well,
I lied. When the dr. told me to go directy home and do a manual download of my heart monitor, I didn't go directly home. I picked up 2 liters of voka and then went home and did the download. The next morning after drinking 1 liter I called my dr and they did a medical detox as the heart thing is pretty bad if I detox unsupervised.
My son threw the 2nd bottle away for me. I'm clean now. My boss's boss (who is also one of my friends) was to go to a meeting with me at HR to talk about disability and retirement before all this happened. She arranged it so HR came with her to the hospital to go over my options. There numbers were the same as mine, but they had some extra ideas that might help.
It is to my advantage to retire on December 1st and I can use sick days, vacation days and overtime days to cover from now till then. I have to let them know by Wednesday. I'm 99% sure I will retire. My councelor and I have been working on ways to insure that retirement doesn't become a dive into the bottle.
The weird thing is, on Saturday when in my heart I decided to retire regrdlesss of the financial problems it will cause...I felt REALLY hopeful for the first time since last May.... like I may now have a life worth living that I can fill with meaningful things to me.
It's a hard sell to my Mom and Son because they will ultimately end up financially effected. When I described the feelings I had about retiring, my mom got on board. For my son it is harder. He is afraid I will just fall in the bottle and he knows we will have to give up a lot of stuff we are use to having to make it financially (unless he gets a job).
My brother has been a big help. When I go "what the heck did I drink for? it made no since!" He just tells me "well, looking back it makes no sense, but at the time it seems like a good idea".
Even though I'm not an AAer, I will be going to a meeting everyday. I'll have counceling twice a week, group trama therapy once a week, coffee with friends twice a week, work on a poetry/art project every day and study and practice my Buddhism daily.
If I can't make it financially or I start seeing drinking looking good, I will get a non-state job part time to help out.
Long post. Long week. but such a feeling of hope once I said yes to retirement!