Jump to content

Alcoholism


Step8

Recommended Posts

This forum is supported by the 12ozProphet Shop, so go buy a shirt and help support!
This forum is brought to you by the 12ozProphet Shop.
This forum is brought to you by the 12oz Shop.

That is a pretty funny story.

 

I'm out now, back on the farm. Wondering if anyone has experience with long term rehabilitation places? Talking like four months off the grid.

 

I'M SO FUCKING BORED. The boredom is insane. I'm just driving around and my stupid V8 uses soooo much fuel. For reference I pay around $7/gallon for 'gas'.

 

Might go watch some cricket.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've been to basic training which was about 6 months and a 12 month deployment that was broken in the middle by two weeks.

 

Basic was fine because we were kept busy all the time. Deployment sucked because there were a handful of times where we were bored as fuck. Keeping busy and away from boredom is key in that fight, imo

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That is a pretty funny story.

 

I'm out now, back on the farm. Wondering if anyone has experience with long term rehabilitation places? Talking like four months off the grid.

 

I'M SO FUCKING BORED. The boredom is insane. I'm just driving around and my stupid V8 uses soooo much fuel. For reference I pay around $7/gallon for 'gas'.

 

Might go watch some cricket.

 

welcome back pro.

i hope a hospital's as bad as it gets for you, and it gets better from here.

 

i couldn't afford a long-term inpatient rehab, so it just wasn't an option. if you can swing it, it seems like it could be interesting. especially if you've tried this a few times. might be more intense; something might stick that hasn't yet. i wondered about the whole "return to society" part, when you have to do a lot of it yourself (or with a support group). my logic was always that i'll need to learn to stay sober in the real world anyways, right? like rehab is lovely but i can't live there forever, you know? that made it easier to go to aa when i was brand new.

 

i stay sober with 12step meetings and decent people around me and a life that has kind of come together even though i'm not the most active participant at times. i paint and take photos and read and write, a lot. it is a good substitute and often gives me things to talk to people about. painting keeps my self-destructive streak at bay too. my old priorities were drinking and sex and other pleasures, which was dumb and expensive, and also too reliant on others. with painting and writing and other creative outlets i'm still out/around other creative types but competing with myself more than anyone else. it's very gratifying to compete with yourself, you always have home court. or something.

 

maybe some of that makes sense. i bike, too. and exercise makes you tired, which is usually not when i wanted a drink. i don't know what "runner's high" is but i feel free-er and more awake when i'm on a bike and afterward, too.

 

anyway.

 

i came to share here that i lost two people to suicide in the last week. one was a crewmate and one was a cousin.

 

my crewmate's death hasn't even hit yet. he was one of the happier people i ever met, a goofball with a big smile who loved graffiti and cracking jokes. i guess there was something behind that smile but i never saw it. friends are saying it's depression, or something, i don't know. it's so unexpected that i guess i still don't really believe it.

 

my cousin committed suicide on saturday, around dinnertime. he had bounced in and out of sobriety for 3-4 years, and was definitely an alcoholic. had burned most bridges in my family; drained his parents' savings and retirement accounts on years of rehabs. just really, really didn't want to stop drinking 'cause sobriety sucked even though drinking hurt worse sometimes. (i'm patching this together from years of relayed phone conversations, especially once i got sober and my mom could watch her nephew and her son fight the same thing.) saturday, he called his mom (my aunt) and told her he loved her and asked her to make sure his dog got taken care of.

 

my reactions have been all over the place, there's a lot to sort through.

 

one thing scaring the shit out of me is that each person has different things in common with me. i get depressed sometimes, i'm an alcoholic, i hate life sometimes, i'm capable of just as much damage as these two, so why am i still alive? is it my program? is it my connections? what did i do to survive where these two didn't? these deaths are an unwelcome reminder of my own story, which almost ended similarly. i woke up in the hospital after my last night drinking with a .43 BAC. i was ruled legally dead. i'll never forget the looks on my parents' faces when i woke up in the ER. i saw those faces again on saturday when we got the phone call about my cousin. the speechless & paralyzing clench of something that's utterly out of your control. this disease (alcoholism and related -isms) kills, and it scars the people around us as we go down. my attention to sobriety/a program keeps me alive and away from something i want but that'll take my life without remorse.

 

sobriety is worth it and i've never been more convinced of the need for it in my life. if you (pro or anyone) want help, i hope you find what you need.

rest in peace to D and J.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...
  • 3 weeks later...

When I can smoke weed I barely drink. When I take a hiatus I start drinking like a fish, almost everyday now. It's more mental than physical.

My body never really begs me for a drink, but I think several different ways that eventually convince me to go get a bottle or a 6 pack.

 

I wish everyone success in their battle with these urges, it's a hard time of year when it's so fucking cold and little else to do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Checking in. Shit, it's been quite some time. The last couple of years have been tough. I started taking a xanax once a week for a conference call at work, within a year i was taking them everyday. Thought i would throw in opiates for a little fun too and bam! right back to where i was in late 2007 after almost 4 years sober. I stopped going to meetings, and doing all the things others suggested i do and my sobriety took a backseat. I had to go out of state to detox because no treatment center in my state would detox me from the amount of methadone i was on ( had to get to 30-40 mgs, no way in hell i could taper down to a dose that low.) The detox was by far the hardest and longest i have ever gone through. My 50 days in Central Michigan are a blur now, but coming off a high dose daily methadone, klonopin, and ambien habit was a living nightmare. I'll spare the war stories. I'm grateful to have my wife back, my job still intact, and most importantly my health. The PAWS are still in full affect, but I'm grateful to be able to finally now to get a full nights sleep after almost 8 months. On the 16th, i will be 8 months clean and sober thanks to AA/NA and for that I'm truly grateful.

 

RIP UGENE.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Have a bit over a year sober now, went from xanax/roxis/meth everyday for 3 years to drinking everyday, to getting back to xanax, but in high quantities. Overdosed for the first time last October, and it was just a shit show from that point, OD'ing every few weeks, everything just fucking sucked, I was ready to die. Wound up getting sent away to a few rehabs and psych wards and got my shit together on January 28, 2015, been hitting meetings everyday still, trying to keep myself relatively sane. I do that by going to meetings, talking to people in the rooms, and writing, writing relieves me of my apathy and anger, and the rest keeps me from wanting to die, or get high.

 

 

Lost my boy Devin a couple weeks back while I was in LV, this shit isn't a joke, he had been sober and just went back for "one last time" and it really was his last, rest in power brother, everyone else keep fighting this shit.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

RIP pitofzombies

 

Don't know any details and wouldn't post them if I did. But he was a contributor to this thread and I figured you guys might care. I remember multiple times where he said this was the most important thread on the entire site so it felt right to post it here instead of making a thread.

 

Wish we chilled while I was in PDX Quincy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Keep it up. Eventually the cravings completely stop. With some people it takes months, others take years but they do stop.

 

Yea man, Im pretty lucky, the craving went away after like 3 months, and its just been kinda sporadic, no real intense cravings now, still get drug dreams every few months or whatever but no real internal pressure to use.

 

RIP pitofzombies

 

Don't know any details and wouldn't post them if I did. But he was a contributor to this thread and I figured you guys might care. I remember multiple times where he said this was the most important thread on the entire site so it felt right to post it here instead of making a thread.

 

Wish we chilled while I was in PDX Quincy.

 

RIP, didn't know him but its always a strong and harsh reminder of how fucked up this disease is; we are losing soldiers everyday.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...