I agree. Trying to address the root cause has been my aim these last few weeks. It keeps coming back to a lack of self-esteem, self worth, confidence (not arrogance, which I’ve confused the two before), and believing in myself. Those unaddressed needs all have led me to frustration, anger, blaming others, and ultimately some pretty destructive behavior. It’s as though, at times, I think that’s all I deserve or am capable of, so I manifest the behavior.
I’m trying to learn self love and to be gentler with myself. It feels indulgent sometimes, but I think that’s just me feeling like I don’t deserve it, or that I have to earn it by being a task master to myself. Trying to let go of that idea. Hoping that by addressing the root causes, the symptoms will fall by the wayside.
Ultimately if I can’t be good to myself, I’m not going to be good to others. So it seems selfish in a way, but in another way I’m doing it so I can be better to those around me.
Self esteem and self confidence have been two of the highlights of my sobriety. I cry sometimes realizing how long I went without either. Sobriety brings us a lot of blessings. Keep digging…getting it all up and out is so healing.
Totally agree with the adrenaline rush kind of a trigger to drink. I feel like “too up” or “too down” are two different but kind of the same triggers. Seriously, I get tired of being “in the zone” of normal mood regulation (or “eudemonia”). I guess and I’m pretty sure that this feeling of being tired of being in a regular mood and wanting to go to the extreme of the spectrum by drinking when excited or depressed, this “need” is made up by years of behaving like this. I’ve been doing it so much with drinking that now I don’t see how I can act my mood needs differently then by drinking. Don’t know if I’m clear… but anyways, I think trying to find new ways to cope with those needs, instead of the past behaviours and their repetition, is pretty much what’s going to keep us away from picking up again.
And about that thinking of “one day at the time” and the fear of falling at known 90th and 180th days, I think those are two things that can be worked separately. One day at a time and even one hour at a time or less sometime, is something we all need to work on especially in the beginning. No doubt. But I am no expert in sobriety, but also working on your views about yourself in the futur, your goals in life and stuff, can be helping with that. Maybe not things directly related to sobriety, but reflecting about how you would like to be later, the things you’ll like to accomplish (that may probably require you to be sober).
Hope you doing well,
This is the idea. That I’ve programmed in a behavior. Things go smoothly for a few months and then I go off the rails. It’s happened so many times over the last 8 years, that maybe it just seems like it’s what’s supposed to happen. An engrained behavior.
Fortunately, with some help I get to challenge that thinking and behavior. It doesn’t have to be that way.
Me having any kind of future is going to require me to be sober. I don’t even function in the most basic of ways when I’m drinking. I’m going to keep trying to focus on the day at hand. I’m aware there will be tests coming down the pipeline, but I’ll deal with them when they arise. I made my therapist aware that there seems to be certain timeframes when I get more squirrelly, so there is a plan to buckle down a little more around those milestones.
I’m doing well and slowly becoming a bit more optimistic. I’m going to head out to the trail for a run and then hop onto a Recovery Dharma meeting afterwards.
Hope you’re well too. I’m really glad to see you back on here and posting. I’ve been rooting for you for awhile.
Seems to me you are really putting yourself in a situation of changing for the best. It feels like you have those two parts in you, but you know which one can and which one can’t survive. What is hard I think about addiction is that even your “dark” side can actually win over ourselves, because it IS a huge part of ourselves, that’s been build up and reinforce for years. It is literarily an incredible numbers of connections and pathways of neurones in our brains that we’ve been reinforcing and associating with drinking and everything surrounding it. So when the mood swings to a place we use to confort ourself with drinking, it is way easier (not in a motivational way, but even physiologically) to behave within the old pathways we’ve been building up for years…
And you are impressive, man, to want to still keep fighting this part of yourself after all these years. Fighting the easy and automatic part of yourself. You could have thrown the towel and just accept like a lot of people that, well, I am like this and from time to time I drink myself for weekends and that’s alright, that’s how I’ve been doing and that’s what I know. But no. You know deep down there is something else in there and out there for you. And you know what, I feel like I am chasing the same thing you are. I don’t know what it is exactly yet, don’t know what exactly I’ll become through this fight, but I know it will be better than the path I’ve been walking myself over the last 10 years of my twenties.
I am glad too I’ve chose to take the time I need to put on recovery, and that include coming here often and relate to folks like you.
Enjoy that run!
I am so glad you are able to realize when you get squirrelly.
I realized I was bipolar a couple months after I quit drinking. I thought there was no way these feelings and emotions were just ‘quitting drinking’ emotions. I went to my general physician for a mental health recommendation, and was seen 5 months later (hooray for the US mental healthcare system!), and medicated for bipolar 1 the month after that. So 9 months riding the sober bipolar 1 train, and boy I was a mess.
It’s been 3.5 years now since I stopped drinking, a couple months away from 3 years medicated, and I feel like my meds are right. Which is good. I know for a fact I can never drink again. And now that I know part of the reason behind my drinking issues, I can make sure I don’t feed the fire.
Therapy has helped, and cognitive behavioral therapy has helped with my ‘all or nothing’ thinking and negativity. I recommend every one do some cognitive behavioral therapy.
Anyway. I am so happy you decided to seek help. Getting on top of it will help improve your life, for sure.
Thank you for this. I really appreciate it. It always provides me more hope when someone with similar struggles has found a way to deal with it. 3.5 years is amazing.
I was fortunate enough to get in for an evaluation in just a couple weeks time. Therapy and medication started right afterwards. I just started my third week of a mood stabilizer and I’m slowly upping the dosage. So far, no negative side effects. Nine months is wild! I can’t imagine being able to make it that long.
I was diagnosed with Bipolar 2. I have milder bouts of hypomania, but the swings of depression are brutal. It’s been expensive, because I don’t have insurance for another 5 weeks, but I didn’t want to risk waiting 2 months to get started and I had some awesome folks on this site reinforce the idea to not wait. Hard to put a price tag on my health.
My therapist recommended DBT. The clinic she’s at though does a program for 6 weeks where you go 3 days a week for 2 hours in the middle of the day. I just started my job 3 weeks ago, so I can’t swing the time off. Maybe I can see what other facilities offer a program, with a schedule I can work with.
I know I can’t drink. I haven’t fooled myself into thinking I can drink safely for a long time. I feeling optimistic that this added help, coupled with what’s helped in the past, will get me past the “Fuck it, Nothing Matters” mindset I have fallen into in the past.
My husband’s boss ended up getting insurance for us a few months after I was diagnosed, because the bills were insane. I was thankful he saw my struggle, and helped us out.
Go to Costco for your meds, if you can. You do not need a membership to get your medication there, and my $400 medication at other pharmacies was $14. I cried when the pharmacist told me it would only be $14.
I didn’t even think about Costco! My wife and I go there all the time anyway.
Thanks for the pro tip, for my next refill.
Thankfully it’s only a little over a month until I’ll have coverage through work. The cost to add me to my wife’s insurance was more than what I’ve paid for the actual services.
Today was awesome and so simple. We woke up at 4:30 to drive 40 minutes to my In-Laws house. My FIL and I, went for an early morning bike ride to beat the heat. Then my wife and I, helped them pack up their kitchen and clean, since they’re having painters come in to paint all their cabinets tomorrow. My MIL has MS so it’s challenging for her to do a lot of that work on her own. She will do it. But it takes a big toll on her. That consumed the whole day and it was literally the only two things I focused on. Enjoying the ride and enjoying my visit with them.
My FIL and I have a really good relationship. At the beginning, we quickly bonded over running and racing. Then he introduced me to road cycling. He’s one of my best friends. We hadn’t gone riding together in a while and I’ve been pretty absent in our relationship over the last few months. It was great to have quality time with him. He’s always supported my recovery and he has actually been encouraging me to get some help for quite awhile.
It was just a good day and I think it’s important for me to stop and appreciate it. To take a beat, and notice the good. Today doesn’t happen without sobriety.
My mum had ms. It was hard to watch someone so active struggle to do what she wanted. She was determined too, not even a progressive disease (she had ppms) would stop her shopping and gardening .
Sounds familiar. Most people probably wouldn’t realize she has it. I even forget sometimes. She hides it pretty well and has a hard time accepting help. We’ve learned to just insist on her allowing us to help and she finally accepts. At the same time, I want to respect that she doesn’t want to be treated like she’s incapable.
gotta love yourself and be good to yourself 
you are getting there.
here to help.
But it takes a big toll on her. That consumed the whole day and it was literally the only two things I focused on. Enjoying the ride and enjoying my visit with them.
