Unemployed Alcoholic

I’m out of work at the moment, in fact I’ve been out of work for a couple of years now. During my drinking I was able to put it out of my mind and ignore it, but no more alcohol means no more ignoring. And that’s not really a bad thing – I’m sure that getting back into work will be good for my mental state, not to mention the fact that I’ll have some money coming in.

When I was sat at home for the last couple of years I gradually became more and more scared of even looking for a job. I had so many worries running through my mind. I worried about whether I would find any jobs out there that I could do, or would want to do. Since leaving university I only had one job really, where I worked for around 7 years. After that I had only one other job for a short period of time. Neither of those jobs ended in a particularly good way and I had a lot of anxiety around how well I would cope with other jobs. It wasn’t that I wanted to be out of work, I really didn’t, but in some way I just fell into depression and became incredibly fearful about the situation I was in.

I built up a fear for looking at job websites, worried that I might find out that there wasn’t anything suitable for me out there and that it would just make me feel more depressed. The longer that I went without a job, the worse the feelings got and the harder it became to see a way out. I worried more and more about how I would explain the time that I’d been out of work to a new employer and my self-confidence dropped to an all time low.

Like so many of my problems, I avoided all the issues of finding new work by just putting it off for now with the all too familiar attitude of “I’ll have a look tomorrow” – that and of course drinking to forget. It’s amazing how much clearer things are beginning to seem now that I’ve stopped drinking. Even though I still have the same basic worries, I somehow feel much more able to conquer those fears. I feel able to search the job sites and apply for things, able to just move ahead one step at a time and just see what happens.

I’ve had interviews for one place so far, and I didn’t manage to get the job, but at least it’s a start. At least there are some jobs out there that I feel that I can do and which I even feel that I’d enjoy. I think the fact I have a gap in my employment history of a couple of years is holding me back from getting some positions, but I will just keep at it until I find something. I do now feel that given a bit of time there will be a way for me back into work and hopefully from there onwards and upwards.

It’s amazing how taking the alcohol away makes problems seem less severe, rather than the mountains that they seemed to be a couple of months ago.

Starting The Big Book

For anyone reading this who is not familiar with ‘The Big Book‘, it is the basic text of Alcoholics Anonymous. It’s broken down into two parts, the first part takes the reader through how the A.A. programme works whilst the second part is a collection of stories of different people’s experiences. I bought a copy of the book a week ago when I could feel that my attitudes towards alcoholism were changing (see my post on Changing Attitudes) and I felt that I wanted to become more engaged with the A.A. programme rather than just attending meetings. For anyone wanting to take look at it, it’s not actually necessary to buy The Big Book, you can actually download it from A.A. if you wish, or even view it online.

I am not the world’s greatest reader at the best of times, I always seem to have trouble keeping my concentration levels high enough for long enough, but for the last week I’ve been reading around a chapter a day. I’ve actually found it surprisingly easy to stay concentrated on it, though it may help that I haven’t had too much else to do. I’m certainly learning more about the A.A. programme with each chapter though I still feel a bit in at the deep end at the moment.

The 12 steps of the A.A. programme are still something that I’m only just beginning to learn about and having read the first few chapters of the book I’m even more convinced that I still have some work to do just on step 1 alone. Step 1 is concerned with admitting your alcoholism and admitting that your life has become unmanagable. I find that it’s easy to say these things, easy to admit that I’m an alcoholic and that my life has become unmanagable, but do I really believe it? I think that I do believe it but I’m definitely having to think about it some more. I’m definitely an alcoholic, I know that, but when it comes to the unmanagability, although I can see that my life was unmanagable whilst I was drinking, do I actually believe that it is unmanagable now that I’m not drinking? That’s something I’m having to consider.

Anyway, I think I’ll keep reading through this first part of the book even though a lot of it will be concerned with things much further on in the programme than where I am right now. I’m sure that I’ll then come back to the beginning and start reading it again even more thoughtfully as time passes.

More Excuses Than Meetings

A.A. has grown into such a massive organisation that if you live in a reasonably populated area then you can be pretty sure that there is a meeting somewhere near on every day of the week. At least that’s true in my area, I guess it may not be the same in all places.

Several people have suggested to me that I ought to be going to A.A. meetings every day, particularly whilst it’s all so new to me. So far I haven’t taken this advice, I’ve only been going to one meeting a week – the one closest to me. Sure I could give lots of reasons for this – they are too far away, I don’t have a car, I can’t afford the bus, I have other things to do etc. etc… But really these are just excuses aren’t they?

Perhaps the real reason is that I’m not fully throwing myself into A.A. yet, or maybe I’m convincing myself that I only need to go to one meeting per week and that’s enough for me. I don’t know, but clearly I’m going against the advice of people who know better than me. At least I am trying to do other things when not at meetings like reading some of the A.A. literature and writing here, but I know that it’s no substitute for meetings.

I suppose I ought to be ending this post by saying how I’m going to get to more meetings from now on, but I’m really not sure that I will do. Perhaps I will at least look into the other local meetings and see how easy they would be to get to. It’s something at least.

Changing Attitudes

I’ve been going along to A.A. meetings for a number of weeks now (only to one meeting per week, but more about that some other time) and I think it is beginning to change the way I think about alcoholism. When I attended an A.A. meeting last week, I shared some of my feelings of how my attitudes are changing.

In my recovery up until now I think I’ve been trying to partition alcoholism away from the rest of my life – thinking that I can deal with the alcoholism on one side and then get on with the rest of my life on the other. I’ve been wanting to keep my alcoholism separate from the rest of my life as much as possible. Over the last few weeks though, as I’ve attended A.A. meetings and listened to other people sharing their stories, it has caused me to think a lot about my own relationship with alcoholism. I’ve been sat at home quietly during the last couple of weeks with plenty of time to think, and the more I have thought, the more that I’ve come to realise that alcoholism is a much bigger part of who I am now than I had been allowing it to be. I feel that I have to be more embracing of my alcoholism and accepting of it as a major part of my life from now on. It doesn’t feel right to be separating it off as just a small part of who I am, it’s something much bigger than that which filters through and affects everything about me in one way or another.

This change in attitude towards alcoholism has also had an effect on how I’m feeling about A.A. too. Whilst up to now I’ve been happy with attending meetings, listening to what other people say and sharing my own thoughts, I now feel more ready to start learning about the 12-step programme and how A.A. can keep me sober. Attending meetings so far has been good, but I know that I’m going to need to do more than that if I’m to stay sober long-term.

At the end of last week’s meeting I purchased a copy of ‘The Big Book‘, the basic text of Alcoholics Anonymous. I still don’t feel like I’m throwing myself completely into the programme yet, I’ll just take it steadily. I’ll start reading The Big Book at the beginning and see where it takes me.

Anonymous Sobering

When I have tried to become sober in the past I thought that I could do it by myself. I was wrong. The proof is clear for me to see; I was able to go for six months without drinking but ultimately I turned back to alcohol. I could easily explain it away by saying that although I stopped drinking I didn’t bother to sort out any of the issues in my life, and certainly to an extent that would be true. Even if I had sorted out my issues though, I am sure that it would have just been a matter of time. I am pretty confident that it would have taken just one stressful event to push me back over that threshold to take a drink again, or perhaps I would have given in just to the thought of a cold beer on a hot summer day. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe sorting out my life issues would have been enough to keep me sober, but I think the smart money would have been on me lapsing back to drink sooner or later.

Day by day I become clearer in my mind that I can’t do this by myself, I know that I need some support. I’m sure that it is going to take a number of different changes to my life in order to keep me sober, but turning to Alcoholics Anonymous seems like one good way forward at least. I can’t be sure whether it will work for me or not, but like so many other A.A. members have said, nothing else worked, so it has to be worth a try. I certainly feel that I have more to lose by not trying.

Going to your first A.A. meeting can be daunting, I know it was for me. I was filled with many feelings of nervousness, wondering what to expect. Even walking in to the building itself, being nervous about asking ‘Is this the right place for the A.A. meeting?’ – after all, I didn’t really want to ask that to a group of strangers if I was wrong and then be left standing there with them looking at me, knowing my problem. But having got through the door and having sat through the first part of the meeting I felt an overwhealming sense of relief. I was listening to people talking about their alcoholism, talking about how their problems started and I found that I could relate to a suprising amount of what people said. For the first time I felt that here I was in a room with a group of people who might actually be able to understand how I feel. Listening to people talk about how they had been sober for years was a great inspiration and for the first time in a long time it gave me hope that there could be a future for me.

From that first meeting I can’t say that I came away knowing everything about A.A. at all. I am still far away from learning that today. I didn’t learn about the ’12 steps’ and the other parts of the A.A. programme or how to go about staying sober. What I did come away with was a sense of relief that I’d found a group of people who seemed, in many respects, like me. Somehow they were staying sober and that was enough to make me want to go back again the next week. I’ve been back each week since and I don’t have any intentions to stop. I go there with an open mind, to listen, to get my thoughts off my chest and to see where it leads.

Sober Beginnings

My name’s Joe, and I’m an alcoholic.

I’m a 34 year old British guy, currently living near Sheffield, in the UK. I’ve had a problem with drink for almost 15 years, and I’ve been a serious alcoholic for a good few years. I’ll save the details of my drunken past for another time, but suffice to say that I know that I can’t handle alcohol in the way that most people are able. For me, alcohol is no longer a way of relaxing after a hard day at work, or a provider of hedonistic pleasures, removing all inhibitions. For me, alcohol leads the way down a dark path where I spiral downwards into the pits of despair, taking with me everything and everyone around me.

The last time I had a drink was on the 1st April 2010, so I’ve been sober for just over six weeks now. I wont say that it’s been easy, especially those first few days, but I feel at ease with it at the moment. This is not the first time that I’ve tried to be sober however and I’m acutely aware of the difficult path ahead. I read a quote somewhere a few weeks ago which said something along the lines of ‘Stopping drinking is easy, the difficulty is staying sober’ and I can relate to that. I’ve managed to go for six months without drinking before, but returned to the bottle in the end. Clearly my approaches to staying sober were not sufficient, simply abstaining from alcohol didn’t work and this time I need to do something different.

I’m starting to write this journal primarily because I feel that it will do some good for myself to be able to look back at my recovery and reflect. Perhaps, if I’m lucky, it will be one of the things that will help keep me sober. I will try to write openly about my thoughts and feelings as I travel along this journey and maybe someone out there will be able to identify with some of the things that I have to say. If it helps anyone to take even a small step towards recovery then of course that will also make this worthwhile.

I’m an alcoholic and I don’t want to drink again, but for now I will take it one day at a time.