Hi SB35
There's definitely nothing quite like the alcohol induced shame spiral. It's brutal, anxiety inducing, sickening to different degrees and it can definitely become depressing. My heart goes out to you so much.
As a gal who used to go through the cycle of drinking, deep regret, shame, anxiety, forgetting how bad it was and/or drinking to 'feel better', I might only binge a few times a year now and I do this only under specific circumstances. Just wanted to mention this as proof that things can change.
Not sure whether you can relate but I was an emotional drinker (drinking to feel or not feel certain things). To not feel social anxiety and to feel social ease...drink. To not feel the lows of depression and to feel high...drink. To not feel low self esteem and to feel confident...drink. The list goes on and on. I found that up to a point it'd work but beyond that point, when things would go too far (as an habitual binge drinker), I'd lose aspects of myself that I relied on. For example, while we might rely on 'the sage' in us to pop in with something wise like 'Don't have another drink. You'll regret it if you do', the sage is drowned out by alcohol beyond a certain point. While we may enjoy engaging the care free part of ourself, beyond a certain point it can lead us to not care at all what we say or do to another person. It's the care full or careful part of us that's drowned out, sending things seriously out of balance. Somewhere between care free and careful would be good. For me, it became about 'What part of myself am I prepared to lose while drinking?'. Btw, when certain aspects or facets of our self come back on line, some of them can be intensely brutal and depressing (such as our inner critic). The inner dialogue can be horrendous, that's for sure.
These days I tend to look at drinking as diving into an altered state of consciousness. Fully and completely conscious involves not drinking. Largely conscious may involve just a couple. Semi conscious means heading towards seriously lacking in consciousness (not realising what the hell we're doing as far as consequences go). Completely unconscious...well...that's one's self explanatory. I tend to treat alcohol as a mind altering substance these days. When I do drink, the questions become 'Who am I going to alter my mind with?' (drinking buddy I can trust) and 'How much am I going to alter my mind (how many doses/glasses full)?'. Of course, all easier said than done when we're struggling to manage the mind we have while we're sober.
The emotional charges we feel regarding regret, shame and all that kind of stuff lessen as time creates distance from the event/s that led to us to feeling such charges. It can be so tempting to drink those charges away, so they're not felt as intensely. Again, my heart goes out to you.
