Here we go again

[kronkcarr]

I have so many thoughts about what I've read here the last few days and what's been going on with me.

Empathy attacks--yes, that's what they feel like to me. I work with people who have physical, emotional and spiritual pain so I hear issues all day. Mostly I know it's my job and I can leave it at work. We all have something. But sometimes I'm overwhelmed. I'm at that point right now.

The happy new feeling I had with bac has gone and I'm at a point where I could forget all the benefits and go back to my old life. Did this happen to you? What did you do? Help!

Lis, I'm sorry that I can't give much help. I didn't have to go up high in my dosage. I think it's great that you'll practice with the machine in your car. This could help ease your anxiety and build your confidence. I had low self esteem and did the same stuff over and over when I drank too much. It helped me to look at my behavior and habits and to make changes. Are you doing this?

Stuck, I read lots. I've had a wide range of books touch me and help me route my life differently. If your writing changed one person's life wouldn't that be worth it? I like your idea of moving and all that goes with it.

I miss having newbies here. I feel that I don't have much to share. I hadn't realized that until today. I struggle with posts here as I think you do too. Spirit's posts anger me but I won't take the bait. I also have a hard time letting them go. Otter's post on Ne's thread confuses me. So thanks to all who keep this thread going. Ne and dun have fun with your dogs this weekend.

As I write I realize I answered my question. I need to put my big girl panties on and change my attitude. Still I want to hear if this happened for you.

[dundrinkn]

Wait a minute... I was coming on to comment on some stuff and some of it has been deleted. Bummer. I especially liked your empathy thing, Reggie... about how it was more about you than actually feeling for the other person and it was crippling. Dang. It was really good.

Kronk - I haven't had that happy new feeling since my first round of sobriety in my 20s. That one lasted around 10 years, and I was on a "pink cloud" for the first year. But since then through all my stints with sobriety, I haven't felt really jazzed about being sober. And I agree, it is hard to threaten myself with how bad it was to keep myself going. I am high-functioning, although when I am drinking I am always waiting for the shoe to drop -- either health related, or law related. So the further I get away from that and the terrible dread in the morning, the harder it is to keep me from going back. Which is why I probably do go back from time to time. I have to find motivation to stop and then stay stopped. It is usually because I am miserable. I'm not much help here... guess I've experienced it and haven't gotten to the other side.

Same same on the posts from others ... whose names I shall not mention. From my many years in AA, I would say "this isn't a contest as to who is the "real" alcoholic" or the bigger drunk." My goodness that was ridiculous. I know it's genetic for me. Maybe the fact that I started long stints of sobriety early on have helped me avoid the horrbile states of end-stage alcoholics. The states described are end stage. But really... it doesn't take much reading between the lines of some posts to see the true motivation or diagnosis (ha!).

Lis, hope you are holding up. Ne, I hope you are studying. Stuck, I hope you are enjoying the girl. Everyone else... I hope you are enjoying your weekend. And here's for my big news, I am dressed and heading out for a long(ish) walk.

[Lostinspace]

Reggie - I’m at 275 mg. I’ve had a huge reduction in cravings compared to before I started on bac, but no lasting indifference yet - can’t wait for that! And yeah, the anticipation is a killer. I’m really happy that I’ve titrated up so slowly because it’s helped me to avoid a lot of problems. At the same time, it also makes this whole process feel like it’s been going on forever.

kronk - I’m so sorry you’re also feeling overwhelmed with life right now. I’m sure your job is rewarding at times, but it must also feel like a huge weight to carry other people’s pain at other times, even if you’re leaving it at work. There’s probably still some carryover into the rest of your hours, no matter how good you’ve become at separating your work life from the rest of your life. You probably need to be extra careful to take good care of yourself, and to find ways to bring joy into your life, during your off hours.

And yes, I do have low self-esteem and other issues that I need to work on. I just don’t even know where to begin. It mostly stems from anxiety. Things have been a lot more intense recently in the anxiety/panic attacks department, whether from just stress alone, or from a combination of that and bac side effects. But this has always been a huge problem for me. It’s been both holding me back from doing things, and causing me to make poor decisions, since as far back as I can remember.

One place I want to begin is to try to incorporate mindfulness into my life as a regular habit, so that it becomes natural to use it when my mind starts to spiral out of control. I’m thinking that I should start by making it a built-in part of my morning routine, just to get the day off on the right foot. I can also set alarm reminders on my phone (the same way I do to remind myself to take bac), to keep up the practice during the day. I know this is a simple thing, and won’t fix everything that’s wrong with me, but I really don’t know where else to start.

dun - I’m glad to hear you’re keeping up with the walking I hope you’re continuing to feel lighter, and less blah. And I know all too well what you mean about sobriety getting harder and harder, the farther away you get from the consequences. I can’t say I was ever on a “pink cloud” prior to the two months of relative indifference I had on bac this past summer. My brief AF stints in the past were always a painfully difficult experience, full of constant cravings and misery. But the fear that motivated me to put the bottle down back then seemed to wear off more and more with each passing day.

I would soon start to look for the ways that I had gone wrong in the past, besides just the fact that I was drinking excessively. For example, I would think “well, if I only bring a set amount of vodka with me to work, then there’s no way I can overdo it. I won’t get caught drinking on the job again.” Whatever the consequences were that sparked my most recent sobriety attempt, I would think of any way I could to prevent it from happening again - any way, that is, except for staying dry. Unfortunately, fear is a pretty piss poor motivator. It doesn’t work in the long run.

Anyway, my husband went out with me for a good, two hour-long driving practice session this afternoon. The good news? I’m slowly but surely starting to master the intoxalock. I was able to get it to work on the first try every single time the buzzer went off today. The bad news? I’m still terrible at parallel parking, and am still embarrassingly out of practice with driving in general. I have a lot of work to do in the next three weeks to get ready for my road test.

I didn’t drink today, even though I have some vodka and bourbon in my closet, and my anxiety was sky high this afternoon. It’s weird - even though I was feeling like a bit of a wreck earlier today, I still wasn’t particularly interested in drinking. I just wanted to settle my nerves. So instead of drinking, I turned on my wood pellet stove, snuggled up under a blanket on the couch, and watched a bunch of Law and Order: Criminal Intent. I’m feeling better-ish now. Is that the new bac dose finally starting to take effect, or is this just an unusual day? I don’t expect an answer to that; I’m just being hopeful. Anyway, I hope you all have a great night!

[dundrinkn]

Dang it, dang it, dang it. Please stop deleting your posts, people!

Spirit, I read your post(s) this morning and was ruminating on them while putting up some Christmas lights. I came back in, not to respond, but to simple thank you for sharing your experiences. You put yourself out there and the post was thoughtful and helpful. I am very sorry you deleted them. Regardless, I am glad I got to read them before you did.

[Spiritfree]

Dang it, dang it, dang it. Please stop deleting your posts, people!

Spirit, I read your post(s) this morning and was ruminating on them while putting up some Christmas lights. I came back in, not to respond, but to simple thank you for sharing your experiences. You put yourself out there and the post was thoughtful and helpful. I am very sorry you deleted them. Regardless, I am glad I got to read them before you did.

Hi Dun -thank you for posting this. I deleted these posts in light of my current standing within the community. Although my messages were heartfelt and genuine, I was afraid that the messages might further upset some of our members and end up not being helpful at all. Dun, as a result of your message, I will repost my earlier post. Regardless of what anyone thinks or believes on this forum, I do try to post information that might help a fellow person in trouble with Firewater. I sometimes lack the ability to write in way that does not offend -but offending has never been my intention (except when I am being cornered and attacked-lol). Thanks again for your feedback.

[Spiritfree]

Dun -thank you again for mentioning this post that I had made earlier and then deleted. I deleted after thinking -to myself(lol), that perhaps I would only be unintentionally aggravating Lost even more and also that I would be setting myself up for more hostility and ridicule. Perhaps I was mistaken so here is my earlier post. (And I will repost the other about my brother).

Hi Lost -For me, alcohol created a level of anxiety that was incredibly painful and difficult to understand. Under my mental collapse of alcohol, I could not even logically understand that alcohol was creating the majority of my anxiety -I blamed everything- other than alcohol and I had even acknowledged and accepted that I had and Alcohol Use Disorder.

I have always had anxiety issues -since the first time that I can remember as a child. However, alcohol so exacerbated the anxiety problem that I could no longer function. Without knowing, I blamed everything for my anxiety -work, family (children-teens), money-lack thereof, etc. Once that I stopped drinking, it still took at least four months for my anxiety to start to calm. And for me, the anxiety got much worse in the first two to five weeks after I quit drinking. My paranoia also shot out the roof.

Now, what I did find was this; after about the four month mark, I was nowhere near as anxious as I had been. Furthermore, as a result of baclofen (I believe), I was no longer experiencing that morning and daily anxiety that I had experienced my entire life.

Baclofen or not, it is just simply not easy to stop drinking -if you are a full blown alcoholic. The mental habit alone seems to exist for a long time -or at least for me it has. If you (or anyone-including me) has ingested alcohol for a long enough period of time (in quantity), then your brain has permanently changed and much rewiring is required in order to survive. This is not an opinion nor a speech; this is biological/chemical fact.

I do hope that you consider what I am saying as nothing more than trying to be helpful. In fact, it helps me to just write down these thoughts. And lost, also please understand that I do not want nor expect a reply. I only hope that you are willing to read what I have written and quite possibly understand that you still have a chance to recover before it gets much worse -and it will get worse if you keep drinking -baclofen or not.

[Spiritfree]

Also Lost, I want to share something with you about my one and only older brother. He was a good friend and a good brother -except when he ran out of his chemical. He was a talented lawyer and seemed to have the world by the horns -at least to those who did not know about his mental disorder. My brother died at the age of 39 -and that was about 12 years ago. I mention my brother only because you had spoken about your teeth problems relative to acid reflux from vomiting from alcohol use. You see Lost, this brought back a very-very painful memory for me about my brother. One (if not the last) conversations that I had with my brother was him asking me for money to help repair his teeth -as a result of his chemical abuse. Me, at the time, with my better than thou attitude and "he needs to learn" mindset, refused to send him money. To this day, 12 years later I still have the deepest feeling of regret and a sincere feeling of being such a huge arsehole -it still hurts like hell to know that I refused to help.

Well, after this particular teeth situation and my refusal to help, myself and the remainder of my family decided to try the tough-love bullshit method of helping. Almost one year later, he died from heart failure in a hospital -all by him self. One thing that my brother said to me a few years before he died was that I was an alcoholic too - that I just did not drink near as much and near as often. Of course after telling him that he was full of crap and hanging up the phone, I would sit back and know in my heart that he was right.

Lost, none of this is written with the intent of garnering sympathy or otherwise. I write this in an attempt to remind and help myself and to hopefully help someone else out "there". This is the reality of the deadly disease so many of us live with. As you already know, this disease effects many others -other than just the diseased afflicted. I sometimes read messages on the forum that are written to me (personal and painful attacks at me about my intentions, my lack of knowledge, lack of reading and researching skills, -hell, lack of everything) and I get an absolute sick feeling in my stomach and I sometimes get angry as hell. But I assure you of one thing, you will never see me write back in a way that is intended to personally harm someone or to imply that they are less than. (I do think that it is helpful to stir complacent emotions). But all the disgusting, vindictive conversations that I use to have ended with my last call to my brother -one year after he died.

Peace to Ya.

[Spiritfree]

delete -tmi

[Lostinspace]

Spirit - I’m so sorry to have stirred up painful memories of your brother. I wish nothing but peace for both of you - for you, as you live on, and for him, may he rest in peace. I never intended to bring up bad memories with that post, only to ask if anyone had any recommendations.

As for the rest of your post, I can’t really separate the alcohol-induced anxiety from the rest at this point. I know that the rebound effects of alcohol bring on anxiety. But I also know that I’ve had life-long anxiety problems, and have been having full-blown panic attacks since long before I ever picked up the bottle. It’s not something that my alcoholism brought on. My anxiety, and the resulting insomnia, were big reasons why I began drinking heavily in the first place all those years ago.

If anything, I’ve made big strides forward in my life since then. I’m just . . . not there yet. I hope to be free soon. Thanks for weighing in, and I wish you the best. I’m sorry I don’t have much else to say. Again, I’m sorry for the bad memories.

Anyway, I wish everyone out there, a great night. Keep on keepin’ on, with whatever you’re doing to make life better :hug:

EDIT: I typed all this out before seeing the last post. I wish we could move on from all the drama, but I guess that's not possible. Sigh. I wish everyone a great night, anyway.

[Spiritfree]

Lost- We will move on and forward. I was making a signing "off" for a while post. I should not have been making that on your thread. Thanks for your reply.

[StuckInCA]

We will move on and move forward, indeed. Well said, Spirit. "So we beat on, boats against the tide, borne ceaselessly into the past."

I was in Vegas over the weekend, and drunk. The girl is doing a good job of making sure I eat. Back in LA now. Will see how the week goes. Hope everyone is having a great night.

[Lostinspace]

I hope you had a good time in Vegas, Stuck, regardless of the drinking. A weekend getaway was probably a really good thing for you after such an emotionally wrenching end to the week. And it sounds, once again, like your girlfriend really cares for you and wants to look out for you.

I have nothing of value to say. I wish I did. I started practicing mindfulness like I said I would, and even got a little exercise in front of the tv (thanks Ne for the suggestion). But at this point, it’s not really helping. I've had a lovely day full of self-hatred and guilt. I’ve been staying AF, and quite honestly, I really wish I wasn’t. Anyway, I hope you all have a great night.

[DizzyBee]

Hi Lost, Stuck and everyone else.

I caught the last page here and it made me wonder just how many AL sufferers have anxiety problems. Is it the cause or a symptom? I'm guessing a bit of both. That and insomnia.

After several years of trying out meds my Pdoc finally subscribed Trazadone, which has improved my sleep and anxiety. I took Valium and Clonazapam for a while, but even though it was a great short-term solution, it aggravated things in the long run. It gives me very vivid dreams but a bonus side-effect is increased libido. :P

For other insomniacs out there, I also found Kirkland sleep remedy on Amazon.com. It was developed for morning sickness so it can't be that bad for you. I tried it because my birth control made me very nauseous but found it was a cheap method to make me fall asleep and stay asleep for the first few hours.

Have a great night,
Do

[StuckInCA]

Hey there, folks. Yeah, Vegas was a pretty all right time. The girl got super drunk Friday night, to the point where I had to help her walk back to the room at the end of the night. She doesn't do that very often, and so she was feeling rotten most of Saturday. I started drinking right when I woke up, so by the end of Saturday our roles were reversed, and she was having to help me into bed. Sunday, well, I drank *just* enough. Until getting home, that is. I went out for a walk and then to the bar and tied one on all over again.

Today's a little rough. I'm not even going to lie. I've gone out for lengthy walks already two or three times today, to deal with anxiety and general feeling of sh*ttiness. Have managed to get a little bit of application stuff done, and am finally now at almost 4pm eating a bowl of oatmeal. Sorry you aren't feeling so hot, Lis. Try not to let the guilt or negative thoughts get to you.

Well, that's about it for me for now. Take care everybody.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Goood morning!



Lis, it's Tuesday. Given your post about your anxiety, I'm thinking you might want to reevaluate. The momentum you're building is not the number of pills, but feeling better more consistently, especially AF. I made that mistake and I get sort of antsy when I see others doing it.



The shame spiral is exactly that. Clawing your way out of one is much harder than not taking the plunge. It's sort of easier said than done. However, this is when some of those CBT and other things you've learned come in handy. I used this one: The very minute I found myself saying things to myself that were negative, I stopped and replaced them. I tried to say something good about myself, but when that didn't work, I thought about absolutely anything positive. It doesn't happen immediately, because when you're feeling like that it's hard to think of positive things. So I started collecting positive things. Things that made me laugh or smile or were at least heart-warming. Even if they were trite or cliche. Even if I would never, ever admit them here for fear of being laughed at! I stopped watching dramas. I only watched comedies. I couldn't stop listening to the news, but I definitely tried to stop listening to Marketplace (economic news). (This was in 2010, remember, when everything economic was actually worse than it is today.)



Here's what happened: There is actually SO MUCH to be positive about. Did you know that crime, all kinds of crime, is at an all time low? Did you know that malaria, the number one killer of humans, is down 50%? Those are things I've been reading about recently. What else? hmmm. I can't think of generic things, but I can think of these things for you: You got a mother effin' car! And are moments away from getting your drivers license! Now, you might take those things for granted, but YOU had to DO IT to make it happen. How do I know? Because my husband didn't do it 20+ years ago and now he can't drive legally! Hahahaha. What a knucklehead.



It's the baclofen, too, sister. Don't underestimate the power of brain chemistry. Fortunately, we can rewire some brain chemistry with our thoughts.



Kronk, what were you doing back then that you think contributed to how you were feeling that you aren't doing now?



I miss and love the pink cloud so much I wish there was a drug you could take to get there. I'd take that one without hesitation. :eek-new:



I read the Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama (or tried to) when I was in rehab the last time. The key? hmmm. I don't remember, exactly. It's a looong book so there must be more than one answer. What I do remember is that when asked about the tragedy/travesty of Tibet, he said it makes him very sad, but that he simply helps who he can and does what he is able. That's it. Like everything else, the solution is very simple. Right? It has to be simple or it's not the real solution.



One last thing on that note. I joined Amazon Prime for a free month so I've been reading books at random. The one I started a couple of days ago is a sobriety story. [EDIT: The irony! I picked it based on the title and it's a friggin' sobriety story. I can't get away!] I can't say that I'd recommend it, but it's interesting to me at least. Anyway. He quit drinking cold turkey, tried everything people threw at him (counseling and all that jazz) and mostly found it a waste of time. I think we can relate! He was still using any and every drug he could get his hands on. Then he started...running. Gave up drugs, gave up smoking. Still sounds like he's a miserable asshole, but he also seems fine with making the choice to be a miserable asshole. Here's the other thing--he injured himself, couldn't run for a while, and describes the malaise (using that exact word) to a T.



So off our butts, people. And write a gratitude journal or something. Channel the Dalai Lama, who has seen and understands more tragedy than any of us ever will, and is still happy. Or whatever. I'm not trying to tell anyone what to do, exactly. But that's what I'm gonna keep trying to do.



Peace out.