four months
Greetings all,
I apologize for having such a long absence from posting here. I had a sudden experience of utter aversion to the amount of time I was spending online (not SR in particular, just the 'Net in general). I've been pretty hardcore about AA but still reading here now and then. I felt like my brain was melting, and between staying sober and AA meetings and taking care of my kids and trying to get some (career) work done, I had to drastically cut back my online activity.
Today I have 125 days. Longest period sober in my life since I was in my teens, and I am now in my forties. I've lost 30 lbs and I'm not exercising especially hard or often. I sleep well and I no longer sweat like a pig. Haven't vomited or retched in what seems like ages. My face no longer looks puffy and red. Sometimes I can even say "looking good" to myself in the mirror instead of "look at you, you piece of ugly, pathological, useless sh*t." My anxiety levels are barely registering. I'm spiritually healthy--no more Faustian bargains for this guy. Also quit the nicotine (the smokeless kind) the past two weeks, which has been BRUTAL. Ugh, horrendous.
I've had a few moments when I was seriously thinking about drinking--I even uncorked a bottle of wine--but my step-work and meditation/prayer, sponsor, helped me get past them. 125 days: One day at a time.... Steps 8 and 9 before me now. So the AA is working, or maybe what is working is just not drinking. I'm learning not to ask those questions. Like the question as to how some of these lucky folks I know manage to keep on enjoying the booze without becoming human wreckage. What's the trick? How is it done? What a useless, irrelevant question for me, yet my alcoholic mind circles around it all too often.
So I keep always before my mind the apocalyptic vision of what having just one drink means for me. Right now, and in those faltering instants when I think I want that drink, I take stock of just how great and healthy and serene I feel, and give up a prayer of gratitude to that Higher Power in the cosmos. Being grateful for what I have in those moments makes the allurements of that "one drink" evaporate. I take a breath instead.
I hope you all stay strong! Have faith, be good to yourselves, keep on doing the next right thing. I am grateful to you all for the strength and support you have been so generous in sharing. I'll try to repay the debt the best I can.
And Britt: my thoughts and prayers are with you and your mother. You are sunshine, you'll be OK!