Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Day 8 (Go to AA or Not Go to AA?)







i still feel totally wiped out most of the time. i get plenty of sleep, so i don't know why my energy level is so messed up. it's really weird. i was more active when i was still drinking. i can remember waking up after midnight, and dashing to the liquor store
before it closed. i did this on a regular basis. panic. i could only relax when i knew there was plenty of cold beer in my fridge.

i know depression can make a person feel tired all the time, so maybe that's the reason. and the booze was like a shot of artificial energy? i don't know. i still remember all the bad things about drinking:

puking my guts out at 5 a.m.

not paying my bills on time.

avoiding the shower (and mirror).

wasting money.

collecting hundreds of empty bottles.

never having anything to eat in the house.

falling down.

wanting to die.

a couple of bloggers have asked me if i'd given any thought to joining aa? yeah, i've gone to lots of meetings. and because of my social anxiety disorder, it took a lot of effort on my part. just being in a group totally freaks me out. so after 2-4 weeks of sobriety (and going to meetings), i'd relapse big time.

i've had 3 sponsors, and they all told me the same thing: if you stop going to meetings, you'll just start drinking again. yet going to meetings always made me want to run to the liquor store as soon as i managed to escape.

so far, the only thing that has worked for me is therapy and meds. last year, i actually stayed sober for 6 months. the big mistake i made was to stop taking the meds. there were a lot of nasty side effects (couldn't sleep, shaking hands, always felt like i was gonna throw up, agitation big time, etc.). but now i see this as the lesser of 2 evils. being a drunk is a million times worse than enduring a few nasty side effects from psych meds. so i'm gonna give therapy (and meds) another try.

i know aa has worked for a lot of people, and i'm glad about that. hell, even my favorite film critic (roger ebert) went to meetings on a regular basis (he mentioned this in his last published book). but it just didn't work for me.

 i have to deal with major depression, anxiety, and ocd on a daily basis. i have a sickness, and what does somebody do when he/she is ill? you go to a doctor (therapist). you take your medicine (psych meds). you watch your diet, and take your vitamins. you do your best to avoid stress. you try to be nice to yourself (and others). you pray, meditate, listen to beethoven - anything that will help you to feel like you are in a safe place.

you don't drink.

man, i'm totally looking forward to my appointment (with new therapist) on thursday.

6 comments:

  1. hey, thanks! i didn't know there was such a thing. just got back from my first therapy appointment. the therapist is really cool, so i feel a lot less grim about everything. plus i'm finally back on meds. therapist told me it might take a month before my mood gets better, so it would be awesome to talk with an aa member or 2 on the phone. you totally rock!

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  2. Lurking, Hoping to see a new post from you!

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  3. Hey again. Yeah, don't worry about the AA thing. The program has helped me a lot, so it's the standard thing I go to when I hear the someone is in recovery from addiction. But often I need reminding that there's a much broader spectrum of people than just those that feel at home in AA. I went to a meeting today, and I was feeling way off. I usually go with my sponsor, but he wasn't there, and the crowd of people I usually hang out with after meetings wasn't there. So I felt like I was on the fringes, and happened to be in a paranoid mood, I thought this woman was looking at me weird, like, glaring, for no reason I could think of, but then I started obsessively running through the reasons why she might be glaring at me, just inventing a shitload of reasons and proceeding to worry about them... And thinking people were whispering about me, talking shit about me behind my back. I'm not normally like that, thank God, but every so often, when I'm off, mentally, I think I catch a glimpse of what people with more severe anxieties and neuroses must deal with on a daily basis, and I can appreciate that it might be horribly debilitating.

    So I can imagine how meetings could do more harm than good to a certain type of person. It's not unheard of to have a sponsor but avoid meetings, the one-on-one thing with someone you trust, that you get from a good sponsor, can sometimes be the most important thing, the foundation of a good recovery. I've had a couple great sponsors, and they were always the main thing for me, keeping me sober, but I've also had to go to meetings. But that's just me.

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    1. There are always "vibes" going on between people, whether one-on-one or in groups --- the less sensitive or more determined invent superficial structures for dealing with this, as in: "Hi, how are ya?", the overtness of which tends to dissipate the weirdness. The more sensitive freak out about all of the "vibes" floating around! :)

      I think the truth is... other people are looking and judging all of the time! :) This is just a fact that's NEVER going to stop. The same way you look at people, people are looking at you. Some are able to develop thicker skins against this, and some are not. I think as you grow older, you become more and more used to it as a fact of life and stop thinking of the judgments as a personal psychic wound.

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  4. re: hector the crow's comment about the aa thing..... hey, sorry it took so long for me to reply. i'm still adjusting to the meds, so it seems like my life is in slow motion or something. what i used to be able to do in 5 minutes, now seems to take forever. hopefully this weird side effect won't last much longer.

    yeah, your recent experience at aa was pretty close to how i felt when i was still going to meetings. plus it felt like i couldn't breathe. i would just sit in my chair, and look down at my shoes. i could hear people sharing their stories, but i couldn't see their faces. that was the only way i could remain in the room for an hour (which seemed like an eternity).

    when i'd look up all of a sudden, i'd often see a few people staring at me. i felt totally strange, and couldn't wait for the meeting to end. i am gonna give aa another go (on the phone), but i think i better wait until i've been dry at least 30 days. it would be a really big mistake for me to take on too much too soon. that always makes me want to drink, and i'm determined to stay sober big time.

    thanks for all the awesome support. there's a lot of really cool people here, and i'm much more optimistic about the future. i'm grateful for another chance. that last relapse was a total nightmare.

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