I want to thank everyone as whole right off the bat for posting here and everything that was said, I found something useful, so thank you.
Last night was my first night back to work, so it had been 7 days since I last drank. I had to repeat to myself throughout the entire day, "I will not drink tonight." Well, I did not have a drink last night. It was hard. It was right in front of me for 4 hours straight, and thoughts kept popping up, like, "if I Just have one, that won't be a failure, really, because I'm not going to get drunk, and not getting drunk is really my goal..." but thankfully I was able to remain in the clear, because my next thought would be, "ok, you know yourself...if you justify having 1, you'll do the same for another, and soon you'll be 3, 4, 5+ shots in and there's no coming back from that." I feel great today. Next time I work is tomorrow and right now I feel confident that I'll be able to not drink again.
One difficult aspect was that my coworkers kept commenting about my mood. I heard things like, "what's your deal..." and "what's with the attitude" and "why are you in such a bad mood." ............ I said "MIND YOU I am NOT drinking tonight and it feels a little different so I'm sorry if I'm not prancing around like you expect me to."
I want to specifically thank
fantail for stating the following: "I had to realize that if I can go through everything booze put me through (horrible, terrible hangovers; crippling anxiety; my poor, poor bank account; obsessing over my next drink; trying to keep secrets) then I can definitely handle the sober pain and frustration of daily life." That's exactly what I did.... Are 4 hours of sober work dealing with difficult peer pressure and difficult drunk customers REALLY as bad as how I feel after drinking??? No...I'd rather push through the challenge than have personal setbacks and feelings of guilt and deathly hangovers.
DryRoast Jim: I did not do anything special to detox...just stopped. I think I did ok. Its been over a year since I've gone longer than 4 days without drinking (and even then was for surgery, so its been probably more like many years before that really). My stepdad died because he didn't detox with the help of a doctor, and I should've taken that into consideration but because I am so healthy otherwise I foolishly assumed I would be ok, and thank goodness I am!
As far as AA goes, I don't think I would go. I was diagnosed with Social Anxiety Disorder over 10 years ago and at times it is debilitating in that sense, that I would not go to a public meeting. It is also the cause of most of my drinking.
thanks
