Discussion Stopped drinking and more suicidal

[ineverlearn]

It's been 3 weeks or so since I've stopped drinking. I wasn't drinking heavily but I was drinking everyday, around 5 or 6 beers on an empty stomach. The booze helped reduce the anxiety. And it helped forget for a little bit. Easier to get distracted by TV. I would also eat after.

Since I've stopped drinking, it being a depressant I thought it would help, things have only got worse. Suicide is at the forefront of every thought. I've had 2 small meals in 3 weeks. I can barely get out of bed. I just lay here, no TV, no music.

The anxiety has mostly gone since I've settled on a method. I've stopped talking to the few friends that have been trying. Told them I want to be alone and don't want to talk to anyone. I'm almost done completely isolating myself and I'm okay with it, it's making it easier to accept that maybe I'm done with this place. Already stopped talking to all of the family, they're at the root of my problems - well at least until I ultimately became like them and have caused the pain I swore I never would.

All in all, since I've stopped drinking, suicide is clearer, depression and loneliness are deeper and I care less and less for everything.

Has stopping drinking had a similar effect on anyone? And any thoughts on cutting out a depressant leading to a deeper depression?

 

[Soulless Angel]

are you on any medication for depression or similar?

I drink daily, as I know it calms my nerves etc, almost like you describe, I have gone without and again like you, found my mindset worsened, I did wonder if it was the drink coming out of my system, but apparently you should notice a difference after a week,
I find drink blocks out all the shit and allows me to relax and just not care, not a great place to be,
I won't suggest you retake up drinking, maybe this is the time though to start sorting though what you are going through, find out why you are feeling like this, and potentially use this as a path to starting to recover?

 

[signifying nothing]

Alcohol isn't necessarily a depressive, it affects different people in different ways. From what you've said it sounds like it was propping you up, keeping you from falling into the depressive hole you're in now you've stopped.

 

[ineverlearn]

are you on any medication for depression or similar?

I drink daily, as I know it calms my nerves etc, almost like you describe, I have gone without and again like you, found my mindset worsened, I did wonder if it was the drink coming out of my system, but apparently you should notice a difference after a week,
I find drink blocks out all the shit and allows me to relax and just not care, not a great place to be,
I won't suggest you retake up drinking, maybe this is the time though to start sorting though what you are going through, find out why you are feeling like this, and potentially use this as a path to starting to recover?

I'm not any medication. Was on ADHD meds up until the beginning of the year - it actually stopped me from recognizing and dealing with the things that have plagued me and I became a shitty person and ruined the good things in my life. It even hid that I was depressed. So I'm adverse to go on any medication now.

The last 9 months I've done nothing but sort through everything. Been seeing a therapist for 5 months now. I've sorted out and understand but can't change the past.

Like you, drinking made me not care or at least forget, I think I preferred that, at least in comparison to what I feel now.

Alcohol isn't necessarily a depressive, it affects different people in different ways. From what you've said it sounds like it was propping you up, keeping you from falling into the depressive hole you're in now you've stopped.

But not caring and forgetting can't be that great? I guess it did prop me up, but seemingly is an artificial way? At least now ctb is coming from a clear headed place.

 

[signifying nothing]

But not caring and forgetting can't be that great?

I dunno, they can be useful if it feels like there's too much to deal with or stuff you can do nothing about. It might just have been what you needed at the time.

 

[ineverlearn]

I dunno, they can be useful if it feels like there's too much to deal with or stuff you can do nothing about. It might just have been what you needed at the time.

It's like ongoing spiral down while sober. Every minute I'm awake and not drinking it continues. The drinking seems to just temporarily pause the spiralling.

Until I decided on a method, my mind would be cluttered and overwhelmed - anxiety. Since, I don't think much else other than ctb or at least I'm not overwhelmed knowing that I have an out. But the depression keeps getting darker.

 

[Deleted member 1465]

Reposted from elsewhere, my experience of booze FWIW...

I've been an alcoholic ever since I had my first drink. I have never known temperance - no point in drinking for me unless getting drunk was the aim. Lost count of the weird places I've woken up in or the strange drunken adventures I've had. I guess I started the abuse 30 years ago and never really grew out of it.
Why? It made me feel normal and happy. The OCD vanished and I could interact with people better, even be charming and felt like a better person. That is addictive.
I stopped around 15 years ago due to liver damage. It took 3 years to diagnose cuz the shite doctors kept telling me it was all in my mind (take some anti-depressant's, you'll be fine), I persisted, finally got a good doc and a scan showed the damage. I spent 3 years on the wagon with chronic pain, but eventually recovered.
And then I started drinking again. Yes, I know, I'm an idiot.
I drank a lot less and thought I could get away with it. I kinda expected my liver to give me another warning if it got too much. What I didn't realise is the extent to which the liver works in concert with the rest of your metabolism. The damage may have repaired, but the imbalance caused originally, plus the continued low level drinking, utterly screwed up my body and five years ago various systems started to go wrong.
Time for some unpleasant chronic illness.
That's when everything collapsed. Job gone, family forced me out of my home, stopped eating, hospital, stopped sleeping (almost completely), developed horrific anxiety and depression, spent all day doing web searches to feed my suicidal ideation. I was under a psych because no one knew what else to do and all he did was offer me medications that didn't work and made things worse. Their solution was stronger medications and an attempt to get me to go into hospital.
I did end up in hospital, but because I hadn't had a bowel movement for almost a month.
They kicked me out and told me it was all in my head.
That's when I came back to this website and decided I had no other choice. If the emergency department won't treat you in an emergency, what else do you do?
Improvise, I guess.
I called an out of hours GP. He was shit. I asked him if this would kill me. He nodded and turned away.
That made me angry and I decided I'd push him. I told him what to prescribe me and in what dose. After taking the medication I had some much needed relief. It's taken over a year to regain some functionality, though I also suffer from other, more inconvenient issues.
What kept me alive was two things:
1) Someone on here who gave me back my sense of pride
2) Carefully cultivated anger at trusting the people who I turned to for help who then comprehensively let me down.
As things got a little better in the spring, guess what? I started drinking again. What a fecking idiot.
A glass of wine turned into a bottle a week, then moved on to gin and a few weeks ago spent the next day vomming like a teenager on cider.
I still drink. I have a bottle of wine once a week and it barely touches the sides. But it helps me turn off the OCD etc for just one evening, and that is BLISS. I will suffer the physical consequences, I have no doubt, but then that's also almost certainly a horse that has bolted.
What I really want is many pints of good beer and to prop the bar up and chat up the barmaid! That's never going to happen though:/

Sorry, I got a bit carried away there. But maybe you can see the same sort of thing? Always coming back to it and fucking it up, yeah that's what I've always done. Still do.

 

[ineverlearn]

Reposted from elsewhere, my experience of booze FWIW...

Thank you for sharing that. I appreciate that you took the time to share your experiences.

 

[Deleted member 1465]

I still drink. I wish I didn't feel the need, but it's just some time off, like a pressure release valve. I'll pay the price, I'm already paying the price. Wish it was easier for both of us:/

 

[ineverlearn]

I still drink. I wish I didn't feel the need, but it's just some time off, like a pressure release valve. I'll pay the price, I'm already paying the price. Wish it was easier for both of us:/

I wish it was too for both of us. It's unfair the price that has to be paid for a little reprieve.

 

[awfullife]

Hey I stopped drinking in 2013 and definitely know how you are feeling. Melancholic depression sets in as you had a love affair with alcohol that has been terminated. I just quit smoking 2 packs a day about a month ago and feeling was identical.

My life went to shit after I stopped drinking but at this point it would only be worse for me if I took up the drink again. You were drinking far more moderately than me I was drinking alot at the end and it was painful and time consuming buying booze and dealing with hangovers.
The alcohol related depression will go away but other underlying depression may resurface. Typically early on in recovery we actually enter a euphoric state where we see things so clearly and are super jazzed about being sober. Like everything else, this goes away after a while. My wife divorced me 2 years after sobriety. Life has been hell ever since. I also turned to drugs (adderall) and abused those for a couple years. Now poverty and no future career has me looking to CTB.

 

[WornOutLife]

Yesss, me too!

I'm not allowed to drink since I tried to CTB in August and I'm more suicidal than ever! (there are some other factors such as being a prisoner in my parents house)

Anyway, not drinking has made things worse because it allowed me to be "happy" for some hours at least. (I was finally alone for some hours a few days ago and managed to get durnk AF and it felt great!!!!)

All in all, I feel the same as you and I hope I'm able to live alone so as to drink lots and maybe next year, finally catch the bus.

 

[ineverlearn]

Hey I stopped drinking in 2013 and definitely know how you are feeling. Melancholic depression sets in as you had a love affair with alcohol that has been terminated. I just quit smoking 2 packs a day about a month ago and feeling was identical.

My life went to shit after I stopped drinking but at this point it would only be worse for me if I took up the drink again. You were drinking far more moderately than me I was drinking alot at the end and it was painful and time consuming buying booze and dealing with hangovers.

Your life went to shit but did you find it eventually got better because of not drinking? Congrats on quitting smoking. That's next in line for me.

I would've been drinking much more heavily if money wasn't an issue. I essentially bargained with myself to drink moderately so that I could continuously drink. And drinking on an empty stomach was the added compromise.

it allowed me to be "happy" for some hours at least.

This is exactly it. Exactly.

Strange how the thing that's supposed to be so bad for us ends up giving us a way to continue.

 

[signifying nothing]

The problem is there's nothing quite like alcohol - its in a class of its own for therapeutic effect. I'm sure doctors would prescribe it if they could.

 

[ineverlearn]

It really is. As much as I used to find comfort in other drugs, alcohol has been the one to stay. The one that I "need".

 

[Deleted member 1465]

The problem is there's nothing quite like alcohol - its in a class of its own for therapeutic effect. I'm sure doctors would prescribe it if they could.

I'm sure more than half of them go home and get shit-faced anyway. I wish I had something else I could use to just have a damn break that wasn't so harmful. It really is poison. But it's soooooo much fun to feel okay for a little while.

 

[ineverlearn]

But it's soooooo much fun to feel okay for a little while.

Even in that escape, I'm acutely aware of the falseness of it. Dreading the eventual sobering up.

I want nothing more than to be in that place perpetually, to not care ever again. But I guess I'm hoping for things to change if I continue to not drink - at least internally anyway, externally I don't expect anything will.

 

[Deleted member 1465]

Even in that escape, I'm acutely aware of the falseness of it. Dreading the eventual sobering up.

It's true, it's an illusion.
But then most of life is a delusion of one description or another. The realities, when exposed, are far too harsh for most people to face. Otherwise we wouldn't spend so much time lost in illusory worlds of TV, social media, even books. It's called escapism for a reason and we all do it to one degree or another.
Choose your poison, indeed.
Most people claim to want to find some nebulous 'truth' in their lives.
I bet if they did find it, all they would want to do is go back in time and forget it.
Being alcoholic, to me anyway, is the ultimate expression of wilful ignorance. I'm not proud of that but I'm not ashamed to admit it either.

 

[awfullife]

Burning down (sorry I dont know how to insert quotes)
No my life went from riches to rags. I lost everything. House, money, business, kids, cars, everything. You could make an argument that I 'switched' to adderall but I didnt abuse that for a couple of years.

I had/have a really bad master of the universe complex. Adderall was just like gasoline on a fire for that. Now that everything is gone, I must decide whether or not to live. Besides the 2 kids, not sure of any valid reason..
Good luck to you with the drinking.

 

[ineverlearn]

Burning down (sorry I dont know how to insert quotes)
No my life went from riches to rags. I lost everything. House, money, business, kids, cars, everything. You could make an argument that I 'switched' to adderall but I didnt abuse that for a couple of years.

I had/have a really bad master of the universe complex. Adderall was just like gasoline on a fire for that. Now that everything is gone, I must decide whether or not to live. Besides the 2 kids, not sure of any valid reason..
Good luck to you with the drinking.

You can hit reply or quote under a comment to quote something.

Adderall and dexadrine were my undoing. I definitely became a person that was always "right" - regardless of the truth. And the Adderall masked my depression. I was unable to recognize the growing anxiety and desperation that I was inadvertently turning into pointed anger at those around me. I was convinced that I was so righteous and everyone else was wrong, about everything. I've hurt, with such ferocity, the only person who actually brought any joy into my life and now they're gone.

I'm not sure if your experience was similar but I do understand the "fuel on the fire" aspect. If I had kids, I think that would be reason enough for me to trudge on. Maybe not.

I hope you find your reasons, for whatever path. But I suppose that as long as there is a glimmer of hope, might as well exhaust that before retiring.

 

[CTB-London]

I've had an on-off drink problem for years. Alcohol is indeed a depressant so avoiding it is good in the long run.

In the weeks after quitting drinking it can take time for your brain to adjust to a new equilibrium without alcohol so you can feel worse and get cravings for a while. Try to get through this bad patch.

 

[ineverlearn]

I ended up drinking last night. It's the only way I feel like I can get through seeing someone, even though he is one closest people in my life. I haven't really had cravings, the same way I have no desire to eat, smile or do anything else. I don't expect to be drinking again any time soon, since I don't expect to see anyone any time soon.