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Comment by labrador | Hacker News Reader

In case you're homeless and living in your car rejected by everyone you love because you can't stop drinking, but temporarily holed up in a roadside motel over Christmas with a case of vodka... that was me. It gets better. I now have 5 years sobriety, but I'll never forget that despair I felt and how my mind was in a loop thinking about killing myself.

I've put a temp email in my profile in case you want to reach out. I can't tell you how to stop drinking because it's different for everyone, but I know one small step is knowing you are not alone and recovery is possible.

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You can see from my comment history that I have a history of problems with alcohol also.

I have spent many Christmas's holed up in motels alone with a bottle, thinking "what's the point?". You think going through that one year would be enough, but it wasn't enough to learn my lesson.

It's no place to be, but it CAN get better as you've pointed out.

I noted in a prior comment I went from a senior software engineer to a homeless shelter.

I'm back to being a senior software engineer.

Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays everyone.

Nice work man.

Merry Christmas.

Or woman. Or person :)

Alcohol senior engineer who ended up homeless?

In my experience that's always a dude. Women have their lives fall apart in different ways.

I'm willing to make a gendered assumption occasionally.

It’s like the Rust design philosophy. It’s a zero cost abstraction.

Same here. I remember thinking the depression/drinking would never end. It did. Life is great now.

Merry Christmas

We're you ever happy prior to the depressive periods?

I think so, although it’s hard to define what happy means.

You don't have to 'hit rock bottom' to have temporary times of despair in your life. Even if you have a lot of things going for you, we all have times when we feel sad, depressed, lonely, in a rut, overwhelmed, or other negative emotions.

If you find yourself in one of those times, convince yourself that it is only temporary and look for the good. Help someone else out because serving others will give you a boost. Surround yourself with uplifting people. Make small steps if that helps.

Some people give religion a bad rep, but faith, hope, and charity are real and uplift the soul.

I'm one of those people that from a young age gave religion a bad rap.

The problem is nobody ever told me about its utility. I was just dragged to church every Sunday and occasionally lectured on God / etc. It was really easy for a young mind to get cynical about it especially amongst a family that was very preachy.

I wish someone had said "whether or not you believe in THIS god, there is utility in believing in SOMETHING higher than yourself. When you grow up, and are deep into your work life, there will be dark days when you will have nothing that can comfort you, other than the belief that things will get better, and that someone or some thing is more in control than you think".

I wish someone had explained that there is immense utility in the community of religion. That you could end up in your 30s without much of a broad social community. Sure friends, sure family, but not really belonging to any community bigger than those (other than work).

I feel like the religious people around me as a youth really failed. There IS actually a good reason to have a faith. It doesn't have to be because you're afraid of going to hell. There's actual utility in it, mental utility.

If religion was a net negative, it wouldn't have survived for... well, since monkeys grew a rigid spine. The negatives tend to come from people exploiting others' dependency on its usefulness.

Everything has pros and cons, but some other behaviors that have survived for a really long time are murder, war, and (since it came up in this thread) alcoholism, which are not generally very well regarded.

This isn’t to say religion is necessarily like those things, but it does indicate a flaw in the idea that behaviors that stick around mustn’t be so bad.

Murder can kill mass-murderers, and some wars can result in lasting peace. Everything in moderation.

(Alcoholism has a massive component gifted to us by the genetic lottery, so it's really unfair to bundle it with these things.)

Despite this, I bet you agree that murder is a net negative that has survived for longer than religion.

The problem is that religion perpetuates itself by adherence to a set of shared beliefs, so it cannot survive a significant proportion of followers saying "these beliefs aren't literally true but the benefits of community and belonging are absolutely worth it."

If faking belief weren't so detrimental to the soul it would be an obvious choice for those people with a stubborn habit of needing proof.

Needing proof certainly can be annoying habit, especially when it comes to matters of meaning and purpose which is what religion provides for a lot of people.

People find meaning and purpose in science too, but of course if you dig far enough you realize that that the proof problem is never really solved.

So, you gotta have faith wherever you turn. One of the reasons I've also become more open to spirituality as time has humbled me a bit.

There’s pie in the sky when you die! Your post is perhaps the biggest load of tripe I’ve seen on this forum.

You may be proving his point…

You don't need organized religion to have that sense. Please, everyone, read and apply:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World

> I wish someone had explained that there is immense utility in the community of religion. That you could end up in your 30s without much of a broad social community. Sure friends, sure family, but not really belonging to any community bigger than those (other than work).

This is actually huge.

I went from being dragged to church as a kid to "screw this I'm an athiest now!".

However as I got older, I realize there is tremendous benefit in exactly what you are pointing out. There is a large community of people who generally care about each other and help each other out, etc.

It doesn't matter the specific religion. I've moved to areas where I attended the local Unitarian Universalist church for this reason. They don't practice any specific religion, but the community aspect of it was a big help, because in the past I've been in situations where I was truly alone and could have used some support. It's comforting to know there is a group of people out there willing to help you if you get in a bind (and you would do likewise to them).

I consider myself a pantheist now, so I will listen to pretty much anything people want to say regarding faith. That's up to them.

> we all have times when we feel sad, depressed, lonely, in a rut, overwhelmed, or other negative emotions

I'm in one of those states right now. Unhappy with work. Uncertain about money. Poor health. It really piles up.

> If you find yourself in one of those times, convince yourself that it is only temporary and look for the good.

I'm fortunate enough to know that it's not permanent. I've been in these states before, and I've gotten out of them. It's just hard to see through the fog of uncertainty though. My brain doesn't work well when it's stressed.

For me, it helps to have a project that bring me joy. I've been doing a lot of hobby coding. It's really nice to code for myself again. I haven't really done this much hobby coding for 20 years, and it's like meeting an old friend.

Merry Christmas everyone!

I hope your recovery is speedy my friend, Merry Christmas

Thank you.

I experienced a similar episode but not with alcohol.

I surround myself with things that are of these words: good, love, kindness, peace, serenity, tranquility, purity, loveliness, wholesomeness, cleanliness, positivity, light, fruit, right, proper, meant, should, high.

Reject dark, evil, bad, negative, low, death, darkness, sinister.

It's a duality you need to escape. Pick the good side.

If you surround yourself with light, your life gets brighter. I cannot imagine surrounding myself with anything negative.

If you keep walking where you're going, you might get there. If you pick the side of good, then you should end up somewhere more positive than walking toward darkness.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.

Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations arise from the same source.

This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness.

The gateway to all understanding.

Is this original daoism or did you derive it from something?

Yes, this is from the start of the Tao Te Ching. Ursula le Guin rendered it thus:

> For the unwanting soul sees what's hidden, while the ever-wanting soul sees only what it wants. Two things, one origin, but different in name, whose identity is mystery. Mystery of all mysteries! the door to the hidden.

Is this this the Mitchell translation?

I have my health, a career and I have my parents but this has been the hardest of holiday seasons. While I'm blessed, I feel like I'm falling behind peers who are are in serious relationships and starting families of their own; guess it's one of the first times I've felt lonely and the world/reality closing in.

This thread has been a good read; to me its a reminder to charish what I have and remember to look forward to tomorrow. Some Sun would sure help...

Hey, it's not a race. And noone's path or destination is the same. You will be OK, don't worry.

Better to be single than in a bad relationship. Take your time finding a good one. Then cherish only a supportive and kind partner.

3 years ago, at my family's Christmas dinner, I shared that my wife had separated and filed for divorce. Worst Christmas ever. I didn't eat anything, threw up, and don't remember much apart from being depressed, angry, and confused.

I just got remarried this year and can confirm that tomorrow will be better if you allow those that love you to help, and choose long term betterment and stability over short term fixing happiness.

> It gets better.

This is one of the the truths that people need to hear during difficult times throughout their lives.

And, after a history of things seeming hopeless but turn out not to be, sometimes people can remember and believe when they tell themselves, "This, too, shall pass."

We modern advanced humans are surprisingly resilient in many ways, and we need to keep ancient primitive programming from precluding that.

I'll be reaching five years myself in April. It is nice to have some time in sobriety, but it is still one day at a time for me.

You deserve a medal of honor. Thank you.

Thanks, this is the easy part. The hard part is asking for help. I still haven't figured out why asking for help is so hard.

If you need help, ask. There is nothing wrong with needing help. People want to help.

I was at a really low point financially and asked for help from a large group of friends to support me and the business I was trying to build and while many friends reached out to help, one of my closest friends said I should be ashamed of myself for begging for money like that when I could just easily go get a job.

I think the hard part of asking for help is that I already feel soooo vulnerable just asking, even the slightest slight can seem like the most brutal attack and drown out the help I do receive.

So I try to remind myself that often if someone is asking for help, they may have had to muster a lot of courage even to ask. Thank you for reminding me of that.

I'm happy you're doing better.

I'm spending this Christmas alone, and boy, oh boy, do I hope others aren't going through the same.

Merry Christmas kilroy <3

Why are the holidays so bad for this? I guess a combination of no sun and stress. I am always the most depressed during the holidays.

I think for many there is an aspect in which, at some point during early childhood, they did experience good/joyous holidays with a loving family.

Unfortunately, for some, that does not continue into teenage years/young adulthood/the rest of life. For a variety of reasons.

Those memories & the potential yearning for them do not particularly go away for most, it seems to be part of the human condition. Methods of coping with the loss of meaningful holidays are vast, but substance abuse seems quite common.

While I do not know how universally true this is - I can only say I’ve heard many an anecdote being from a military family & I’m currently living on a marine base - it seems similar to soldiers fated to die gruesome deaths in foreign lands screaming for their mothers in their final moments. A somewhat universal experience. Maybe I’m thinking too deeply into it though.

Thanks for putting yourself out there and offering a way for people to reach out to you. Only through great suffering we learn to cultivate selflessness, and eventually grow into better people. Merry Christmas.

Thanks, it was an impulsive thing to do, but it was a good impulse. I didn't think it through and think that I might be spending my Christmas answering emails, but people understood I was trying to reach the person at the end of their rope so didn't bother me with less critical emails.

I can't say I reached that level of despair, but on multiple occasions I was inches away (often literally) from alcohol destroying everything. I'll reach 5 years sober next July.

OP here: Good for you and now we do the work of preventing relapse. I've been told by many people I respect that it's a daily practice so I don't "forget" that I can't drink like other people.

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