For the past ten years of my life, every time I have experienced high levels of anxiety, I have reached for alcohol. Doing so has allowed me to avoid many of the real issues in my life by focusing my attention first on being drunk and then on the regret of doing so. It is really a powerful distraction. Generally it works like this:
1) Enter anxiety about something here: family issues, relationship issues, money problems, career stress, etc.
2) Open up a bottle of alcohol and start drinking until numbness sets in and a blackout ensues.
3) Wake up the next morning feeling like hell, but no longer thinking about the original cause of anxiety.
As I have begun taking my first serious steps towards sobriety, I am finding that there is a lot in my life that I will no longer be able to avoid by getting drunk. I have been working with an awesome therapist for the past 8 months, which helps a lot. Still, there are many life factors that I'm now looking at straight in the eye and it makes me nervous to be lacking my armor. I've been praying and meditating a lot lately, seeking alleviation, which also helps a lot.
I'm just wondering, though, from the longtime sober folks on these boards how you coped, how long it took before life began to feel normal, and basically what the outcome has been. I cannot help but imagine that facing our anxieties head-on is a wonderful idea; but it is intimidating, if nothing else.
Just curious.
Sincerely,
Adam
-- Edited by AdamMoz on Thursday 2nd of August 2012 09:52:05 PM
__________________
When every situation which life can offer is turned to the profit of spiritual growth, no situation can really be a bad one.-Paul Brunton
Hey Adam, ... ... ... SOBER ... ... ... Son Of a Bitch Everything's Real
I have come to realize that most of my anxiety came from me making 'mountains' out of 'mole hills' ... in my alcohol soaked brain, I lost touch with reality ... I could not distinguish the false from the real ... I dealt with life's issues the very same way you described above ... One problem that faces us is the fact that while we were deep in our addiction, we did not mature emotionally ... and once we sober up, our emotion maturity starts growing again ... which means at 59, I have the emotional maturity of a 25 year old ... You wanted to know how long before we felt like life became normal again ... I'm not sure I ever new what 'normal' was ...
I do know that somewhere toward finishing the steps, this last time around, that I felt a 'Peace and Serenity' come over me that I had never known before ... ever ... for me, it was between 6 to 12 months sober I think ... I'm sure it's different for everybody ...
Today, I suffer from none of those old maladies ... anxiety doesn't bother to come around and bother me anymore ... From the program, I have the tools to deal with life's problems today ... there is nothing that has happened to me that the program hasn't taught me to deal with, ergo, no more anxiety ... And trust me, there HAVE been some tough life issues for me since getting sober ...
Stick around and you'll have the same tools in your kit as I do, as we all do ...
God Bless, Pappy
-- Edited by Pythonpappy on Thursday 2nd of August 2012 10:25:53 PM
__________________
'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
Hey Adam welcome to the board. Alcoholism is a mystery to the alcoholic, mostly it's counter intuitive. What we perceive to be our weaknesses turn out to be our strengths and visa versa. Our biggest problem is fear, and particularly self centered fear. Not uniquely, most of what we are afraid of will never happen. But we substitute those long shot fears for the familiar, drowning our fears with alcohol and the certain ensuing failure, thus sabotaging our successes and future. John Bradshaw wrote "An alcoholic is a man on fire who runs into the sea and drowns". So we conquer our fear with faith and put the bottle down for good. This allows us to mature, over time, and rejoin the human race.
-- Edited by StPeteDean on Thursday 2nd of August 2012 10:43:40 PM
It Took me awhile to feel ok with myself since I had to learn to do everything sober. I felt like it was one crisis after another. Most of them were based on self made fears, but I got through them without drinking. All I did was not give up. AA and the 12 steps has worked for many of us. It just takes time.
"I'm just wondering, though, from the longtime sober folks on these boards how you coped, how long it took before life began to feel normal, and basically what the outcome has been. I cannot help but imagine that facing our anxieties head-on is a wonderful idea; but it is intimidating, if nothing else."
Aloha Adam...I clipped the part with "normal" in it. My question to myself when I got to this subject and when I revisit it is "normal" as described by who? I was born and raised in our disease and I didn't drink normally. Even my alcoholic family and friends use to tell me I wasn't alcoholic because I reacted different to the chemical. I am chemically tolerant and drank alot without outside characteristics that I was drunk. It was painful trying to get "drunk" and in short there were things about how I was made up physically and emotionally which caused others to scratch their heads and me think I wasn't doing it right even though often I was the last drunk standing and one who would take care of the mess before hitting the sack. I had some questions about my drinking...why didn't I often have the uphoria which was replaced by rage? The other question was why was my skin a sickly yellowish-green? Of course there were the questions about why was I wearing two different socks inside of two different shoes. Some indications were basic many not and I was not like "them". Them were normal...drank, got drunk, fell down, got sick, passed out etc etc and I very rarely did. I turned yellowish-green for which I blamed my Catholic, Portugese mother for at one time having an affair with an Oriental man and I was the result. Really.
I don't know what normal is and today I know what I is and who I is. I don't drink any longer. I've been in toxic shock 3 times but never had the DTs. I've never been in withdrawals and had to be locked down and medicated to calm my systems. I stopped drinking because it wasn't any fun anymore and usually my wife got drunker faster, ruined the party and I'd have to drive her away and have to deal with my rage. I rarely ever had fun drinking. Chemical tolerants are like that.
Like Pappy spells it...I stopped growing when I started drinking (age of 9) when I quit drinking I had the maturity level of about a teenager. I was dumb as a stick and sick and tired of being sick and tired, couldn't complete with adults and was stuck in a nether world of fear. I was looking at a 3rd suicide attempt. That was normal for me then. What is normal for me now is living without drinking, living the program and just letting life be on lifes terms. I can repeat "I am powerless" without getting rageful. I can "Let go and Let God" while at the same time smiling and saying "Place me where you want me and tell me what to do" without wanting to say "eff it I'm out of here". Normal for me is abnormal...always has been and Dean's response is one of the responses I got early on and planted in my mind and fertilized. "Alcoholism is a mystery to the alcoholic, mostly it's counter intuitive". Normal is abnormal or counter...Abnormal is normal. One of the things I have found in my time in recovery and as a substance abuse therapist is it is that characteristic that explains the great ability for survivorship in addicted peoples wanting to get and stay sober one day at a time for life.
I never had the anxiety of facing sober reality just as I never had a justification to drink. There was no law that said I had to; it was always there out in the open and so I drank it...didn't ask...didn't say thank you.
Our biggest problem is fear...that is the greatest emotional character defect I had and I faced it with rage...alcohol and adrenalin in the same glass...a "red" out into a "black" out. Last black out I had was before program in 1979. The last "red" out was in 1997-8 and it didn't fully manifest and I had no alcohol with it...Thank God and thank AA/Al-Anon.
You can do this...allow yourself to be led...lay the anxiety to the side in favor of faith and trust practice...pick it back up after two years have past...see how you handle it then...probably more abnormally normal I guess.
Hey Adam, life will always throw awful stuff at you no matter what you do. Reaching for alcohol doesnt ever solve the problem, it just makes it worse. I've found that ridding myself of alcohol by getting to meetings a lot and also quitting all forms of drugs has lead my life to something I never couldve Imagined. Alcohol and drugs are an entrance into a world that is really ugly and the longer you stay sober the better your life will be. I'm starting to realize things now I wouldnt have ever seen if I had looked for a million years. Alcohol doesnt just destroy lives, it actually hurts you and the people around you. Its a hard thing to explain but if you are serious about being sober it will keep getting better with time. I hope youll go to as many meetings as you can manage and avoid reaching for a drink. Theres another side to life that is a lot better sometimes it takes a while to find but theres a saying somewhere: Rome wasnt built in a day.
Notice that the word "fear" is bracketed alongside the difficulties with Mr. Brown, Mrs. Jones, the employer, and the wife. This short word somehow touches about every aspect of our lives. It was an evil and corroding thread; the fabric of our existence was shot through with it. It set in motion trains of circumstances which brought us misfortune we felt we didn't deserve. But did not we, ourselves, set the ball rolling? Sometimes we think fear ought to be classed with stealing. It seems to cause more trouble.
bb pgs 67 - 68
This was me....It wasn't till I worked my fourth and fifth step that I could get a handle on fear...And six and seven which I did right after. My whole life was driven by fear...My solution to fear was alcohol....The more fear...The more alcohol....The more alcohol...The more anxiety....It was crippling.
Hello Adam, AA will give you the support you need to face your perceived problems. It starts a process where you prove to yourself over and over that your fears are unfounded, which conditions you into understanding your anxieties. Without the alcohol, you can really look at a situation rationally, and start solving the family situations (many of which are probably alcohol related) Good Luck! Tom
__________________
"You're in the right place. That's the door right there. Turn around."
Thank you all for your responses. I appreciate the words of insight and encouragement. I think what I'm needing to consistently remind myself of is that (like many of you said) the fear and anxiety I have experienced so much of and tried to strifle with alcohol have been made infinitely worse by the alcohol itself. It's a cycle. There's just something very existential about waking up into a world that feels to some extent unfamiliar. Being sober, in some ways, feels like waking up inside a dream and needing to get acquainted with a reality that has long been hazy and nebulous. At the same time, there are the flipside blessings of being more aware of wonderful details that go unnoticed while one is in an alcoholic haze: the depth of taste, detailed dreams, focus and attention, etc. I would say that the experience, for me so far, has been much more positive than negative - and the fear I'm sure will subside. Thank you all again for your encouragement.
-Adam
__________________
When every situation which life can offer is turned to the profit of spiritual growth, no situation can really be a bad one.-Paul Brunton
And thanks everyone for your awesome replies, they were well-received. What you just described is nothing new in the recovery world -Adam- or even for alcoholics such as ourselves, all it does is reaffirm what we already know...we drink instead of think. I mean, why did we choose to drink in the first place, knowing what can possibly happen? For me, it was all about insensitivity, which I now call pride. I was bullied by my father and his friends almost daily, so I drank to cope with that insurrection -but that was me. I guess others had their reasons too, but deep down inside they're just immature reactions to unwelcome stimuli. So off we went to drink. Today, though, we approach things much differently. We encourage total abstinence, while advocating personal responsibility, and do so through a sober outlet we call A.A. Now, that's a change even I can appreciate.
I guess the question you're really asking is: How long did it take before I felt normal again? After two years I started to feel comfortable again in my own skin. From there it's been a work in progress. I can't gauge spiritual progress the same way I do growth spurts, even though the change in me is quite obvious. It's takes a keen eye to notice these changes, but, then again, how much can we learn in our lifetime anyway.
Sobriety does have its moments -good, bad and indifferent. They seem to be a series of endless thoughts and unwarranted feelings with a few extra things thrown in for good measure. So take it one day at a time just like the rest of us. The key to my overall success -thus far- has been twofold: First, I had to find some sober footing to steady my next move. I had to brace myself for the next eventual showdown, but I didn't have proper foundation for that. So I choose to sober up with the help of my greatest ally, A.A. And I suggest you do the same. Second, I don't take this disease for granted anymore, and I mean ever. It's a slippery slope -this disease of alcoholism, so make sure you're doing the next right thing. It's a sober barrier that seems to separate us from taking that next drink, at least it has for me. How you remain sober from there is still up to you, so choose carefully for today.
I guess a much deeper question to answer would be the following: Will the sudden itch to drink ever return? Yeah, of course it does, but I don't tickle those impulses anymore like I once did. I'd rather remain curiously optimistic then drop dead drunk any day, regardless of what happens tomorrow or the day after. There's something uniquely significant about sobriety that alcohol can never offer, and that's a place I currently call home. It's not always rosy, but it does offer me something better in return; a sober, successful and blessed life just for today. So stay sober Adam, just like the rest of us, and live...
~God Bless~
-- Edited by Mr_David on Friday 3rd of August 2012 09:56:13 PM
OMG Adam - I could have written that post. Wow. I did the same thing also, which was work with a therapist while doing AA as best I could. Things turned around in the 2nd year but they got steadily better throughout. I left a job that I felt trapped at and wasn't being treated well and I ended a relationship that should have never been started. I did all that in my second year of sobriety. It was about then that I got stable enough to make some of the changes that I was deathly afraid of before. When I did that, I was not just sober, but I was also not afraid and I knew I could make things happen in my life when I needed to. It was like ingesting a big dose of sober self esteem within a few months. I don't know if it will happen that way for you and I don't encourage you to go looking for major changes to make. I guess the key is just to keep looking for the root of the fear and find ways to live without it - Then you are so much closer to happy, joyous, and free.
This is all like building a house. You would much prefer to buy one that took time, thought, and effort to construct (or reconstruct in this case). You are worth it and the growing pains are temporary and part of the journey.
Mark
__________________
Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
Hey Adam:) I'm not a person with long term sobriety, but I completely identify with what you're feeling (if you've read any of the posts I've written you'll see I also have major amxieties and fear). Also, pappy and a couple of others with experience make a GREAT point of highlighting the lack of coping skills or stunt in emotional growth amongst alcoholics (haha also painfully evident in my posts). You are right in saying that early sobriety is a crazy ride..but the positives certainly outweigh the negatives:)
Like the Big Book quote above says, fear is the factor for all of us. I have had anxiety disorder, and booze was my medicine -- or so I thought. I don't know how many times I've heard folks share in AA meetings and I click: that's me. Just like your share above. I have no medical evidence for this, but I'd suspect that the vast majority of us alcoholics probably suffer from anxiety disorder. Kind of what the Big Book was saying back in 1939.
Over time in AA, working this program and getting to meetings, that fear dissipated. Took me a couple of years to feel "normal" again too. But, now, I can say: if this is what "normal" feels like, then I'll have some more of it, please.
