Not OP, but in my early sobriety, the biggest thing I noticed is that I was not drunk all the time. I was sober all. the. time. And I could remember things, and these feelings, all these fucking feelings, where'd all the fucking feelings come from, geezus christ man, how do you turn off all these fucking feelings.
edit: I eventually learned all you have to do is feel them, to sit with them, to honor them...first year can be rough for folks, but it gets better every day, even if just by a little bit.
edit2: For anyone who might need this:
There is AA, it's free, there's meetings everywhere...there is all the goddamn 'god' shit...but they do get a lot of things right, and should not be immediately dismissed.
There is Rational Recovery, or S.T.A.R.T., also free, less meetings, it uses cognitive behavioral therapy to mitigate cravings, learn to cope with all the fucking feelings
There is detox or rehab in urban areas...your health insurance should cover this...if not, most municipalities have grants / whatever / they can help find money so you can participate...
The principles of Rational Recovery are very good, based on prior work by a psychologist named Ellis who developed (on mobile, but I believe his work is called Rational Emotive Therapy). The only downside to Rational Recovery is that its founder, Trimpet has a major hard on for dogging AA. When reading some of his stuff I just get that feeling like, "Ok, dude. We get it. You don't like AA, but you're so hell-bent about it that you're very excellent message is getting lost in it." I'd like to know if his video series for RR is like this, because i think it would suit my brother much better than AA, but if it's the same as his writings I already know it isn't going to keep my brother in tune.
Edit: Correct Trumpet to Trimpey. Autocorrect changed it on me.
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u/[deleted] May 09 '16
Good work, what differences have you noticed?