Self Harm And Alcohol...

[xena21]

I couldn't find another thread in here with both so I figured I'd start another one. I was using one in place of another. I would self harm so I wouldn't drink. Then I would drink so I wouldn't self harm. Now I have moved to the point that I am doing both.

It sucks because my threshold is high and I can hurt myself so badly. I don't care in one sense which is why I do it, yet on the other hand I believe I want someone to stop me. I wish I had an outlet and a support that would protect me from myself. Is that crazy?

I hate myself which is the biggest problem. I have always hated myself. I want to die, and just can't pull the trigger I guess. I keep thinking there must be something left out there, because after 5 failed attempts there has to be something out there.

 

[Rizen]

No matter how bad things get don't kill yourself! You might find support with a group like AA or something. It sounds like you need to find external support from a group or therapist.

 

[franciemarnie]

I totally understand the compulsion for oblivion one way or another, but ultimately you are perpetuating the original abuse. The perps may be gone, but you have taken their role.

You know you need to get help. When you are ready, you will.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

You're looking for a savior, a knight in shining armor who will save you from yourself. Unfortunately, they don't exist and your behavior, rather than drawing people in to help you, actually pushes them farther away.

I agree with the others. You will know when it's time to get help. I'm not sure what's more pressing, the drinking or the cutting. AA will help with the drinking but not so much the cutting.

Are you in the states? There is a self injury program that started in Chicago then moved to Dallas and on to St Louis, but I'm not sure if it's still there or not.

 

[Justmehere]

I have taken Naltrexone to help stop self injuring, and it really helped. It is given most often for alcohol abuse. It wasn't a full solution by any means, but it helped me break the cycle and do a heck of a lot work I was struggling to do before.

It's not crazy to want an outlet and a support. It's you listening to what you need. Finding a healthy outlet and support for the pain will really help.

It sounds like you have relapsed and had setbacks a few times... That doesn't mean you can't beat this. Sometimes, setbacks are a part if the process. I have had several myself. The key thing is to keep fighting to heal. You are a very kind and insightful and compassionate person around here. Don't give up.

Edited to add: I agree with the suggestion to try AA. It may actually help both. I went to a 12 step recovery for "any habit or problem," and it did help me with the self injury. It was a place of support and acceptance and I learned a lot.

Something that has helped me at one of my lowest points was taking a sharpie and writing kind words about myself on my arms. Silly, but it kind of worked. Another thing I worked on in inpatient specialized treatment was identifying my values - and every time I wanted to cope with the pain of trauma in bad ways, I remembered that no, I valued the work I do and my healing.

Processing through the trauma has significantly helped as well. It's hard because I had to work for a long time to get stable enough and strong enough to resist they urges, and process trauma, but once I started, the self injury urges I never thought I would be rid of - they have significantly gone away. I never thought that would happen. There is hope even when you feel like there isn't any.

 

[macbeth]

I too have issues with self destructive behaviours. Drinking too much has been a problem for me as well as self harm. All I can say is that I've been there. I have also been so low that I've attempted suicide in the past. It can get better and we are all hear to listen and help. hang in there @xena21. :hug:hugs to you.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I just wanted to add that I don't know how much the "you are powerless over XYZ" is going to help with self injury issues when the truth is that you ARE powerful over it! I guess I say this coming from a program where we went cold turkey right off the bat, and all forms of injuring were banned including ice and rubber bands which are recommended by so many others (but think about it, does AA say you can have just a little? NOPE! Its the same idea.) I guess I want to say don't give in to anyone or anything that says you are powerless over your self injury. You decided to cut, you can decide to stop. Its ALL within your power.

 

[NovemberStar]

I've been there where you are - I used to binge drink, cut myself, burn myself, binge, purge, over exercise, overdose - I was always doing one form of self harm or another, for years. I did a stint in rehab - I actually spent the millennium in rehab, and I was 26 years old. I went to AA and OA, lived the 12 step life for many years and it absolutely helped me at the time. I have not drunk even a sip of alcohol since. I do not miss it at all. I haven't overdosed since then either. But with this latest PTSD since the quakes 3 years ago, I have relapsed badly into my eating disorder, and I have engaged in some minor self harm (a few times 3 years ago, and a couple of scratches a few weeks back).

I used Antabuse to help me not drink. Very few people drink more than once on that stuff, that is for sure. I never tried to - I didn't need to try it to know it would be very very bad! But AA especially, helped me feel I belonged, and they became my family for many years.

I know you see a T and I know you are struggling a lot at the moment, and feel really dark, hopeless and lost. But as I said in my other post to you - you have fare from exhausted all possibilities yet, so you have HEAPS of things left to try - but yes, it does involve doing scary scary SCARY things. Like writing the list for your T, and beginning to open up, one step at a time. By slowly letting your walls down, you will begin to like yourself, and begin to feel HOPE again.

I really do think that is the answer for you Xena. It's not going to be an easy fix. It is going to be damn scary - but what else do you have to lose, really? It sounds like life cannot be worse for you right now, so why not take a bottle of brave, and work on opening up and building a relationship with your T? You can't say it won't work if you have never tried it - by your own admission you haven never opened up with a T, in terms of the really scary things, the things that leave you most vulnerable.

You can do it.

 

[xena21]

Thanks everyone! I know I relate to you all. I have a severe problem with self injury which is why my drinking got as bad as it it did. I have been in a downward spiral as well so that doesn't help either, right? When I want to hurt myself I do it right, you know what I mean? I hurt myself badly. So alcohol actually is therapeutic in some way. I actually try to break bones in my body, but when I drink, it helps me calm down.

I can drink and stop thinking about breaking my arm. If I don't drink, I probably would break my arm. What is more important? I don't even know. I know drinking helps me immensely. WHat do you do when one bad thing helps another bad thing?

 

[NovemberStar]

I was the opposite in that I would drink alcohol to 'feel better' but then would cut / act out on myself when drunk.

I have harmed myself and broken bones - all that did was give me a broken bone. 6 weeks in plaster and unable to do usual things does not make your life better, easier, or have those around you understand your pain any more than they do now. If anything, those in our life tend to back waaaay off if you are self harming as it scares them. Or they get sick of it and leave you be - since being in your life doesn't help you not hurt yourself, so why be in crisis mode all the time?


When I broke my hand snowboarding last year, I was lucky it was my left hand - if it had been my right I would not have been able to do anything at home. If you want to see what it would be like - take one of your arms out of your sweater top, tie it behind for back and do not use it for an entire day. Heck even wiping you own ass is bloody hard with one arm!!! As is trying to cook or feed yourself (buttering toast or trying o cut food up - try that one handed).


So what do you do - drink? cut or harm yourself?

You do all you can to do neither - drinking - you'd be at risk of developing a huge alcohol problem - and as alcohol is a depressant, it will not help your mood - and if you are struggling with suicidal thoughts, you could act on those if under the influence - huge number of suicides are carried out when intoxicated.


You can talk to your T, you need to let your T know you are self harming - and your treating Dr (whoever prescribes your meds if you are on any).

You can use a variety of non harmful coping skills: visualization, relaxation breathing (it does not work for anyone, I am one of those people). You can draw, color, have a hot shower or bath, have an early night. You can write. You can paint. You can write a poem, and / or write in your journal (or make one). You can ask for a meds change or have PRN meds for anxiety / obsessive thoughts.

You can rip up a telephone book. You can use blocks of ice / ice cubes to hold tightly into your hand for 'self harm'. You can get a bright red marker and draw instead of cutting. You can punch a pillow hard. You can play very loud, angry music. You can go for a long, feet stomping walk. You can go somewhere far enough away so you don't scare people and SCREAM. You can get second hand cups and plates and smash these against a wall / onto concrete.

You can post on here, post every ten minutes, committing to NOT acting on your self harm thoughts in that next 5 or 10 minute period. You DISTRACT and the feeling WILL PASS.

And if you cannot keep yourself self, then you phone a crisis line, your Dt, your T, go to your hospital emergency room.

Why? Because it is IMPOSSIBLE to feel better or good about yourself if you are actively harming yourself. Your inner child needs love, compassion, and kindness. The people in your life who have hurt you enough - in a funny kind of way, harming yourself makes you just like your abusers - you're not respecting your body or your self.

You have hurt ENOUGH already Xena - you do not deserve to hurt anymore. :hug:

Remember my lovely quote form the other thread? "if you always do what you've always done, you will always get what you've always got". Allowing yourself to engage in self harm or drinking to dull the pain / anxiety, will only make you spiral downhill further and faster. Any 'relief' you get from cutting etc is only short term - if it worked you would not need to harm yourself again.

And alcohol - a depressant - will definitely not help either.

 

[Justmehere]

I know that right now, it feels like one bad thing, alcohol, is helping another thing, self injury, BUT, I would actually propose that it is not helping. The problem with both alcohol, or self injury, or any other way we choose to escape or numb pain is that biochemically, it increases later flooding. The more you numb out pain with alcohol, the more that pain is going to keep overwhelming you when the alcohol wears off.

It changes your brain. Both behaviors do, and alcohol adds an extra component of chemical dependence.

The help you feel, it isn't real. It's making the pain worse - biochemically. It's basically increasing the pain, which is likely increasing the self injury urges, which is sounds like is increasing your alcohol consumption.

"By jacking up dopamine levels in your brain, alcohol tricks you into thinking that it’s actually making your feel great (or maybe just better, if you are drinking to get over something emotionally difficult). The effect is that you keep drinking to get more dopamine release, but at the same time you’re altering other brain chemicals that are enhancing feelings of depression."
(from:http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2012/10/16/what-alcohol-really-does-to-your-brain/)

Alcohol also injures the brain over time, and it slows neuron growth - the ability to grow new neuronal connections in the brain is essential to learning, and experiencing, new things. Like new coping skills and relief from the seemingly endless pain you are in right now.

What do you do when one bad thing helps another bad thing? It helps to come to a point where you can hold on to the idea that neither bad thing is worth the permanent damage, good or bad - neither is really helping at all, and that there are good things to cope and ways to get through the pain you are in without using either.

 

[The Albatross]

It is not too big of a stretch to accept powerlessness over compulsions. That was the way I interpreted it when I was in AA for alcohol recovery. I had much concrete evidence, that there were times when I did not control my drinking, it controlled me after the first drink. In AA they have a saying, "The man takes a drink, the drink takes a drink, the drink takes the man." That was apt to me because I had no doubt that the compulsion for alcohol was so engrained by my use of it as a maladaptive coping mechanism, that after the first one I'd be off and running on a binge, drink more than I intended, or drink at inappropriate times, and ultimately craving it with a body craving.

Booze, and cutting are maladaptive coping mechanisms, every time you pick up you reinforce the behavior. Being a depressant, booze feeds the fire and the cycle of self abuse. It can be difficult, but it is possible to break the cycle. I found the best thing for me was getting myself into a recovery group. Mutual aid worked for me for booze, I was able to handle the suggestions of others better because I know they'd "been there" and were in a similar struggle than I was. Way more effective than my shrink.