Evening all,
So, I have reached the end of day twenty four. I am lying here in bed in front of a cosy fire with two cats sprawled across the bed in a house badly in need of a clean. Business first, as usual.
Physically, I feel great. A little tired perhaps, but it is 21:45 here. Headache was a female dog to get rid of. I suspect I have not been drinking enough water. While the workmen have been busy around the house the past few days, I have been drinking NA beer. As soon as I have some water, the headache goes. I will stick to water from tomorrow on and see if it makes a difference. No hand shakes. It has been a while now, so unless it comes back, I will not mention it again. The numbness in my cheek is still here, but ever so slight. No exercise again today. I guess I am going to have to wait until the renovations are done. Luckily everything inside should be completed by tomorrow.
Mentally, same plane. No huge change. I am now saturated on motivational books too. So I am reading a different type of book - Don't let the b@stards grind you down. Be warned, it is a self help book, but seems to be up my alley. Neutral so far.
Emotionally it was much of the same old story. It does feel like I am getting better, but it is difficult to say. I can only say that the swings are nowhere near as bad as during those very early days.
Pouring over my self help books with regards to addictions, the most bandied about figure is twenty one days. All the authors seem to concur that if you manage to make the twenty one day mark - you have beaten the habit. I have read all about synapses and neurotransmitters ad nauseum. Eat this, it kickstarts this. Eat that, it jumpstarts that. While I realize that there is some medical research behind all this, these books are written by doctors for doctors. I came across the term dry drunk today. This term is meant to describe someone who is abstaining from booze and/or drugs, but has not started the internal healing process. Whether this be self forgiveness, making amends, 12 steps or whatever process the individual follows. This would imply that the twenty one day advocates are wrong on the face of it as they do not address the psychological aspect as much as the physiological. After all, a dry drunk can fall off the wagon after however many years sobriety. I think both camps are correct but somehow need to get together to compile a more "man on the street" oriented book. Sure, after twenty one days you may have broken the physical aspect of the addiction. Hell, most of us force ourselves to that point through sheer willpower or fear. The more that I think of it, the more I find it difficult to believe that we are in a position to start that healing process during this period.
Bear with me patient reader. Our withdrawal can be broken down into three parts. Physical, mental and emotional. I think most of you will agree that the physical part recovers the quickest. Let's for arguments sake take it that you are not a big **** cat and that your physical part took seven days to heal. We will make the same assumption for your mental state. Another seven days, plus the seven if the physical gives us fourteen already. Now the emotional aspect kicks in. I am sorry, but unless you know something that I don't about being in multiple places at the same time, and you really haven't flattened too many peoples batteries, you are not going to resolve the emotional conundrum in seven days.
Aha, you say. There is a flaw in my argument. All these aspects start to heal at the same time. Yes? No? Go back and read your journals about your own recovery. Those first few days are utter crap physically. The sweats, the shakes, nausea. How focused was your mind during that time. Mine wasn't. It took a while for the brain mist to lift. It was only once the mind became clear and focussed that the emotions really stepped up and showed us who the boss really is.
So the point that I am really getting at here is that we are all dry drunks during our early sobriety. I just thought that the term was strange and when I found out what it meant I found it sort of derogatory. Mind you, as recovering addicts, we need to learn to be thick skinned. What ever threatens our sobriety needs to be banished. So the moral of the story, I should not have been offended by a silly term like dry drunk.
Be safe and be strong.
Cheers,
ZAB