Help! - Does it ever feel right? Can you ever forget it? or forgive yourself?

[aust_boy]

I hit 30 last year and basically since then I have been pretty much emotionally vacant - bar bad emotion - negative emotion - psychological punishment - self loathing - all that sort of stuff I have plenty of and am able to do.

I had an alcohol problem. I went to rehab, I stopped drinking. That does not undo 2 x DUI and all the pain / hurt / things I fucked up during my problem period. It does not undo the time I wasted and I just can't shake that. I have tried, (my mother would call what I am doing right now "naval gazing") I can't get over the person I have been because it just wasn't me it was like I took a break from being me for 6 or so years and now I am back to it and feel shocked and lost and confused and anxious and scared and just freaking bewildered!

I know people are going to say that you learn from your experiences and you become a better person etc but it seems like the more I improve myself the worse I feel.

I am finishing college (uni in australia) where of course I feel old as hell but I am there nonetheless and I am achieving really well like 90% for everything, I have lost in the vicinity of 25 kg - maybe 55 pounds ? Something like that, I am in great shape, I am a nicer person, I think differently and I don't drink. People who meet me now have no idea of who I once was. All this positive stuff that should make me feel better right? All the textbook stuff that you are supposed to do in order to lead a healthy life. I eat well - I have basically reformed.

I cannot shake it, there is always something - I am too old, I have missed my opportunity, what if I don't land that job because of the DUI, what if I don't land a job at all, I really have no direction, I am not married, I don't even have a girlfriend, I have no prospects really blah blah blah if you can think about it I have probably thought it. Every relationship I have ever had I was drinking in.

Does anyone else feel like they are lost and have come out of living in a fog? It feels like from about 24 - 30 just whisked by and I can't even really remember it and now I realise they were precious precious years I will never get back - I feel like I should absolutely be in a different place to where I am now. I should say at this point that the whole reason I started drinking in the first place was an emotionally abusive mother and anxiety that developed from that / and from being a quiet kid (whatever thats not important right now). Thats how I handled it. I picked up the bottle to self medicate and it just got out of control. I was also taking xanax and antidepressants so mixed with alcohol it was, as most of you can imagine, a fucking nightmare.

I sit here and type this and just feel totally and utterly alone and lost. I don't feel like drinking, I don't know if its a psychological shift or what but I have had drinks since rehab and it doesn't make me feel the same as it once did.

I used to feel fulfilled. Paradise for me was sitting in a hotel room alone or with a friend (it didn't make a difference one way or another) and just drinking. 20 beers - whatever, I would swear to myself every time that I would not lose control again, that I would not forget anything more. But shit, honestly after 5 beers with xanax and the other meds I was on (luvox) what chance did I ever really have of doing that.

Suicide is not really an option for me because of what it would do to my family, my father in particular, but I do feel like I should just vanish, go away. Maybe I need to move to a new city and re-invent myself where no one knows me. Then I think about the confidence and belief in oneself that would take and the idea quickly becomes fantasy.

My father has just had a huge accident and is in the hospital (I was thinking the same way before this happened) and I am back at home supporting my mother. She is mentally unstable - she is the principal of a school, I am 30 years old and I still feel like I am 16 in some ways. I feel like I have to be there for her because she is my mother, I know underneath everything she is a good person with a good heart but she acts like a witch most of the time. I think to myself she doesn't have an excuse because she doesn't even drink. Just really really bad emotional abuse.

I guess what I am after is some advice, maybe some re-assurance if you can provide any from personal experience. Maybe someone feels / or has felt just like I do. I can't shake the past, my mother reminds me of it all the time - even though I have over come it and have years under my belt and I am a different person. I tell myself that but believing it is another thing - I see fact now, if it's fact I can believe it I guess. Anything at all that is open to interpretation on my part I go with the negative - especially if it is to do with me. Ie I was 125kg, I am now 91kg - fact. I have lost a lot of weight and am in good shape. That is a quantifiable fact but it doesn't actually make me feel any better AT ALL.

When I attempt to keep normal hours, go to sleep at night I just lay awake for hours - literally, 4 hours sometimes and then I'll get up and just get on the treadmill or something. All that time just negative thoughts running through my head, the past, the present, the future, all on top of one another and interleaved. It's a nightmare and I honestly don't know what to do. I have been to psychologists / psychiatrists in the past and the medication, well what i have been prescribed anyway doesn't help and I am not even convinced that medication is the answer.

This has just been an explosion of emotion - I feel like it's just complaining and I should get the fuck over myself I really do. When you live with it day in day out though and you tell yourself that every day and nothing changes -it really starts to scare you.

Thanks - at least venting and knowing people will read it rather than just writing it to myself is something.

Thanks to anyone who takes the time to read this drivel.

[Kimberley]

Help! - Does it ever feel right? Can you ever forget it? or forgive yourself?

Gosh Aust I read your post and I just had to reply. I, too, hit 30 last year and my 20s was an utter blur of horrificness. I began drinking because of crippling anxiety as well - I had agoraphobia and everything.

I have been trying for the past 4 or 5 years to stay sober - I managed a while but have relapsed majorly this year.

One of the things I really struggled with when I was sober was the feeling that I would never be 'ok' if you know what I mean - I could never forgive myself or undo all the damage that had been done and felt sullied by my past and all the horrible things in it. Ultimately, I believe that this is one of the things that led to be being a serial relapser.

Although I am only newly sober again, I think finally that this IS a feeling I can overcome. My old counsellor always told me to be patient and said it would take time, which I found totally unhelpful! Like, when? How long do I have to wait?

i disagree with her and now I belive it is all about a mental shift. You have to make a conscious decision to draw a line in the sand so to speak. You have to do this yourself - it's funny most other people seem to have forgiven me for everything I have done, but I could never accept that or forgive myself. But I feel like I can now. It's all about just letting go of it all.

If there is anything you can do to make amends, I would if I were you. And many people in recovery find that 'giving back' really helps them out - voluntary work or whatever. But I think the main thing is to DECIDE that this is it, you are not going to punish yourself any more. You did what you could at the time with your pain to protect yourself and now you're doing what you need to to become a better person. It's a conscious decision. Maybe you could write yourself a letter or something where you admit all that you did in the past and tell yourself to move on - something like that. I do know it's hard, but I finally belive it can be done.

Anyway sorry if this is a bit rushed and unclear - I have to go out now, but I just had to respond so you know you are not alone - I am in a similar place - or have been - in my head. You can PM me any time you want.
K x

[mollyka]

Help! - Does it ever feel right? Can you ever forget it? or forgive yourself?

Aust. My heart goes out to you. Like Kimberley I know where you are in your head - I've been there. I'm not 30 I'm 54 and I wasted so many years of my life . I must stress I didn't have abusive parents, I had wonderful parents but basically my life became a muddle. I don't know about medication. For some folks it's wonderful, didn't seem to really work for me.
I'm tempted to say, actually I am going to say, try and draw a line in the sand. You are 30, healthy, clever, what's done is done, can't be taken back. This sounds so trite, but you have your whole life ahead of you, don't waste one more day on regrets. Obviously you have to deal with your Dad's accident and minding your mother, other than that - this is your life - reclaim it lad! Make tomorrow the day you start being kind to yourself. No one is more important than you
Thinking of you
Molly

[KundaliniGirl]

Help! - Does it ever feel right? Can you ever forget it? or forgive yourself?

Aust, I don't have a lot of advice but I just want you to know that you are not alone. Many if not most of us here have had similar experiences and feelings. Some of this will just work itself out with time.

Is there anything you can get involved in that would help you? Volunteer, like Kimberly suggested? Maybe you could help other young people struggling with alcohol? Do you have any hobbies? I cook, do yoga, meditate, read voraciously, etc..........

Sending you peace and strength,

KG

[Rags]

Help! - Does it ever feel right? Can you ever forget it? or forgive yourself?

'Morning Aust,

I copied this post from Doggy Girl a while ago.


A promise to myself because I am worth it:
I promise to spend MORE time each day rewarding myself for my little successes, and being happy about my future, than I spend feeling bad about the times I fall short of a goal, or feeling guilty about things in the past that I cannot change. No matter how bad something in my past may be, I cannot change it. My past has great value as a learning experience, and that is all.

[aust_boy]

Help! - Does it ever feel right? Can you ever forget it? or forgive yourself?

Thanks for the responses everyone. They are really, really really appreciated.

I woke up today and then remembered posting on here last night. First off I felt kind of embarrassed. That I had shared my complete bullshit, degrading, confusing situation that I feel like I should have in handle myself (on some level). Then I thought wait... these people are the same, maybe not exactly the same but they have had alcohol in their lives and more importantly they have endured experiences they REGRET due to alcohol. Therefore they can relate. It's such a massive thing I think.

You ask some people - at least I do, they are talking about their big night out or whatever - how absolutely smashed they got like its an awesome thing you know. I usually ask "how much of it do you remember" they usually respond " oh I never forget anything ". Straight off I think your version of what smashed is, and my version of what smashed is are definitions that exist in dictionaries belonging to different planets.

I'd love to be one of those people who could have a beer and enjoy it, I am not wired that way, I have no stop go, if I start drinking it will end up in something I regret - I know that, I thank rehab for that. Smashed to people like us (well to me anyway) means I can't remember JACK SHIT, wake up with a shattered wrist, with my face bloated to within an inch of explosion (my face used to swell when I drank) me being 25 kg overweight and a few times in a fucking watch house cell. What the hell is so fun and cool about that. I have confided in a few people and their responses, outside of this forum clearly, but their responses - WOW, COOL!!! etc etc etc fill in the blanks. It absolutely takes one to know one. Thats why I think a lot of the times psychiatrists are fucking useless. Everything they know is text based.

I got side tracked there, I am a bit muddled up right now, interleaved thoughts - multiplexed thoughts to the computer people among you. Anyway I started off writing to say that I do not regret posting, that actually voicing the BULLSHIT I am going through has helped me. I feel like I am not alone. I received very helpful and supportive PM's, and the people who replied to the post? Well it is just clear that they understand.

The thought that resonates with me the most - the one that I know to be true and the one that every kind person who has been in contact with me keeps stressing

"I'm tempted to say, actually I am going to say, try and draw a line in the sand. You are 30, healthy, clever, what's done is done, can't be taken back."

It is tough, it really really is and believe me I have tried. I guess the thing I am most thank full for is not having the desire to hit the bottle to just 'get me through this bit'.

I used to live life very much day to day, get the 6 pack, or the carton, ok thats a day or two. All good, ok get the next bit of alcohol, cool thats another few days. Shit without that - I mean having to live in the real non foggy world. It's a lot harder isn't it. It's like I was just taking myself somewhere else mentally, in a place of no stress, no worry, no nothing. That's just not life.

Thanks again so much to everyone, I actually feel a little better.

[hillsidetime]

Help! - Does it ever feel right? Can you ever forget it? or forgive yourself?

Aust boy, you sure do have a great deal going on in your life. That fact that you are keeping it all together is amazing. You should be proud of yourself. Sometimes life just piles things on us, with no regard to timing or frequency.

I too feel a disconnect with how I feel sometimes about my sobriety. Like you, I caused a great deal of damage while drinking. I also spent a fair time navel gazing, as I slowly try to rebuild myself. For the sleep, have you tried vitamin d and fish oil supplements, perhpas they will help. You are already exercising which is great. Avoid caffeine after lunch time.

At the junction of your life, it seems that you need all of your faculties to be the person you want to be, and to work through the challenges you face. You need to be sober. Don't forget, it takes time to "find" yourself again. I am still looking, and feeling, and getting to know my sober self - my old self is slowly coming back. You are not alone.

Hang in there,
Hill

[aust_boy]

Help! - Does it ever feel right? Can you ever forget it? or forgive yourself?

Getting to know my sober self again... yeah... actually you may be right on the money with that. Thanks for the kind re-assuring words!