Advice needed

[emily]

I could probably post this in the general discussion thread but I feel at home here due to me being new to Baclofen.

I will post up my journey so far once I feel better.

I was at a wedding on Tuesday and was drinking, still made sure I took my bac but drank to excess and can't remember half of the night. My hangover yesterday was shockingly bad. I was sick all night and most of the day, couldn't even hold down water! still feel
ill today.

However, that's not why I need advice. At the wedding a relative of the bride, who was also drinking decided to tell me that I was a recovering alcoholic. I was shocked to the core but laughed it off saying that I wasn't making a very good job of it as I was drinking wine at the time. She was trying to cause trouble, not only for me that night (she said nasty things to other people too), and said it to me in front of a few people.

What can I say, I feel humiliated and exposed. I wish I had poured the drink over her head but now glad I didn't as she was trying to cause trouble.

I stopped drinking for a couple of years and started again the first christmas after my dad died so I've obviously been labelled a recovery alcoholic.

How do I deal with this? I told a cousin of mine who knows me well and she burst out laughing. I appreciated her response as the person who said it is a heavy drinker and is know to say nasty things to people so it makes me think I should take it as a pinch of salt and not let it bother me.

The thing is if she said it then it's what others think too and I had always hoped that no-one knew the extent of my problem and now I feel as if the whole town is talking about me and I could just curl up and never show my face again!!

[kronkcarr]

Advice needed

Hi, emily,
It does feel horrible. I know. If it comforts you just know that others realize she's a drunk and may not pay attention to what she says. Plus someone else will cause a fuss about someone else and you'll be old news. And it is true. That's the thing for me--my past behavior embarrasses me too. AND we're doing something about it. Kudos to us!
I was at a couples' home and we were discussing my lack of drinking and bac and the guy who had been a crack head for 10 years and had caused his wife huge humiliation and legal and financial troubles chimed in that I really was a mess when I drank. I was floored and said nothing. Later when I thought about it it was true. It's just not a comment I would have made.
Take courage and keep your eyes on your goal.
kronkcarr

[kuya]

Advice needed

Emily.......one of the beauties of this journey is to begin to feel comfortable in your own skin.

Think about the times people have told you gossip about others and a week later you can't even remember it.
We humans love gossip and being thought of as a recovering drinker is better than a drunk, a shop lifter, child abuser, debtor, liar, misery, bitch, adulterer, embezzler........you get the picture??!!!!! :H

There are far worse things to be known for :h

[paulywogg]

Advice needed

the hell with what people think emily

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Advice needed

What they all said.

But also: Truth hurts. But it shouldn't. That's why you're here. And the only reason it's bothersome is because you are stuck in the vicious cycle.

The woman's a bitch. Whatev dude. Life's too short and mines too good to bother w that kind if crap. Focus on that!

Lastly, no one (and really NO ONE) cares unless you do. Ya know?

Hang in there Emily. Part of the process for me was finding things to like about myself. And embracing the fact that I am still a foul mouthed impatient pain inthe ass sometimes.

[YouKayBee]

Advice needed

"Recovering alcoholic" is generally a term laden with respect, it means you are recognised as someone who has overcome a serious condition so I'd not take it as an offense however if you are still drinking problematically I'd not have said this term applies to you.

Your post has taken me back to when my life was like this - drinking to black out, being sick as a dog for the next 12-24 hours.

It was horrible and I'm glad I'm no longer there.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Advice needed

Hey, Emily. I feel the need to amend my post from earlier. I hope you don't mind.

I shouldn't have called that woman a bitch. (She may be, but I don't know her.) What she said was bitchy. But there are a couple of things about that. The first is that the only people I know that care about what someone else is drinking either have the disease or are concerned for the drinker's well being. Seriously. No one else notices or cares. Know how I know? I'm around social drinkers relatively frequently and they have no idea what I'm drinking (usually nothing) and wouldn't care if they did know. On the flip side of that, my parents and family know that I can and do drink (very, very occasionally) and it would kill them to see me sip a glass of wine. I did it once in front of my mom and I thought she was going to cry. (It was terrible.)

I feel kind of sorry for that woman, because if she remembered what she said when she woke up the next day she might have felt badly about it and it may be one of those things she carries with her that makes her feel terrible about herself.

But you don't have to carry it or let it make you feel terrible about yourself. You really don't. What we do is drink. Until we don't anymore. That's our default, and it takes a long time to unlearn that. (I want to get drunk--or something--today. I have no idea what to do with the feeling since I can't, or don't like to, drink too much. But it's what I have done for 20 years. So I'll cut myself some slack. You know? Still not going to drink. But there it is. )

So. How are you?

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Advice needed

Also, I really hope you don't mind my swear words. And if you do, I'll delete them and I humbly apologize. I try not to do that 'round here too much. Hope it didn't offend you.

[Hippyman]

Advice needed

I'm not ashamed to be a person in recovery. I've seen looks of admiration from people when I've said...No thank you. I don't drink. I'm in recovery!

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Advice needed

Hippyman, I aspire to be as nice as you are some day. But not quite yet.

[omahawagon]

Advice needed

Be proud of yourself for being the bigger person and not sinking to her level. You are doing something about your alcohol problem. She has a sticking her nose in other peoples business problem that she is clearly doing nothing about. So odds are nobody is talking about you, they are too busy talking about the rude woman who kept insulting people all night!

[emily]

Advice needed

Thank you all for your kinds words of support.

Neva, I am not in the least bit offended and the woman is a bitch.

I feel as if I've been stripped naked and marched in front of the whole town but when I have to face people (family) that were at the wedding I will laugh it off with the line 'hey, from her it's a compliment' and not mention it again.

I think this will have a ripple effect on my life and I'm the kind of person to use it in a positive way. I won't sink to the depths and drown myself in drink and I'm already finding myself making plans to make me the best I can be, so that's good.

I really wish I could leave this town and start afresh somewhere else, that's how I'm feeling, I could just run away but first I will get myself strong. I feel ill and I look awful so it's 8 am here and I'm up and starting off with hot water with fresh lemon.

From today I get strong and stop wallowing in self pity.

Again, thank you all for your support and advice, I don't know what I would do without MWO.

[Xadrian]

Advice needed

emily;1481305 wrote: .......and the woman is a bitch.

And she stinks too!

[Byrdlady]

Advice needed

Something seemed 'off' to me about this thread and your post. So I went back and looked at some of your past posts. I noticed that you arrived in 2007, so you have been at this a while, 6 years since you sat down at the computer and said, 'enough is enough' I've got to get some help.
I also found the post below...because I thought maybe you were trying to moderate, and before I stepped into that, I wanted to make sure....no, you are trying to stop, from what I gather. Sometimes, no words of strangers can help you, but maybe your own words will...... I came across this wonderful post from last November:


Smile Immersion in the Misery

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Was thinking about this last night as I went out for a walk to the Supermarket to buy dinner. A totally different Friday night to say, one month ago, where the wine would have been out at around 5-6 pm.

One of my really good strategies, to keep drinking and wanting to drink has always been that I associate it with the pleasure, the freedom of my youth, good times, fun and other people's company.

Another good strategy I have always employed to keep drinking and wanting to drink is that I have read posts on MWO and I've always thought - I'm not as bad as that, even though I had noted pain in my right side, itchy skin, bad skin, liver roll and muffin top combined, horrible smells coming from my body and breath, memory loss, financial problems, wanting to drink alone + lots of other stuff.

I would always quickly 'not look' at anything that pointed out that I was on a terrible path and that it would not end well. My focus would quickly be averted to something else - does that make sense?

Anyway, I'm now on day 23 and I'm only here because after the shit hitting the fan financially I was made face up to the fact that I had to do something and stopping drinking wine to numb myself was in fact the answer - If you have a look about for my 'What if' thread, I posted that the day that I suddenly realised that my out of control drinking might just be the cause of the misery I found myself in.

So, in the past week what I have been doing, in my mind, is when a memory pops up of me making a fool of myself, you know the sort of stuff, the humiliation etc, instead of quickly putting it out of my mind because I don't want to 'look' I have 'looked' and let all the feelings of humiliation, guilt, embarrassment sweep over me - I mean totally get lost in the pain of it.

The mind will do anything to get away from pain and towards pleasure so I have been working hard on, as above, total immersion on the pain caused by my drinking and to move towards pleasure I have been noting all my triumphs, such as being at the gym at 10 am on a Saturday morning or walking to the shops around 6 pm last night, not having to stand about 10 feet away from people in case they smell my breath and most of all the feeling of peace and contentment I now have within me.

I'm going to keep working at this and just thought I'd share this new strategy just in case it may help anyone else.

__________________


I hate to be the one to say this, but I think you are one of US! So maybe that person at the function you went to WAS out of line by what she was saying, but you seem to be directing your anger to the wrong source. You were drinking. A Lot. I know that there are many here who have this massive aversion to labels. But maybe if you look at the term Alcoholic not so much as a label, but as a diagnosis, it will be easier to swallow. It was WRONG of her to say that in public, but AL was probably the cause of that, too. Aren't you just sick of all AL has done for/to you? It would have been one thing if she'd said that you weren't drinking....it might have been easier to prove her wrong. But you were, and drinking excessively.
The best revenge is to prove her wrong. Get sober and stay sober. THEN, you can honestly say, I don't have an AL problem because I don't drink!!!
Just my 2 cents from the peanut gallery. Byrdie

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Advice needed

Byrd makes some reasonable points. I particularly like the part about it being a diagnosis and not label. True words.

But holy shit, I hope you're not going to immerse yourself in any kind of pain, particularly the pain caused by your drinking. And if/when you decide to go down that road, I found really interesting stuff about therapy related to this topic.

New research seems to indicate that reliving/rehashing all the old stuff actually makes it worse. And that the mind, when it revisits past events, either makes them worse or makes them better. It just does this. It doesn't have a way, apparently, to give a completely un-objective perspective.

They found this out when they began looking at PTSD patients. When they compared the ones who got better to the ones who did not, they found that the ones who did not were encouraged to relive the scenario and to try to make sense of it. The ones who got better moved on, made plans, lived in the moment. A lot of this research was done on veterans from our various wars. A lot of those patients committed suicide. It was particularly dangerous when they were in group therapy rehashing this stuff. It was also the conclusion of a bunch of well meaning people who put together a program to help the first responders (and others) after 9/11. Same thing.

So much for media-free today. But now I'm off to play with mulch in the yard and turn my own brain off for a little-bitty-while.