I’ve beaten alcoholism and have been sober from alcohol for a bit over 4 years now, in part with the help of the sober time app and reading through this community.
Lately, i’ve had a stressfull time, with old social anxietys rearing their ugly heads, and things are starting to feel earily similar to 4 years ago. Although I have not returned to drink I have noticed myself more and more follow similar actions in regards to isolating myself in gaming and binging on series/food, in general just searching for escapism. More and more, I once again eschew social responsibilities and isolate myself from my social contacts by either lying or simply not responding to them, just so I can dive my head back down into the escapism, straining those relations in the process.
These patterns and the fact that I appear to simply have replaced one addiction/coping mechanis with another, scare me greatly. And so I was wondering how people here dealt with the risk of finding other addictions after beating your main one, and if there’s some advice to keep things on the rails better in regards to preventing my own addictive cycles?
Idk, this is my first post and I hope I placed it in the right forum! Just typing this did help a bit with my mindset :).
I think this is a great question and one that applies to lots of people in recovery. Sobriety isn’t a destination, it requires constant vigilance and work. I know I have been in that situation of ‘slipping’ (not drinking, but indulging in poor coping mechanisms) several times, and I am sure I will again.
I go back to basics. I got sober via AA, so I might go to meetings again, start doing the 10th step more diligently, start posting on the gratitude thread again.
I usually find some concerted recovery work gets me ferling more on track again
I am autistic and can’t seem to cope with any form of confrontation, anytime I would get back a negative result from uni, having to tell anyone would send me spiraling. I’ve been working on it but still find that any and all social interactions have me always stressing and fearing I might do something wrong. In the past, if I committed a (perceived) faux pas, I would run and hide/cut ties. I still work hard, with mental exercises and through therapy, to lower the amount of stress I get from any interactions I percieve as confrontational (which flows into any interaction seeing as stepping on someones toes or (aciddentally) offending someone will also lead down that road). Luckily/sadly, social interactions are part of life, and so is offending/confronting someone. Although they have become less severe in the past 4 years, the stress spirals that push me toward escapism and the intoxication of my own mind just to get rid of that overwhelming, debilitating and even paralyzing feeling of stress and fear, will always remain. At least at some level.
Might have overshared a bit, if so I do apologize. Typing these things out and posting them does help with clearing the mind of the stressfull fog and thinking over these words from a distance is a nice distraction.
I sort of felt like this a few months ago actually. I think part of me wanted a break from how hard I had gone on my recovery journey. Tons of meetings, commitments, being in an IOP, and I started a new job in October of last year so it was a lot. I realized I still needed to stay connected more so I started going back to using this app and staying in contact with other alcholics on a mor consistent basis aside from my sponsor. Since then I’ve felt better even though social anxiety will still pop up and sometimes my mind will try to push against it. I remember that doing the things that seem hard is where the growth is. That’s my advice though. If you had a good routine that helped you stay connected and you got away from it then go back to it. If you didn’t have much of one then I’d make a commitment to yourself to just take some steps toward it. Make one post on here a day or text/call another sober addict/alcoholic you know
Try a meeting meet new likeminded people who will understand were you are now get phone numbers interact with people will give you more confidence im sure wish you well
to the first two questions, I’ve never heard of the term rejection sensitivity dysmorphia, up untill know it’s been simply about overthinking social scenarios and always asuming the worst, but who knows it might be worthwile to take a look at that.
To the third question, yes I do have a safe social circle with a few friends that know about my diagnosis/background and are okay/supportive when I tell them that I can’t cope and have to ditch an evening or go home earlier when I meet them.
to the fourth question, yes, a few months ago I’ve bought a set of green magnetic balls with different textures on them (like bumbs and carved out lines etc), playing with them does help when in conversation.
Thanks in general for the thoughts, the diagnosis is quite a recent one, before that I was always just troublesome, awkward and socially inept, so still dealing with learning how to cope know that I know the roots :).
I had an ADD diagnosis at an earlier age, but the rest of the problems went mostly unnoticed since I have the luck of a keen mind and was quite adept at mimicing expected social behavior. It was only after I finished high school, when people suddenly expect a lot more from you and you gain a greater level of independence, personal initiative and responsibility, that all the cracks started to show and eventually break. It was those cracks combined with the great ‘boon’ of corona and lockdown that drove me into the cycle of alcoholism and the eventual diagnosis that I was autistic.
I’ve never heard of RAD before but it all sounds like things at least worth exploring in my own therapy, thank you!
Thanks! this conversation has helped with venting and given me some new insights that might be worth considering. Looked up RSD and I could tick of every box x10, now ofcourse one can’t self diagnose but these and other aspects are definetly things im going to focus on more going ahead. My brain might win a battle here and there in regards to addiction, but I damn well am going to make sure to win the war.
One of the very good things to come out of the global pandemic was the rise of online AA meetings. These work well for me those times when I get overcommitted or overbooked. When I become aware that my thinking about sobriety is drifting into complacency, a meeting in person or online is a reliable fix for that. In online meetings, many of them allow you to join using the passcode they publish, keep camera and audio off, and just watch and listen. That experience is very similar, for me, to attending a large in-person meeting and staying quiet the whole time.
If you are slowly slipping, a great way to reverse it before it becomes a slide is to attend an AA meeting. This has been true for me during my whole sobriety.
Hello friend you never ever beat alcoholism you just get a daily reprieve. We have to work as hard as when we first stopped maybe harder. The good thing is you are aware of what you are feeling and what is happening. Its a real blessing you are sober go back to the first step and start again and remember what life was like when you where drinking. This sober life is non negotiable as who wants to go bad to the hell we lived when drinking. I personally never stop doing the steps my spiritual health is everything. I lost everything to alcohol I have to be mindful it doesn’t happen again. Good luck x