Its Day 7 for me and feeling good, but I think therein lies my difficulty. I feel fine right now, and I'm confident I will be fine in the coming weeks, lots to focus on and i'm fortunate to be in a position without too many responsibilities and stressors at the moment (To all who are in difficult circumstances I salute you, you are SO strong)
I think my AV has talked me out of going to see the doctor this past week:
"Just go tomorrow"
"Go when you're feeling low"
"You might not need it this time"
Bitter, bitter experience tells me that I can NOT do this alone. Day 31 will roll around and I will be in no-man's land, and then all it takes is a setback, could be something minor, and I bypass the 'I'll just have one drink' stage and immediately want to drink my self to death. I do not know why it comes on so severely and so quickly.
I keep having terrible nightmares, I have mentioned before I used to work in a specialist school and part of the job required me to frequently have to physically restrain young people when they became violent. I was often kicked, hit, spat on and verbally abused. Because i'm a big guy I was often called on to do these restraints, it was incredibly challenging.
One child had a history worse than you can imagine, his case notes were
tragic it haunts me how people can be so evil, I felt so sad for this child who was clearly a nice kid, but had suffered so much at the hands of others. I was his specialist support in class, and when he flipped, boy did he flip. We had an interesting relationship as we would get along great, but as soon as he was angry I was the first person to take the brunt of his rage.
He had this scream that I cannot get out of my head, when I had to restrain him he would scream, scream, scream. It's stunning how loud a child can scream, and this sounded inhuman. It was more like a roar, like opening a window to Hell itself and listening in. I would spend hours and days with this boy in crisis.
I often have nightmares about a couple of incidents that happened, replaying themselves over and over and over in my head.
I sometimes wonder if I may have a touch of PTSD, as I was often in physical danger and the job would definatly fall under the category of 'traumatic', it would explain why the dreams repeat and why I can't let it go. Alcohol withdrawal certainly makes them more vivid.
I thought I would share a little about my history because you guys are amazing, I have told others about my past before and how it affected me and they simply did not seem to understand. It's very alienating.
There are many positives though, firstly I have learned a great deal while at the school and after it, I saw both the best and worst of humanity at that place.
Hoping everyone has a strong and sober Saturday,
Make time for yourselves, treat yourselves, get out into the open air, do something you LOVE to do. Sobriety is happening NOW, enjoy it!
Peace to all
