I'm really in a bad way today. I'm recovering from pneumonia and have been on steroids for 5 days...ugh. My depression is really suffocating me. I have Bipolar Disorder so the steroids really mess with my meds.
I feel as if I am at a crossroads and cannot seem to take a step in either direction. I can't seem to get my ass to meetings these days. I haven't called my sponsor in a few days (she has not called me either). I feel very fragile today....very fragile.
I feel like I'm just stuck in mud. Strange, I know. I cannot motivate myself to do what I need to do to make any progress on my recovery.
I have been unemployed since July. I have some serious financial issues right now. I had a successful career in law for years that I fucked up. I cannot even begin to list everything I have lost in the past 2 years.
I haven't been to a meeting in 8 days. I am not working my program. I am praying but not as much as I should. I just feel BLAH....hopeless...scared. My TO DO list is a mile long and I'm feeling sad and overwhelmed. I can't seem to get out of this funk.
Hi Deb,,In my prayers... Is there anyway you can reach out to someone else?,it is something that really helps me when I'm all in my head and can't seem to shake out of it..The therapeutic value of one helping another is without parallel....we say "nothing changes ,if nothing changes....Literature tells us we may be holding a "reservation" that can be very dangerous(slighting our program,missing meetings ,isolating and feeling overwhelmed(kind a rings a bell)so I can only suggest you go "inside" and take a good look at whats up.....We also got 18 inches of snow up here in upstate New York,everything closed up,can be isolating,so I shovelled snow,not my favorite , but got some good meditating time in(took me in another direction)...Sorry about your meds and pneumonia,seems at times "when it rains,it really pours!!!Dig deep,call another recovering addict,ask the God of your understanding what you can do for Him(your concept) rather than what He(same) can do for you..Try and get back in the day,projection of the what ifs and the overwhelming feelings can be ceased just by taking it little at a time...Just For Today ,DON'T USE,DO SOMETHING SHAKE YOURSELF UP AND GET CONNECTED,SHARE YOUR PAIN AND REACH OUT TO HELP SOMEONE ELSE.These are some of the things that help me when Im in a funk,,Remember 'this to shall pass,In support.let us know how it looks in awhile....
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Our purpose is to remain clean,just for today,and to carry the message of recovery.
Stop reading this and pick up the phone NOW if you physically cannot go to a meeting! Call your sponsor, if no answer call someone else you know in NA. If no answer call an NA helpline. Ask someone to bring a meeting to you if you are too sick to go out! An addict alone is in bad company! We alone can do it but we can't do it alone!
Yeah we all may face messes financial or other wise whether new or with many years. Over 30 years Clean and my house is currently in default because of how the recession is clobbering my business. So what, I'm Clean and will get through it!
Newcomers, 90 friggin' Meetings in 90 friggn' Days, no friggin' Excuses! Recovery is optional, Misery is optional, you get to choose today because of NA!
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Work the Steps or Die MF. (My Friend :) Clean One Day At a Time by The Grace of God through The Power of NA
Move a muscle - change a mood. This little phrase has snapped me out of da funk many times. Get up and do something....anything. take a walk, ride a bike, vacuum the living room, wash the car.....do something. you have to get out of yourself. An addict by herself is in bad company. You can't stay this way...Either you will reach out, or you will use. It's that simple. choose life.
Mike M wrote "We alone can do it but we can't do it alone! ". That's about it...tear up the "to do" list. You can make another one some other time. Maybe you are praying too much. Read Step 11, then just wait for God (Good Orderly Direction). No matter how much you lost or will lose, you are not alone and when we want it badly enough we find we are blessed with the people we need to help us get through it, however horrible or sad "it" might be. Translation: get off the pity pot and make yourself a nice cup of tea. Seriously. :)
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From dying and surviving to living and thriving. LeeU
"Get off the pity pot", right on. When I said "Recovery is optional, Misery is optional, you get to choose today because of NA" that doesn't NA mean will do the work for me or anyone. NA is a simple program. NA is not necessarily an easy program, it is as hard as we choose to make it. I have to be willing the make the effort. Not my sponsors job to call me, has their own life and recovery to deal with.
If you choose not to go to meetings, not to call your sponsor, not do what NA teaches you to do in order to Recovery then you choose Misery. You choose Misery over solutions. NA removes the terrible complusion to use so we can then make drug free choices in our lives. NA doesn't fix us, we have to fix ourselves with the help of NA and our Higher Power. Recovery is an inside job. With help, not done for us.
No, facing myself and my defects isn't always easy, just always necessary.
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Work the Steps or Die MF. (My Friend :) Clean One Day At a Time by The Grace of God through The Power of NA
Hey there Deb, sometimes we need to be reminded that recovery demands action. We are great at procrastinating, we know what we need to do but at times we need to push ourselves to do it. I too suffer from Depression and there are times when I have to make myself go to meetings or pick up the phone, but I always feel better once I've done it.
I made it through a rough 24 hours clean and sober. I called my brother and spoke with him a long time. We had not spoken in about 6 months. I prayed and read recovery literature. What I did not do was call my sponsor or go to a meeting. I awoke this morning very early and determined to fill my entire day not with any TO DO list items (rip up that list is right, LeeU!) but meetings, meetings, and more meetings. I cannot do this alone. I need the fellowship and I need to keep this program FIRST before anything else. I guess I feel overwhelmed most of the time. I need to make soooooo many changes....I need to remember..."one day at a time"....Little things like 3 meals a day, early to rise and early to bed have become so foreign to me -- my head is all over the place instead of focusing on one task at a time. Yes, I do allow myself the ocassional luxury of taking a sh_t on the pity pot. I don't do it often. I try to remain strong and grateful for what the universe has given me....strength, determination and courage to weather the storms that have been hurling through my life for the past 2 years.
One of the most difficult behaviors to change for me is picking up the phone. It's so damn heavy. I stopped trusting people years ago. I started to isolate and keep people at arms length. I guess I didn't want others to see my weakness.
I will call my sponsor today and others in the program....and today is all meetings, meetings, meetings.
Deb, I am keeping you in my thoughts today... please please please, pick up the phone... Don't go through this alone - you are surrounded by people that can help you - let them help you! Let your sponsor, friends, family help you... I know that's hard... The hardest thing for me to do in any aspect of my life is to ask for help... but, please...
Don't need to trust people, people can and will fail your expectations of them, trust your Higher Power. My Higher Power works through people. I see my Higher Power in action through other recoverying addicts all the time. We are all people in the grip of the continuing and progressive disease of addiction, by ourselves we have no answers or solutions. But by the Grace of God through the Power of NA, Higher Power working through other recoverying addicts, Recovery Is Possible.
Don't miss the forest because of us trees.
-- Edited by Mike M on Tuesday 28th of December 2010 01:46:45 PM
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Work the Steps or Die MF. (My Friend :) Clean One Day At a Time by The Grace of God through The Power of NA
If you're having a challenge admitting your weakness, admitting you are powerless over your addition, that your life had become unmanageable return to Step One, then Two and then Step Three. The first three Steps are the foundation of my Recovery opening the door to the other Steps. There is great strength and peace to be found in total unconditional surrender. Strength in surrender instead of weakness. May not makes sense to you, yet it is a spiritual truth. Surrender can be hard, it's against my addict nature and maybe yours too, Fake it 'til you Make it!
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Work the Steps or Die MF. (My Friend :) Clean One Day At a Time by The Grace of God through The Power of NA
Okay I read past tense and what you are going through now and it is allot simpler to see you progressed from what you are going through now and what you are going through when you were not going to meetings and not calling your sponsor and I am bi polar and I am taking my meds as required so I will not flip out on people and believe me I have scared many people if I was off my meds. Also I see the pattern now that you are going through Deb and that is you complained in the first message I responded to that your sponsor was not calling you and you call her well here you mentioned you never called your sponsor and please don't get me wrong and here is tough love and a suggestion and do your program and quit complaining about what is happening and let other people feel sorry for you as you are on a pity pot I see and do something for yourself and start out with recovery first and not worry about what other people are not doing for you and losing things in life well are they lost or just on the shelf ready to come down when you are ready to take the action and losing things in life I lost allot of relatives and my dad in recovery and my mother in recovery and I washed my hands with people owing me a total of over 20,000 dollars and did I bitch and complain no I done that 180 degree turn around and said I am sick and tired of being sick and tired of the old life and I want to live again and I cannot do it alone so Deb we can help but you have to do the work and we are there for you. This may sound harsh to you and you may feel hurt by what I said but I have been in situations you have been in and was on the pity pot for years and gossiped about everyone and backstabbed allot of people and where does that get me well it gets me to maybe not seeing that person in recovery anymore or not being a friend anymore and what is the choice that we bring to the table and I know what I am bringing I am bringing new life to people and tough love because I don't want to see people 6 feet under in a box.
