In general, I like group therapy because it lets me hear other people's experiences and thoughts and I find I often relate to things that other's share or hear things that I hadn't thought of. Also the group and the relationships between group members are a pretty good model for interpersonal relationships, which is a pretty big component of DBT. Basically learning to navigate in group, despite your frustrations, is a good place to practice skills that you'll use in other relationships.

As for your question, I'll try to explain. I started drinking when I was around 11 or 12 but not heavily until I left home at 18 and it was always pretty heavy from that point on. By my mid 30's I was drinking a 26 oz bottle of hard liquor a day, hated myself, was self injuring, was dealing with depression, dissociation (as well as blacking out) and just my life outside of work was just pure chaos. I was holding it together at work, I was a finance director by that point, but I knew I was killing myself. It was work, come home drink til I passed out, repeat. I guess for me it was ultimately fear that got to me, I knew I couldn't continue doing what I was doing, and so went to my first rehab. There were many things wrong with that rehab - I hadn't really picked it, it was where my company sent me, and while they dried me out I didn't pick up any tools on how to live sober. I got out was 21 days sober and made the mistake of attempting to go back to work right away. Big mistake because, as I've said before, without the alcohol my brain was stupid. they even told me at work that I'd been faster when I was drinking. So no shock here, I didn't stay sober and my drinking really escalated. Finally after 4 months of me screwing up at work and missing a lot of days to stay home and drink my company gave me a choice get my **** together now or take a package and leave. I took the package, and promptly went on one of the worst binges of my life and landed me in an ER on Christmas day 2006. I was in the hospital for a week. they hooked me up with a really good rehab and my addictions Dr. who I still see today. But that was the start of the worst period in my life, 12 years of staying sober for a while then relapsing and binge drinking for up to a couple of weeks. Between 2007 and 2018 I attempted suicide 3 times, had 3 inpatient psych stays, did rehab a bunch of times, and did the DBT group and a bunch of other therapy. I'm not really sure what motivated me to keep trying therapy, and sobriety except maybe a self preservation instinct and the ongoing encouragement of my addictions Dr. I still can't figure out why she didn't cut me loose, I was such a messed up patient, but she kept encouraging me to keep trying so I did making tons of mistakes along the way. In this period I also lost my apartment and wound up in transitional housing for 18 months before I was able to reenter the housing market. Then in Oct. 2018 I had what was my last relapse. The binge was so bad but the withdrawal was hellish - 4 days of throwing up, the DT's etc. When I came out of it, I just knew I couldn't go through that again and that if I picked up a drink again I'd probably die. With that something in my mind shifted and I decided that I would do whatever it took to not drink today, and started to throw all my energy at just staying sober. As I said before it took time, but eventually I was able to start volunteering, did the trauma therapy, and was then able to start working again. I won't say my life is perfect now, my housing is less than optimal, I'm currently living in a boarding house for people living with psych diagnoses that's run by a Catholic charity, but it's clean and it's very affordable. I'd like to get my own apartment again someday, but I figure I'll stay where I am until I get through school which I'm starting in the fall.


Hope that made sense.