Did anyone else here get this way when you stopped drinking and started going to AA? This really good feeling like you're on top of the world... my sponsor said some people get that way just from putting down the alcohol and doing something good for yourself. I've definitely been this way over the past week and it scares the hell out of me! When I start feeling good I've gotta do something self-destructive to bring me back down to "normal" or what's "normal" for me. I think that's why I drank Saturday night. Because I was scared of how I'd been feeling so good. I know that's why my drinking started on this past binge, I came out of a depression, was feeling good for about a week, and then I started drinking for 3 weeks. I've done this to myself many times.
I'm being careful not to let it happen again and trying to just let myself be happy. I even gave my checkcard to my husband tonight so I wouldn't have that temptation when I go into the store to get cigs to grab a couple of beers with it, he's giving me just enough cash to buy what I need or going and buying it for me from now on. I'm so impulsive I could just see myself tonight when I went to get milk walking in there and getting that impulse to grab a beer too even if I hadn't been thinking about drinking before I went in there. I gave him my checkcard before I went.
I talked to my sponsor tonight about all this and she said she's the same way as far as being scared of being happy or successful and that she was proud of me for giving up my check card so I couldn't have that temptation and everything.
Well things were difference for me, as a result of where this Disease took me. My face and body and ankles were swollen, and my liver was becoming Toxic, so for me the first 6 months or so, I was just happy that I was making it back to another 24 hour meeting.
It is probably different for so many, but I was reading this book of the Goals in Recovery, and what stood out for me was the word "Balance" and I find that today, that is a big part of Staying Sober, balancing the Meetings, on working the Steps, staying in touch with others in Recovery, Praying, a lot of Praying, but the word again that stands out for me is the Balancing part.
I think you have taken a great big step, in giving over your CC to your husband.
I have heard from many it is like a roller coaster, up and down, as I said just can be different for different people.
As far as my moods, I just kind of observe them, Can really get "up" on a real sunny day, and by the end of the day have a bad case of Sping Fever, which feels like restless, irratable and discontent. Today feeling sad and kinda depressed but I have more or less just been going with it, just observing. Whatever mood it is, it will pass and turn into another one.
For me, those highs are totally normal. (but then, what's normal for me may not be for other..............). Anywho, even after two decades I have these sporadic really really high days, and I walk around singing this old song "Ain't nuthin' gonna break my stride" all day. LOL, ok, I"m striving, but a long ways from bein' there guys. Wren
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i found god in myself/and I loved her/i loved her fiercely--Ntozake Shange
With every High, there comes a low, and then another high....and so it goes...it's called "life on life's terms". Through more time spent in sobriety and in the Fellowship, you'll learn to enjoy the high's and they will become the new "Normal" for you.
Oh boy, when I first put the drink down and went to AA I felt indestructible. I spent the first few months living on a pink, fluffy cloud. Life felt that good. I was starting to get some self-pride and self-respect back.
What I hadn't realised was, that when I was drinking, I was numbing out all of my day-to-day emotions. When they started to come back I was scared to death. I, too, talked to my sponsor about it. I was told that what I was feeling was perfectly normal. I then started to try not to be 'emotioned-out' as I know that that is a trigger for me to pick up the bottle again. I do work hard at staying level, but being human I do fail on a regular basis!
For me, it did get better. Bad stuff still happens, but the compulsion to drink on every emotion I have is getting less and less by the day.
Take good care of yourself,
Carol
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Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. ~Dr. Seuss
