Jersey Hooker

My Alcoholism/Depression/Addiction/Anxiety Recovery Blog: Unhappy Hour-A Story of Alcohol and Alcoholism and... : A Story of Alcohol and Alcoholism and Survival I looked like death yet still, something deep inside wanted me to be well thoug...

It would be a product of false pride to claim that A.A. is a cure-all, even for alcoholism. — AS BILL SEES IT, p. 285 When I started my Twelve Step Fellowship for my alcoholism, I thought I could just go until I was "cured".  I also had the belief that the Twelve Step had magic powers that could save me.  I found there is much more than just being "sober".  I learned how to "recover". I practice the principles I have learned in my program in all of my affairs but there are some things that the program cannot afford someone with my specific issues.  I suffer from depression and anxiety because of a chemical imbalance that I cannot control.  This was a separate issue from my drinking, which needed to also be addressed.  I had to seek medical help for these conditions.  If I don't keep my mental health up to par, then my ability to practice my Twelve Step program and connect with my Higher Power will suffer greatly. I believe addiction and menta...

"Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of yourself less." ~ C.S. Lewis I had the concept of humility backwards when I was active in my drinking.  I had this idea that If I let people take what ever they wanted from me, emotional, financial or physically, that I was the "better" person.  That is not humility, it is low self-esteem. I could never figure out why I would always get the short end of the stick when I was nice to people.  I would give anybody the shirt off my back.  "Anybody" was the problem.  I had a very distorted view of myself, my self esteem was at an all time low.  I drank more to try to numb the emotions I felt about myself.  Maybe I was thinking that If I failed in one area, I could surely make it up somehow someway... some distorted backwards karma idea. I thought If I was overly generous, that people wouldn't see me as an alcoholic.  They would see me as a loving person who just had some bad luck ev...

We realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us. Ask Him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who is still sick. The answers will come, if your own house is in order. But obviously you cannot transmit something you haven't got. See to it that your relationship with Him is right, and great events will come to pass for you and countless others. This is the Great Fact for us. — ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 164 When I started my Twelve Step program, I was angry, impatient, desperate, confused and lonely.  I felt like I was missing something.  I wanted my life fixed right now without having to put the work in to get it where it needed to be.  I didn't want to have to pray or attend Twelve Step meetings.  I felt like I was a victim and shouldn't have to change myself.  I started attending Twelve Step meetings not because I wanted to, but had to,  if I ever had a chance of getting behind a steeri...

"Now and then its good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy" I used to think happiness was perfection.   "When everything is perfect I will be happy."   What is "perfect"? The grass was always greener somewhere else.  I could never be content with what I had at the current time.  I was always seeking something, but just didn't know what it was I was needing to quell my hunger for happiness. In my twenties, I moved a lot in search of happiness.  Looking for jobs or relationships that were going to make me happier than I was.  When things became settled in my life, I became bored.  I thought I was missing something somewhere else.  Panic would set in and I would instantly begin seeking a different  job or relationship to continue my search for happiness.  I had a fear that If I settled down and stayed in one spot, that was forever going to be my life as it was at that exact moment.  There would never be excit...

As you become more clear about who you really are, you'll be better able to decide what is best for you the first time around.   -Oprah Winfrey I always had this idea that my time as a mom was going to be filled with boy scout meetings, soccer games, car-pooling a bunch of kids, hosting sleep-overs and birthday parties etc... So when I realized that wasn't going to be how it was, I thought I had failed. I worked full time when my children were infants and toddlers.  They spent their days in daycare or with Grandma.  I was exhausted when I came home from work.  My children's father played a huge roll in the younger years.  It was a weird feeling type of role reversal that I didn't no how to accept. I was the bread-winner.  I had to cut my maternity leaves short with both boys because I wasn't getting paid during my time off.  We had no income if I wasn't working.  I was the one the whole family counted on financially.  I would have g...

 My morning reading explained the importance of a strong support system in sobriety.  My sobriety is like a garden.  If I don't water it, it won't grow.  If I don't prune out the weeds, they will surely take over.  It needs plenty of sunlight. Before I made the commitment to become sober, I had brief periods where I consciously worked on staying sober.  Then there were times when I thought I didn't need a Twelve Step fellowship.  I didn't need to be involved as everyone else.  I would just go to meetings when I felt like taking a drink or using.    I thought I could still be around people who used and drank.  I just had to have the willpower to not indulge. I couldn't be more wrong.  It's like my Mom always said, "If you lie with dogs, you catch fleas.." My recovery garden was full of weeds and it wasn't getting any water or sunlight. It wouldn't be long before I would start drinking and using again. I had to learn and ...

"Faith is to believe what you do not see, the reward of this faith is to see what you believe." Saint Augustine Having faith in my Higher Power was a challenge in the beginning of my sobriety.  I couldn't understand how I was going to put my life into the hands of something I couldn't see or believe.  It almost sounded as crazy as staying a drunk.  I wasn't a church goer.  Religion was never a big part of my life growing up. So now I was supposed give up control of my own life? To what? In my Twelve Step program, I kept relapsing shortly after I reached Step 3.  I wasn't surrendering.  I still had to have control somewhere and get in the way of my Higher Power's plan for me.  I was stuck on Step 3 for a few years for sure. When I finally accepted my Higher Power's plan and surrendered, I began my Step 4 and seemed to be just fine until I reached my Step 6.  I again began to question how all of this "faith" stuff was going to...

For so long, I convinced myself that I was not the cause of my problems.  Lying to myself allowed me to believe that I could continue drinking with justification.  I would spin events to my favor so as to get sympathy from others. If I could convince them I was a victim of circumstance, then they would surely understand why I drank so heavily.  I convinced myself that I would then be excused from my bad habits.   I believe I managed to convince some people how horribly unfortunate I was and received their sympathy.  Others, saw right through the deception.   I avoided the people who didn’t believe my exaggerated tales because that would mean I would have to face the truth and clean myself up.  There were times when I convinced myself that my children were better off without me because I was so mentally broken.  I felt worthless inside so what value could I offer them?  I convinced myself that I didn’t deserve to be in a healt...

I could never understand why I would get so angry at everything.  Sometimes I didn’t even know why I was angry.  I guess you could say I was somewhat addicted to anger.  It felt comfortable.  I was use to angry people.  If I didn’t get angry, I thought it meant I didn’t care.  Sometimes I would hold on to anger for days, weeks, months or even years.  My angry logic told me that if you want someone to know you are serious, you’d better show them you are angry.  My thinking was so distorted, that I would get mad if someone wasn’t mad when I thought they should be.  I wasn’t just fighting battles that weren’t mine, I was creating them.  My biggest anger trigger was disappointment.  Something didn’t go my way or I was let down.  I was rejected.  What I didn’t see was my anger was isolating me, and the isolation was making me angry.  In essence, I was alienating myself from healthy people.  No one wants to be a...

For every moment you are angry, you lose six seconds of happiness -- Ralph Waldo Emerson Resentments kept me drunk for a long time.  It was a reason to drink, for me anyway.  I could spend the whole afternoon drinking and thinking. Thinking about how badly I was being treated and how things would be different if people would just "treat me right!".  It wasn't my fault that I drank, It was their fault!  They were making me so crazy I had to drink! That's what I used to tell myself.  I would become so obsessed with "getting even".  I was always angry and depressed, it was a great big pity party!  I truly believed that there was nothing wrong with me and that I was a "victim" of other peoples behavior and bad luck.  I felt justified to drink.  After all I had been through, I deserved to be mad and angry. What I didn't realize at the time was things were just getting worse.  No one was suffering because I was hurt or angry, exce...

"Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have—life itself.” ~Walter Anderson Self pity can be dangerous if you allow it to control your actions and emotions. Bad things do happen and we have no control over it. We can control how we react. If you allow yourself to drown in self pity, it will keep you from moving forward.  I spent most of my drinking days steeped in self pity. Why me? Why do I have to deal this? Those were the questions I asked myself in between sips of beer. It was so easy to stay in the self pity mode. I carried my bitterness and self-destruction everywhere I went. I let it affect not only me but the people around me. If I didn't find the courage to face my pain head on, I was going to sink deeper into depression. And that is exactly wh...

For years, I let fear run my life.  I have heard fear referred to as " Forget Everything And Run ".   That statement couldn't be more true.  I have spent a lot of time in fear of abandonment, not being accepted and fear of failing relationships.   I have lived in several states and had several different jobs. When things didn't measure up to my expectations , it was time to throw in the towel and move on. When I didn't know how to deal with my emotions, I would physically run or mentally run.   As I got older , I would drown myself in alcohol in an effort to dull the pain that fear was causing because physically running was no longer an option.  My alcoholic way of thinking was convincing me that my fears were real.  After countless episodes of binge drinking, my alcoholism began to cause the very things I feared.  My relationship with my children began to suffer.  I got to see them less, and when I did see them, my...

We have all heard the expression, "Keep It Simple".  Some of us learn this the hard way.  Anyone who is an active addict or in recovery has triggers that can cause a relapse.  One of my triggers is anxiety.  If I allow myself to become anxious for an extended period of time, I am liable to relapse. To avoid becoming a victim of my anxiety trigger, I try to keep things a simple as possible.  My morning routine is structured in such a way that I take time to read, meditate and pray.  I have found that these simple steps in the morning, build a healthy foundation for the rest of my day.  As long as I don't allow myself to become filled with anxiety, things go smoothly and I am more productive.   We have all heard about "People, Places and Things...".  By avoiding unhealthy people and "old haunts", I eliminate a huge amount of unnecessary anxiety.  Sometimes, we can't avoid situations.  When we are faced with a...

Putting demands on other people, in other words, expectation... I'm learning in my recovery that one of my biggest character defects is expectation.  For years, I expected people to act a certain way. Sometimes for their benefit and sometimes mine.  With expectation comes great disappointment.  Expectation is okay for inanimate objects I suppose.  We expect our car to start in the morning.  We expect it to be cold out if our thermometer says its 0 degrees.   We can expect our cellphone to shatter if we throw it at a brick wall.   We cannot put expectations on humans. During my years of drinking, I had a self-centered way of thinking.  I expected people to love me or like me.  When my expectations were not met, I would go to great lengths to convince others I was worthy of their affection.  I would do things out of character.  This false sense of pride is very dangerous for an alcoholic or addict.  When I could not ...

My first post on my first blog!!  So excited!  I decided to start this blog as a way of journaling my thoughts.  And then I got to thinking... Sharing my triumphs and struggles with the next person would be priceless.  If I could actually blog something that would help or inspire another human being, how cool would that be?    My hope is that my daily struggles and how I react to them in recovery may inspire someone to learn a new way of life.  A better life.  A life they deserve, free of anxiety, guilt and shame.   Every morning, I start with prayer and meditation.  Oh and of course a cigarette and big mug of coffee.  When I first began meditation and prayer , it felt foreign, almost fake.  I wasn't spiritual.  I didn't know how to pray.  And when I began to think of a higher power, i didn't feel like I was worthy.  All of these things I did to my children, my loved ones, what higher power would want t...