Had the same thing a month or so ago. Agreed to a divorce from my wife which both of us want, got 100kms into the 300km drive home and WHAM!. Almost out of the blue I got a massive resentment against my wife, my disease and pretty much the world in general. My head was doing a whole bunch of poor me's and screw you's even though there was no way in hell I was ever going back to the marriage. So right at this moment my friendly little pet disease pops up and invites me along for a drink to drown my sorrows. Powerful. I'm nodding as it speaks to me too. Made sense. Screw AA and all the being nice stuff, and let's go get rolling drunk. But I white knuckled it the rest of the way home and made it to bed sober.
The next day the urge had passed but it left me pretty shaken. I sought out some old timers and had a bit of a chat with them about it.
What I learnt (really learnt in my heart rather than the head where it had been but hadn't been properly understood):
1/ Resentments are killers. Let one in and one hundred follow. Squash them asap or they'll hurt me badly. At no point will they ever make my life better.
2/ Self pity is lack of gratitude and is caused by not living in the now. Once I took a tally of where I was in life and how good I really had it now as opposed to how I was, that voice stopped making sense and disappeared pretty quick.
3/ Ego is a dirty word. What I want gets me in trouble. Me me me. The rant in my head was that of a spoilt four year old that wanted a lolly just to be greedy even though they didn't like the flavour. I needed to remember that I'm getting what I need by sticking with this stuff, and that what I actually want quite often turns out to be the last thing I need.
4/ I'm never going to be cured. Re-read step one and tattoo it in my heart. I get a reprieve on day at a time. That's it. I forget that and I'm back in le merde up to my eyeballs. This disease is running laps and doing push-ups just waiting for a moment when I'm at my weakest, and then it'll hit me with everything it has.
5/ Don't panic! This, too, shall pass. Just keep calm and trust God (or HP or whatever works for you). The urge is a wave crashing onto a beach - ride it out and things will be good again.
6/ This is already in the Book and that Book doesn't lie. Sure I knew all this already but now I really understand it (I hope). So if in doubt read the Book for guidance. It's always on the money.
Glad you rode it out, Col. Really glad. You'll be better for the experience IMHO.
-- Edited by Frodo on Wednesday 5th of September 2012 11:48:30 PM
I had a peculiar experience today... Not peculiar to many of you all, I know. But to me.. I have really only experienced strong urges to drink maybe once ( to the point that I was in fear of relapsing). Tonight at work I'm going about my business, and these two coworkers of mine are being all annoyingly flirtatious and talking about 'hanging out' (getting drinks). I'm just annoyed, and tired, and I was overwhelmed with this sense of loneliness, and a lack of self-confidence hit me in the gut. Then starts a little pity- party in my head. And I'm thinking 'man, I hate this job, I hate men, I suck'. And then I get sucker punched with this thought of ' F IT!!! These past 3 1/2 months are a joke.. I can't live sober.. WHY?? Why bother? I'm not worth it'. So intense. I almost broke down in tears..doesn't help that I work in a restaurant/bar and booze is all around me. I called my sponser and she talked me 'outta the tree'. This experience scared the hell outta me.. It is insidious and powerful, this alcoholism. But I did not drink, nor do I want to anymore. Gosh, the fear of relapse is now with me
Thoughts are not actions. What's that shampoo commercial? "because youre worth it" or the dove special... The real beauty thing? These little bits of advertising pick me up a bit. And make me giggle. I use them to combat my alkie thoughts.
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In the end, everything will be alright. If it is not alright, it is not the end... Paulo coelho (also marigold hotel)
Great share ... you just reinforced for us the truism that we're never going to reach the point where we are immune from the cunning, baffling, and powerful alcohol ... it hides in the most unusual of places ... since Neo mentioned commercials ... this reminds me of the 'Big Mac attack' years ago from McDonalds ... like a 'Big Mac' attack, alcohol can pop a 'craving' in your head in a heartbeat ... We have learned though, if we put into practice, the principles of this program, daily, we grow to the point where such thoughts, when they appear, are immediately dropped and changed to different thoughts ... we 'recoil' from such thinking as we would recoil from a hot flame ...
I know it's hard to deal with now, but trust me, continue to work the program and you'll gain all the strength you need to live a happy, sober, life ... I know you've heard this a lot ... 'it just keeps getting better' with time ... you're doing great ... thanks for sharing ...
Pappy
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'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
good for you for not drinking. Im starting to get the hang of the program really well and its very worth it to keep working the program, it gets better!
Had the same thing a month or so ago. Agreed to a divorce from my wife which both of us want, got 100kms into the 300km drive home and WHAM!. Almost out of the blue I got a massive resentment against my wife, my disease and pretty much the world in general. My head was doing a whole bunch of poor me's and screw you's even though there was no way in hell I was ever going back to the marriage. So right at this moment my friendly little pet disease pops up and invites me along for a drink to drown my sorrows. Powerful. I'm nodding as it speaks to me too. Made sense. Screw AA and all the being nice stuff, and let's go get rolling drunk. But I white knuckled it the rest of the way home and made it to bed sober.
The next day the urge had passed but it left me pretty shaken. I sought out some old timers and had a bit of a chat with them about it.
What I learnt (really learnt in my heart rather than the head where it had been but hadn't been properly understood):
1/ Resentments are killers. Let one in and one hundred follow. Squash them asap or they'll hurt me badly. At no point will they ever make my life better.
2/ Self pity is lack of gratitude and is caused by not living in the now. Once I took a tally of where I was in life and how good I really had it now as opposed to how I was, that voice stopped making sense and disappeared pretty quick.
3/ Ego is a dirty word. What I want gets me in trouble. Me me me. The rant in my head was that of a spoilt four year old that wanted a lolly just to be greedy even though they didn't like the flavour. I needed to remember that I'm getting what I need by sticking with this stuff, and that what I actually want quite often turns out to be the last thing I need.
4/ I'm never going to be cured. Re-read step one and tattoo it in my heart. I get a reprieve on day at a time. That's it. I forget that and I'm back in le merde up to my eyeballs. This disease is running laps and doing push-ups just waiting for a moment when I'm at my weakest, and then it'll hit me with everything it has.
5/ Don't panic! This, too, shall pass. Just keep calm and trust God (or HP or whatever works for you). The urge is a wave crashing onto a beach - ride it out and things will be good again.
6/ This is already in the Book and that Book doesn't lie. Sure I knew all this already but now I really understand it (I hope). So if in doubt read the Book for guidance. It's always on the money.
Glad you rode it out, Col. Really glad. You'll be better for the experience IMHO.
-- Edited by Frodo on Wednesday 5th of September 2012 11:48:30 PM
Hi Colleen, I pray that you are well now. What is great about your recovery is the support system you have built around your self. I am 24 years in recovery, and I still get resentful and self pity occasionally. In my early days, I used to call my sponsor and work through it with him. Nowadays, I have the capacity to examine myself and see which defect of character has surfaced. Once I identify it, I work with my spiritual life through the 12 steps, prayer and meditation as suggested by the AA book, and I restore myself back to sanity. It takes a while sometimes, because of own selfishness and self righteous behaviour.
In retrospect when I look, I see that this came about because of my personal neglect on the steps. Gonee has to come first in personal recovery, otherwise I cannot help anybody else.
Thanks for sharing this, because you are a reminder to me not to get complacent. David and Frodo have covered excellent ground.
The diesase is cunning, baffling and powerful. We are mentally and bodily different from our fellows. It sneaks in through emotional avenues and then- wham- It tells us I have a solution to your emotional problems. I've learned over time the diesase is a thinking or emotional problem. It starts there. Thinking gets bad, feeling sh*tty and search for a solution. The drink is the end of a relapse.
I'm glad you and others that posted weathered the storm with the guidance of your HP and The Program of AA. Our diesase has no defense against it. It's been awhile since I had a strong urge to drink, but I'm still eligible. I still get fleeting thoughts now and then. Like Neo noted, fleeting thoughts pass and I need not react or respond to them today. Thank you God.
It is nice to hear others struggle, ok let me rephrase that, I am sorry you have to struggle but it is nice to know I am not alone and won't be alone. I have to be truthful to myself in that I won't be cured after a certain amount of time and that there are others who understand this and are going through this as well. I wish it were simpler but after reading peoples desires even after months and years I know it will be a long hard road, one that will probably never end. My last drink was Sunday and we are coming up on thursday now. so VERY new. I had a hard time driving past the liqour store yesterday but I did it and I got home and started chatting with others here and that helped a lot. I was educated on the "one day at a time" motto by a very helpful aa friend and I got up this morning with a new outlook. I repeated the serentity prayer many times throughout today and am trying to live for just today. Hopefully that will make it easier. I am hoping you all will see me post many many many more times and keep on driving past that liqor store. But this week I am left with the thoughts of what I have done to people and that is so hard to let go of.....so hard to wrap my head around. it makes me so sad
Please don't allow your mind to dwell on the past ... what's done is done ... can't be changed ... but as you progress in this program, you'll learn how to get your 'thinker' on the right track ... and included in our steps is an 'amends' process ... don't go run out and make amends to other just yet, your not cured ... an amends for the past wrongs we did is a special process ... there's a 'right' way and a 'wrong' way to do them and close work with your sponsor is highly recommended ...
So try to concentrate on learning the AA program instead of feeling pain for hurting others in the past ... when we do allow those thoughts to come, we get on what we call the 'pity pot' and depression soon follows ... depression is not a good mood to have ... it leads to all kind of 'bad' thinking ...
Let us and the AA groups you go to, work on you a little while ... stick around, don't drink, and go to meetings ... you'll be an 'ole timer' before you know it ...
Love you and God Bless, Pappy
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'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
Thank you all so much for support and guidance! I awoke today with a strong gratitude for not giving in the the booze last night. I have this program, and the wisdom others have earned the hard way before me. I went to a meeting tonight and felt even more at home. And yes, my urges to drink stemmed from a touch of jealously ( directed towards a female friend of mine) and resentment ( towards men.. Lol a whole other issue altogether haha). Anyways, just another experience that has shed light on things I was too drunk to think about before. Simply another learning experience:)
At meetings I know that the majority always have the lurking monster ready to grab them at the nearest 7-Eleven but with me,alcohol is the enemy.It stole 20 years of my life and it won't ever get another second of it.I guess because i am really stupid i played into the BS alcohol was feeding me,telling me things would be cool if i kept drinking and that sitting idle was cool because everyone else was a loser,not me.That shit just lied to me and at every store cooler i can look at it and see tomorrow morning and the intense self hatred that would occur if i drank.And it is much less so now-if ever- but i would get actually extremely angry whenever i noticed alcohol around me and would get super pissed that i let some aluminum can rule my shit for so long.Took about 5 years for that to wane but after 15+ years of sobriety,i still hate it and always will. At 3 months you will have all sorts of messed up emotions.Ignore it,gonna happen and others are going to actually make it harder for you if they know you are freshly sober,ignore it.If you have relapses dont let it harm the bottom line,dont kill yourself over it.If you have made the decision to quit,you will.You will go to meetings,talk to your sponsor and do positive things that daily strengthens you and takes you farther away from alcohol.If you get scared,ignore it.It gets better and you will stabilize and get so strong that it will no longer be able to pull at you.It will try to blindside you at times but just remember this,life is there to be lived.High emotional stress is an opportunity to flex problem solving skills.Just stick with the program and you will get your life back and stay sane.
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"This time i'm gonna stand up and shout, i'm gonna do things my way,it's my way or the highway" Limp Bizkit
It's been awhile since I had a strong urge to drink, but I'm still eligible. I still get fleeting thoughts now and then. Like Neo noted, fleeting thoughts pass and I need not react or respond to them today. Thank you God.