hey cyncicalcat and welcome to the group. Sounds like you've got a rocky road ahead with the DUI, the time to start addressing your problem is definitely now.

You're lucky that you're alive and that you didn't kill anyone too, so that's one positive in the whole situation, another is that you realize you have a problem and need to stop.

Joining this group is a great start, have you considered attending an AA meeting? Talking to some folks who have been in my shoes was and is a huge help to me.

Welcome to the group! Have a read, you'll likely find many things you can relate to.

Hello Cynicalcat,

I can totally sympathise with your plight. By some miracle, I escaped a DUI or a serious accident through many years of drinking, although I had many narrow escapes, including four in the last two years of drinking.

One of those four warnings would have made a normal person take action to ensure that it would never happen again. Even after four, I continued to drink and to drive as before. I believed that I had no other choice most of the time (wrong thinking); I strongly believed that I could not function without alcohol (more wrong thinking) and I knew that I could not stop drinking (definite fact).

It was true that I could not stop drinking ON MY OWN. However, once I reluctantly made the decision to go to a meeting of that crowd as I knew them then, or Alcoholics Anonymous, I quickly found that I could now do what was totally impossible before.

Like you, I knew that I had to change (or face some very bad things) and I also did not like myself very much or more accurately, the person I had become. For me, drinking was the only way that I knew since the age of fifteen and facing life without alcohol was a terrifying thought. The worst thing was that I had absolutely no idea that there was another way. Thanks to AA, I now know that there is an alternative that really works.

You cannot change what has been done in the past but you can certainly shape your future. Accept the things you cannot change and pray for the courage to change the things you can. The choice is quite simple: You can continue as before and if you do, you can be certain that your present difficulties will pale by comparison to what you can expect in future. Alternatively, you can decide to make that change that you know in your heart that you must make.

My suggestion to you is to go along to many AA meetings and to decide that you are going to make it work. This may help your cause in court but it will give you so much more than that. A life beyond your wildest dreams is within your grasp.

Hi. I can understand what your saying. I hated myself for a long time to. ever since i can remember. I think it goes back to my childhood. always being called stupid, an asshole and other things by my parents, although I think they didn't know the harm it caused and it was done out of ignorence. I think I just ended up believing these things, and grew up with a lot of fear that people might find out. anyway, drinking and drugs didn't help. Most times it only validated the negative. If there was a way to aqrew up, I was sure to find it. Being around recovery was pretty hard. I always felt less than everyone else. by the time I got to A.A. I had lost everything in life. I heard things like, "You can't love others until you love yourself." Or "you have to do it for yourself." How the hell are you going to do it for yourself if you really don't care in the first place for yourself ? I waited a long time for that to happen, and finally came to the conclusion that it wasn't going to. Someone that I was once close to said to me, "Why don't you just try to do it for me, or Dusty." Dusty was her dog that I loved. Anyway, she knew the battle I was fighting, and I was loseing, but I decided to try it. I had a few falls, but did better because it's a lot easier for me to care about others than it is about myself. I have two cats now that I love very much. Since getting them I have learned to love and care for them a lot. Having something to care about does help a lot. Many times I want to just say, "Fuck it." But I know they need me. By careing for them, I've come to care about myself. I don't try to live up to anyones standards because it just could never work for me. I'm not a success story by anymeans, but I am a good person now, and I do like myself. The only thing I do is try. You need to keep trying to. I don't know if there is any real answers, but the one thing I've stopped doing is beating myself up about the past. Yes I did a lot of wrong, and I made a lot of mistakes, but I'm not that person anymore. For me, I close the doors on the past. I don't dwell in it. All that ever did was make me depressed, and then I got drunk. I try just to live for today. That's all we have. The past doesn't exist anymore, and it's foolish for me to beat myself up about things that don't exist. For one day I can try to be a good person. Then tomorrow I try for two days, and so on. The more good days I acumulate, the better I start to feel because I'm putting distance to the person I was, the one I didn't like. I'm pretty good today, and I can look in the mirror, and say, "Your pretty good." Wish you all the best. James

Attempt to see through the hating of oneself.

Is it really you that creates the thoughts about not liking yourself, is it?

Look to see where the thoughts come from.

You might be able to see that your thoughts just appear. If your thoughts actually came from you, that would mean that you would have to be sitting there and think, I should start thinking badly about my self. But even if you did that, you'd have to ask where the thoughts that you should think badly about yourself originated from.

What happens often is that we have a first set of negative thoughts about self and then we get hooked into this string of thinking. Does it get you to believe that you really do think poorly of yourself? Is it this first thought that makes you feel bad? If so, then realize that you didn't create this first negative thought about yourself, it just appeared out of nowhere.

The point is that if you can see that you are not creating the negative thoughts about yourself -(at least not the first string of thoughts about yourself) but only get hooked into the thought process by trying to fight those first thoughts, then you can take aim to just observe the first thought and not continue to interact with it or them.

One way that thinking becomes a problem in this type of situation is when a person believes in the first thought, or thinks they created this thought about their self and continues to believe it or fight it.

Just observe the first negative thoughts about yourself and don't give it any importance. Know that you didn't create it but that if you start to interact with it you will feel the sting of self debasement.

Just one question, what's your plan of action for recovery?

Hopefully this was your wake up call. You don't have to go any lower - but you will if you continue to drink.

I completely relate to the self-hate that you are experiencing and have for your entire life - if I'm reading your post right. I did too and I had also hated myself for as long as I could remember.

The ONLY thing that worked for me was AA. The love I found in those rooms was awesome - and they loved me until I learned to love myself. I did not have a realistic view of myself - and I'm betting that you don't either.

For me - the feedback from other people was enormously helpful. But also - when I heard someone talking about an experience that I had had - and one that I felt deep shame about - but they were not shamed in meetings - I began to see a new me.

A priest, that does a lot of talking in Los Angeles AA meetings - said it well - "I don't know who I am until I hear you talking about an experience from the podium and then I get it - it is through the identification that we learn about ourselves".

You can learn to love yourself and it doesn't take all that long to begin to happen - if you go to meetings. Good luck.

Hi Cat...the date on your photo struck me...7/17 is my daughters B-day and she recently was driving drunk...accident...ended up in the hospital and luckly (so far) not in jail. She and you are facing a long year. How you chose to respond is ultimately up to you. Learning to love who you are and demanding more of yourself is a long journey. Having said that it only requires a first step then small steps after that to make the journey. Take this opportunity in time to really look at that first step. Get support, get some help, but get going....you can do it and in your heart you know you are worth it or you wouldn't have even posed the question.

Thank you everyone for your kind words, stories, etc. It's already done me some good to see I am not alone. I will get to AA this week. I really want to go. I need to not be alone. Thanks again.

The cool thing about AA meetings is that you will be surrounded by a lot of people who like to party. They just do it with a lot of coffee and interesting stories.

I have laughed more in AA meetings than any party I have ever been to. Good luck to you - being sober so worth it.

correction - being sober is so worth it.

I found an AA meeting to go Tuesday night. It's near my work. I'm really looking forward to it.