Originally Posted by TENtx

Hi, guys. Checking in, day #14. Two weeks.

I'm at a crossroads here.

Mondays are my toughest day b/c of this irrational anxiety I have about work. Yesterday it appeared again, and my loving and supporting wife, who is 2+ years sober btw, suggested I use her appointment yesterday with her therapist, Jane, which happened to be scheduled at 1 pm.

So I went to the session with Jane. I had been to see her last year about my drinking and other issues. She had recommended last year that I join a support group, and I wish I had taken her advice right away and not waited to join SR.

Anyway, Jane believes I have issues with my inner child. My wife has mentioned this before. My childhood was mostly my father screaming at me. No wonder I'm here, right.

Jane says the good news is that inner child therapy is accepted and well established in most circles. The bad news is that it's just like the therapy for alcoholism, in that there is no one magic bullet that fixes everything, and I'll have to find one that works for me.

So I did some research online and I found a well respected inner child therapist who has written several self help books about it. I bought the first book and I'm considering whether or not to go through the therapy.

The idea is that the therapy takes you back in time to the incidents that impeded the growth of your inner child, and you experience them again, although this time you have yourself as a loving adult to guide you through the experience the correct way, so you can heal the wounded child that's still in you. Makes sense, right? It does to me.

Anyway, last night I get to the point in the book that the therapy is about to begin, and the author warns that the therapy should not be done by anyone with a current addiction issue, because the therapy is very emotional and it's likely to cause a relapse.

He suggests any patient should be at least a year sober before trying it. Of course, I'm just two weeks sober.

I think this therapy is exactly what I need to get my whole life on track, and I'm doing very well with my concepts of sobriety so far, so I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do.

I'll keep you posted. Any input you guys may have would be welcome.

Originally Posted by 4thekidz

Day 12: Liver let die (live and let live?)

Sleep! 5+2 (3am let dog out). Invigorating run with the dog- 7 strong. No sign of the parasite, not even a wiggle. Had a big meeting last night requiring me to pass TWO liquor stores. Each way, I forgot they were there.

I suspect that the liver toxins are waning. Not the alcohol metabolites- they were gone over a week ago- but rather the by-products of damaged liver cells- all those enzymes, fat molecules and products of the liver "junkyard." My enzymes should be back at their baseline, but at this stage I am still working on reversing "fatty liver,": the accumulation of lipid globules inside the liver cells, accumulated over months when my enzymes were to busy breaking down alcohol to attend to fats. So now I'm cleaning out the closet, if you will. In six weeks' time, the fat will be eliminated. Taking alcohol's "killer Bs," folate, thiamine, other B vitamins, and my Omega-3 & 6 oils to assist with the clean-up.

A healthy human liver contains about 150 billion liver cells; each cell has a lifetime of about 450 days. Doing the math, every day sober, YOUR body is making over 300 MILLION- new little baby cells who never knew nor had to wrestle the alcohol molecule. In about 18 sober months you have an ENTIRELY new liver. This of course does not take into consideration other factors such as hepatitis, metabolic syndrome (non-alcoholic fatty liver from bad diet/obesity), environmental toxins, etc.

Perhaps in November 2016 we will hold up our juice glasses and welcome our clean, new livers.

Good luck to all.

4

Originally Posted by site1Q84

Ten- congrats on two weeks! That is awesome!

knb and michtizz- if you're going to music festival keep and eye out for MusiCares/Friends of Bill W. It's a foundation run by the Grammys and they set up AA meetings once a day at most major music festivals. You can get the SR ap on your phone as well. Just something to keep in mind!

Went for my morning walk and then did some grocery shopping. I have to work today but I'm happy to learn that I don't have to be there until later, so I can hit up my 12pm meeting which I thought I was going to miss. I usually do that and the chat meeting on here on Tuesdays, but I'll definitely miss the chat meeting so I'm happy to make at least one of the two!

I got a few more recovery books in the mail I'm going to dig into. Looking forward to some new reading material!