Heelllloooo Everyone!
I've been meaning to post an update for a while, and initially I was just going to put it in one of the existing threads that I've posted on in the past. But it has come to my attention that the troll(s) have returned to MWO, and I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone and update my old friends and warn the ones I haven't met yet of this sick person/people.
Tomorrow, my friends, I will have one year alcohol free.
Excuse my language, but this is nothing short of a fucking miracle.
My history, briefly (ok, briefly for me). I was an excellent student in high school and obtained a scholarship to a prestigious college. Shortly after I began my freshman year, alcoholism took me down fast and hard. The next few years I worked my way through a blur of treatment centers and halfway houses, starting at the posh Hazelden in Minnesota and ending at the filthy local free detox. I could not stay sober on my own, despite threats and pleas from friends and family and terrifying episodes such as drinking myself into a coma with possible brain damage. After the legal problems stemming from my drinking that I'd accrued seemed insurmountable, I absconded from probation and moved to Chicago.
I got by in Chicago, I suppose. I couldn't keep a job for any extended period of time. But I was always able to find a new one relatively quickly. I was involved in a five year abusive relationship that, for all its downfalls, kept me sober occasionally ("Can I drink tonight?" "No, you can't." End of conversation). After I finally left that situation, I moved in with a new boyfriend who despite being kind, generous, and disarmingly sweet, was as sick or sicker of an alcoholic as me. We drank to blackout every night for several years.
But I never gave up on the idea that I would somehow quit drinking. I still hated AA from my treatment days, but I went to any other kind of meeting I could find. I tried vitamins, herbs, amino acids. I read every shitty self-help book out there ("Goodbye Hangovers! Hello Life!"), but nothing seemed to make a difference. I was aware of MWO as a place where people like me congregated, and I would pop in every once in a while to see if anything new was around. It was on one such visit that I read about baclofen.
It sounded too good to be true. A pill that would cure me of my alcoholism? But I was willing to try anything. I titrated up slowly and got as high as 225 mg/day. At that dose I was groggy, dizzy, constantly vomiting...and still drinking daily. I got very mad at baclofen, at MWO, at everything. I decided to go down. I went down too quickly and suffered from a debilitating increase in my pre-existing anxiety and depression. But when I reached a daily dosage of 70 or 80 mg, I realized that my cravings actually had been significantly reduced by baclofen. When I was doing high dose baclofen (HDB), I'd been waiting to be disgusted by alcohol, to be completely free of desire for it. That never happened. Still hasn't. But what did happen is that the heart-stopping cravings were gone. The feeling like I would die if I didn't get drunk was gone. I still wanted to drink. I still craved oblivion and freedom from the crushing depression and anxiety, but alcohol wasn't doing it.
Around the same time, I started taking 1200mg/day of gabapentin, in 3 doses throughout the day. My brain was finally stabilized after going down too quickly on the bac, and the gabapentin provided further relief from the depression and anxiety. On February 19th of last year, I took an antabuse, fully intending to return to drinking after it left my system. But I didn't.
So, newbies and lurkers, if you're still with me, brings me to my point. Throughout this whole process, my friends at MWO were with me. Going up on the baclofen, still drinking everyday, getting mad at baclofen, going down on baclofen, going crazy from going down, finally regaining my mental footing, and eventually quitting entirely. Even when I was angry at baclofen and at MWO, even when I was accusing the people here of lying to me, they stuck by me.
Shit, I'm starting to get tears in my eyes.
These amazing people, these warm, intelligent, funny people, corresponded with me every day, even though they'd never seen my face or heard my voice. They learned my life and I learned theirs, and we communicated with an openness that maybe only comes with anonymity.
Like I said before, when I took that antabuse, I never intended on quitting forever. But the outpouring of warmth and support that I received in those first alcohol free days blew my mind. The people here understood what an achievement it was to be AF after years of daily drinking, even if it was just a few days. And a funny thing happened. I didn't want to disappoint them. I knew that if I drank again, they would not judge me or think less of me. But they had been so proud of and happy for me, in a way that people who haven't struggled with addiction never could be. I thought, What's one more day without alcohol? I can do that. Then one day turned into another, and another, and another.
I continue to take low dose baclofen and gabapentin. I have not taken an antabuse since that first month.
Am I sober because of baclofen? Probably. Am I sober because of gabapentin? Couldn't have hurt. Am I sober because of MWO? Definitely.
All of the pharmaceuticals in the world could not have helped me without the information, love, and support that I received here.
The trolls. We are all here because we are sick. And some of us are sicker than others. And while I try to keep this in mind and have patience, I hate the idea that even one person will miss out on the opportunity to get sober because of this sick person/people. If you are a newbie or a lurker here, please do not let these characters scare you away. Over time, I have become convinced that it is actually one person with several usernames. They all come together, and they all leave together. The posts that make no sense, the ones that are obviously disturbed, are actually the least harmful ones. The posts that do the most damage are the semi-articulate ones. Posts where this person pretends to ask for help or give advice. And it is pretending. If this person genuinely wanted to receive or give help, I'd openly welcome them. But they don't. They are merely looking for an opportunity to engage good, well-meaning people and then turn around and hurt them.
Please, please, please do not let this person discourage you. There are good people here with real information and support to offer. And they will help you and love you the way that they did me.
Is baclofen the only way? No. Is topamax, naltrexone, campral, or antabuse? No. Does everyone need meds to get sober? No. A long time ago, I posted about a metaphor I read that a therapist used when treating disturbed children. She told them that they were trying to scale a mountain. And what she would help them do is walk around the mountain, look at the different paths up, and decide which way to take. And maybe they'd decide that they took the wrong path and have to go back down and start over again. Maybe they'd get tired on the way up and have to rest for a little bit. The point being that there's different ways up and what matters is communicating what has worked for you and supporting others on their way up. And that's what MWO has been for me.
Nothing will work for every single person. There's no point in saying "baclofen is evil" or "naltrexone doesn't work" because they do help people. And if it doesn't work for you, move on to the next thing. Because if you have to try one million different paths up that fucking mountain, so be it, because the million and first may be the one that gets you there.
And, let me tell you, it's beautiful up here.
After all this talk of support and helping others, I have to apologize for not being here in so long. I'm just busy these days. I'm living life in a way I haven't for the past 15 years. Maybe I'm trying to make up for lost time.
What have I been up to? As most of you know, I moved home in September. Got a job at a fancy schmancy restaurant where, despite the ridiculously high prices, I don't really make more money. But in the short amount of time that I've been there, I've risen through the ranks. I now work in the best sections in the best dining rooms. I've been promoted to a kind of supervisory position that only servers who have been there for years usually work. I've made friends with the other servers there. I go out with them to bars and parties, and sometimes it's hard not to drink, but most of the time, it's fine. I don't make a big deal of the fact that I don't drink and neither do they. When people have asked me about it, I tell them the truth. The highest compliment that I've received in sobriety is when I do tell my story and whoever is listening says that they can't imagine me that sick and fucked up. That they can't imagine me not having my shit together. That was always my dream, to leave that part of me so far behind that no one could even picture it. And that's where my new MWO signature comes from. A poem by Adrienne Rich that hung on my walls when I was at my sickest that promised that someday I would be unrecognizable as a fuck up.
After 4 years, I finally broke up with my alcoholic boyfriend in Chicago on January 25th. It was very difficult. He remains one of the most loving and kind people that I've ever met. But he was not getting better. And I was doing him no favors by staying around. I hope that this will give him the motivation to move on and get healthy on his own. I have not spoken to him since.
I have not been an angel this past year. I have dabbled in other drugs that I definitely should not have. I find myself seeking the attention of guys in a pathological way. I haven't slept with anyone, but I've definitely been actively looking for a new, intense romantic relationship to throw myself into, and that's probably not the healthiest thing for me right now. I continue to be too concerned with my weight and what I eat. I go to the gym daily and gaining as little as a pound can throw me into an emotional tailspin. I still get depressed and feel hopeless and alone sometimes.
But I do have faith that as long as I remain cognizant of these issues and continue to work on them, that they will resolve themselves.
As I was typing this, a delivery person came with flowers. They are from close family friends that are aware of my year anniversary. The card reads "Congratulations, you are a very special person." Tonight I am going out to eat with my family to celebrate. And on March 16th, my dad's family is throwing me a party for my one year. Most of his siblings are in recovery and all of them are on psychiatric meds of one kind or another, so they understand what an achievement this is. Well, that and they saw firsthand how sick I was for so long.
Hopefully, my dad will live for many more years. After chemo, radiation, and several different experimental drugs have failed or stopped working, he has started yet another treatment for his stage 4 cancer. Maybe this will be the one. Who knows? But what matters is that I'm here with him. Every day I see him, and every day I tell him that I love him. And I would not be able to do that if I were still drinking.
So that's my love letter to MWO. Take from it what you will. Thank you all so much for your help over the last 2 years. Ne, Space, Bruun, Stuck, Redhead, RedThread, Taw, LoveLife, Lady Lush, Ginger, Pete...shit, I know I'm forgetting someone important. But thank you all so much. I don't know where I'd be without all of you and MWO.
I can't promise I'll be here everyday, but I'll try to be around more often. And anyone is welcome to PM me anytime. Hear that, newbies? PM me and I will get back to you. It may take me a little while, but I will.
Much Love
Windy
:l:l:l
I've been meaning to post an update for a while, and initially I was just going to put it in one of the existing threads that I've posted on in the past. But it has come to my attention that the troll(s) have returned to MWO, and I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone and update my old friends and warn the ones I haven't met yet of this sick person/people.
Tomorrow, my friends, I will have one year alcohol free.
Excuse my language, but this is nothing short of a fucking miracle.
My history, briefly (ok, briefly for me). I was an excellent student in high school and obtained a scholarship to a prestigious college. Shortly after I began my freshman year, alcoholism took me down fast and hard. The next few years I worked my way through a blur of treatment centers and halfway houses, starting at the posh Hazelden in Minnesota and ending at the filthy local free detox. I could not stay sober on my own, despite threats and pleas from friends and family and terrifying episodes such as drinking myself into a coma with possible brain damage. After the legal problems stemming from my drinking that I'd accrued seemed insurmountable, I absconded from probation and moved to Chicago.
I got by in Chicago, I suppose. I couldn't keep a job for any extended period of time. But I was always able to find a new one relatively quickly. I was involved in a five year abusive relationship that, for all its downfalls, kept me sober occasionally ("Can I drink tonight?" "No, you can't." End of conversation). After I finally left that situation, I moved in with a new boyfriend who despite being kind, generous, and disarmingly sweet, was as sick or sicker of an alcoholic as me. We drank to blackout every night for several years.
But I never gave up on the idea that I would somehow quit drinking. I still hated AA from my treatment days, but I went to any other kind of meeting I could find. I tried vitamins, herbs, amino acids. I read every shitty self-help book out there ("Goodbye Hangovers! Hello Life!"), but nothing seemed to make a difference. I was aware of MWO as a place where people like me congregated, and I would pop in every once in a while to see if anything new was around. It was on one such visit that I read about baclofen.
It sounded too good to be true. A pill that would cure me of my alcoholism? But I was willing to try anything. I titrated up slowly and got as high as 225 mg/day. At that dose I was groggy, dizzy, constantly vomiting...and still drinking daily. I got very mad at baclofen, at MWO, at everything. I decided to go down. I went down too quickly and suffered from a debilitating increase in my pre-existing anxiety and depression. But when I reached a daily dosage of 70 or 80 mg, I realized that my cravings actually had been significantly reduced by baclofen. When I was doing high dose baclofen (HDB), I'd been waiting to be disgusted by alcohol, to be completely free of desire for it. That never happened. Still hasn't. But what did happen is that the heart-stopping cravings were gone. The feeling like I would die if I didn't get drunk was gone. I still wanted to drink. I still craved oblivion and freedom from the crushing depression and anxiety, but alcohol wasn't doing it.
Around the same time, I started taking 1200mg/day of gabapentin, in 3 doses throughout the day. My brain was finally stabilized after going down too quickly on the bac, and the gabapentin provided further relief from the depression and anxiety. On February 19th of last year, I took an antabuse, fully intending to return to drinking after it left my system. But I didn't.
So, newbies and lurkers, if you're still with me, brings me to my point. Throughout this whole process, my friends at MWO were with me. Going up on the baclofen, still drinking everyday, getting mad at baclofen, going down on baclofen, going crazy from going down, finally regaining my mental footing, and eventually quitting entirely. Even when I was angry at baclofen and at MWO, even when I was accusing the people here of lying to me, they stuck by me.
Shit, I'm starting to get tears in my eyes.
These amazing people, these warm, intelligent, funny people, corresponded with me every day, even though they'd never seen my face or heard my voice. They learned my life and I learned theirs, and we communicated with an openness that maybe only comes with anonymity.
Like I said before, when I took that antabuse, I never intended on quitting forever. But the outpouring of warmth and support that I received in those first alcohol free days blew my mind. The people here understood what an achievement it was to be AF after years of daily drinking, even if it was just a few days. And a funny thing happened. I didn't want to disappoint them. I knew that if I drank again, they would not judge me or think less of me. But they had been so proud of and happy for me, in a way that people who haven't struggled with addiction never could be. I thought, What's one more day without alcohol? I can do that. Then one day turned into another, and another, and another.
I continue to take low dose baclofen and gabapentin. I have not taken an antabuse since that first month.
Am I sober because of baclofen? Probably. Am I sober because of gabapentin? Couldn't have hurt. Am I sober because of MWO? Definitely.
All of the pharmaceuticals in the world could not have helped me without the information, love, and support that I received here.
The trolls. We are all here because we are sick. And some of us are sicker than others. And while I try to keep this in mind and have patience, I hate the idea that even one person will miss out on the opportunity to get sober because of this sick person/people. If you are a newbie or a lurker here, please do not let these characters scare you away. Over time, I have become convinced that it is actually one person with several usernames. They all come together, and they all leave together. The posts that make no sense, the ones that are obviously disturbed, are actually the least harmful ones. The posts that do the most damage are the semi-articulate ones. Posts where this person pretends to ask for help or give advice. And it is pretending. If this person genuinely wanted to receive or give help, I'd openly welcome them. But they don't. They are merely looking for an opportunity to engage good, well-meaning people and then turn around and hurt them.
Please, please, please do not let this person discourage you. There are good people here with real information and support to offer. And they will help you and love you the way that they did me.
Is baclofen the only way? No. Is topamax, naltrexone, campral, or antabuse? No. Does everyone need meds to get sober? No. A long time ago, I posted about a metaphor I read that a therapist used when treating disturbed children. She told them that they were trying to scale a mountain. And what she would help them do is walk around the mountain, look at the different paths up, and decide which way to take. And maybe they'd decide that they took the wrong path and have to go back down and start over again. Maybe they'd get tired on the way up and have to rest for a little bit. The point being that there's different ways up and what matters is communicating what has worked for you and supporting others on their way up. And that's what MWO has been for me.
Nothing will work for every single person. There's no point in saying "baclofen is evil" or "naltrexone doesn't work" because they do help people. And if it doesn't work for you, move on to the next thing. Because if you have to try one million different paths up that fucking mountain, so be it, because the million and first may be the one that gets you there.
And, let me tell you, it's beautiful up here.
After all this talk of support and helping others, I have to apologize for not being here in so long. I'm just busy these days. I'm living life in a way I haven't for the past 15 years. Maybe I'm trying to make up for lost time.
What have I been up to? As most of you know, I moved home in September. Got a job at a fancy schmancy restaurant where, despite the ridiculously high prices, I don't really make more money. But in the short amount of time that I've been there, I've risen through the ranks. I now work in the best sections in the best dining rooms. I've been promoted to a kind of supervisory position that only servers who have been there for years usually work. I've made friends with the other servers there. I go out with them to bars and parties, and sometimes it's hard not to drink, but most of the time, it's fine. I don't make a big deal of the fact that I don't drink and neither do they. When people have asked me about it, I tell them the truth. The highest compliment that I've received in sobriety is when I do tell my story and whoever is listening says that they can't imagine me that sick and fucked up. That they can't imagine me not having my shit together. That was always my dream, to leave that part of me so far behind that no one could even picture it. And that's where my new MWO signature comes from. A poem by Adrienne Rich that hung on my walls when I was at my sickest that promised that someday I would be unrecognizable as a fuck up.
After 4 years, I finally broke up with my alcoholic boyfriend in Chicago on January 25th. It was very difficult. He remains one of the most loving and kind people that I've ever met. But he was not getting better. And I was doing him no favors by staying around. I hope that this will give him the motivation to move on and get healthy on his own. I have not spoken to him since.
I have not been an angel this past year. I have dabbled in other drugs that I definitely should not have. I find myself seeking the attention of guys in a pathological way. I haven't slept with anyone, but I've definitely been actively looking for a new, intense romantic relationship to throw myself into, and that's probably not the healthiest thing for me right now. I continue to be too concerned with my weight and what I eat. I go to the gym daily and gaining as little as a pound can throw me into an emotional tailspin. I still get depressed and feel hopeless and alone sometimes.
But I do have faith that as long as I remain cognizant of these issues and continue to work on them, that they will resolve themselves.
As I was typing this, a delivery person came with flowers. They are from close family friends that are aware of my year anniversary. The card reads "Congratulations, you are a very special person." Tonight I am going out to eat with my family to celebrate. And on March 16th, my dad's family is throwing me a party for my one year. Most of his siblings are in recovery and all of them are on psychiatric meds of one kind or another, so they understand what an achievement this is. Well, that and they saw firsthand how sick I was for so long.
Hopefully, my dad will live for many more years. After chemo, radiation, and several different experimental drugs have failed or stopped working, he has started yet another treatment for his stage 4 cancer. Maybe this will be the one. Who knows? But what matters is that I'm here with him. Every day I see him, and every day I tell him that I love him. And I would not be able to do that if I were still drinking.
So that's my love letter to MWO. Take from it what you will. Thank you all so much for your help over the last 2 years. Ne, Space, Bruun, Stuck, Redhead, RedThread, Taw, LoveLife, Lady Lush, Ginger, Pete...shit, I know I'm forgetting someone important. But thank you all so much. I don't know where I'd be without all of you and MWO.
I can't promise I'll be here everyday, but I'll try to be around more often. And anyone is welcome to PM me anytime. Hear that, newbies? PM me and I will get back to you. It may take me a little while, but I will.
Much Love
Windy
:l:l:l
This time 4 SURE! 
roud:
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