Archive for the ‘Extremes’ tag
Mind over matter
That is how I?ve felt for a long time; it's how I?ve approached many opportunities in my life. I guess its a form of positive thinking or arrogance I?m not sure, my only other belief is too avoid extremes at all costs it always leaves too few answers. 3 months ago I decided to stop drinking for good, I have always had trouble sleeping and the first 2 weeks where hell in that respect. After that though things fell back into place pretty easily sleep came fast and was satisfying, especially with not having to worry about how bad my hangover would be the next day. As of late though I have been coming home from work and sleeping for 2-3 hours then waking to make dinner and watch TV, the first couple times I thought it was normal as I do lead a more active life now than ever before but it seems to be getting worse. I guess my question is when do the affects of a decade of alcoholism wear off; I expected some physical effects initially but 3 months in. I know the mental aspect will take patience and time to overcome but how long will my physical withdrawal symptoms last?
Overcoming defects of character
I recently celebrated 3 yrs sober, and it felt good, but I am still unhappy that I suffer from certain character defects. I easily get a negative outlook on life and just wish for the instant feeling of good I got from booze/drugs. I have had a lot of extremes in life, more than other people in recovery I know. I did a lot of narcotics, got a lot of money without working for it early in life, and sex was the same. I don't like journeys, I just like destinations. I have difficulty in life not seeing it in these terms (black and white, all or nothing, sex/booze/money/status), and I often live my life just wanting to escape or find a means to escape. This makes me more selfish than I would like. I notice most people in general are very selfish.... most people in aa are still selfish to some degree, and the people who I see as less selfish are only selfless IF they think it will benefit them. I am like that, but more extreme. I feel like it will take a lifetime to undue the damage I did to myself (if it is possible). Getting sober and getting a job is easy, overcoming this stuff feels almost impossible. All I can manage to do is pray about it, do my readings, and try not to commit the selfish acts that have ruined me and my attitude/approach to life (or at least ones that are obvious to me). I am only now starting to accept myself a little more for who I am, so I am only beginning to accept others a little more too and want to be a part of their lives.
Hi, I’m new here (long)
I'm 30 years old and I've been married to a functional alcoholic for ten years. We have 4 children together - they're 9, 7, 4, and 9 months. I'm a stay-at-home mom and my husband works for a furniture delivery company.
I grew up in an alcohol-free house. My mom is extremely religious and believed alcohol (like rock music and pg movies) was evil. The only time I ever saw anyone drink was when we'd go to my dad's family's for holidays. They were all alcoholics and drank like fish. So I thought there were only two extremes and had no role modeling for moderate drinking. My father was a recovering alcoholic. As far as I know he never drank but he was extremely abusive to me. My mother homeschooled me even through high school, we lived in the middle of nowhere, and I was really sheltered.
I met my husband in my first year of college when I was 18 and he was 21. At that point I'd only tried drinking a handful of times at parties. We were at a christian college which banned all alcohol, cigarettes, etc. AH started buying a six pack for us to share almost every night. We would sneak it out to a field and lie out there drinking and talking for hours.
When summer came I moved across the country with him to his home state. At this point nearly every date had centered around alcohol. I assumed that was how normal people did things. My husband was increasingly controlling - I had no access to money, the car, etc. We continued to get drunk in our own apartment every night up until I found out I was pregnant. Beer smell was my worst morning sickness trigger and even now I can't smell it without feeling like I'm going to puke.
My husband drank through my pregnancy and I didn't. Watching him, I saw how he drank more than others and become embarrassed at his behavior. After the baby was born I was soon forced into being the sober, responsible one. He saw no reason we had to be sober to watch the baby so I had to.
Three years later we had another baby. His drinking had increased a lot - a new 12 pack every night - and he started becoming angry with me for little things. He would drive us drunk and refused to let me drive. If he was angry he would drive recklessly to scare me. After he punched a hole in the wall next to my head I left.
Two days later he had talked me into coming back. I wanted counseling and no alcohol. He wanted to cut back on drinking with a promise to try counseling later if we needed it. He won. I did do one good thing in taking control of our finances so I wouldn't be begging for candy bar money anymore.
I'm sure you know how it went. He promised to stick to one 12pack a week. Pretty soon I got suspicious and started marking his cans. He was keeping another case in his trunk and sneaking new ones into the refrigerator. When confronted he outright lied and tried to convince me I was crazy. Eventually I burned out on fighting it and decided to ignore it.
So now it's been 7 years and 2 kids since then. He's still drinking like a fish and binge drinking to an embarrassing level at family events. We'll go to an afternoon barbecue at his mom's house and he'll pull out a bottle of jack daniels and try to convince everyone to drink, then drink the entire thing himself. Everyone else either doesn't notice or pretends not to.
He is always pushing me to drink, but the more he drinks the less I want to. He says I am no fun anymore. Fun=drunk to him. He acts like a drug pusher with the alcohol.
We were working opposite shifts because we couldn't afford daycare. I have decided not to go back to work because I started getting really scared that he would drink so much while watching the kids and then "fall asleep" while they were still up.
We had our daughter's birthday party at chuck e cheese's last month. He spent the entire time with a beer in his hand. By the end he was really irritable and ended up sitting in the car and letting me round up the kids and get them out. He was so mean and I was completely embarrassed in front of everyone. The next day he said he felt I was being annoying on purpose to make him angry.
He cleaned out his SUV two months ago and I saw him sneak two empty 18pack boxes into the garbage bag. I checked last night and there are 7 empty ones back there. One has 6 empty cans in it. I really want to confront him and see what the excuse is for that. I'm guessing he'll say sometimes it's just too hard to carry that heavy beer case all the way into the house so he grabs one at a time. I really hope he's not drinking before work in the parking lot. He could get a DUI for the empties but even if I pointed that out I already know he would blow me off and act like I don't know what I'm talking about.
He got his own credit card a few months ago after I told him he must use his tip money from work for beer and cigarettes because we can't meet our bills even without those expenses. I got the latest statement and in the past month he has spent about $800 at gas stations. To keep that in perspective, his income was $1700.
He plays WOW and drinks all the time. That's all my kids ever see him do. He never plays with them. We never go anywhere. He gets irritable and yells at them or spanks them because they are too noisy. He talks to me like he hates me. Then just when I start thinking divorce he reads my thoughts and turns on the charm.
He doesn't really act drunk and I usually can't tell when he's been drinking. He "takes a nap" for a few hours every day. Sometimes he pukes because he "must have eaten something bad." Spends a lot of time on the toilet, too. In the past month he's started taking rolaids like candy. He says if he had to live without drinking he would kill himself because life would be so boring. His grandpa chewed tobacco and drank a fifth of whiskey every day and lived past 80, so obviously it's good for you.
I'm thinking of trying an al-anon meeting. I believe there is an afternoon one once a week I could go to while my three oldest are in school. It doesn't say beginner - is that okay? Is it okay to bring the baby? What happens there?
I grew up in an alcohol-free house. My mom is extremely religious and believed alcohol (like rock music and pg movies) was evil. The only time I ever saw anyone drink was when we'd go to my dad's family's for holidays. They were all alcoholics and drank like fish. So I thought there were only two extremes and had no role modeling for moderate drinking. My father was a recovering alcoholic. As far as I know he never drank but he was extremely abusive to me. My mother homeschooled me even through high school, we lived in the middle of nowhere, and I was really sheltered.
I met my husband in my first year of college when I was 18 and he was 21. At that point I'd only tried drinking a handful of times at parties. We were at a christian college which banned all alcohol, cigarettes, etc. AH started buying a six pack for us to share almost every night. We would sneak it out to a field and lie out there drinking and talking for hours.
When summer came I moved across the country with him to his home state. At this point nearly every date had centered around alcohol. I assumed that was how normal people did things. My husband was increasingly controlling - I had no access to money, the car, etc. We continued to get drunk in our own apartment every night up until I found out I was pregnant. Beer smell was my worst morning sickness trigger and even now I can't smell it without feeling like I'm going to puke.
My husband drank through my pregnancy and I didn't. Watching him, I saw how he drank more than others and become embarrassed at his behavior. After the baby was born I was soon forced into being the sober, responsible one. He saw no reason we had to be sober to watch the baby so I had to.
Three years later we had another baby. His drinking had increased a lot - a new 12 pack every night - and he started becoming angry with me for little things. He would drive us drunk and refused to let me drive. If he was angry he would drive recklessly to scare me. After he punched a hole in the wall next to my head I left.
Two days later he had talked me into coming back. I wanted counseling and no alcohol. He wanted to cut back on drinking with a promise to try counseling later if we needed it. He won. I did do one good thing in taking control of our finances so I wouldn't be begging for candy bar money anymore.
I'm sure you know how it went. He promised to stick to one 12pack a week. Pretty soon I got suspicious and started marking his cans. He was keeping another case in his trunk and sneaking new ones into the refrigerator. When confronted he outright lied and tried to convince me I was crazy. Eventually I burned out on fighting it and decided to ignore it.
So now it's been 7 years and 2 kids since then. He's still drinking like a fish and binge drinking to an embarrassing level at family events. We'll go to an afternoon barbecue at his mom's house and he'll pull out a bottle of jack daniels and try to convince everyone to drink, then drink the entire thing himself. Everyone else either doesn't notice or pretends not to.
He is always pushing me to drink, but the more he drinks the less I want to. He says I am no fun anymore. Fun=drunk to him. He acts like a drug pusher with the alcohol.
We were working opposite shifts because we couldn't afford daycare. I have decided not to go back to work because I started getting really scared that he would drink so much while watching the kids and then "fall asleep" while they were still up.
We had our daughter's birthday party at chuck e cheese's last month. He spent the entire time with a beer in his hand. By the end he was really irritable and ended up sitting in the car and letting me round up the kids and get them out. He was so mean and I was completely embarrassed in front of everyone. The next day he said he felt I was being annoying on purpose to make him angry.
He cleaned out his SUV two months ago and I saw him sneak two empty 18pack boxes into the garbage bag. I checked last night and there are 7 empty ones back there. One has 6 empty cans in it. I really want to confront him and see what the excuse is for that. I'm guessing he'll say sometimes it's just too hard to carry that heavy beer case all the way into the house so he grabs one at a time. I really hope he's not drinking before work in the parking lot. He could get a DUI for the empties but even if I pointed that out I already know he would blow me off and act like I don't know what I'm talking about.
He got his own credit card a few months ago after I told him he must use his tip money from work for beer and cigarettes because we can't meet our bills even without those expenses. I got the latest statement and in the past month he has spent about $800 at gas stations. To keep that in perspective, his income was $1700.
He plays WOW and drinks all the time. That's all my kids ever see him do. He never plays with them. We never go anywhere. He gets irritable and yells at them or spanks them because they are too noisy. He talks to me like he hates me. Then just when I start thinking divorce he reads my thoughts and turns on the charm.
He doesn't really act drunk and I usually can't tell when he's been drinking. He "takes a nap" for a few hours every day. Sometimes he pukes because he "must have eaten something bad." Spends a lot of time on the toilet, too. In the past month he's started taking rolaids like candy. He says if he had to live without drinking he would kill himself because life would be so boring. His grandpa chewed tobacco and drank a fifth of whiskey every day and lived past 80, so obviously it's good for you.
I'm thinking of trying an al-anon meeting. I believe there is an afternoon one once a week I could go to while my three oldest are in school. It doesn't say beginner - is that okay? Is it okay to bring the baby? What happens there?
The strange insanity of the alcoholic mind
Quote:
|
Our behavior is as absurd and incomprehensible with respect to the first drink as that of an individual with a passion, say, for jaywalking. He gets a thrill our of skipping in front of fast-moving vehicles. He enjoys himself a few years in spite of friendly warnings. Up to this point you would label him as a foolish chap having queer ideas of fun. Luck then deserts him and he is slightly injured several times in succession. You would expect him, if he were normal, to cut it out. Presently he is hit again and this time has a fractured skull. Within a week after leaving the hospital a fast-moving trolley car breaks his arm. He tells you he has decided to stop jaywalking for good, but in a few weeks he breaks both legs. On through the years this conduct continues, accompanied by his continual promises to be careful or to keep off the streets altogether. Finally, he can no longer work, his wife gets a divorce, he is held up to ridicule. He tries every known means to get the jaywalking idea out of his head. He shuts himself up in an asylum, hoping to mend his ways. But the day he comes out he races in front of a fire engine, which breaks his back. Such a man would be crazy, wouldn't he? You may think our illustration is too ridiculous. But is it? We, who have been through the wringer, have to admit if we substituted alcoholism for jaywalking, the illustration would fit us exactly. However intelligent we may have been in other respects, where alcohol has been involved, we have been strangely insane. It's strong language---but isn't it true? Some of you are thinking: "Yes, what you tell us is true, but it doesn't fully apply. We admit we have some of these symptoms, but we have not gone to the extremes you fellows did, nor are we likely to, for we understand ourselves so well after what you have told us that such things cannot happen again. We have not lost everything in life through drinking and we certainly do not intend to. Thanks for the information. From the chapter "More About Alcoholism" |
If we are experiencing some of these symptoms, it is likely only a matter of time before alcoholism takes us to the extremes that the authors experienced. Once again, self-knowledge will not keep us sober and neither will our good intentions. The information we are recieving is intended to illustrate our powerlessness, not to give us the illusion of power.
