the crying game...

[northamericancitizen]

I am not sober while writing this. First time drunk in almost 3 months.

so be indulgent cause I have an other excuse, english is my second language.


I sneaked in last summer, just after my 4th detox for al cool and 3r one for gambling.

Did not post. Just skeamed the surface of what this group felt like.

Now today nov 11 2005 I am getting drunk cause i can,t fucking sleep. going on 36 hours.

it pisses me of.

i can go true family problems, or get stoned on free base without drinking and today i had beers cause i could not sleep.............


the fucking beast is alcohol.
after gambling.
for me anyway.

Mind you, i am proud to say that I did not put 1 dollar in a machine for the last month.


When i saw the dutch guy name and A shwartz something i felt that the timing was good to check in. So fucking what if I am not sober when I write this.
____________________________________________________________________
I know, I did it too: tell a friend that you will not continue the conversation while he or she is intoxicated. Been there done that.


Anyway, one of the things I learned in the last detox was that if you show up drunk, stoned or even mildly intoxicated : you are showing disrespect for the other's sobriety, efforts and so on.


I don,t want to show any disrespect to anyone, I am just struggling to find a way back to myself. In my book this is the only way to sobriety.

enough rationalization for tonight.


Please, send me good vibes. I'm on my way.

[KitchenWitch]

1. You are welcome here.

You may want to find some support in real life (not just online). I am sorry you are struggling right now, but please know that people care about you.

[Autonomy]

2. Hi all, first-time post in this group

I just wanted to say that there's only one requirements for membership in 12-step groups: the desire to stop drinking/using. Being sober is not a precondition of attending meetings. Sometimes people show up intoxicated. I have a few times. That said, I personally don't think it did much good to show up intoxicated. However, for years showed up at meetings in between binges. Some will say that does no good either, and that I should have stayed out and 'hit my bottom'. IMO, those are people willing to take chances with my life. I think it did me good to keep coming back even when I couldn't get more than a few weeks sober.

[NMDemDist2]

3. agreed!

thanks for posting

[Joe Chi Minh]

4. I think that kind of perseverance (which may not seem that

rational at the time), is a sign of deep-rooted hope, and when you have hope, your potential for happiness, for everything good is limitless, because it goes with faith and love - the other theological virtues. I don't necesarily mean a conscious, formal religious faith, but a potential for self-giving, which is the real purpose of the lives of every one of us.

When sufferings are lived through and the person comes out the other side, in a strange way his/her life has been enriched in a way that you couldn't put a price on.

[northamericancitizen]

6. Thanks for sharing...knowledge

If you check out the date you will see I did not visit this group for a long time.

Been thinking and experimenting (quite different than experiencing)about induced emotional state and natural ones.

The jury is still listening to the arguments presented by both sides.

It can go either way, still. And I am beginning to think that's the way it should and will be mine till I check out. Who knows?

Coming back to your message, KCabotDullesMarxIII, you wrote about 3 fundemental values: HOPE, FAITH, LOVE, and reading it I realised that I had it all figured out without aligning them (values)in a sentence, the way you did.

Those 3 are the only values I would die for.


lol

Who, in her right mind, would say that she would die for the survival of HOPE?

I know I would.



O.K. now, what's all of this has anything to do with being sober or struglling to get there?

Like I wrote somewhere above, the jury is still arguing about it. In the mean time I am living my life.

lise

[Justpat]

5. Please check back and let us know how you are doing.

[northamericancitizen]

7. checking in.. again

``When sufferings are lived through and the person comes out the other side, in a strange way his/her life has been enriched in a way that you couldn't put a price on.``

This quote from ... (can't remember her/his name, a few post above anyway,)
brought tears to my eyes, I find the price to pay to enriched my life (soul) is as hard as the first time, even with the deep knowledge I integrated each time I went to rehab or stop using by myself.


I decided about 10 days ago to walk the path leading to sobriety. Again.
How many times will I have to do it..

In a way it's only a rethorical question.

I know about the pleasures and enhanced sensations I can experiment under the influence of alcool or drugs, I know also about the consequences (money, self equilibrium, pain in my son's eyes, etc.)

This time thou I have a different motivation. I want to keep my appartment, and I will not be able to do so if I continue to drink (which often leads me to a video poker machine)

More an other day

lise

thanks to all of you, friends.

[swimboy]

8. Hello, my friend!

I wish you well in meeting your goals. :hug:

[northamericancitizen]

10. Thanks swimboy, It's still bumby but I keep on going...nt

[demosincebirth]

9. Maybe you ought to try walking into an AA meeting.

You might find someone there just like you.

[ismnotwasm]

11. Sometimes I wonder

If after sustained use of alcohol or drugs, our pleasure/pain pathways get twisted in some way. I know our brain chemistry is affected. I remember the euphoria of heroin, the rush of cocaine, the feeling of power with methamphetamine, the insights of mescaline or acid, and always, always, the solace and comfort of alcohol.

With alcohol, it didn't matter, you know? I could experience something negative, and something inside me knew that the next drink would take the memory away. The sickness of alcoholism, physical, mental, soul, I had it bad.

All that stuff began to HURT after I while, but I didn't know it, I still perceived it as pleasure. So I didn't have a slow awakening, it was rude and hard, painful, humiliating. And completely terrifying.

I wish you well. Something I heard when I was newly sober always stuck with me and now I can relate to it--If I could open my heart, and Give away how I feel about myself and my life, compared to 16 years ago when I took my last drink, I would. I can only describe it in inadequate words.

Life continues to be life, of course, but how I experience life-- good and bad-- has a depth that I never imagined. It beats out all those old pleasures. Who'd have ever thought that merely living life itself is the ultimate high?

[northamericancitizen]

12. Thank you , ismnotwasm

``and always, always, the solace and comfort of alcohol.``

I can relate to those words. More precisely I WAS using alcool as a pain killer.

Pain of feeling, everything, all the time.

Till the pain becames more acute with alcool.

I have been sober for the last 6 days.

lise

[NMDemDist2]

13. excellent news lise! one day at a time

:hug:

[northamericancitizen]

14. Am I allowed to reply to myself?

Silly question I know. I just wanted to find a silly title. Well, it's also kind of an introduction.

I want to link part of my OP with my thoughts this morning.

from the OP: I am just struggling to find a way back to myself.
In my book this is the only way to sobriety.




Free thinking after being awake for more than 24 hours. (by choice)

july 28, today

1995

or 2006

or last year when I came out of rehab?



Have mercy. Please
give me back my tender soul
my endless summers...

_________________________________________________________________

LZUT is speaking!

Wow

Finally she is back,

she's been gone for 38 years.

In march 19... I wrote a letter to the part of me that was always getting in trouble.
I named her LZUT

Told her to shove off.

Disappear and good riddance!

I was 15 years old.

I did not know (yet) the strength of my determination... I succeeded in splitting myself.

Once in a while I felt some traces of her here and there in my self.


I still have that letter.
_________________________________________________________

I started drinking at 16, I am 53 and .......
And what?

Get off your high horse Lise and Lzut too. You are or I should say we are just an other bruised teen who turned the wrong corner.

Took all kinds of roads, most of them leading further away from myself.

God did I learned to do U Turns.
_________________________________________________________
Quoting from the OP: I'm on my way.


P.S. Thank you guys for making this forum a tender place to land. I know that most of my Free Flowing thoughts makes sense only to me.
I needed to share this special moment.

I thought this place was the right place cause the source of my recovery is and will continue to come from .. with ...ah, nothing, forget it.

I don't know and I don't want to know and I will keep on repeating to myself that
IT'S NOT IMPORTANT WHERE IT'S COMING FROM JUST KEEP ON OPENING UP AND KEEP ON MOVING.

LOL A rather long P.S. Be indulgent. I feel much lighter after writing this.



I will not drink today.

lise (and Lzut)

[SPKrazy]

15. That's Interesting

I remember writing a letter to my drunken self on more than one occasion when I was trying to sober up.

I also have used writing to write to the part of myself, I haven't named it, my "addict" who is a part of me. He likes to mess with my head, tell me it's okay to feel sorry for myself, etc.

I am realizing recently how much he has been in charge of my actions lately. I am facing a lot of changes and have been talking with people in recovery about my life.

The most interesting thing is that I may have gotten the best feedback from a DU'er that.. well never mind that part... told me that I was immature. I resented it. Yet lately to be honest, all of the things that have "burned me up" so to speak, have been problems of my own making. Responsibilities that I've avoided and chose to focus on feeling "stressed" and on a self pity trip, and being quite frankly irresponsible and immature. I'm not going to beat myself up for this, but rather this awareness came to me driving down the road yesterday and it struck me that I have a lot to do, and I don't have the luxury of feeling sorry for myself in the process, or I will lose things that I value like my job, etc.

So, I'm reminded a bit of the story of the sparrow and the cowshit. The moral of that story is that not everyone who tries to help you is your friend, and not everyone that shits on you is your enemy.

Here's to feeling like someone shit on me, only to find that they actually gave me some of the best feedback I've received in months. Go figure.



:grouphug:

[NMDemDist2]

16. there is a reason we hear so often in the rooms

"More will be revealed"

:hug:

what's great about this now, is you have the tools to start to change what is troublesome in your life today

[SPKrazy]

17. I Do Have The Tools

and more has been revealed.

It's just not always from the places I have thought or wanted them to be revealed from.

Life on life's terms!

:hug: thanks

[northamericancitizen]

18. Exactly a year later...same channel, same time or almost.

Some major improvement:

I don't play the Video poker machine as much: I can pay the rent, phone and electricity bill by myself.

To get rid of my 6 years roommate was a big + . He is still a pathological gambler. He doesn't mind doing bottles runs to pay for his cigarettes.

For those who don't know, doing bottles run is to accept to walk for 8 to 12 hours picking up cans and bottles so you can pay your cig. or any other basic needs you did not cover with your monthly check.



In the last 12 months I also got rid of my part time lover.
He is the one who introduced the white smoke to me 2 years ago. (Freebase: cooked cocaine).

I still keep him around for when I need to escape the sense of doommness we all share on this board.

So... not clean yet but more in control of my multiple dependancies.

I know that it's quite dangerous to rely on a partial control of whatever is killing us.

Well,

Lets make a rendez-vous for next year on july 28 th.

lise
northamericancitizen (DU handle)
Integrator (SU handle)

[FloridaJudy]

19. Don't wait til July 28, 2008

It's good you got rid of the people who were helping you stay drunk/high. Now, find a group in "real life" that will help stick to your resolve to do better.

You can keep coming back here as well. We'll try to help you, and certainly want to know how it goes for you.

[Kajsa]

20. Lise, as the saying goes,

" AA (NA) doesn't ask much, just that you change your whole life"

Yeah, it's a tall order, alright. But for me that's what it took to get
sober people in my life and build it up around sobriety.

My old friends fell into two categories,

A- True friends, who were relieved to see I wasn't going to kill myself
drinking and using.

B- Not friends, who were threatened by my sobriety because it took away
a drinking buddy and made them uncomfortable looking at their own
addictions.

Stick with the A group.

And please check back sooner, and let us know how you are doing.