Day 3 sober and allready realise how selfish I am

stanley1989

No idea if this is in the right section but it was the best I could find.. After another 6 month bender every evening after work Iv finally got sick of drinking once again and it hasn't come soon enough .This is quite a regular thing nearly drink myself to death and then I get that sick of it I just stop for awhile...

Flat broke again , Lost about 2 stone , Sweating like mad, Weird dreams ,Woke up last night shouting in my sleep
I presume this is what they call dt's all though I do know that this would be the lighter end of it , Iv heard of people having far worse dt's

Normally replace the drink with smoking the good stuff (please dont judge) and going to the doctor to get tablets but really trying not to this time as i really am just replacing one addiction for another but i find it really hard ...Since iv been a teenager (I'm 28 now) iv always been on something , Weather it be drink , Zanex or smoking the green stuff iv rarely went without something and when I do I get this scary reality check my head goes into overdrive and things start annoying me some silly some not so silly.
My relationship with my kids and my family really starts to bother me.
Some silly things I think about is my receding hair line and my project cars iv abandoned..This is all blocked out when I'm not sober and I realise this is very selfish especially when my kids and family are involved
Why do I suddenly decide to stop ? Money ,And most of all my health i cannot work without buckets of sweat pouring out of me and find fitness level zero panting and puffing like an old man

I can function quite well considering I can drink anywhere from 10-12 or maby more pints on a week night which makes it more of a pain because I go back for round two the next evening round three the next and so on , Been to AA hated it , Been to treatment hated it .

Sitting up on a Monday night full of thoughts and no body to talk to because I pushed everyone away over the last few months , so just wondering do any boardies have any similar experiences ?
I doubt I'm alone am I lol ?

Certainly one of the mistakes people make when they quit something like this - is not to replace it with anything else at all. Nature does not like a vacuum and that "hole" in your life where alcohol was will fill itself in with something. Likely alcohol again. Or one of the other vices you listed.

So a strong first step is to find something - other than idling around the house - to fill that old drinking time with as soon as you can.

AA is certainly the household name - and so the first port of call for many people. But for all kinds of reasons people hate it and leave disillusioned. Often disillusioned enough to not bother searching for similar alternatives because they assume their AA experience is representative of all such mutual self-help social groups. There is a reason the success rates of AA are so appallingly low and they have been discussed on this forum many times before.

Which is particularly insidious if they are unlucky enough to sample one of the AAs where the organiser is more interested in religious proselytisation to the needy and vulnerable than they are in genuine assistance. But there are all kinds of secular alternatives to AA you might try before you write the entire approach off just yet. You might be lucky enough to find one - or a group - you click with.

Certainly communication with your family is something that is likely to help or at least bring some progress. A blame free discussion of what is bothering you about your relationship with them - what you want to do to improve it and yourself - and how they can help you and - if they request it - you them.

Also if money is a strong motivator in keeping you sober you might consider some ways to divert your income in such a way as to not make it readily available to you. This would likely reduce the probability of relapse a little.

And finally - if you have it in you - you could take a more proactive approach. You feel that you are "not alone" in thinking and feeling the way you do about alcohol and things like AA. So why not spend some deep thought on what you would like a group to be like. When you went to AA you clearly had some hopes as to what it would be like - what would go on there - how it would help you. So why not form your own group based on those criteria you had and see who comes to it if you advertise it on places like meetup.com and so forth?

One guy I know for example has been working hard on designing a "Jedi school" curriculum. That is - aside of course from magical super powers of telekenesis and the like - a curriculum of everything that one might associate with being a "Jedi". And given a "Jedi" is meant to be the very essence of Self Discipline it is very much geared towards overcoming addiction. Things on his curriculum so far have been things like meditation - fitness - fencing and other martial arts basics - the basics of other cultures, language and traditions from around the world - some mind tricks from the annals of Derren Brown style sources - philosophy and ethics - and so on. Basically everything you would be learning as a real Jedi other than manipulation of the Force.

He thinks it could be very helpful to alcoholics - himself included - and be a draw because of the "Jedi" angle to "normal" people too. He hopes to attract the interest of teachers in some of those areas too and already has a fencing teacher interested in volunteering. And I was thinking of offering up some of my own time in some of the martial arts and meditation I specialise in.

So consider something similar. If the help groups you attended did not help you - consider how you might form one of your own. At the end of the day if there are any reasons to think AA helpful - and those reasons are pretty thin alas - it is likely to be because it is a mutually supportive social group - and not because of any magic in the 12 steps the claim at their core. So try a mutually supportive social group of your own - cored around what is interesting and stimulating to you.

Musketeer4

Fair play to you for copping on that you've a problem and deciding to do somthign about it.

To be honest I think you have some fairly deep rooted addiction issues - you say you;ve been on something or other since you were a teen. That is not one bit healthy and if you continue on this path you will but yourself in an early grave.

Go to an addiction counsellor dude. Get a referral from you GP. The money saved on not buying drugs and drink will easily pay for it.

as the other poster said there is a void left when you give up a substance. Instead of filling it with another substance/drug why not channel the free time into pursuing something fulfilling? Like join a gym, take up a sport or join a club of some sort where you can associate with a make friends with people who have a healthy outlook on life. Distance yourself from those who facilitate and engage in substance abuse with you.

You have children. Do it for them if not for yourself. You owe it to them to be a decent parent. Do you want them to grow up saying that they had a great dad or that their dad was a no good drunk/druggie? You have the power to decide.

Babalugats

Short term you need your GP

Dravokivich

You need to speak with your GP. State you need help with your addiction in no uncertain terms.

If this is a constant on/off cycle, just getting pills for the anxiety that comes from not drinking, or upping your intake of weed, is just going to patch over things for a while then it'll hit harder, because the issues of your addiction have not been addressed.

I hope you can sort things out. I've seen how difficult it can be.

the evasion_kid

I've been in your shoes op,if AA and treatment ain't working speak with your GP,there is other options available:

https://www.addiction.com/expert-blogs/why-isnt-the-sinclair-method-used-more-often/