[madisgram]

when i drank it took away all my life problems i thought. when i got sober i realized i was running from myself and LIFE. when i'd try to stop all the problems were still there and more so. i numbed everything so i didn't have to feel. emotions were my enemy i thought. i found real freedom through sobriety.
can you identify what you're/were running from?

[Leed]

I was running from my past -- from my childhood, from my teenage year, and from my marriage. Basically I was running from my whole life. The whole thing had been very painful and i didn't know how to handle it. Plus I didn't know how to handle day-to-day living -- no one ever taught me how. I was great in a crisis -- I could take over and get things done! But not every-day things - I was lost and I was numb.

Thru sobriety (and therapy) I learned how to put things behind me, to make amends for things I had done, and to learn how to live in TODAY. I had always projected into the future, but I don't do that anymore --I just live in the here and now as that's all we're given. I have a new freedom due to AA and my higher power. I can't ask for more than that!

[gma45]

I was running from my conception!

[beauflow]

Drugs and heavy drinking for me always were an escape- escape from reality- Escape from what is real, what was going on what had happened to me in my past-- unfortunately by me doing this I have set myself back in so many ways of healing for the pain that I had from my childhood.

Even at one point I am sure that I could say-- I was trying to run away from my own self of what I had became. that is hard to take, but it is partially truth and it is what does help with staying more on the sober side than the not so.

A part of me also with the usage was running away form my own emotions--- and hopeful of erasing memories-- such a silly wish at the time I do realize. memories are good, and they are what helps with who we are.

Drug with me as well was-- well overdosing-- always did to much, always was on the hope end of just dying but did not-- that does get me to think some days on - perhaps I do have a purpose here.. perhaps I don't but just made it through... (I am not religious so it is hard to see the purpose but some times it crosses my mind).

with me there was a lot-- but that is some of it.

thanks for this Madisgram

[splitimage]

I drank to escape my negative feelings of not being good enough, of being lonely, although ironically the drinking only exacerbated that, to escape the pain of PTSD, and most of all because I didn't like myself. Drinking for a while allowed me to be just comfortably numb - didn't have to feel. but in the end it was a vicious cycle, I kept drinking because I was so physically addicted to it, that I couldn't stop without medical intervention, and I hated myself for what I had become, so I drank some more to numb that feeling - rinse repeat.

Since I've been on my sober journey, I've done a lot of therapy and have gotten to a place where I can honestly say I like myself. Still working on learning to deal with negative emotions but I'm finding that AA and a DBT program I'm doing are helping a lot with that.

splitimage

[roads]

I was running from love or the loss of it. Most immediately, from the lost of my husband--whose love I didn't think I deserved--and my daughter months later to cribdeath--mother's fault, everyone knew that. Earlier it was my parent's love I didn't deserve--because I wasn't competitive, didn't believe in my Mother's God, etc.

Once I was addicted, I realized it could shut down the world. I discovered the total mind wipe of a blackout. I didn't suffer a hangover in relation to one for over 20 yrs. I came to think of them as times out.