Tanya, thanks for this. I’ve been off and on sober for 2 and a half years (mostly sober, a few relapses). I thought when I stopped that I would stop getting so depressed ha ha. In fact the depressions got more extreme, but weirdly sometimes once in a day, never for very long, and then up up up high as a kite – so your 12 octaves image was spot on. Meditation / mindfulness helps, and I do have warm bodies around, even if they’re not recovering alcoholics. Being trapped alone for 2 months would probably have sent me right back to the bottom. Day 19 today, which is better than 0.
Congratulations on 19 days. I was using alcohol to self medicate, manage my mood changes, didn’t know how severe my depression was until I got sober. Working the program with a sponsor has changed my outlook and attitude, but I still need to take a very small dose of antidepressant every day.
Michael Woods
3 years ago
Working through the steps made all the difference for me; between having to live with the thing constantly, and living another, and monster-free, life entirely.
Monica Elrod
3 years ago
Tanya – I am also in recovery. 24 years sober. Zoom meetings have not been all that helpful for me. Watching people carrying their phone around the house and doing other distracting things keeps me from hearing the discussion. At grocery stores I see people piling their carts high with alcohol and I hear that news that drinking and domestic violence are up with the lockdown. Unlike you, I am writing more and more because I want to document every day of this pandemic and all the emotions I’m going through. As you mention, the alcohol is almost incidental, it’s the mental gyrations that lead to the drinking. I’ve been attending all kinds of mindfulness meetings, seminars, guided meditation and dharma talks. That’s what’s helping me stay safe and sane. Best wishes
eyeore1915
3 years ago
Tanya, I hope that life-saving AA physical meetings will be able to resume soon, so that people affected by enforced isolation can get their medicine. There must be people in recovery who are dying without it.
Ray Hall
3 years ago
Good luck.
miranda Alexander
3 years ago
Do persevere with the online meetings. This virtual stuff can take a bit of getting used to, but it’s are looking more and more like the blueprint for the future. I didn’t like them at first (not least because I hate looking at my own face) but I am beginning to get back the sense of community and fellowship that we need so badly. Isolation is the killer, and alcoholism loves separation.
Robin Bury
3 years ago
Well how about South Africa where alcohol is now banned? Here in Canada alcohol sales have jumped. since the lockdowns started. Not surprised though it is no solution.
philipfrancis00
3 years ago
Tanya, I have gone to AlAnon for the families of Alcoholics for over twenty years and more open meetings than I can remember, and I echo what you say My AlAnon meeting is not meeting on-line, but thank God I have been to CoDA, CoDependents Anonymous, where we have a new step meeting just started on line as well as the weekly meeting, and I also go to Adult Children of Alcoholics who now welcome children of dysfunctional families, which counts me in. It is not the same as meeting face to face and the camera is not working on my computer, but it has kept me alive in Lockdown, as has walking every day on the hill where I live, and consciously praying while I walk. I am closer to my Higher Power than I have ever been, or rather my Higher Power is closer to me, except perhaps last summer when I walked in the heather on the mountain overlooking the ocean after my meetings and watched the sun setting into the sea, and felt Him embrace me every time. It was so powerful I can hardly describe it. It was a spiritual enlightenment which I knew He was giving me, after my meeting, in the fulness of the natural world, but something more powerful and more spiritual than the beauty of nature alone . Even if I slip, and I do, He picks me up, like a Father picking up a child. I need to trust Him like a toddler held in the arms of a loving parent, a loving mother or father, full of tender concern, so different from the authority figures of my childhood, whom I can trust completely.
Drahcir Nevarc
3 years ago
I haven’t been drinking more than normal, which is nothing Monday-Thursday, and 5-6 pints of ale Friday-Sunday
Tanya, Your reference to the 12 Steps – please note a short excerpt from a letter of AA cofounder Bill W. in 1966, “Sobriety, freedom from alcohol through the teaching and practice of the 12 Steps is the sole purpose of an AA group”. I have found recent Zoom meetings a great fillip, especially exposing our local AA community to meetings/inspiration from all around the world. However, looking forward to face to face meetings, starting here in NSW today. Thanking you, Rhys G.
Janie Doebuck
3 years ago
Tanya, Been sober 34 years and luckily where I live there are still a couple of in-person meetings. I loathe the zoom meetings and refuse to eat the picture of the watermelon instead of insisting on the real watermelon.
Crushed by covid 19? and you didn’t even have it? Newsflash, chica, you might give the steps a go. There is a hell of a lot of power in doing them, if you are actually interested in a challenge….and in power. The steps have a way of cutting through self-indulgent, fear based, whining narcissism. Simply not drinking does not equal sobriety.
Paul T
3 years ago
I’m not sure writing is helping you as to generate the words you seem to be having to go back to your sewer and fish out all the repugnant things that you chucked in there and set them up on a rickety table still covered in bits of effluent for us to gaze at and consume. Unfortunately I’m not buying as I’m looking for strength, fortitude and rebellion among our people, not more middle class metropolitan weeping, clapping, rainbow stickers and self-pity.
Tanya, thanks for this. I’ve been off and on sober for 2 and a half years (mostly sober, a few relapses). I thought when I stopped that I would stop getting so depressed ha ha. In fact the depressions got more extreme, but weirdly sometimes once in a day, never for very long, and then up up up high as a kite – so your 12 octaves image was spot on. Meditation / mindfulness helps, and I do have warm bodies around, even if they’re not recovering alcoholics. Being trapped alone for 2 months would probably have sent me right back to the bottom. Day 19 today, which is better than 0.
Congratulations on 19 days. I was using alcohol to self medicate, manage my mood changes, didn’t know how severe my depression was until I got sober. Working the program with a sponsor has changed my outlook and attitude, but I still need to take a very small dose of antidepressant every day.
Working through the steps made all the difference for me; between having to live with the thing constantly, and living another, and monster-free, life entirely.
Tanya – I am also in recovery. 24 years sober. Zoom meetings have not been all that helpful for me. Watching people carrying their phone around the house and doing other distracting things keeps me from hearing the discussion. At grocery stores I see people piling their carts high with alcohol and I hear that news that drinking and domestic violence are up with the lockdown. Unlike you, I am writing more and more because I want to document every day of this pandemic and all the emotions I’m going through. As you mention, the alcohol is almost incidental, it’s the mental gyrations that lead to the drinking. I’ve been attending all kinds of mindfulness meetings, seminars, guided meditation and dharma talks. That’s what’s helping me stay safe and sane. Best wishes
Tanya, I hope that life-saving AA physical meetings will be able to resume soon, so that people affected by enforced isolation can get their medicine. There must be people in recovery who are dying without it.
Good luck.
Do persevere with the online meetings. This virtual stuff can take a bit of getting used to, but it’s are looking more and more like the blueprint for the future. I didn’t like them at first (not least because I hate looking at my own face) but I am beginning to get back the sense of community and fellowship that we need so badly. Isolation is the killer, and alcoholism loves separation.
Well how about South Africa where alcohol is now banned? Here in Canada alcohol sales have jumped. since the lockdowns started. Not surprised though it is no solution.
Tanya, I have gone to AlAnon for the families of Alcoholics for over twenty years and more open meetings than I can remember, and I echo what you say
My AlAnon meeting is not meeting on-line, but thank God I have been to CoDA, CoDependents Anonymous, where we have a new step meeting just started on line as well as the weekly meeting, and I also go to Adult Children of Alcoholics who now welcome children of dysfunctional families, which counts me in.
It is not the same as meeting face to face and the camera is not working on my computer, but it has kept me alive in Lockdown, as has walking every day on the hill where I live, and consciously praying while I walk. I am closer to my Higher Power than I have ever been, or rather my Higher Power is closer to me, except perhaps last summer when I walked in the heather on the mountain overlooking the ocean after my meetings and watched the sun setting into the sea, and felt Him embrace me every time. It was so powerful I can hardly describe it. It was a spiritual enlightenment which I knew He was giving me, after my meeting, in the fulness of the natural world, but something more powerful and more spiritual than the beauty of nature alone .
Even if I slip, and I do, He picks me up, like a Father picking up a child. I need to trust Him like a toddler held in the arms of a loving parent, a loving mother or father, full of tender concern, so different from the authority figures of my childhood, whom I can trust completely.
I haven’t been drinking more than normal, which is nothing Monday-Thursday, and 5-6 pints of ale Friday-Sunday
6 pints, if I’m being honest.
Tanya,
Your reference to the 12 Steps – please note a short excerpt from a letter of AA cofounder Bill W. in 1966, “Sobriety, freedom from alcohol through the teaching and practice of the 12 Steps is the sole purpose of an AA group”.
I have found recent Zoom meetings a great fillip, especially exposing our local AA community to meetings/inspiration from all around the world. However, looking forward to face to face meetings, starting here in NSW today.
Thanking you,
Rhys G.
Tanya,
Been sober 34 years and luckily where I live there are still a couple of in-person meetings. I loathe the zoom meetings and refuse to eat the picture of the watermelon instead of insisting on the real watermelon.
Crushed by covid 19? and you didn’t even have it? Newsflash, chica, you might give the steps a go. There is a hell of a lot of power in doing them, if you are actually interested in a challenge….and in power. The steps have a way of cutting through self-indulgent, fear based, whining narcissism. Simply not drinking does not equal sobriety.
I’m not sure writing is helping you as to generate the words you seem to be having to go back to your sewer and fish out all the repugnant things that you chucked in there and set them up on a rickety table still covered in bits of effluent for us to gaze at and consume. Unfortunately I’m not buying as I’m looking for strength, fortitude and rebellion among our people, not more middle class metropolitan weeping, clapping, rainbow stickers and self-pity.