Where I Was

[soberbythesea]

On day 46 sober, I finally feel as though I have enough sober time to write a post like this without jinxing myself. I know that I am in control of my sobriety now, and that it isn't going anywhere.

When I found SR I was drinking every night, and that led to blackouts and explosive fights with my husband on a semiregular basis (for extra fun, because of the blackouts sometimes I couldn't even remember the fights.) We had a generally good marriage the rest of the time, but I never knew what was going to happen once I started drinking -- whether we'd come home from a night of drinking mad at one another or not, whether I'd remember what happened or not.

In addition, I was facing problems at work due to my lack of attention to detail (probably due to the fact that I was dragging myself to work every morning hung over) and I was constantly anxious about it. I drank to escape the anxiety, which led to more mistakes and more anxiety... you get the idea.

I found SR on day 2 of sobriety, after a particularly bad fight with my husband following which I finally decided I wasn't going to do this to myself anymore. These days my life looks very different.

I wake up in the morning refreshed -- sober sleep is so much better than the fragmented, restless sleep I have known for the past few years. I do some basic cleaning tasks in the morning before leaving the house in addition to getting ready, like emptying the dishwasher from the night before -- my hungover self would have laughed hysterically at THAT idea. I get to work early, around 8:15 -- before almost anyone else is in, and about two hours before I used to wander in during my drinking days. This means I can leave earlier too, around 5:30. My husband and I go home and I usually cook dinner (another thing my drinking self would have laughed at -- I used to settle in with my bottle of wine and order takeout.) After dinner I do another 1-2 hours of work around the house or paying bills, etc. -- stuff I used to neglect when I spent the evenings drinking (my home is much cleaner and nicer now than it's ever been in my life as an independently living adult.)

After that, I take a bubble bath (how did I ever forget how great those were?), read (another activity I love that is much better sober), or possibly watch some TV with my husband (but I watch much less TV now that I don't drink, only a couple of shows each week if that.) Then I head to bed early, get some good sleep and it all begins again.

Weekends now mean more housework, relaxing activities with my husband that don't involve alcohol (like dinners and movies -- we barely ever went to the movies before I quit drinking), and special projects to further improve my home or life. They used to pretty much mean getting wasted and spending the next day recovering.

My marriage is much more peaceful now. My life is busier, but more productive and no longer filled with anxiety. When I go home at night from work now, I am able to truly relax and focus on what I need to do at home, because I now deal with my work issues head on, competently, and while I am actually AT work. I don't need to drink to escape the stress from my work problems, because I solve them directly instead.

I know that this post is very long-winded and I won't blame anyone for not reading it all the way through, but I wanted to use this post to give you all some sense of what SR has done for me. Although I know I've stayed sober on my own strength, and because I was ready to do so, I also literally believe I could not have done it without all of you. I learn so much and get so much support even just from logging on briefly every day to check on what is going on here. Thanks so much and I'll be here for a long time to come.

Day 46, going on infinity...

-- SBTS

[Reubena]

Great post... I can relate to a lot of it. Thanks for sharing

[43395]

First let me echo the words of the previous thread,'great post!', lots of positive stuff about your sobrietyand daily SOBER existence, excellent!

For me two things were very important in the days after I stopped drinking, one, the disease is called alcohol-ISM, the booze is but a symptom, take it away and the -ISM's remain, which is why the advice which worked for me is ,'a day at a time' and to work however slowly on improving your spirituality, this is quite hard and no one can teach it to you, it's between you and the god of your understanding. The danger is if you don't enlarge your spirituality, and I'm not talking about any grand gestures all that happens is you end up a,'dry drunk' living on,'white knuckle sobriety' and that's no way to live.

I was also ,'good' to myself , although some my not see it that way, letting myself smoke cigarettes, drink cartons of soya milk and eat sweets (candy) getting some sleep and letting each day unfold whilst keeping up with my daily responsibilities, but we all make our own way at our own speed, so it's a bit like sailing a boat , done best if the ship (YOU) is kept on an even keel, and you're the skipper! Well done, Mike W.

[natatude]

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[Dee74]

Welcome to SR natatude.

How can we help?
D

[princedant]

I was watching this movie on the plane a few months ago when I heard some minor characters (female) say this in a dinner party close to the beginning of the movie.

[grateful101010]

Thanks SoberbytheSea. I can relate to everything , I mean everything you're saying! As women, if we work and (in my case) have kids AND drink, the house goes to hell. And we blame the work and the kids. When in reality, once you quit spending 2 hours + per day drinking and gain at least 1+ hour per day in non-hungover clear-headedness, guess what, the house starts to look better! Little by little I'm attacking the pockets of squalor in my house and it feels great to have (what's getting to be) a well-ordered house. Congrats on your sobriety.

[Isaiah]

That was great, I enjoyed it. I'm glad it was a long post. We get the whole story that way and that's what this section is about.

[dgillz]

Sometimes I think about having a glass of wine with dinner. Then I remember I have plans for Christmas. - Robert Downey, Jr.

Did he really say that? That is hilarious.

[grateful101010]

Yes, I read it in a magazine interview with him years ago. It stuck with me. Wish it had spurred me to sobriety back then, but anyhoo, at least I remembered it. It is SO true.

[mygrandfather]

Wow, the more I explore SP, the more inspiration I find.

[43395]

It is true to say no one can teach you ,'Spirituality' , you have to learn it, there is an awful lot of good ,'learning' to be found on SRC!

"I cannot teach anybody, anything, I can only create the environment in which they will learn" - Carl Rogers.