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[pixie]

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I think we do all hit a rock bottom, but the rock bottom is not a physical event (DUI, job loss, bedwetting, whatever). It's the moment where your mind says "I can't do this anymore", and REALLY mean it - not just a day-after I'm feeling crappy and guilty "I've got to stop doing this", but a sincere realization that you just can't rationalize the issue away anymore. This is probably the 'growing up' theory that others have mentioned just said a different way. But I really think it is your rock bottom, in that your brain cannot logically rationalize it away anymore.

[spiderwoman]

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pixie;1481969 wrote: I think we do all hit a rock bottom, but the rock bottom is not a physical event (DUI, job loss, bedwetting, whatever). It's the moment where your mind says "I can't do this anymore", and REALLY mean it - not just a day-after I'm feeling crappy and guilty "I've got to stop doing this", but a sincere realization that you just can't rationalize the issue away anymore. This is probably the 'growing up' theory that others have mentioned just said a different way. But I really think it is your rock bottom, in that your brain cannot logically rationalize it away anymore.

Think you're spot on with this Pixie

[sweetie78]

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really well put

[Tipplerette]

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Indeed..

[Persephone1]

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For me, watching my mom die from lung cancer, directly related to excessive drinking and smoking for 50+ years, should have done it on the spot...I was acutely aware that THIS WOULD BE ME if I didn't change course. Still, it took me a few months to be at the doorstep to my uneventful Last Drunk...6 beers, one after the next, gorged, & passed out. Woke up in a panic (unsure of who I drunk: dialed, texted, FB'd...), dehydrated, sweat-drenched, threw up and passed out again. Upon waking with a ridiculous hangover, I decided that I WAS DONE. This is no way to 'live'. Bored, tired and disinterested in continuing this way, what a waste of a good body, mind and soul.

I was terrified that this would be a horrific battle, but honestly once I came to the realization that Alcohol is NOT worth sacrificing my life for (and that is exactly what I would have done, killed myself with it), walking away has come fairly easily. I have never been more grateful. It has taken a bit of time and I'm getting stronger every day. I am reclaiming that lovely person that I walked away from a few years back, dusting off and carrying on ~ Feels real good :ey:

Thanks for this thread and all who've shared...P.

[TheSunFlower]

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Great thread.

Pixie.....you are right. Some people have life changing moments. For most of us it is a gradual understanding that we can't live like this. My drinking problem did not appear one day....it gradually progressed. As did my realization that I did not want to live like this anymore.

Kuya....I understand completely what you mean. My sinking holes did close up. I remember sitting at home after several months of sobriety on a Friday night and wonder.....how did I ever had time to drink. Addiction is a sneaky beast....and my holes opened up again.

I don't wish that on anyone. I can't wait to be at that place again. This time around.....I am using cement.....and I will watch carefully for cracks in it.

[kuya]

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TheSunFlower;1482144 wrote: Great thread.

Pixie.....you are right. Some people have life changing moments. For most of us it is a gradual understanding that we can't live like this. My drinking problem did not appear one day....it gradually progressed. As did my realization that I did not want to live like this anymore.

Kuya....I understand completely what you mean. My sinking holes did close up. I remember sitting at home after several months of sobriety on a Friday night and wonder.....how did I ever had time to drink. Addiction is a sneaky beast....and my holes opened up again.

I don't wish that on anyone. I can't wait to be at that place again. This time around.....I am using cement.....and I will watch carefully for cracks in it.

Also SF ( and I was just chatting with a friend on this subject) we have to accept how very ordinary we are with regard to our addiction.

I, like many, thought my reasons and problems around alcohol were special, I was special. I wasn't an alcoholic, I had PTSD ( substitute anxiety, depression, ADHD, domestic violence etc etc)

Truth is that if you wake up one day and you are covered in shit then it is kind of irrelevant what species of animal shit on you......you are gonna have to get clean.

My cure could only happen when my mind accepted, TRULY accepted that I had the fucking disease.......cos addiction is ONLY a disease of the mind.

I no longer fear relapse unless I am stupid and allow myself to rewire my thinking. That is not complacency but confidence......just like I am confident, not CERTAIN please note, that I will be able to walk tomorrow

[TheSunFlower]

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Kuya.....I agree with everything you said. Until you come to a place of realizing you really have this "thing"....relapse hangs around the corner. However, I have seen many people who accepted they had this thing.....well, you know the ending.

Relapse does not have to be in anyones's future. Many do....and many don't.

[kuya]

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TheSunFlower;1482163 wrote: Kuya.....I agree with everything you said. Until you come to a place of realizing you really have this "thing"....relapse hangs around the corner. However, I have seen many people who accepted they had this thing.....well, you know the ending.

Relapse does not have to be in anyones's future. Many do....and many don't.

It is about belief I fear. In certain cultures being told you have been cursed and will die is enough to ACTUALLY kill people.

People will actually go to war and kill others and DIE for their beliefs.......thoughts based on NOTHING except what they are told and read.......scary shit

When we believe that relapse is normal, quitting is hard, cravings are bad etc it is no wonder we feel constantly vulnerable and keep failing.

The majority of people quit all and every addiction without any fuss or drama........they just never talk about it so the rest of us are left 'believing' it is hard.

I liken it to childbirth......most women fear it and women who have terrible births talk about it forever.

My firstborn was delivered in 4.5 minutes, my last was 1.5 minutes. Neither needed pain relief or stitches. My grandson's birth ( to my son so the mother was unrelated) was 3 minutes ..... So fast he dropped onto the floor down the leg of her knickers !!! :H:H

My point is human beings LOVE to scare themselves, to believe the worst. I think it is these beliefs that cause most of the problems.....not the addictions per se

[TheSunFlower]

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I agree. Qutting is not hard....keeping drinking is harder.

My childbirths.....were not all that friendly. Nearly lost my second child. Hospital wanted to "flush" him out out of my body at 4 weeks. My first....lasted 19 hours.....ended with a c-section as he was going to die if he did not get out of my body. Everyone's experience is different....and I am glad that yours was easy. But, don't dismiss people.....because of your experience. Both of my kids nearly died....and you popping them out within minutes.....is not everyone's experience.

I get your point though. My husband gets upset with other cultures.....but, if you are raised a certain way...that is what you believe.

Qutting is easy for some people. Qutting is hard for others.

[TheSunFlower]

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Not sure how you....liken it to childbirth. I almost lost both of my boys during childbirth.

Kuya...you have strong opinions. And there is nothing wrong with that.....you seem to have cultivated a "no sympathy zone" for anyone. Wonder what you would have been saying 5 years ago?

Yes, their are other cultures out there. And if you are born and bred on something....why would you think any different....when "different" does not exist. I have no issues with people who are "raised" a certain way. I offer them compassion and understanding.

I am glad you got out of the trap..... I wish you the best.

[Zenstyle]

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I know there are "bottoms" and then there are "bottoms"... For example, some of the women I went to rehab with had been prostituting themselves, sleeping with their drug dealers, living on the streets (my first room mate lived in a box a fridge came in for months until someone stole it). And, for some people, it takes that amount of horror and destruction to scare them straight. IMHO there are others (myself included) who experience a different horror... the horror of losing themselves, their self worth, their integrity, the meaning of life really... their reason for being alive.

We're all at different ages and some are ballsier than others. I, for one, am incapable of living on the streets so it didn't take the theft of a cardboard box I call home to scare the shit out of me. But the theft of my spirit and soul was just as profound. I was every bit as emotionally bankrupt as the person living on the streets.

The short answer as to what it took for me... I was sick feckin fed up with feeling like a washed out, emotionless rag! I was incapable of living life and I had isolated so badly, I was merely existing really, in retrospect. I remember thinking I had two options... I could ramp up my intake, become sick and die early... or I could give it one last ditch attempt. What little spirit I had left chose life thank God.

Since I made that decision, the self worth and serenity has become stronger every day. I'm getting the "old me" (the real me) back more as time passes. There's an 18 year old sweetie in IOP with me and she says "the kick ass Sheila is back and she's bad" and it brings tears to my eyes, and she's right. I am a bad ass motherfucker and I stand strong and proud of that now!

Go for it Inchy... you're worth it... every little hair on your head is worth it. You are OWED a happy life so go feckin claim it as your own... :l

[Guitarista]

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Zenstyle;1482203 wrote:



There's an 18 year old sweetie in IOP with me and she says "the kick ass Sheila is back and she's bad" and it brings tears to my eyes, and she's right. I am a bad ass motherfucker and I stand strong and proud of that now!

You are. I always new it, and i have tears in me ol blue eyes just reading that Zen. :h

[Guitarista]

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Zenstyle;1482203 wrote:

Go for it Inchy... you're worth it... every little hair on your head is worth it. You are OWED a happy life so go feckin claim it as your own... :l

She's spot on buddy. Go for it.

[kuya]

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TheSunFlower;1482181 wrote: Not sure how you....liken it to childbirth. I almost lost both of my boys during childbirth.

Kuya...you have strong opinions. And there is nothing wrong with that.....you seem to have cultivated a "no sympathy zone" for anyone. Wonder what you would have been saying 5 years ago?

Yes, their are other cultures out there. And if you are born and bred on something....why would you think any different....when "different" does not exist. I have no issues with people who are "raised" a certain way. I offer them compassion and understanding.

I am glad you got out of the trap..... I wish you the best.

SF.....I have lots of sympathy when people don't know their options. Five years ago I didn't know MY options......I only wish someone had been there to give me the knowledge I have now.

I don't think either one of us wins prizes for compassion SF ! :H:H:H