Good morning and happy 4th to the Americans. Thanks so much for the good thoughts for six months. North - love the limerick, thanks for posting. GCG, keep it up girl. Arctic, have you considered AA? Or SMART or Women for Sobriety? I do think you are going to need more support because BTDT it is really difficult to pull out of a relapse when your AV is saying "it was FUNNNNNN!" Go back and read your posts on Jan 8, 9, 10 and remember how not fun it will become. You are standing at a crossroads and you have a chance to go one way or another. After my mom died, I found in her papers a scratch pad with this written on it: "if the path of despair and the path of hope led to the same place, which would you choose?" Drinking is the path of despair, and if sobriety *feels* like that, then I do think it means that you need more support so you can have reminders to turn it around and realize how good we have it when we don't drink. That AV is a real bastard and will tell you so many lies and ultimately you will see it clearly again but who knows when and how many years can be lost? I'm rooting for you really hard. We all are and we are here.
I'm still in vacation land - it's been a long vacation but good. A LOT of drinking going on around me but I wake up at 6am every morning and drink my coffee feeling hopeful and free. I excuse myself early if I need to and fall asleep with that heavy tiredness of physical days. I learned how to paddle board this trip - oh my gosh how incredibly beautiful it is to be paddling across a calm lake in the early morning. Incredible memories and good times. I am so incredibly grateful.
Stay strong everyone. For those celebrating, it's ok for the 4th to be just another day. I will be enjoying fireworks sober tonight.