Evening all,
Well it is the end of day sixteen for me.
Physically, I am a little tired after not sleeping last night. I think tonight will go better. I do not have a headache tonight, which is great. I am hoping that this symptom is now too on its way out. The numbness of my cheek is the same as this morning, so that is also positive. The hand shakes are hardly noticeable. Another positive. My legs are still a bit tender from last nights exercise, so I am glad I decided against exercising today. I will exercise again tomorrow as the legs have now had their recovery period. Smoking has come down, but I really need to quit. The plan being to run a 10km road race in four weekends from now. Road running is big here in SA and it is almost impossible not to find a race every weekend. Oh, appetite is still great.
Mentally, well it was not much of a challenging day as I spent it mostly as a spectator in various meetings. The rest of my time was either reading posts here on SR or doing some research on how to remove crete from floors. All in all though, not a bad day for the old peanut.
Emotionally, well the day didn't start too well, but somehow everything came together for me rather quickly. Although I am missing my wife like crazy, I feel a strange calm. In my mind, I have made peace in the sense - what will be will be. Somehow the heart needs to reconcile itself to this. I would almost describe the way that I am feeling at this moment as peaceful.
I have decided to put some leave in for next week. I have a lot of things that I need to do around the house that my wife really wanted, but I never got around to while drinking. So I have arranged for the builders to come in on Monday to remove this horrible crete from the floor. I am also considering knocking out a wall to extend the kitchen as I have a dead end walkway to the side. Either that or to put a door on the walkway and brick up the rest. That way she would get her pantry as she wanted. If the builders finish on time, the tilers will come in on Tuesday and work their magic. So hopefully by Wednesday I will have a new house. I am just worried about the tile color that I want, not sure if it is what she wanted. I also need to tackle some issues in the garden, unfortunately neither of us has really paid much attention to it for a while, so it has gone to hell. So I will be off to the nursery to find stuff that blooms in winter. Sorry, even I like pretty colorful flowers.
I have put the self help books to the side for the moment. I suspect that part of my depression has been from reading too much into flailing yourself to pieces for the trouble caused by the booze. Someone said it better than me in an earlier post - we can never fix the past. But we sure as hell can use it as a guide for the future. I prefer this outlook. We have to understand - that drunk addicted person is someone else. I am not saying we're not sorry, I am saying that we do not have to live our lives in constant remorse and regret. I think by learning from the mistakes, and actively living our lives forward endeavoring not to make the same mistakes, we make amends. So the book I have started reading this is evening is motivational. The book - Out there: a story of ultra recovery. I am enjoying this guys story immensely. I can tell you that his story resonates with me. I think a lot of us older consistent boozers will recognize ourselves in the pages. What I am enjoying is that he is not patronizing in any way and neither is he flagelating himself to death over what he did. Yes he is sorry, and what he goes on to do is unbelievable. I think that this is the sort of thing I can relate to in my recovery. I just wish I'd found the book earlier.
So all in all, it has not been a bad day. I have taken active steps to get things done. I feel chuffed as I am not procrastinating like I did when drinking. There are a few other things that I need to put in motion, but with the double long weekend here next week, most people are on leave, so that will have to wait until the week after. I feel chuffed with the progress I have made with my recovery to date. I am starting to enjoy the small things in life more that I took for granted. Sometimes we all need to stop and smell the roses. Time is the most important commodity in any persons life. So I will leave you with a thought taken from the above mentioned book. If a rich man was lying on his deathbed, do you not think that he would give away all his wealth just to spend one more day with his family?
Be safe and be strong.
Cheers,
ZAB