The Barflies Message Board

Welcome to the Barflies Group Message Board. We encourage all alcoholics to share their experience, strength and hope in a way that is conducive to AA’s primary purpose, which is to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety.

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whatever - posted by wasteland at 07/22 11:44AM So much turmoil..... Where do I begin? I can't even put into words how I feel lately. I'm broken alright. Nothing is going right. As I'm writing this I'm trying to convince myself to stop because its pointless bullshit and no one will care anyway. It was so easy to see how alcohol screwed me up while drinking. I was a drinker that drank to function through daily activities. At a young age I just lost ability to walk through life at all unless intoxicated. Class, work, relationships, and social events were all made possible by Mr. Barleycorn, and if he wasn't present I isolated because I was terrified of doing anything. My biggest fear before sobering up was not being able to function without booze. Sure I wasn't really living life in my prison cell that is a whiskey, but I'm not really living life now either. Not without overload of fear and pain anyway. (now I'm paranoid that my writing will be judged) I really feel like i will never get any better at this life thing. I suck at work. I suck at responsibility. I'm not confident in helping other drunks. I over analyze everything that other people do and it consumes me. I can't stand the way I feel when I'm judging others, especially when I know how fucked up I am all the time. (outside issue warning!!!) I was talking to a friend about meds that he takes because he has the same history of depression that I do and he said "These pills are great! I don't feel anything or care about anything anymore!" People like that make me feel like medicine is not my answer. AA has kept me sober but not really living. The church gives me the creeps. Will I ever get better? I know there is no cure but damn! What do I need to do to get relief?! Bad days are piling up at a rapid rate. the occasionally "healthy" day is overshadowed by all the doom and gloom of bad days..... I guess I have no question.... but I'm unable to work at the moment and figured I would reach out

re: whatever - posted by kvet on 07/22 01:40PM I often become consumed with what other people are doing and how they perceive me, if I feel disliked or wronged. My defense against these thoughts is judgment. Instead of looking at why I'm so obsessed with others and their perception of me, I judge them to make me feel better about myself. Fucked up, I know. For a long time, alcohol helped me in such situations. It made me feel more adequate and less concerned with what others thought of me. That changed during the last few years of my drinking. Instead of helping me fit in, it caused me to lash out at people so much so they didn't want to have much or anything to do with me. Today, even though I'm sober, I still feel inadequate, I still lash out and I still judge other people. This type of behavior recently drove me to do a fourth step. Before I got there though I had almost convinced myself that I wasn't a drunk and that I didn't need AA. But, because of the people in AA and a Higher Power, I did not take a drink and was restored to sanity. I now am trying to immerse myself in the program, put my faith in a Higher Power and serve others, all three of which are concepts I struggle with at times but can't afford to dispute. What I'm learning in AA is that living a sober life is hard, but that it's so much better than a life of drinking. And, when those hard times come, which in my experience are often, I have found that AA is there to help and that walking through whatever it is that's got me on a rocket isn't as hard or scary as I thought. Good luck and know you aren't alone.

re: whatever - posted by PM on 07/22 01:59PM At first glance the concept of serving others seemed like a force feeding on humble pie, a subservient and humiliating chore with no real reward. It seemed like a dull and unhappy approach to living life but that, they said, was how I was supposed to go about it from now on. I remember back when I was climbing up the ladder of success in school. I prepared and studied and had all my facts together for a 5-minute speech. I had, in fact, months to prepare and I knew the subject matter backward and forward but I dreaded the day I would have to stand up in front of 20 people and tell them what I had found. The day came, I stood up and tripped over a few things, stumbled along the way, forgot this and that, rushed in some places and dragged in others, and by the time it was over (5 minutes!) I felt like I was stepping out of a shower. When I look back on it I realize my disposition was to regard this as a step along the path to success, to believe that this had to be done right to achieve the next goal and press on down the path, and to boost others' opinions of me toward that end and toward having them say good things about me so the girls would love me and I'd get married and live happily ever after. All this made that 5 minutes so very very important, and coupled with the doubts about myself the end result was a sweatbath. The first benefit of living life in the service of others is the end of the sweatbath. When it doesn't matter how things turn out, when I have no goals to be accomplished, then I am free of the great weight of such efforts. I can be at ease if I stand up only to inform, if I work only to serve, if I promote goods only for the benefit of others. But of course that is a way of life far removed from where I started and to trust the HP with the things I am not 'achieving' on my own is a great leap of faith. And that is where the real fear comes in for me. Not so much in the service of others, but in the non-service of myself! With each decision and a little patience I always find that if I take the high road then the HP takes care of me. Not right away but over the course of time. Showers of gifts and more responsibility, unmerited happiness, a bevy of friends, meaning, purpose, peace... these are all that come through a life of service. Beyond my dreams. Life is good. Wouldn't really know it if I was on meds. Much pain.

re: whatever - posted by Norma Desmond on 07/22 04:18PM Hi Wasteland! Want a quick fix? Help someone. Anyone. With anything. Pray for someone. Anyone. About anything. These are shortcuts to the kind of peace the world can neither give nor take away. The steps work great, too. I listened to a fifth step last week and later that night I slept like the dead for the first time in a while. AA works. Peace be with you, Norma

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While we hope that all our guests share their experience as it relates to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, we remind everyone that the contents of these message strings are strictly personal opinions of the authors. When in doubt about the nature of statements made please consult the Big Book and other AA reference materials... our motto: "If its not in the book, it doesn't count." Thank you all for sharing.