My Biggest Secret Is???

[individualnz]

Most people like me;......... I am all of these things...I am happy, funny, beautiful, strong, caring, fun loving, professional, ......... bla, bla. I am also a person who depends upon alcohol. (It looks absurd when I read this but its true), I cant stop looking past the negative, I desperately want to be focusing positively. I hide so much behind the mask of AL:thanks:

[tantangra]

My Biggest Secret Is???

I used to go out to the shed while I p[retended I was going for a wee. I would take big gulps of wine out of the bottle and put the lid back on and put it back in the crate. I found my huisband's hiding place for the grog and had drunk and rplaced dozens of bottles of wine before I told him I knew where it was.

Now instead of Al I am doing the same thing with lollies. I bought two bags of jelly babies yesterday and ate them within an hour. Just like I used to with grog. I have to stop.

[rebirth]

My Biggest Secret Is???

I feel most ashamed when I have taken my 6 year old son to the pub and cant remember how I got home. Then lie comotosed on the sofa, ill and hungover all day. My son has to stay indoors and watch tv.
Oh the shame!!!

[individualnz]

My Biggest Secret Is???

Tantangra,

thats actually quite funny about the lollies....

Rebirth, I know that feeling of shame, its horrible, I notice your AF for 40 days now, good job with that.

My drinking has been way out of control, I was drinking just to make house work fun....how sad is that!!!!!

[hippie37]

My Biggest Secret Is???

What I'm dealing with today is not the alcohol but the masks that I put on because I don't want people to know the real me. We all do it at times (still put masks on) but when the mask/s become permanent features because we can't face reality without them, then it's time to start asking yourself "Why is that?"

Alcohol is not the problem in my opinion, it was my solution for many years as I couldn't deal with my feelings of shame, guilt, inferiority, etc. Today I have started to accept my imperfections and see that I'm just as insane as everybody else on this planet!! It just constitutes being a human being I guess to realise we're all driven by our fears at times and do things we're not proud of. When you can stop beating yourself up for these things and take responsibility for your life you can start to feel a little more comfortable in your own skin. You can feel confident within yourself to become a little more transparent with those around you without resorting to putting the masks back on.

Enjoy the ride! Life's a roller-coaster!!

Many Blessings
Phil

[individualnz]

My Biggest Secret Is???

Excellent post Phil,

Oh so true

Regards Indy

[piglet]

My Biggest Secret Is???

I like your post hippy, it really speaks to me. I thought I was the worst person
in the world for a long time. Now I realise I've got alot of company! lol

Piglet

[mollyka]

My Biggest Secret Is???

Nice post Hippy, not sure if this is on the same wave-length but I found when I was drinking, everything that went wrong in my life I blamed myself for 100% because I wasn't sober enough to know whether I was at fault or not. I had a truly awful time in my life when my Mum was dying and my sisters were unkind to her and brutally unkind to me and much worse to my children. I blamed myself. Thro the fog of alcohol I reckoned because I was a drunk I in some way must have engineered the whole problem. It has taken sobriety for quite some time for me to analyse all this and realise that I have been beating myself up over nothing NONE OF IT WAS MY FAULT. It had a very bad affect on my mental health as well. That's another result of booze.
Molly

[hippie37]

My Biggest Secret Is???

Molly, I can identify with you completely.

Even as I was going through treatment and things were identified to me as 'abuse' it just didn't sit right with me at the time. Yet because I was still under the impression I was very sick because of my alcoholism I believed every word of it. Don't get me wrong here either I wasn't trying to shirk any responsibility for my actions or the actions of others; but my intuition at a very conscious level did not agree with what i was being made to believe. Sometimes it can just be a moral issue over a taboo subject and that's all. Sometimes counsellors don't always get it right. As long as it's not a get out clause for taking responsibility for your actions and you're being true to yourself then don't believe everything people tell you. Like with GP's you're entitled to a second opinion if you want!

I too engineered my own fate seeing myself as a victim because I believed my addiction meant I was a bad person. We're not bad people, we're just sick people trying to get well. To do that though I had to stop playing the victim myself. Hard to do when you've manufactured your own version of events from either your own beliefs about yourself or from others. I believe there are a lot of sick people in the world. I consider myself lucky to have been awakened to my own sickness through my addiction. I turn what was once a negative to me into a positive. It's from my wounds that I can heal myself and be a much more productive member in society than probably a lot of people in this world today. Hence why I consider myself lucky!!

Many Blessings
Phil