" to anyone like that until I am not only fully divorces, but until I am spiritually sober---- not just abstinent. I contacted this friend of mine, and told him that I know it was just a "motorcycle ride", but that there is time for motorcycle rides later on down the road, because I am a married woman still. He said, "I'm sorry, I did not know you were still married. I aopologize." No apology necessary. God took care of it.
I thank God for the rain.
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~Your Higher Power has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
AGO, I am copying and pasting your response, and keeping it handly. Good Lord, if there aren't people all around me who have "been there, done that", and who LIVED through it, and are there to walk me through it, by God's grace. I can do the best I can do right now, and start my inventory, and go through all this shit at the same damned time, because no better time than in the middle of living hell, than to take the steps toward healing. I am GOING to feel like shit for awhile, so I may as well utilize all those shitty feelings before I "forget" about them. I am going to start tongiht, again, on Step 4. I made a msall start but was going nowhere, a few weeks ago (?). I am LIVING Step 3 right now. I don't think I started LIVING Step 3 until the past 72 hours, where I started to hit rock bottom spiritually and emotionally. This is my week. No school. Just a few meager appointments. Nothing else. Organizing, and working on ME. The healing begins today, but the pain will take longer to subside. But damned if I am going to drink or hurt myself over this shit. Damned if these causes and conditions are going to keep eating away at me like acid. Time to start looking at it.
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~Your Higher Power has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
Don't think and don't drink. It's not as bad as your head is making it out to be. Be grateful and stay sober till this settles down. That's all that you can do. This is a big change that you made and I believe it'll pay off for you, but it comes with growing pains, and part of that pain is being alone and getting used to being your own best friend. I began my sobriety with a permanent separation, followed by a divorce. I stayed single (and out of committed relationships) for 3.5 years. I embraced bachelorhood and made an art form out of it. I actually loved it. I ate dinner out, by myself, 3-5 nights a week. I took dozens of interstate motorcycle trips and lots of vacations by myself. It was a little weird at first but soon became totally awesome. There is a big part of me that still likes to do things by myself. I made that trip to visit you in Canton/Akron by myself and more than a half a dozen trips to NC likewise. Lastly, there is life after divorce and life is very good. Hang in there jonijoini, it'll be ok.
Joni! I firmly believe that God sometimes takes things from our lives to get our attention.As you work through the pain,know that that first drink will amplify the pain by 100%.When you move through this you will be that much stronger.I know for me, I had to get out of my head and do something to shake myself up when it seemed the pain wouldn't end.The biggest part of our 3rd step is the commitment we make to stay strong and continue on even when it seems like nothing positive is happening. God's plan will be revealed but it will be in His time. I pray for your strength and serenity.
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Selfishness-self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles.
I am so sorry to hear that you are going thru all this. I think you did the right thing in sharing your pain on here. There is some degree of relief,when you share it with others like us. There is a lot of good advice from others that have shared previously. I needed to here it as well. Myself I am no expert, when it comes to dealing with pain. When I hurt I hurt deeply...I seem to carry the weight of the world when faced with it. One thing I have finally wrapped my head around is the "garbage in...garbage out"thing. My own negative thoughts often bombard me, and it is not long before I find myself overwhelmed. It's okay to feel your feelings. I think it is part of growing up in sobriety. Before I got sober,I do not think I allowed myself to feel much of anything. Now, I am faced with the one thing I couldn't deal with very well, and that is life.
I will pray for you in my most humble of want in that area. Grief is a hard thing,whether it be in death, or divorce. My thoughts are with you. Please know that you are not alone.
Hang in there Joni. We love you and of course there is that one saying that hold true every time "This too shall pass"
P.S. I recommend a good shag to move on and just have fun...it's one of the joys of being single...shrug. Why the moralistic standards about being faithful to an asshole?
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
Wow, thanks for the responses here. I started that hard work last night, the writing part, and I am on my way into a deeper understanding of what "makes me tick and what makes me sick". My sponsor is coming over Thursday night for a Power Session (no pun intended) with me. MY PART is so hard for me to see, I am a flaming ball of self-justification at the most incredibly crafty level. But I WANT to see it and I NEED to see it, lest I keep shooting myself with bullets aimed at others. Yes, bullets, because this stuff is at least as dangerous to me as a bullet is.
thank you all.
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~Your Higher Power has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
Joni, My prayers sent your way. Remember; your needed here, wanted here and loved here. My sponsor reminds me that sometimes God adds to our lives by subtraction. I truly beleive that god has a better plan for you if your willing to take the steps and create an environment for that plan to come to fruition. You will be a stronger person when this passes and be able to pass on your experience to others. Just think of the E,S & H you will be able to pass on once you get through this.
Hang in there jonijoini, it'll be ok.
