who am i?

[paulywogg]

Fuck that!! Its an excuse to drink AT people! I swore I'd never do it again, I did.

[roxane]

youre all over the place pauly. please, calm down. build your sobriety on yourself. believe that youre worth the effort.

if you drink AT people and you know it, you have a chance to be one step ahead of yourself. or rather more importantly, the addiction. you have to make that distinction right now before you think yourself into complete self loathing.

[treetops]

How are you doing Pauly? Please stop drinking. It's not going to help you and it's your health and well being that matters here.
Besides it's my birthday and if anyone had an excuse for getting wasted it could have been me as I am now a senior citizen!
We really care about you and want you to muster up that strength you do have. Hugs.

[paulywogg]

God I look like an attention seeker! Do embarrassed just distraught,ATM,happy birthday TT, old too

[NoraC]

Hey Pauly - how you doing? I'm home now so I'll be around. If you need to talk or vent or anything, let me know. :hug:

[NoraC]

Pauly - do you want to try the chat room & see if we can connect?

[fennel]

Pauly, I've tried to p.m. you again and it says that you have exceeded your number of stored private messages. : (

[Lizann]

Pauly, how are you doing? I worry about you, you are so hard on yourself! Just start over ok? Let us know your ok.

[lizker]

Hey Pauly, how are you? U are a wonderful human being, unbiased and full of goodness. Wish my very best wishes. Extend the grace you extended to others me included to yourself, Let us know how you are doing. You've done it ones, you can do it again.

[Pavati]

Hi, Pauly--

Of course we're here for you.

The best way to help your daughter, Louie, etc. is to be sober yourself. You CAN do this - we all know you can.

I hope you are ok today. Check in and let us know.

Pav

[paulywogg]

I'm ok-ish disappointed in myself but glad that it didn't turn into a bender,I had a leftover 3-pack and told hubs to throw it into the trash can before the trash truck came,he gave it to his friend, whatever I just didn't want it in the house! I've made the mistake before an giving in to drinking again cuz i couldn't stand the hangover but yesterday I held my ground,shakey,sweaty,tired and I'm sure I'll feel yuck today but at least I'm not drinking,just need to figure out how to deal with yuck moods better,thanks for all the support and TT,I was crunk when I posted to you,I meant to type Happy birthday and you're not old!

[Spiritfree]

That's what I do!! I can detatch from my oldest being a LSD or something user,I can detach from Louie's mom drinkin and smoking weed, I had faith in this daughter, feck,I built my whole sobriety on her,hubs, Louie and myself why can't anybody just appreciate life and what we have??? We have EVERYTHING, just too dumb to realize I guess,heaven help me,I'm so confused right now: (

Hi Pauly -wow, I truly hope 'things' are improving for you!

Pauly, you have inspired me to start a new thread and it is very relative our similar experiences. As unintentional as it may be, you have certainly helped me today. Finally Pauly, when I read your words regarding the fact that alcohol might just end up being what takes you out of this life, you ended up lighting a fire in my little brain -relative to my own situation. Thank you.

--sf--

[Spiritfree]

Pauly, just in case I do not start the new thread that I was speaking about, I am going to go ahead and post my thoughts here.

I was 'thinking' that I wished that I had not read this particular thread and post because it brought back to many of my horrid memories before I started taking baclofen. After a few minutes thought, I realized that this thread and some of your posts are just EXACTLY what I needed to read.

So Pauly, let me come clean and tell you what happened to me last week.
One of my sons, almost 25 yrs old, has been doing great since his first major addiction problem at age 17 (and I mean major-huge problem). He is very responsible, job, graduated college, compassionate, and always thinking first about others. When I discovered his situation at 17, I was fortunate to have been on one my 90 day alcohol FREE benders. I was able to immediately take action (and really, he had reached out for help then -I just did not understand that at the time.)

Well, last week, he was staying at my house and had walked down the street to talk with some old neighbor friends and he had left his interior truck lights on. I went to his truck to attempt to cut the lights off and just damn -there it was -same stuff- but now, 8 years later. The pain that I felt that particular moment froze me and made me feel sick to the lowest part of my gut -mentally and physically. My next thoughts then proceeded to thoughts of feeling guilt and shame for having been a major part of this entire brain/environment disorder. I guess that I had only thought that I had made huge improvements in my own area of guilt/shame.

I desperately wanted to tell my wife about what I had just found in my son's truck but I decided not to -at least for the moment. Instead, I made the decision to go to the beer store. After 2.5 years of staying sober (for most all of those days), I went and purchased my firewater medication, and after the first three 16 oz cans, I felt relief. The relief was certainly only short term and I then began to further belittle myself for not only drinking but for all the times that I 'imagined' that I was not there for my sons. Well this led to several more cans -and there I was -again, after so long without firewater, feeling numb, feeling guilty, feeling xyz, and hiding from my family so that they would not see me drinking again.

All told, that night, in 3.5 hours, I ingested 112 ounces of the poison medication. It takes a lot more alcohol than that for me to 'act' foolishly drunk, but it was enough that my wife probably suspected that I had partaken. The next morning, I did tell my wife what I had found, and fortunately, as a result of my baclofen regime, I did not suffer any of the usual "hangover effects". (Please, no one get the idea that baclofen works this way all the time -you can and will eventually out drink baclofen and the final result will be back to the same old same old -but probably worse.)

That 'next' day, I found myself in a very strange place -mentally. I did not want to drink and I did not want to continue to feel the pain from what my son was doing to himself. As it turns out, I believe that I am/was fortunate enough to have experienced so many 'experiences' (life living -reality tools) that I found my self actually dealing with the situation head on. The only thing that I did was to face the reality that I can NOT change others -what they do or how they think, but I can at least work to change the way that I am or respond to situations in my life. I elected not say one word to my son and instead have chosen to only help him if he asks for help -if he ever does or he reaches the point that he 'has to have.

In closing Pauly, I would like to offer these thoughts:

• The hard wiring in my brain changed -rewired- (in a hugely positive way) as the result of:
(1) The removal of alcohol from my system
(2) The introduction and continued use of the medication baclofen
(3) Counseling and interaction with others (who are in my same boat)
(4) Allowing my self to become open minded and explore and take action on ideas outside of my comfort zone

Had I not taken the above mentioned steps, I can assure you that I would not be here today to discuss the above mentioned issues.

Thank you Pauly.

--sf--

[paulywogg]

Spirit,thank you for sharing your story,I sometimes feel like this thread is sort of a negative one,but its my life that I've written about, my kids mean everything to me,the oldest freaks me out daily if I let myself think of it too much,she takes off for weeks living in a weekly motel room with a bunch of druggies, I'm worried about getting a bad phone call one day,middle daughter seems to have an al and weed prob,when I walked in on the youngest daughter I was very let down, I'd never had believed it if I hadn't seen it for myself, I got pissed off cuz I'm trying to live a clean life and it feels like nobody in my family gives a rats ass! After drinking,I realized that I can't change anybody no matter how much I preach,beg,pray but I can change my life by not acting like an idiot and I don't want alcohol in my life making things further fucked up,I apologized to my youngest before she flew back to Portland, I can't stay angry at her,won't solve a thing,I only want peace in all aspects of my life

[Guitarista]

Hi Pauly and all.

SF, sorry to hear all that. I hope you're okay there friend and back on the horse. Take care of yourself.

You are a good person Pauly. I know for me in such situations, one of the best things I can do is simply lead by example and let others know I am there for them if they need me.

Kick some ass this week. :happy2: