Thinking about going to rehab or AA

BlueAscetic · 2020-04-02T19:14:48+00:00

It sounds like you're at a turning point, and I wish you all the best. AA worked for me personally, but for mental stuff it might not be enough. After you work the 12 steps, there's a magic that happens in the process, but not for everyone. A lot of people in AA are still neurotic af. I'd highly suggest seeing a therapist. I also struggled with rumination, obsession, and negative thinking. I just barely started taking prozac after being critical of all meds, but I'll see how it goes. Also be easy on yourself. It's easy to get lost in the world we're in.

drunk_blueberry · 2020-04-02T19:55:18+00:00

This stuff is very hard and there's no shame in admitting that you need a helping hand. You deserve to be happy and to have a quality life. I want nothing but the best for you. I also believe in you!

While you are on this journey to recovery, please remember that it's important to be kind to yourself. Best of wishes to you!

Coollogin · 2020-04-02T20:50:48+00:00

I think a good rehab would be really helpful. You are self-medicating. Rehab should help you build a robust toolkit of alternatives to weed and alcohol when you need them. It can also help you come to terms with the failures of those who were supposed to love and care for you most, as well as your own failures and shame.

I wish you all the best.

quickbucket · 2020-04-02T23:02:26+00:00

I don't think that book or any book are a magic pill. Nothing is. I experienced a similar spiral after a bad break up, although I've always struggled with some "darkness" for as long as I can remember. What you're facing has no real cure and a dose of placebo/misguided optimism may help you get out of your rut and find something to live for... but there certainly is no cure-all and if you dont think it's for you, then it won't work.

This may miss the mark for you, but something I've realized in my "recovery" process is that most people in our society are alienated. You're not crazy or "sick" for feeling resentment. You're just not distracted by having a family or all-consuming job or girlfriend/boyfriend. That's what failing capitalism and pseudo meritocracy does to anyone with half a brain. It alienates us from our work, our self value, and from our communities.

Sounds like your philosophical/existential burdens are also heightened by some physical/chemical "mental illness." It is well documented that prolonged depression correlates with, and even causes, decreased blood flow and eventually deterioration of the brain, which is extremy hard to come back from. When I went through a "low" for a few years after graduating college and getting depressed after I finally woke up to how fucked the world is (coming from a fairly privileged background myself), I became very literally much stupider and totally intolerable to my friends in family after prolonged isolation. This was compounded when I got what seemed like a mild head injury snowboarding. You've probably heard it a million times but exercise and meditation are lifesavers for some, and I couldnt have motivated myself to do them if I hadnt started taking an SSRI and omega 3 supplements to get the inflammation in my depressed brain down. I'm still a pretty big asshole but I'm at least okay at my job and have some will to live now, plus I managed to repair some of my relationships. Not saying any of that will work for you, but it's worth a shot. Feel free to PM me. A lot of people wont "get it" frankly and will talk bullshit. There are no right or wrong choices here. Maybe I'm too selfish, but I don't think owe anyone but yourself a damn thing and if you operate from a place of guilt you'll always end up in the same place anyway. You don't owe them your recovery. You don't owe them your productivity. You didnt choose to be born. If you want to get "better" awesome. But if not, the best thing you can do for yourself might be to move to a legal state, enjoy getting high on your time off, and let go, with kindness, the people in your life who arent okay with you living your version of your best life.

starspider · 2020-04-02T23:06:57+00:00

What you need is a dual-diagnosis type center. Someplace they can treat addiction and the underlying condition at the same time.

If you're in the USA, call 211. They can help you find resources.

I'm proud of you for seeing your problem and trying to fix it. Asking for help is hard but worth it.

Best wishes.

CitrusyDeodorant · 2020-04-03T04:54:03+00:00

Yes, that would be helpful. Please go to rehab, you deserve to have a good life and have good relationships with the people around you. Best wishes from a random internet stranger.

AmiBeingRestained · 2020-04-03T15:27:06+00:00

I just read a large chunk of your comment history on this sub and have interacted with you here before and I'm left vaguely disturbed by the picture that I'm seeing from an outside perspective.

Instead of talking about that, I want to say before anything else that self-medicating will kill you eventually, and horribly, not a noble way that will make people feel bad for you; but a choking, agonizing, uncomfortable death with people hating you for hurting yourself, not apologizing for hurting you, so to avoid that fate you need to get clean before you will feel remotely healthy again. Drinking in particular floods your brain with pleasure chemicals, so much so that your brain floods you with the opposite chemical to retain equilibrium. Even when you stop drinking these anti-pleasure chemicals stay in your brain for days or even weeks or months until you get totally sober for a long stretch of time. This is part of why you feel shitty every day and want to go drink or get high again. I'm speaking as someone who's been there and pulled out.

I know it's a really, really rough time to try to find social support outside the internet, but there are a lot of doctors and groups that now have video conferences. And I would also suggest that if nothing else, you seriously consider ending your use of the internet to intellectualize and internalize the things hurting you.

I know you probably spend a lot of time reading "both sides" of gender and identity issues, and I'm saying that's not helping you. It's obviously not helping, you are getting tricked by your feelings. Your brain, when it's not healthy, feels a thing, and then your mind creates a whole universe to explain the thing. This can exist on a spectrum from people falling for pyramid schemes all the way to moon-landing-hoax-911-truther-jet-contrail-mind-control-spray conspiracy theories.

You're obviously not at that latter point yet, but you're sliding down a similar slope into a realm that is not helping you and will leave you isolated and feeling worse and worse as your brain desperately tries to make sense of a universe that is becoming more and more painful. The internet is terrible for this kind of problem. I strongly recommend you kill your forum reading habits, whatever groups you belong to that reinforce particular and specific ideologies, whatever they are, even debate and discussions that make you feel strong emotional responses. Trying to tie your personal pain to social or gender issues is a red-herring that a lot of people chase and it rarely helps unless they actually become some kind of advocate or professional in the field. I'm not sure if that describes you, but I'm going to guess not.

The other trick depression and mental illness creates is the idea that feeling good is "fake" and wrong, that your cynicism is some kind of "dark truth" of the universe and that even attempting to feel better is unnatural and awkward. Your brain will hold onto your misery because you also have an ego as we all do, and the ego's job is to retain identity. It won't let go of an identity overnight because you didn't create this identity overnight. You practiced feeling horrible even if it was from sources outside your control, you still learned a system for dealing with feeling miserable piece by piece. A therapist should be able to help guide you through small, often uncomfortable, exercises to start trying to look at the world differently and the challenge you will face will be fighting your ego which will hate every minute of it and feel like you're falling for some kind of trick if you actually embrace change. This is the challenge most people face when going into therapy, which is also why good therapy has to be long, consistent and regular.

Falling off the wagon and spiraling into a breakdown like you're doing now, it resets that process but doesn't kill your chances of feeling better, you need to keep trying and pushing a little further each time you try. Happiness is not out of your reach, but you will have to accept some difficult things about how you're thinking and reacting.

Good luck and I hope you get some help or at least radically change your routines. And keep asking yourself, whatever you're doing "is this helping me?" and if you say no, or can't decide, try something else.

Redshirt2386 · 2020-04-03T18:40:15+00:00

Check out the Sinclair method for the alcohol overuse. It worked really well for me.

Bsalerno27 · 2020-04-05T22:13:52+00:00

try Watching Gary vee, Alan watts, and jordan b peterson, and david goggins. your not alone know that anything is possible and it all comes down to your mindset and how you handle it

st-maggot · 2020-04-06T17:42:55+00:00

Rehab, sober living, AA and therapy and psychiatry. Or maybe just AA if you find good people at meetings

Scott24z · 2020-04-02T21:50:10+00:00

Good lord, I keep telling you. You will benefit IMMEASURABLY from simply going to audible and downloading the power of now. Please. You keep writing these essayposts that must take ages to create but not doing the one minuscule action that would help you.

Edit: i will say, if your situation is REALLY bad, maybe rehab or therapy can help, but it won’t be a substitute for spiritual study.

Title	Thinking about going to rehab or AA
Author	defo18
Upvotes	23
Comments	31
Date	April 2, 2020 6:58 PM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/ExRedPill
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/exredpill/comments/fts763/thinking_about_going_to_rehab_or_aa/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/ExRedPill/thinking-about-going-to-rehab-or-aa.359263 https://theredarchive.com/post/359263