Kallistia

I did that. Woke up one morning with my stomach gnawing at my backbone and realized I'd woken up several mornings in a row like that. Oh hell...I was pregnant. I told his father outside the bar that night ridiculously drunk - he asked why I went drinking with him - my response "I wanted to be able to have one last good party!"

In all fairness he's had no problem putting the margarita in front of me at a barbecue a few months later with a chorus of people encouraging that a little alcohol doesn't harm the baby! Although I think my pregnancy was the longest period of time that I've been substance free in fifteen years. Sometimes I wish to discover I'm pregnant again...not because I want a child...but so that I will be forced to stop drinking. Therein lies the depth of the beast.

Cow

Since I not has much positive to say yet, nor even sure how or if my sobriety is really actual happening. I just gonna say....
Moo Mwah, belove Bunny.

courage2

Cool posts!

Hi Kallistia! You don't have to get pregnant to get sober. Hang out here instead and have a cup of tea!

That's interesting. My first year I was obsessed with drinking. Almost all I thought about all the time was either drinking or not drinking. It wasn't so much craving as obsession, and it was only when I got on my current mix of psychopharm that it was relieved. Apparently my unmedicated natural state of mind is uncomfortable enough that I *will* seek relief from it in a drug of one kind or another. In the end, it's my own mind that I had to admit I was powerless to control. It took me a long time to admit that -- longer than it took me to admit that alcohol was my enemy.

I love it! "Depressive realism" is what I've got in spades! A pessimist is never disappointed.

It's one of those AA things. They say the first year is physical, the second mental, and the third spiritual.

I've found it pretty true so far. My *first* first year was definitely almost all physical -- between withdrawal, brain fog, PAWS, and depression, all I did that year was not drink and drool. My second first year was kind of a combo of physical and mental, I suppose because I picked up again for only a few weeks so I didn't get the physical dependence again. So the physical grossness was much shorter.

My second year so far has been much more about learning how to do things -- to interact rationally and humanely with other people, to be accountable for myself, to balance my responsibilities and desires so that I feel satisfaction without harming others. Before about a year ago, neither the word "hope" nor "friend" were in my personal vocabulary, so I'm still learning every day.

Which makes each day of sobriety kind of exciting, even when it's a drag. It's a day that I wouldn't have had if I were drinking. It's like one hand clapping -- if you're too stoned to know what you're experiencing, are you living at all?

Hi Cow!

Gottalife

A minor point, perhaps, but I have been a member of the fellowship for a while and have never heard that. It's probably one of those popular sayings that crop up.

What AA actually says on this is "When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically."

This seems to have been my experience too. For as long as I avoided the spiritual, I manged to avoid recovery. When I concentrated on the spiritual I recovered very quickly. That is to say the alcohol handicap was removed and I was free to develop mentally and physically.

courage2

Gottalife, I'm quite sure it's not orthodoxy. It's just something I've heard a few times in the rooms.

Tooshabby

Yes, I'm pretty sure I read that research has evidenced that 'depressed' people are far more realistic in their appraisals than those who are not, hence the term "depressive realism".