Sleepie's Summer Support Thread
p***enger
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: NYC
Posts: 19,042
I'm glad it's a cooler day, sleepie. I lived in India and southern Arizona, and Central Illinois, all of which have their own kinds of extreme heat. Except in the worst humidity, the effect of moving air through water helps. It's lo-tech and is the basis for swamp coolers, if you know what they are.
Wet hair. Put your hair up, then bend over & pour water into it from the back of my neck. If the hair is up tight, it stays wet all day and cools you. If your hair is short, you could try a wet scarf -- like a Sikh turban.
Wearing damp clothes has the same effect. You can spritz your sheets with water.
Hot drinks (tea, coffee) are more cooling than cold ones. All hot climate people know this.
Whenever things are bad, I call for pampering. Call a cab (with a/c) and have it take you to a double matinee at the movies. Movie theaters are always cool!
Wet hair. Put your hair up, then bend over & pour water into it from the back of my neck. If the hair is up tight, it stays wet all day and cools you. If your hair is short, you could try a wet scarf -- like a Sikh turban.
Wearing damp clothes has the same effect. You can spritz your sheets with water.
Hot drinks (tea, coffee) are more cooling than cold ones. All hot climate people know this.
Whenever things are bad, I call for pampering. Call a cab (with a/c) and have it take you to a double matinee at the movies. Movie theaters are always cool!
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2010
Posts: 8,614
Good advice. I used to wet my hair often in the heat and it did make difference.
These days though I don't like to get my hair wet, too many bald spots from pulling it out.
Sigh. Spritzing the sheets is a new one though I have not tried that. I have tried a lot of things like putting sheets in the freezer, I read that online but I do not suggest it unless you want the freezer smell while you sleep.
Courage curious, how much sober time are you at? I dunno if you ever shared what kind of drinking history you had.
At near 6 months I am having more spikes of desire for beer, I know it is the hot, stressful weather. I miss drinking and getting lost in my sketchbooks, going out to bars and making friends, drawing everyone in sight and people paying a lick of attention to me for once. Now I am a shut in.
These days though I don't like to get my hair wet, too many bald spots from pulling it out.
Sigh. Spritzing the sheets is a new one though I have not tried that. I have tried a lot of things like putting sheets in the freezer, I read that online but I do not suggest it unless you want the freezer smell while you sleep.
Courage curious, how much sober time are you at? I dunno if you ever shared what kind of drinking history you had.
At near 6 months I am having more spikes of desire for beer, I know it is the hot, stressful weather. I miss drinking and getting lost in my sketchbooks, going out to bars and making friends, drawing everyone in sight and people paying a lick of attention to me for once. Now I am a shut in.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2010
Posts: 8,614
Taking every ounce of my being to drag self into shower and prepare for lunch with a friend. Just want to bury myself in bed and sleep the day away as it is nice and cool and I am gladly closed off from the world.
How did I ever, ever have the energy to work two jobs, exercise and paint and sketch in whatever free time I had years ago? How did I even have what it takes to work one stressful, low wage full time job?
I guess life just wears a person down as it goes on.
How did I ever, ever have the energy to work two jobs, exercise and paint and sketch in whatever free time I had years ago? How did I even have what it takes to work one stressful, low wage full time job?
I guess life just wears a person down as it goes on.
p***enger
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: NYC
Posts: 19,042
Originally Posted by sleepie 
Taking every ounce of my being to drag self into shower and prepare for lunch with a friend.
Originally Posted by sleepie
These days though I don't like to get my hair wet, too many bald spots from pulling it out.
Originally Posted by sleepie
Courage curious, how much sober time are you at? I dunno if you ever shared what kind of drinking history you had.
- First drugs, first drunk at 10 or 11.
- By 15 daily user/drinker, a garbage head.
- By 17 addicted to speed and who knows what else -- narrowly avoiding heroin, I forced myself into abstinence from speed. Long period of depression & more daily drinking followed.
- Maintained at that rate, periodically severely depressed, for a decade.
- At 28 got pregnant. Abstinence for some time -- probably until I quit breastfeeding, so maybe almost 2 years total. Explains why I hated breastfeeding so much LOL.
- By 32 back to daily drinking, sometimes just about 4 shots a day, sometimes a lot more. Maintained like that another 15 years. Knew I was alcoholic but assumed inevitability.
- At 47 went off deep end into a pool of gin. 3 years.
- At 50 came here for first quit. Couldn't do it. Went into AA progam -- the works, meetings 1-2 times daily, sponsor, service -- and here. Abstinent 1 year.
- 9 months in to year 1 what I thought was PAWS set in. Probably it was a major depressive episode. Relapsed at 13 months for about a month.
- Back in, with psychopharm. 2 years & 4 months now. Sometimes I don't know how I can maintain -- it's still one day at a time. But it's good to have every day-- every night I have a day to be grateful for.
stay cool!
under new management
Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: Calgary, Alberta
Posts: 2,339
Not nosy at all, sleepie! I am a very curious (okay, read nosy) person myself.
The first time I drank was at 14 yrs, I got drunk, sat down in front of a restaurant where people were dining by the window, and puked for all the world to see. As awful as that sounds, I couldn't wait to do it again (the drinking, not the puking
).
By the time I was 16 yrs old I was drinking regularly in bars. Legal age was 18 and I didn't look old for my age, just lots of blind eyes back then. I did lots of chemical drugs, as well, but never got into the addictive ones, alcohol was definitely my doc.
Drink, drink, drink, make half hearted efforts to quit/moderate but I was quite out of control. During that time my drinking put me in many dangerous situations, I blacked out regularly, I ended up with strange men in strange places enough times that I feel like it is kind of miraculous that I am here to tell the story instead of having been found dead in a ditch. I don't say that lightly. I was drinking mostly daily up until I was 26 yrs old.
A few incidences left me on the verge of losing my job and that was a wake up call for me. So, yep, being in rape situations wasn't a wake up call *roll eyes*. By this time I was drinking so much that even my fellow alkies were encouraging me to get help.
So, at 26 yrs old I went into a recovery out patient program, got sober and stayed sober for 6 fantastic years. I really was happier once I accepted my alcoholism and stopped drinking. The problem was, though, I didn't follow through. I was in counselling for a year and then after that I didn't do anything to grow my recovery. In retrospect I see I became a dry drunk.
It was a really small thing that I relapsed over, a little boy trouble, but that opened up my addiction so big and wide I just couldn't quit again. I drank like I had never stopped. In fact, from the very first sip, it was as though 6 years dropped away and had never happened. I have never forgotten that feeling of losing 6 years in a moment.
So I picked up where I left off, I met my husband, a fellow and still heavily practicing alcoholic, and drank merrily (not, lots of crappy things happened, I was so drunk one time that I fell and knocked out my front teeth, fun times) for the next 22 ish years. Even when overtly bad things weren't happening, life was just generally crappy. I never forgot my 6 years and regularly told my husband, "one of these days I'm going back, one of these days I am going to quit for good".
I had a number of health scares with my liver, I had breast cancer, more liver related problems and I just kept on keeping on until the last time. I thought my "luck" was going to run out at some point and if I ended up with something irreversibly wrong because I refused to do the right thing, well, I would be some pissed about that.
And here I am, talking to you, whom I never would have "met" if I hadn't of quit drinking!
That is the long and the short of it. I have plenty of horror stories from my drinking days but I am working on forgiving myself and starting to live again at 57 (!!!!!) years old.
for asking!
The first time I drank was at 14 yrs, I got drunk, sat down in front of a restaurant where people were dining by the window, and puked for all the world to see. As awful as that sounds, I couldn't wait to do it again (the drinking, not the puking
).By the time I was 16 yrs old I was drinking regularly in bars. Legal age was 18 and I didn't look old for my age, just lots of blind eyes back then. I did lots of chemical drugs, as well, but never got into the addictive ones, alcohol was definitely my doc.
Drink, drink, drink, make half hearted efforts to quit/moderate but I was quite out of control. During that time my drinking put me in many dangerous situations, I blacked out regularly, I ended up with strange men in strange places enough times that I feel like it is kind of miraculous that I am here to tell the story instead of having been found dead in a ditch. I don't say that lightly. I was drinking mostly daily up until I was 26 yrs old.
A few incidences left me on the verge of losing my job and that was a wake up call for me. So, yep, being in rape situations wasn't a wake up call *roll eyes*. By this time I was drinking so much that even my fellow alkies were encouraging me to get help.
So, at 26 yrs old I went into a recovery out patient program, got sober and stayed sober for 6 fantastic years. I really was happier once I accepted my alcoholism and stopped drinking. The problem was, though, I didn't follow through. I was in counselling for a year and then after that I didn't do anything to grow my recovery. In retrospect I see I became a dry drunk.
It was a really small thing that I relapsed over, a little boy trouble, but that opened up my addiction so big and wide I just couldn't quit again. I drank like I had never stopped. In fact, from the very first sip, it was as though 6 years dropped away and had never happened. I have never forgotten that feeling of losing 6 years in a moment.
So I picked up where I left off, I met my husband, a fellow and still heavily practicing alcoholic, and drank merrily (not, lots of crappy things happened, I was so drunk one time that I fell and knocked out my front teeth, fun times) for the next 22 ish years. Even when overtly bad things weren't happening, life was just generally crappy. I never forgot my 6 years and regularly told my husband, "one of these days I'm going back, one of these days I am going to quit for good".
I had a number of health scares with my liver, I had breast cancer, more liver related problems and I just kept on keeping on until the last time. I thought my "luck" was going to run out at some point and if I ended up with something irreversibly wrong because I refused to do the right thing, well, I would be some pissed about that.
And here I am, talking to you, whom I never would have "met" if I hadn't of quit drinking!
That is the long and the short of it. I have plenty of horror stories from my drinking days but I am working on forgiving myself and starting to live again at 57 (!!!!!) years old.
for asking!
Member
Join Date: Apr 2012
Posts: 2,308
Hi courage, hi sleepie, hi rose
Courage I'm doing really great at 62 days sober. Considering I've felt on edge all week and have regular intervals of sheer anger and rage (lol) I just rage inside my head and haven't gone postal on anyone! That I count as a huge success! And 62 days ago I would have drank at this. How sick that behavior is....
Are you feeling at least a slight bit more positive sleepie? Have you tried Courages suggestions for staying cool? Can't hurt....
Also I have wondered if you've tried any AA meetings. You sound a little isolated and alone and it seems like you want more connection. Why not try AA? Find others like you who are trying to live sober and get off bed island for a bit. That can't hurt either can it?
Courage I'm doing really great at 62 days sober. Considering I've felt on edge all week and have regular intervals of sheer anger and rage (lol) I just rage inside my head and haven't gone postal on anyone! That I count as a huge success! And 62 days ago I would have drank at this. How sick that behavior is....
Are you feeling at least a slight bit more positive sleepie? Have you tried Courages suggestions for staying cool? Can't hurt....
Also I have wondered if you've tried any AA meetings. You sound a little isolated and alone and it seems like you want more connection. Why not try AA? Find others like you who are trying to live sober and get off bed island for a bit. That can't hurt either can it?
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2010
Posts: 8,614
Hi kittykat Well, AA in the past has been... strange for me. I had some not too great experiences so I dunno, I don't mean to shoot your suggestion down but I have tried over the years and it always led to something weird.
Rose, wow! I am so very glad you are here with us
Thank you for sharing that harrowing tale, I am happy you have finally put down drinking and are starting to live
Well, AA in the past has been... strange for me. I had some not too great experiences so I dunno, I don't mean to shoot your suggestion down but I have tried over the years and it always led to something weird.Rose, wow! I am so very glad you are here with us
Thank you for sharing that harrowing tale, I am happy you have finally put down drinking and are starting to live 
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