Please help...trying again to reach out.

Hi everyone,

I just stumbled across the thread about telephones, and as I was marvelling that my lifelong
phone-a-phobia wasn't the idiosyncratic problem that I had always thought it was, I couldn't help noticing that everyone else in the thread was
likewise marvelling.  Maybe I need to give PA another try.  I joined
last spring, wrote an introduction, got some welcoming responses, but
then... kept striking out.  I went to the chatbox and tried to talk to
the folks there, but no one answered.  Another day I tried posting a
list in the daily forum, but nothing happened.  Then someone contacted
me through the site, another doctoral student, looking for an
accountability buddy, and I was very hopeful about that arrangement,
only... just a day or two in, he dropped the ball.  (He later apologized
and promised to do better, but maybe because I saw too much of myself
in him, I was too discouraged to try again.  Perhaps I should have.)

Anyway,
since then I've swung by the site periodically to see if there are new
articles or tips that might be useful, but it's a very passive kind of
consumption - exactly the kind of thing I do with my stack of books on
productivity and time management and organizing, or the blogs I read
regularly looking for answers.  I know I'm not going to solve my
problems sitting on my butt in front of a computer screen - in fact, as I
think someone on here mentions in his or her signature tag,
procrastination research has become simply another form of
procrastination for me.

Things are worse than ever, though, and I
know that it's all my fault.  I can clearly see how I am sabotaging my
health, my career, and my relationships.  I can also clearly see, in a
way that I couldn't before, that the priest who told me when I was
sixteen that I needed to be careful with alcohol because I had an
"addictive personality" was right.  Really, the only reason I've managed
to avoid alcoholism is the knowledge that it only has two possible
outcomes - death, or recovery, which means giving it up forever, and I'm
horrified at the thought of never being able to drink again.  So I
substitute other things for alcohol.  Right now, it's TV.  Just another
way of incapacitating myself.  I haven't showered or left the apartment in three days.

I clearly have a problem.  I need help.  This is a
12-step group, and I've heard of the 12 steps; I know what goes on in
meetings because I've seen them portrayed on tv shows; but this group
doesn't have face-to-face meetings, right?  At least outside of
Cambridge, Mass?  Can I join the online meeting on Sunday, or is there a
cycle in progress that needs to complete, before starting over with
Step 1?  And speaking of Step 1 - I understand the logic with regard to
alcohol and drugs, but in terms of the procrastination issue - I already
feel helpless!  My refrain is always "I can't, I can't, I can't..."  So
admitting my powerlessness feels somewhat redundant.  A huge part of my
problem is that I'm always letting myself off the hook, or making
excuses for myself, or relying on other people to pick up the slack,
because "I can't"...

I'm sure I'm misunderstanding somehow.  Can
someone please explain Step 1 to me?  And tell me how to hook in here, how
to use the forums and chatbox to interact, to give and receive
encouragement, accountability, etc.  I am feeling so isolated - a new city, a new job (which I'm apparently doing my best to get myself fired from), and no one to turn to.  How do you ask for help when YOU are your only problem?  "Just stop [being so self-destructive]."  What other advice is there to give?  Even my therapist eventually gave up on me.

Anyway - thank you all for being here, for reading my message (if you made it to the end - I'm sorry it's so wordy - especially if you have ADD, like I do!) - I really do see this community as a source of hope; I'm just struggling to figure out how to fit in.

Jenny