Hey all:) today's day 73 for me..which is great but something has shifted in me. Ive been to 2 meetings this week, I haven't been reading the literature..I'm just off track. I really couldn't tell you why. And I feel pretty miserable. Crying, tired all the time, don't want to be around people. I just feel vacant and lost. I don't want to drink... I just have no motivation to do anything aside from work and sleep. I know this is very dangerous territory and I'm very disappointed with myself for not being more active in aa. I know I have to and I want to, but I feel like the "darkness" in me is taking over, if that makes sense. Could just use some words of encouragement I guess. I'm in turmoil and I don't know why. I could use your help. Or words of wisdom.
Have you talked with your sponsor about this Col?....You just have to get connected again. I'd give your sponsor a call right now....Let her know what's up.
I remember feeling similarly early on in sobriety. I was often unusually tired. I worked and slept and went to meetings. I hated being tired. I was in a fog and not thing well for about two years. I thought my mind was damaged.
I did no service work in the first year, at least--other than chairing a few meetings.
Eventually it got better.
I suggest you do the best you can each day. Then go on to the next day.
I can tell you one thing I've learned about this disease...It wants you alone...That's where it does the most damage.....Hit some meetings....Mix it up...Try some different meetings...Be around other recovering people. Too much time in your own head is not good. Pick up the phone...Post here....Just don't drink. This too shall pass!
Hello Col - if you look back through my older posts, you will probably find that I described the exact thing you are at around the same time... basically, just being in a funk for unknown reasons... and reaching out, like you're doing here, plus getting involved my life and aa life worked for me.
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Thanks for everything. Peace and Love on your journey.
I just feel like I can't get out of my head. And I feel completely disconnected, I don't want to be all dramatic but it's almost suicidal feeling. I wouldn't go there now, or do anything to harm myself but that's what this feels like. Is this the disease talking?
It sure isn't the program you are working talking....Did you try calling your sponsor or someone from the numbers you have?....That's what they are for. It will help you Col...As much as it will help them.
I love your honesty and bravery, but please, maybe it's time to call your sponsor - a doctor - your mother?
When I was drinking, I was always in a dark place - I was surely on a slow suicide path. I was stuck - I didn't know why. I just completed my 5th step and now I do : )
Call someone close to you and get the help you need right away.
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Thanks for everything. Peace and Love on your journey.
Its the depression of the overly self involved. If your alcoholic like I'm alcoholic when I'm not drinking the problem is not alcohol. I suffer from over exposure to me. ( selfish and self centered ) Alcohol used take that away. You have to make your self get up and do some kind of recovery. AA don't work on the couch, I know I tried. Its harder to make two meetings A week then to go every day.
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Since it cost a lot to win, and even more to loose, you and me gotta spend some time just wondering what to choose.
I'll be fine.. Just venting i guess. Billy jack is right. My sponser has told me "it'll get worse before it gets better. You have to go through things not around them" there's no buffer now, that's all. I'm probably just feeling,well,feelings really intensely now. I just need to kick myself in the butt. Thanks guys
I'll be fine.. Just venting i guess. Billy jack is right. My sponser has told me "it'll get worse before it gets better. You have to go through things not around them" there's no buffer now, that's all. I'm probably just feeling,well,feelings really intensely now. I just need to kick myself in the butt. Thanks guys
Don't kick yourself too hard. Going through rough patches is part of the deal. Hold on.
Welcome to the real world ... ... You have just fell off your 'Pink' Cloud ... it was pretty traumatic for me too ... That's why I dug my fingers into the arms of AA and went to 9+ meetings a week ... I was old enough this time to know I didn't have another recover from a binge left in me ... I needed this more than any one thing in my life ...
Get in touch with everyone on your 'call' list ... do it tonight ... SIMPLY call and say, I just wanted to know how YOU are doing tonight, care to talk for a minute? ... DO IT! ...
Love Ya like my granddaughter, Pappy
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'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
Yeah, I hear you Colleen. I was just as scared in the very beginning as you are, so try not to fret, okay. Your 'pink cloud' moment -like Pappy just said- seems to be fading rather quickly, as it did mine. I had about 6 months under my belt and doing quite fine I might add, then suddenly my little word began to change. It was like someone pulled the rug out of my sober footing, literally. That's when I knew, something had to give. So off I went to more meetings.
I had a lot going on within my own little world and very few opportunities for change -until; I had my first real breakthrough in sobriety that is. These heavy burdens held my inner thoughts hostage for way too long, compromising what was left of this fragile existence. Before I had my first real breakthrough in sobriety nothing really mattered, at all. After that, though, I finally saw sobriety for what it truly was...a real life sober experience. And so can you.
Yeah, meetings are great and for alcoholics like myself they have a lot to offer, but its only the beginning. What lies beyond the sober pastures of life is a spiritual experience that only you can provide. It's about changing everything about us, not in the traditional sense, but in the light of a much bigger picture, envisioned just for us. So step out and experience life as only 'you' can, and start envisioning a greater destiny beyond these 4 walls. Its life changing, mind altering and created just for us, but it must begin within you, first. So stay sober and live, it's the best advice anyone can ever give.
I used to hear "doors open and doors close but the hallways are a bitch" in meetings all the time, and I spent so much time in the hallways I just decorated them.
Meaning I had to learn how to be comfortable with whatever was going on with my life, and as you gathered from every single reply, it's normal to go through this funk, and in all probability it won't be the only time, for me it was pretty much every time I was coming up on a chip for quite a few years, as in approaching the 90 day mark. The responses in this thread were wonderful, and one of the biggest things I got in AA was the knowledge I wasn't alone any more.
I went through this same thing at 2? 3? years really badly, so I called a friend of mine and told him to come drag me out of the house, he did so and kept me with him for about 3 days, made me help him work on his motorcycles, took me to meetings, and we'd go on motorcycle rides and he wouldn't let me go home no matter how much I whined. On day 3 he "perma-loaned" me a motorcycle and my rent was I had to ride it every day...I eventually ended up buying it.
I always remember something my old friend "walking Don" said (he's named walking Don because he walked from SF to NY and back, then to Alaska and back, just because) anyhow, he said, "every day I tried to put something healthy in my mouth, and after a couple of years I noticed my body had gotten healthy, so every day I tried to put a healthy thought in my head, and after a few years I noticed my mind had gotten healthy"
I still use that approach today, if I binge on Ice cream, I don't beat myself up, I calmly just keep trying to put healthy food in my mouth (I've lost 35 lbs recently by doing that) and every day no matter what I try to put some sort of healthy thought in my head, those periods still...how do I explain, they try to happen it's just I don't give them any power or listen to the stories they tell me. I listen to see if they are saying something like "you need some rest" or "you are messing up in your spiritual or emotional life" and both are true usually to some extent, but I don't beat myself up, I just take baby steps and do the next right thing, that could be a nap, or the dishes, or making an amends, or getting off my butt to go mow the lawn or go have fun. Feelings aren't facts, especially in the first few years of sobriety, and they can't harm us unless we buy the product our mind is selling us, and frankly, for many years the product my mind was selling me was trying to make me feel so bad, in so much pain, that taking a drink seemed like a good idea, once I learned all that crap was just that, make believe crap and stopped listening to my head but learned to listen to my heart and my support group, my life got a whole lot better, but it's just one of those things we all have to walk through, regardless of the story our mind tells us the reasons for the malaise is, ultimately it's BS, it's our minds trying to do us in.
This is why we hear "you can act yourself into right thinking, but you can't think yourself into right acting" because the little voice in my head that calls himself "Andrew" is what's broken, but by moving forward one day at a time, taking the necessary actions, reaching out to my support group, not giving up and binging when I stumble, but instead just moving forward one baby step at a time, it gets better, Like Dean mentions we do go through PAWS (google it, terrence gorsky I think), but that passes and there are steps we can take to minimize PAWS.
Step One: Put down the bat of groggy self remorse you are using to beat yourself up with, with me and my friends now, since we have known each other for so many years we use humor to help each other out of this state of mind, saying things like "get off the cross we need the wood" etc. I have found laughter and fellowship lifts me out of the boggy morass of my self imposed mental suffering like nothing else.
-- Edited by LinBabaAgo-go on Sunday 29th of July 2012 06:29:28 PM
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Light a man a fire and he's warm for a night, set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
I hit a period of depression at around the same time. It had to do with gaining just enough insight in AA to realize how much more work needed to be done. Its okay. This is all a process and if you stick with this, you will emerge with your head held up high and better off. You also have 2 jobs - not that this should be an excuse to not be involved in AA, but being exhausted could be the result of working yourself so hard. In support of you,
Mark
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
So while you're by yourself some of the time you are not alone cause we are with you and your sponsor and your groups. World-wide fellowship. My mind, body, spirit and emotions resisted change like you are going thru and I also was a mess and some of the little things that helped me not get worse were slogans "don't think and don't drink" was one of them; another was "life on life's terms" and only one of the directions I followed thru on as has been suggested here...meetings; 90X90 and I was able to do that plus a few more. We had 439 meetings a month where I got into recovery and sober...I wasn't alone and my alcoholism wasn't a figment of my imagination as I saw and listen to all of the other members share their ESH... I was glad to have simple directions when I first arrived and I was glad I was soooo sick that the energy to do something cute was gone. My mental energy, emotional energy, physical energy and spiritual energy were all depleted by alcohol...I could manage this, "Come in, sit down...all the way down...listen, learn, practice, practice, practice". Let others save your life when you are feeling too tired and afraid to do it yourself because that is how you learn to love you. Good going...keep going good...God's doing good..."Trust God, clean house, help others". (((hugs)))
Just suck it up and buy time. I remember not having more than 1 or 2 "good days" per week at just over 2 months. I had "Paws" bad, and it sounds like you do too. It will pass, just don't drink.
disappointed with myself for not being more active in aa
Ya, there were times when I felt like shit if I wasn't getting to meetings. For me, in the beginning I felt better when I attended more that one meeting a day. And I hung out at the clubhouses alot too just cause I didn't know what else to do with myself.
I read all the rponses and what you need to hear is that this is completely normal i went through this as well. I called it the sobriety roller coaster i would go from what you are feeling to extreme high's. It does even out call yoursponsor go to meetings take of your self please i don't to post a ling but here is an article about post accute withdrawl syndrome
