just started with baclofen, a bit desperate

[StuckinLA]

just started with baclofen, a bit desperate

Where are you going?

:l

[joanna_d]

just started with baclofen, a bit desperate

ehm. i'm thinking of how to do the following lines in rhyme. something about going to the kitchen and pouring it down the sink. but i have some time left before singing that song anyway

[joanna_d]

just started with baclofen, a bit desperate

i'm actually feeling quite okay right now Stuck!

went down town with my mother (one of the few people i feel comfortable enough to meet with right now) to buy her a new phone and have dinner. had 2 beers before she arrived at 3.30, but after that i didn't really think about drinking until we got to a restaurant at 7. some nasty stonedness sometimes from the baclofen, but i got to feeling quite alive in the end when she dropped me off back home, certainly compared to the last week.

[joanna_d]

just started with baclofen, a bit desperate

where did my last post go??!

[joanna_d]

just started with baclofen, a bit desperate

feeling quite alright right now sweetie pie
i went down town with my mother today, to buy her a new phone. she's one of the few people i'm comfortable with to meet right now. i had two beers before she arrived at 3.30 and after that didn't really think about drinking till 7, when we arrived at a restaurant.
i actually feel quite alive now, at least compared to the last few weeks. this morning (i thought i'd drink heavily for a change last night :/) i felt like wreck.

[joanna_d]

just started with baclofen, a bit desperate

i'm gonna reply to you and Ne's posts tomorrow. see how the rest of the night goes.
i have one joint in the house, and 2 more beers (and a night shop sitting there just around the corner).
on the fucking couch again (how sweet, your remark about me drawing on my couch, Stuck. i don't see much sweetness or warmth in that picture right now though).
at least i did something different today.

as a matter of fact, i've started something that might become a series of drawings about 'me and Al'. let's see where it goes...

[joanna_d]

just started with baclofen, a bit desperate

hi you, thanks for being there.

i think the trouble with considering myself as being very very sick has been, that if i do that and don't find a cure that works for me, i'd basically be hopelessly screwed for the rest of my life.
i do think baclofen might well be a cure that also works for me, so that's why the option of considering myself as being sick has become more and more real to me over the last few weeks. maybe that's part of the reason why i suddenly felt so drenched in my alcoholism. like i surrendered to my powerlessness.
the thought of being able to do something about it myself, and not accepting to be powerless against alcohol has kept me fighting all those years. the flip side of this is: blaming myself for not being able to control my drinking.

hoping to find a solution within myself (through therapy etc) is perhaps an illusion of control i've been having. but without this illusion, where would i have been? i am a fighter, i can't help it.
maybe the illusion of a fight that you can win in the end, if you just keep on trying, is easier than surrendering to a feeling of being lost to a disease. until there is a cure, that is.

does this make sense?

i think you're completely right though Ne. i can imagine you'd be able to absolve yourself when you find that your cured (or nearly cured, as i'm counting on right now)

maybe my english is not good enough, or i missed your story about it, but i don't really understand why you're going to the AA meetings. i sometimes think of going there (it's one of the few things i didn't try, 'cause i'm reluctant to do any group therapy kind of things after some bad experiences with it). what exactly is your advice that you're following now?

man i sure hope to open up completely creatively after going through this. i have a lot of catching up on life to do. i'll keep you posted on that!

StuckinLA;1399700 wrote: I can only imagine how it must be for you, to have a space, a room, that kind of emotional investment anchored within four walls. Just in my case, trying to think about bigger/more abstract things, I look all at once at the wasted wreckage of how many years, the scraps here in the present, and the vague feeling of what a completed work might look like... It's horrifying, too many tenses going on, and yet it's what we nevertheless looked at every morning anyway, right? Or was it the nightly optimism that I was looking for all this time? The way hope would blossom with each shot, the details would fall away, and I'd simply know that somehow, someway, I would accomplish whatever it was that I wasn't accomplishing.

you say that very well Stuck. and what you wrote about starting to envision the things i'd want to do with my life when i'll be (AND I WILL BE!) sober sounds very sensible to me.
i think the problem right now is that i see only lost battles (right now i tend to dismiss the things i DID accomplish over the past years, 'cause they're overshadowed by the hectoliters of booze that went with them (to think of all the liters of booze i've been drinking... man...) and my constantly losing the battle against them) and don't have a perspective yet of really being free of this.
it's a classic impasse (is that a word in english?)

and Stuck: flirting with a worn down bag of couch potatoes that lives (or whatever this is called. survives might be a better word) on the other side of the ocean seems pretty danger free to me )
when you said you'd like to know about my ideas on art and everything, i thought "i don't have any ideas about art, or about anything".
that's how it is most of the time right now though. after my last exhibition, having gallery talks and feeling in sync with myself as an artist, i got to feeling so low and lost, that i lost my connection with it for now.
it'll come back to me!

yesterday was quite all right. after i finished half a beer at home (had some at the restaurant before that, and then two at home before this started), i thought "yuck!" and threw the other half away. had one left in the freezer, and after about half an hour, i thought i'd try again. again "yuck!". i left it standing beside me for about an hour and then drank it, slowly. but the "yuck" feeling was quite amazing to me...

have a great weekend you both!

[Warnie]

just started with baclofen, a bit desperate

gidday jo. keep crankin it luv. get your thinking right. dont rely on the pills as magic. get your arse out the door every day like clockwork for a 2-5 kilomitre walk or run and you will start to see a mental shift. trust me im warnie. good luck

warnie

[joanna_d]

just started with baclofen, a bit desperate

thanks Warnie!
i am fortunate to have a dog, so i walk everyday for at least a few hours (which is not enough for him, but he's been a bit of a problem walking and playing freely since i had to leave for my exhibition and he had to stay with friends for 10 days. also, he got attacked by another dog during the week after my coming back, so he's a bit unstable / insecure right now. unfortunately, he tends to take it out on dogs that are more insecure than he is)
i'd love to start running again, but don't feel the energy yet.
but! this afternoon i felt so restless, i went to my studio and painted some of the wall stuff there, trying to regain a feeling of freedom and openness there.
it's such a great place actually, but it feels so obnoxious right now.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

just started with baclofen, a bit desperate

Hiya Cooking and Joanna! I'm going to copy and paste this on both threads, in case you guys aren't reading around yet. (Cooking, my husband is a chef! We're thinking about writing a cookbook. Which sounds dreadful to me, but would be maybe fun??? I can barely feed myself. I married well for that reason. )

I'll tell ya'. I often find it annoying when people who don't use meds come down to the meds section to tell the people who do use meds that meds are not the answer. It makes me get all antsy and uppity and I wanna shout "Baclofen was my answer! The only one I needed! I'm completely free! So is my husband! Because of a PILL!"

But Warnie's right-ish, too. While the pill will take away the desire to drink, for some people there might be some other things that need addressing. And what's more, there's still life to manage. Exercise was and is a HUGE benefit. But I also did a bunch of other stuff too. Mostly, though, I just took enough of the pills for long enough. Then I kept taking them. No matter what. It works. Period. Yay!!

Part of that for you, Jo, may be just looking for that freedom and openness. The wanting to express yourself, and the wanting to do it sober. God. It's an amazing thing to do it sober. I'm reading Allan Carr's The Easy Way to Quit Smoking. The way he writes about smoking, the way he relates it to life, and the fact that we are slaves to the addiction, is EXACTLY how I feel about being addicted to booze. You simply will not believe how amazing it feels on the other side of that slavery. And I cannot wait to find out what it's like not to be a slave to tobacco. (seriously. I'm actually excited to quit smoking. That will be the second time a book has literally saved my life. The first was Ameisen's of course.)

Sounds like you, Cooking, might want to be on the lookout for sleep aids and ways to manage your sleep. Insomnia is the absolute most common SE and it can make or break the ability to get to the goal. Lack of sleep is really, really bad for you too. But more pertinent (for this part of the journey anyway) is that it really increases anxiety. There are a ton of threads dedicated to the topic, and what works for one person definitely doesn't work for another, so you might just have to play around with some solutions.

Have you guys been reading around? There's a thread with some videos I wish I could understand. And apparently Windycitylady has been keeping up with the threads, despite the fact that she is too damn busy to play these days. (pffft. I know you're reading this WCL.) She left the following message for Joanna on this thread: https://www.mywayout.org/community/f2...one-54587.html

windycitylady;1400546 wrote: Hey all! Just a quick note to let you know I'm still alive.
Thanks for all your kind words regarding the mattress incident. Ne, your experience and feelings mirrored mine almost exactly. You guys really calmed me down and made me feel better. As usual.
They were doing the floors at my parent's when I got back from Chicago, so I had to stay at my sister's. She and roommates could not remember to keep the doors unlocked, so I was crawling through the kitchen window on a regular basis. Slept in the same bed with sister and her two pomeranians that growled when I tried to move them.
Back at home now. I've been working a ridiculous amount and at the gym every day that I don't work doubles. I know, I know, I need to find another outlet or hobby or something.
I was so exhausted that I fell asleep with a bite of food in mouth sitting on the couch the other night. What's creepier is that I was pleasantly surprised to find it still there when I woke up.
Love you all and miss you! Know that I'm around and reading. Just don't always have the time to post. Hope everyone's doing well, and I'll be posting more as soon as I have time.

Joanna, if you read this, I'm glad you found us and keep up the good work. You're a real sweetheart. (Will someone tell her I said this?)

Hugs and love to all!!:l

I gotta run, and it may be some days before I get back! Don't lose the momentum!!!

:l

[Ne/Neva Eva]

just started with baclofen, a bit desperate

Somehow I missed the post you wrote before Warnie's post. I read it by chance because I was looking for something La said that struck me. Your post really resonated, Joanna. (So much so that I just realized I forgot to reread La's post. :H Gotta love that ADD.)

I was going to quote it, but realized it was the tenor of it, rather than just one particular thing.

Figuring out that I was sick, that I really and truly had a disease that medication could fix, was life-altering for me. It meant that I actually HAD power. Over all of it. Despite my inability to finish almost everything I'd ever started, despite my repeated failures in just about every aspect of my life, I knew I was not lacking in will power. I finally had confirmation that it was not me, and that meant that in so many ways I had no choice. I was doing battle against an unseen and misunderstood...chemical. A chemical! Feck, Joanna. It was so simple.

But I've been in therapy off and on since I was a teenager. My mother is a psychologist, and when things started to go awry (which coincided with when I started to drink, of course) my parents sent me to professionals to help figure it all out. (A learning disability? Depression? Bipolar? WHAT?!?!? :H No one ever thought to ask, not that I would have been honest, about booze.) So I had tutors and psychologists and psychiatrists and lots of other helper-type people who basically couldn't find anything wrong, but couldn't really help either...

Long (boring) story short is that I learned a lot about mind things. I know that habits die hard. And I never really believed that baclofen would actually work. At least I didn't believe (and it still shocks me) that it would completely remove the compulsion and the obsession. So I was going to do everything I ever learned or heard or thought might help. Which included exercise, nutrition, therapy with a psychologist I trust and like, and lots of other things. For me, spiritual connection of some sort is sort of important. I'm still exploring that. And reaching out to others is very important to me. (That's one of the reasons I'm going to AA.) There's much more, too. I'm studying nursing because I don't want anyone to tell me something about me (or my people!) that I know is wrong, or that I can't understand.

I share all that not because I think it's the right path for everyone. (Though tools and a plan will come in handy when you're sober.) I share it simply because there is depth and breadth in this disease. The pill, just baclofen, may remove the obsession if you take enough of it for long enough. But there is more to it than that. And the part that is left is not diseased. I am not sick anymore. But that doesn't mean I have to be happy, or content, or full. That part is up to me, and your answers will surely be different.

I feel as though I've written a novel, and haven't really said what I meant, but I'll sign off with this thought:

The things you and StuckinLa have described, the physicalness of it (the couch, the room) and also the sensation of it...Visceral.

Ack. I gotta run.

Joanna, this process opened my mind way up. If you can, if you are able, just do what you're doing. Keep open. Keep looking and answering and drawing and hoping. And just keep taking the pills with your eyes on the goal. It is fucking amazing. The whole entire thing. And life now. Wow.

[joanna_d]

just started with baclofen, a bit desperate

thanks Ne, i will.
and i think you're right. my whole life will change when i reach my switch, and i'll have to change with it. on hand hand i know that my drinking IS my problem. in times when i didn't drink (on antabus), it took some time to find my way in the new life again, but along with my drinking most of my problems disappeared. the other ones at least i can deal with.
only i felt like a zombie on antabus (low blood pressure, said the doctor) and of course the cravings kept returning, so when i quit the antabus, i got right back into drinking.

when i don't drink this much i do yoga (bikram, at 40 degrees temperature), i also did a lot of running. but when i drink this much, it's a downward spiral. to sick or weak to exercise etc.
i think when i feel better and the baclofen SE's diminish i'll start doing that again, along with other things, like drawing with friends (we hire a model and draw at one of our studio's, and talk, and drink of course together afterwards. very inspiring, those meetings, but i don't go anymore, because i don't feel comfortable when drinking this much. also, i guess i just rather stay on my own and drink)

so i think i can deal with the problems that got me into drinking when i was about 14 or 15. and then later i got addicted to speed, drank even more then (you can keep drinking when you're on speed, without falling down. drinking took a bit of the edge of the speed). quit doing speed after about 5 years, then drank less for a few years, and when my life became challenging again (after stopping doing speed, i got diagnosed with PTSD and anxiety disorder, got treated for that and then lived like a hermit for some years), my drinking increased.
i think i've worked through most of these problems dealing with a challenging (and interesting) life, only the drinking stayed. it's in my brain now. by the way: i started therapy again last year, have a very very good therapist now.

i feel like i'm blabbering like a drunk here (no, i didn't drink yet). do i make any sense?

i think what i have is HSP (highly sensitive personality). in the DSM this is considered as a disorder, but i don't regard it as that. it also a talent, when you can deal with it. HSP's often drink by the way, to lessen the tension of all the input they experience.

anyway. yesterday it took me ages to finish a bottle of wine i thought i'd drink wine instead of belgian beer (after i first had 4 beers, that is), 'cause it doesn't get you drunk that fast and i hate the beer belly i've started growing over the last year. it's not big, yet!, but i hate it. i never had a belly!
i couldn't get myself to pouring it down the sink, stubborn alcoholic, but i drank veeeeeeeerrrrrrryyyyyyyy slow, at least compared to what i'm used to.

today i feel lousy i must say. ah well, just do the laundry and the dishes, take good care of myself and it'll pass.

[joanna_d]

just started with baclofen, a bit desperate

(i'm sorry, this was kind of a messy post!! i don't feel like retyping it though)

[joanna_d]

just started with baclofen, a bit desperate

by the way Ne, i read more about your reasons to visit the aa meetings and to become a nurse. i can relate to that, and i admire your dedication to, well, life.
don't feel like writing anymore now, but i wanted to say that. maybe i'll get back on it later.

[emc]

just started with baclofen, a bit desperate

Hi Joanna, hi Ne, hi everybody here...
I just inscribed to MWO yesterday and open a new thread about video and docs about bac ( https://www.mywayout.org/community/f2...sen-69679.html ), and I don't want to post there 'cause I would like to keep it clean, as reference post, for sources of videos and links and anyelse doc related to bac...
Post there if you have something...

Ok, just small intro.
I'm still not sober... have my white wine on the table... 2nd bottle after 5 hrs that i woke up..
I'm 41 yo, drinking from when i was 20... so... kindly of 20 years.
Last 10 years, obviously, as we know AL disease works and slowly grows, were the worsest.

Everybody here know the sensation and feeling when the substance is not anymore "just a pleasure" but takes you to this closed road and tunnels when sometimes u can hardly see any light or any other "way out"...


But ok, i'm not writing here to complain about my AL addiction. On the opposite side i want to write about the good sensation of reading so many histories about some "HOPE" of living sober again (or even better moderate drinker).
I said again, 'cause in my AL history in last 10 yrs, i had various periods of sobriety (20 months the max, and last one was 6 mths - from dec 2011 to jul 2012)...

I arrive to the point and sorry to be little long

I discover BAC maybe a year ago but i did not inform myself so well about it, so i took it just as "next medical miracle"...ooh wow! is it possible? did not beleive it.
Finally i didn't gave to it a lot of importance and did not investigate much more than some news...

In the meantime (and is for you Joanna) the AA meetings they helped me quite a lot, i would say... at least to "kill the beast"... and to SHARE your thought and problems without the impression that people around is JUDGING you.
This is the gr8 thing and feeling of AA meetings, i've experienced...
You are there, just sitting with people that have the exact same problem u have, u can talk or just listen. It's up to you. Nobody force you. U DONT HAVE to talk if u dont feel like.. Easy like that.

So... now back to BAC.
I want to give it a try because, what's the most important thing for me, its to don't have this daily obsession of 24h sober that AA group teach (along other good things).

I would like to stop drinking but i dont arrive to accept to ear "YOU CAN NEVER DRINK ANYMORE FOR ALL YOUR LIFE".... neither to have this terrible obsession (when sober)... "i know that one beer its enough to start again the downward spiral hell" with the frustrating sensation of that period being sober... was just loosing time....

It seems that BAC offer this option and i'm seaching for a dcotor that can give it to me (my sister is psychiatrist, and i start to tell her about it - she didnt know the existance!!! you can imagine?).
I will try and keep you updated about my disease and maybe my "new life" with BAC...

Oh... what a long post...soooooorry... ;-)