Searching for purpose

To say that I’ve felt overwhelmed lately in aspects regarding my personal and professional life along with the idea of never drinking or using opiates again would be quite an understatement. I feel as if I’m constricting from the pressure all around me. It’s as if I’ve been shrinking over the last week as my confidence and energy has diminished from the stress I feel to find purpose and meaning. I long for someone to share my life with. For the first time I feel stable and mature enough to be in a healthy, lasting relationship, but I am so terrified of rejection and honestly have never been great with women especially when it comes to breaking the ice that I can’t bring myself to even make an attempt to ask a woman out. Every night I fall asleep feeling that although I made it through another day without drinking I have not found any more peace than I had while drinking myself unconscious on a nightly basis. In fact now that I am clear headed I feel much more tormented by life as I can longer escape the recollection of my past. I was blessed with an above average intellect, with decent looks, with athleticism and with an empathetic nature. I not just took for granted and squandered the opportunities that those traits in a person create, but I was selfish, apathetic, and cowardly to the point the only comfort and solace I could find was in dulling the very gifts I was afforded at birth. I could easily have made the world a better place for so many others, yet as my best years pass on by I’m struggling daily just to stay sober so I done create anymore carnage in the lives of the people unfortunate enough to be close to me. I have had the urge to drink or use fentanyl constantly the last week. To escape into the dillusion that my life hasn’t been a complete waste, that others are to blame, and to feel any sort of contentment even if that is induced by chemicals creating an artificial bliss that may be brief and fleeting. I miss my career. I miss being in the kitchen. Not just in regards to the pride that I feel from doing something well on a daily basis, but feeling as if I’m part of a family. I know I am wasting an immense amount of talent that many others in my industry would love to have, yet I also know that if I begin cooking again the likelihood of my drinking drastically increases and the dream I have shared previously of going back to school to try and play basketball dies with that decision. I have no idea what to do.

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Aww man @DancinHomer4 i feel your torment in your words. It sounds so uncomfortable and hopeless and while our stories may not be the same i can relate to that low low low feeling. Do you have a recovery community? Ive found comfort on these threads and in the room of aa. Maybe that could help lift you up and take you out of your sorrow. Just dont pickup. You pick up theres zero chance of a brighter future and you puting your assets to work. Dont let the addict voice in you pull you back in with regrets and worries. Its not worth it. Stick with us my friend