For going to AA meetings but still actively drink. I don’t drink before the AA meetings or even during the day. But ive sort of become this functioning night alcoholic just to get me into the next day and unwind from everything. I feel like a terrible person for doing this. I am a terrible person. But i don’t know how to get through life sober and not want to kill myself. I have never had a suicidal thought when drunk. Its only when im sober when i start wanting to end it. I keep trying to give myself hope and optimism that “everything will work out,” but it never ends well and i just become depressed. I hope i can finish this semester without having another breakdown but i can’t even promise myself that. Ive been hospitalized 4 times and then therapeutic boarding school in the last 4 years. It feels like clockwork to me. My therapist doesn’t even threaten to send me to the hospital when i talk about my suicidal ideation and even planning. Ive become a lost cause.
No it doesn’t make you a terrible person. You’re just struggling with an addiction. Have you tried being honest in AA meetings that you still struggle with drinking at night time?
Most of the times i don’t speak but i spoke tonight about how hard it is to wake up in the mroning feeling the way i feel and not drink.
It’s worth it to keep being honest and keep trying. My father was an alcoholic and it gave him Korsakoff Syndrome (dementia).
I don’t think you’re a terrible person. At least you’re going to the meetings and that tells me you probably want to change. Some people might start with stopping the drink, some people (like you) might start with the meetings and then stop drinking in time.
i have been there, you are not a terrible person. the terrible person is the one says “I stopped drinking” and either hasn’t stopped, or has switched to something much worse.
I told my family i would stop drinking, so i switched to pain killers. ever seen what happens when you over dose on oregel? you face goes numb, you drool all over the place and your brain shuts down. it took me ten tubes of the stuff to reach that point…lowest point of my life.
I saw people go to AA meetings stone drunk. The people at the meetings were outraged or anything. They just felt kind of sorry for the person. The person you’re hurting worst by doing that is yourself.
That was how I felt before my liver function started to decline. I’m very lucky I bounced back from it because I was sicker than hell. Kept thinking of how I would kill myself with alcohol poisoning rather than die slowly of liver failure.
Suggest not letting it get that far! (And it will if you don’t put the plug in the jug.)
We’d rather have them with us hearing about sober living than in a bar actively practicing the opposite. Drunks are usually only ever asked to leave if they are disrupting the meeting.
AA is meant to stop that. The idea is to go to AA to stop drinking. Hopefully, if you persist in going to meetings long enough and listen to what other recovering alcoholics say about recovery it will sink in and you’ll stop. No, your drinking does not make you a bad person, but it is only hurting yourself.
The only time I have ever seen people start shouting in an AA meeting was when these two guys were getting into a physical fight, and one of them pulled out a knife. People were outraged that someone would start a fight in an AA meeting, which they should have been.
Is it possible that your meds are causing suicidal ideation? Have you spoken to your doctors about it? I had suicidal ideation on a med and also on 5mg of abilify. I on 10mg of abilify now and everything’s ok in that department.
Don’t worry too much about drinking while going to AA for now.