again

Euro, it's never too late, ever. I only just started and I'm 40. I could look at all the years past and say how wasted they were, but really, am grateful for the years that have brought me to this place of recovery now.

I know that must've been a twist in the stomach for you to see him on a dating site,; yes Euro very hard and very real and right now you need to hang onto whats "real" and what's in your head coz your head is spinning you out of control and into the worst places for your recovery, for your health and well-being because you are an addict, you have a dis-ease of addiction and that is how we respond and react to these things.

Thyat you keep coming back andf are still here and still writing is HUGE testament to you and your commitment to wanting to get well. You have willingness Euro, you asre still here reading and writing and that is only a good thing. Am really glad you came here and wrote this today i truly am.

You KNOW that this pain you are feeling, this emptiness is not about your ex, you KNOW that, keep holding onto that and hold on tightly to your inner child euro, it is your inner child that is hurting that is crying out for validation, for you to hear. And the more you write and think and stalk your ex the more you take that away from the real cause of your pain and emptiness and the further away that takes you from healing that which hurts you and that negates your inner-childs pain and suffering and that REALLY NEEDS TO BE ALLOWED.

Would you do me a favour - and yourself a really really big one? Can you get to a SLAA meeting this week in your area? I know it's hard the first time, and maybe the second, but honestly Euro, you need face to face contact with peole going through exactly the same as you, people that understand and can be there with you through this. And keep coming back here, and keep focussing on YOU Euro and your inner child, not your ex any more. This is ALL ABOUT YOU and it is the GREATEST GIFT of life you will ever give yourself I promise you.

Euro, it isn't often I pray for people, I don't know why, it's just not something i do specifically, but I will say a prayer to your higher power tonight that you might find clarity and peace and a way through this knot of chaos that is your head right now to see the path ahead.

Stay safe and well and much blessings to you

may i make the observation that you are overwhelmed by feeling unsafe. the way you are acting out by e-stalking is a failed attempt at grasping that feeling of safety off PoA, even when they're in our lives only as a ghostly smokey torch of rancid ash. it doesn't work anymore to insist on attaching yourself to the image you are projecting onto you PoA. this makes you dejected, sad and suicidal yes. but this bottoming out into the reality that safety will never be found off our PoA is also our saving grace. it's called bottoming out.

your feelings are real but not factual euro. isn't that confusing for all of us. to move off either/or polarity, into and/both acceptance of the tension of the opposites.

there are specific reasons why you are revisiting this very deep original woundology. some of them psychological (can you set up an appt with your therapist;) some of them physical body memory regarding withdrawal of bonding (is there any possibility of visiting a gym or making an appt for a massage;) some of them spiritual (pls pls pls just read the 3rd step even if you don't believe a word of it;) and most of them all about the combustion of addiction.

i too have met that edge where it FELT like i was getting more then i could handle in one moment, forget about one day. i too FELT as if 'it' was over, my burden too heavy and there was no way out. the feelings were consuming me yes, but the fact was my higher power was carrying me. even if i did not have the ability to be aware of that. when there were only one set of footprints in the sand, it was because my higher power was carrying me.

Step One is all about admitting the war is over, that we are defeated, that our lives are unmanageable,that we are powerless. even if you've already read Step One a thousand times in other program recoveries, or if you haven't read it once, please read it now.

we hear you and we see you and we recognize the extent of your pain. please read Step One the next time you impulse toward facebook. pause. stop it. go to Step One instead. just for tonight.

Hi, euro.

I'm like you in many ways. I was also bullied when I was in school, I've always felt alone, and I have a lot of anxiety.

I actually have Paruresis which is a phobia about public bathrooms, so I have to use catheters just to pee in most public places.

BUT! It's never, never too late - no matter how old you are. The brain is amazing, and we can change. It was just flat out wrong for your therapist to tell you that it was too late.

Is there anything that you love that you could focus on for a while? Order a new book? Or get out and drive? I noticed your name includes sf for San Francisco? Could you drive out to the red wood forest - or the Monterey Bay aquarium is AMAZlNG!!! You could go whale watching!

I've been trying to keep my schedule really tight and well accounted for and it's been very helpful and productive.

Just try to do one thing that would help you today. Make your bed, or go for a walk - whatever is meaningful to you. Then try tomorrow to add to it. It builds quickly. Try to get out and away from the computer.

Just baby steps.

Hi Euroinsf -

I too can relate to your story.

I am just starting to reach out and mother my inner child and I have no idea just how to do this at the advanced age of 47. But I am learning one day at a time.

I was neglected after my mother died. I went from being cherished and spoiled rotten to not being wanted and told I was not wanted on a daily basis by my father. He then remarried quickly and his wife could not stand me and made my life a living hell, as my father looked on and watched. They kicked me out as soon as I graduated High School. I have constantly gone through life thinking I missed the class where everyone was taught how to live their lives successfully. I learned to survive and drinking was at one time a solution but ... it soon became the problem and I learned the hard way that it was NOT the answer.

In my AA meeting today someone described themselves as having a hole in their soul, and that they needed an outside force to fill it on a regular basis. BUT this person went on to say that she has learned to allow God to fill that hole. I'm not there yet. My wounds are still a gaping but if others can do this, darn it so can it.

We can do it together Euro! You are not alone. We are all here for one another.

Kathie

Hi,
I can only offer you this. Hind sight is 20/20. During my addictive activities I e-stalked my POA. At one point I went to his house to verify he wasn't there messing around with someone else.

Now, I really don't care. I worked to be still and silence the loud drama. It was hard. It required a big step on my part. But I felt if I did what I always did, I would get what I always got...which wasn't great. The shame, the anger, the anxiety and the worthlessness. I couldn't continue that way. I know that my POA (who isn't my POA any more) is not right for me. We have nothing in common. We have totally different views. I have become more self directed. I continue to tell myself, this is my life....how do I want to live it. I am free and unlimited there are no chains that bind me.

What big step can you take for you? And remember, you are worth it. You are perfect in your god's eyes. Celebrate you and know that you mean something to many people. Just consider the number of responses you've gotten.

Serenity,
Beehappy

euro, in all 12step programs or 12step based recoveries, all members can do is carry the message of recovery. we do not carry the addict.

we see and hear your hell but we can not force you to stop swimming in it because there is no magic wand. only you can do it for yourself.

like you, i knew i was an addict when i stumbled into my primary program, AA. i called myself an alcoholic far and wide and thought that fact gave me the 'right' to drink. i didn't care about the disease and i didn't care about myself and i had no denial at all about the simple fact that if i breathe, i drink.

i understood my bottoming out level and had reached it. this made me willing to receive new information. admitting complete defeat to my addiction was different from reporting on all the gore it entailed. the exact way i took this Step was via Step One. i urge you to read all the way through step one of the aa 'twelve and twelve.' if we don't have the full text in here, it must be available on the net somewhere.

then, PLEASE turn off your computer and go out into real life and seek a 12step meeting. if there is no LAA, try Codependents Anonymous. if there is alcoholism in your family try Alanon or Children of Alcoholics meetings. if you suspect you might be addicted to your keyboard with too much online time, perhaps there is a 12step program available for that in your area. seek any appropriate 12step recovery environment with people and take in a meeting.

to me your posts are a genuine call for help and i respect this. i appreciate what addiction of any kind entails and how it operates because i am an addict with multiple addictions and what we call 'outside issues.' (outside issues are additional comorbid disorders not specific to addiction.)

until you are able to be constitutionally honest with yourself it may not be possible for you to do more then describe the hell of addiction. describing and admitting are different because when i admit defeat to my innermost self i become open to something larger then myself existing. i am not bigger then my disease but my Higher Power is. one of my first higher power's was the recovery group i participated in.

somewhere on the net must be the text of what we call chapter 5 in the aa big book entitled 'how it works.' read this too paying special attention to the a.b.&c. parts at the end.

you know euro, bars are filled with active alcoholics complaining about their drinking habits in intimate detail about the consequences they've endured. some even read aa literature on the bar stool. you are NOT uniquely sicker then any one of us in here. please with compassion try to believe me when i say you are a garden variety addict. yes, the disease is deadly but no, you are no different then anyone of us in here. you CAN stop using your addiction and start building your recovery. but it takes action: the First Step. not part of it, not visiting the concept but the whole enchilada. The First Step.

whatever you do, i strongly suggest (we suggest in here, we don't tell you what to do) that you give up the useless idea that if you just go on a dating site and locate another fix you'll be cured. it is wonderful that you 'know' you're done and you are 'willing' to get better. now in my opinion all you need to do is followup this up with action. step one and some in real life meetings. being teachable is great but action is a must. it might be a good idea to see if you can locate a new therapist who is familiar with addiction and recovery issues too.

if you want off your out-of-control merrygoround, get off the ride and onto a different ride. none of us recovered overnight but all of us can tell you the recovery ride IS worth it. if for no other reason then because anything at all is better then the active addiction ride.

it's up to you euro. we can't do it for you.

i type this with compassion and in support.

excellent words nickie...thank you

Ive been following this thread of late and its brought up a lot of stuff for me. The pain of LA is so strong in your story euro, i cant deny its reality for you or its terrible force. Unless people like us live in the solution however we are left living in the problem, day in day out. I'm speaking from personal experience when I say that sometimes we don't want the the problem to go away. That would mean losing our POAs forever and this would be unacceptable to us. Ive recently woken from a dream about mine and my heart was thumping, my mind racing and I was nearly crying. It wasn't a romantic dream. It was full of the usual shameful, demeaning, inadequate, self critical garbage that I seem to carry around from time to time. Ive been on a progressive downhill run with this cr*p for a couple of weeks now and I really have to do something about it. Sometimes they come back in ways beyond our control and the pain and longing are just as real. I got no answers on how to deal with this other than to get down on my knees and pray to a God I don't particularly like at times, because what other solutions are there left when I cant get my head/feelings together enough to even read from a book let alone rationalize a 12 step program? Really enjoying your posts guys they are full of sound advice. My prayers are with you euro may you find the strength you need to persevere.

thank you very much for posting an update.

i too struggle with profound loneliness and have learned to console myself by inhabiting my own life. my medication specifically addresses my suicidal impulse but the rest of my emotional issues remain to be dealt with on a day by day basis.

one of the coping mechanisms available to me has been my intellectual curiosity. it's just easy for me to pursue information, in fact what i must struggle with as a defect is not getting addicted to my need to know. HA.

what i have looked at around the net is the topic of 'mirroring' as it relates to attachment and bonding. reactive attachment disorder as a response to never having been mirrored at the preverbal level. i do not pursue this train of thought to build up a feeling of hopelessness or self contempt. no. i have instead used my peripheral introduction to knowledge about this stuff to understand why i am soo needy and to learn how to meet my own needs.

in my opinion it just begins with willingness to understand and accept i am soo needy my needs will never be met until i develop the emotional skills to inhabit my own life. this is a process. this requires professional help.

i may not know all that much about this stuff but one thing i AM certain of is: a new Person Of Addiction is not the path of recovery.

you sound much more interested in yourself then the pursuit of your Person of Addiction in your last post. recovery is all about progress not perfection. if there are codependent anonymous meetings available to you, why not check them out. please read susan peabody's book and step into your process of recovery today.

Euro
CONGRATULATIONS that was so so good to read you've taken him of your gmail account.
Well done, truly, so well done.
Much blessings

I've spent months and months e-stalking my POA. even told him about it but I didn't consider it stalking. he had been crystal clear with me- he couldn't and didn't want to leave his wife. paradoxically I didn't want to break up his family or mine. mad romantic dream that one day somehow we could be together.

both our spouses are /were ill. what was I thinking? that I wanted them to die quickly so he and I could be together? but he's as bad as me...maybe worse. but who am I to judge? what I am admitting to myself day after day is that he's not right for me and it's my inner child who wants to be loved and cherished and appreciated.

i have so many unresolved issues. started having panic attacks 5 /6 years ago. but maybe I had been having them all my life. have tried to talk to my shrink about some of my obsessive behaviour and about how i fear the future nd he just brushed it aside saying I have to concentrate on my husband ( also his patient) who is deeply depressed after undergoing brain surgery two years ago. and to stop feeling sorry for myself! but I'm tired of being strong for him and putting on a brave face .


the last year and a half has been a living hell for me ever since I first got in touch with My POA. some of my friends know but none of my family do. my family know my marriage is really shaky and that my husband is unstable but they don't know about my insanity. i've got to start loving me again. get up in the morning and tell myself I am a good person. because I am. at least I used to be until I lost it for my POA and our toxic relationship. thanks to everybody on here.

have been reading stories of people being suicidal. have been quite desperate at times and felt I don't want to live any more. that's helping me to see how dangerous SLAA really is. got to face my issues. my friends are wrong to think I'm a drama queen. they keep telling me just to forget about it and stop talking about my POA all the time. but I'm talking about him being toxic not that I still love him madly. not letting myself even think about that. TOXIC that's what SLAA is. I know you all understand even if nobody around me seems to