Is 40 days a hurdle of some sort??
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2018
Posts: 172
Is 40 days a hurdle of some sort??
I’m 43 days since my last drink and I was feeling great up to a few days ago. I feel like what I’ve read about feeling great with the pink cloud thing and then hitting the earth with a bang.
I cried today for no apparent reason, I’m irritable and have no energy to work on a new plan or hobby or distraction. I have no energy to put up with trying to fight my kids on anything. I feel like I’m taking a step back to the first week. I don’t get it completely but I feel like a complete mess. Everything is very overwhelming.
Is this normal? I figured it would pass as I’ve been reading that each moment passes but this seems like more than a moment. It’s hopefully a phase and not the real me.
I’m hoping it’s a last ditch effort my AV or brain is making to get me to give in. I can fight it but this sucks
I cried today for no apparent reason, I’m irritable and have no energy to work on a new plan or hobby or distraction. I have no energy to put up with trying to fight my kids on anything. I feel like I’m taking a step back to the first week. I don’t get it completely but I feel like a complete mess. Everything is very overwhelming.
Is this normal? I figured it would pass as I’ve been reading that each moment passes but this seems like more than a moment. It’s hopefully a phase and not the real me.
I’m hoping it’s a last ditch effort my AV or brain is making to get me to give in. I can fight it but this sucks
Member
Join Date: Mar 2014
Posts: 25,373
Tomorrow you'll feel like queen of the world. (if you're female.)
It took me a good six to eight months to level out. Stay the course. More days will be better and fewer will be bad and the bad will pass a lot quicker.
It took me a good six to eight months to level out. Stay the course. More days will be better and fewer will be bad and the bad will pass a lot quicker.
12 Step Recovered Alcoholic
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: New Zealand
Posts: 6,613
I hope you are feeling better soon. I never heard of a specific forty day hurdle though I have heard of a 12 step hurdle.
If you were an alcoholic of my type, I would explain it like this.
The Pink cloud you talk about is really a free sample of God's grace, a taste of what it can be like living sober. Being as it is all relative, sobriety turned out to be much better than the initial pink cloud in my experience. To go back to the orginal pink cloud experience would be a rea step backwards.
The time it lasts will be different for everyone. For me, the maximum grace was 21 days, and then I drank. Others go a lot longer. The thing for me to do was to take advantage of feeling good to get on with the recovery process, taking the steps. When I did that, the time limit was extended and I was able to do enough to recover. When I wasted that window of opportunity, which was easy enough to do when I didn't know any better, I always got drunk.
Our big book talks about the conditions preceeding a relapse. We go from the pink cloud to being restless irritable and discontent. When we first surrendered, suffering the utimate defeat with alcohol, we stopped fighting and peace broke out. With all the drama stopped, no fuel being added to the fire, we start to feel pretty good. Then the ego begins to repair itself and before long the fight is back on. People are idiots and become irritating, they never do what we think they should, they tell us to do things we disagree with, they are ungrateful for all we have done for them etc etc and the logical conclusion is that a drink will appear in our hands.
You may be different. This is just about alcoholics of my type. To break this cycle we have to have a complete psychic change, a new outlook, new ideas, new motivations. This isn't easy to engineer on one's own, and the medical profession, try as they might, have not been able to bring this about either. AA has found a way through the 12 steps.
If you were an alcoholic of my type, I would explain it like this.
The Pink cloud you talk about is really a free sample of God's grace, a taste of what it can be like living sober. Being as it is all relative, sobriety turned out to be much better than the initial pink cloud in my experience. To go back to the orginal pink cloud experience would be a rea step backwards.
The time it lasts will be different for everyone. For me, the maximum grace was 21 days, and then I drank. Others go a lot longer. The thing for me to do was to take advantage of feeling good to get on with the recovery process, taking the steps. When I did that, the time limit was extended and I was able to do enough to recover. When I wasted that window of opportunity, which was easy enough to do when I didn't know any better, I always got drunk.
Our big book talks about the conditions preceeding a relapse. We go from the pink cloud to being restless irritable and discontent. When we first surrendered, suffering the utimate defeat with alcohol, we stopped fighting and peace broke out. With all the drama stopped, no fuel being added to the fire, we start to feel pretty good. Then the ego begins to repair itself and before long the fight is back on. People are idiots and become irritating, they never do what we think they should, they tell us to do things we disagree with, they are ungrateful for all we have done for them etc etc and the logical conclusion is that a drink will appear in our hands.
You may be different. This is just about alcoholics of my type. To break this cycle we have to have a complete psychic change, a new outlook, new ideas, new motivations. This isn't easy to engineer on one's own, and the medical profession, try as they might, have not been able to bring this about either. AA has found a way through the 12 steps.
Member
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: New York, NY
Posts: 6,262
We're all different. Some people feel great, others angry while I cried constantly during the first 90 days. What recovering alcoholics find difficult to understand is that all moods change. We drank to regulate our emotions now we're off the anesthesia. The point is, nothing ever gets so bad a drink won't make worse. A program helps a lot because we need support to get through the tough times. What we alcoholics call stress, non-alcoholics call life.
Congrats on 40! Each day sober is a miracle.
Congrats on 40! Each day sober is a miracle.
under new management
Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: Calgary, Alberta
Posts: 2,339
Happy 44 days, Readygo 
I was all over the place in early recovery, and you are in early recovery.
I believed in the light at the end of the tunnel, even if I couldn't see it, because to go back to my drinking life would completely extinguish the light of my life.
I hope you can keep putting one foot in front of the other. As long as you aren't drinking, you are going in the right direction. Keep posting, keep reading.
I have found much gold in the many threads at SR, that helped me see myself in new and better ways.
I was all over the place in early recovery, and you are in early recovery.
I believed in the light at the end of the tunnel, even if I couldn't see it, because to go back to my drinking life would completely extinguish the light of my life.
I hope you can keep putting one foot in front of the other. As long as you aren't drinking, you are going in the right direction. Keep posting, keep reading.
I have found much gold in the many threads at SR, that helped me see myself in new and better ways.
Member
Join Date: Jan 2017
Location: Chicago
Posts: 605
Personally, I wasn't close to feeling "normal" at 40 days. Truth be told, I probably felt worse in many ways.
I thought that being sober would fix everything. Well it fixed some stuff, but not nearly everything. Like NYC eluded to, I was having a hard time with my emotional state more then anything. It took quite a while for this to level out, and after a 1 year and a few months sober it is definitely more good then not.
Look for small gains not big ones. That's what kept me going.
Stick with it you won't be sorry.
I thought that being sober would fix everything. Well it fixed some stuff, but not nearly everything. Like NYC eluded to, I was having a hard time with my emotional state more then anything. It took quite a while for this to level out, and after a 1 year and a few months sober it is definitely more good then not.
Look for small gains not big ones. That's what kept me going.
Stick with it you won't be sorry.
Member
Join Date: Dec 2014
Posts: 295
I think this is going to differ for everyone, and could have something to do with what's going on in your life. There's a common reaction to painful emotions where we automatically think we're just being moody.
But there could be some actual reasons for being distressed, too. Do you have the basics that most people need to feel content---good friends and social network, a sense of purpose and that you're helping others, high self esteem, eating nutritious food and being physically active, etc.
All of these can really make a difference in how a person feels every day.
I used to have severe depression some years back and then the transmission went out in my car so I had to walk everywhere for a month. I fell into a worse depression at first, but I soon discovered that walking briskly to my destinations, and being outside for several hours a day, lifted my mood and I felt better than before I lost my car. Taking care of yourself, as well as learning healthy ways to respond to stress, is very important.
Good job on your sobriety.
But there could be some actual reasons for being distressed, too. Do you have the basics that most people need to feel content---good friends and social network, a sense of purpose and that you're helping others, high self esteem, eating nutritious food and being physically active, etc.
All of these can really make a difference in how a person feels every day.
I used to have severe depression some years back and then the transmission went out in my car so I had to walk everywhere for a month. I fell into a worse depression at first, but I soon discovered that walking briskly to my destinations, and being outside for several hours a day, lifted my mood and I felt better than before I lost my car. Taking care of yourself, as well as learning healthy ways to respond to stress, is very important.
Good job on your sobriety.
Guest
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Atlanta
Posts: 8,674
Great job on your sobriety so far!
IME, and I concur with a lot of what Mike said as I am an AAer too and my experience has been in many ways similar to his, there have been ups and downs at various points. Including the past week, when I have been irritable a LOT - and I will be two years sober on 2/21!
I noticed positive leap(s) forward in multiple ways around 100 days. Before that, I was largely dealing with physical healing as I was VERY sick when I quit.
Four months was great- except for one solid week of the "mean reds" to rival any Audrey Hepburn's character in Breakfast at Tiffany's ever thought of having! 8 was great and 9 was rocky. 10 was good but we added a mild antidepressant to my med regimen. 12 seemed like I'd really settled into a new life. 17 threw me when I went to my first wedding and was incredibly angry at what seemed like wine EVERYWHERE -not at the wedding alone, but in the entire boutique mountain town where it was held!! 22 was lovely but complicated with family. All through this I've had job changes, taken on the purpose for my life in running a recovery group for the restaurant industry that was so bad for me and has become so good, gotten married and adjusted to living with a (wonderful) 15 year old, worked on everything in my life and always ALWAYS made my recovery my number one priority as my emotional sobriety protects my physical, and everything else comes from doing my best to keep an even keel.
My program, commitment to yoga, my faith, my relationship with an in-recovery spouse, sleep, how and with whom I spend my time....everything in my life that is good and whole comes from my solid program.
My best words are: keep going. Life gets better as it gets clearer. Promise.
IME, and I concur with a lot of what Mike said as I am an AAer too and my experience has been in many ways similar to his, there have been ups and downs at various points. Including the past week, when I have been irritable a LOT - and I will be two years sober on 2/21!
I noticed positive leap(s) forward in multiple ways around 100 days. Before that, I was largely dealing with physical healing as I was VERY sick when I quit.
Four months was great- except for one solid week of the "mean reds" to rival any Audrey Hepburn's character in Breakfast at Tiffany's ever thought of having! 8 was great and 9 was rocky. 10 was good but we added a mild antidepressant to my med regimen. 12 seemed like I'd really settled into a new life. 17 threw me when I went to my first wedding and was incredibly angry at what seemed like wine EVERYWHERE -not at the wedding alone, but in the entire boutique mountain town where it was held!! 22 was lovely but complicated with family. All through this I've had job changes, taken on the purpose for my life in running a recovery group for the restaurant industry that was so bad for me and has become so good, gotten married and adjusted to living with a (wonderful) 15 year old, worked on everything in my life and always ALWAYS made my recovery my number one priority as my emotional sobriety protects my physical, and everything else comes from doing my best to keep an even keel.
My program, commitment to yoga, my faith, my relationship with an in-recovery spouse, sleep, how and with whom I spend my time....everything in my life that is good and whole comes from my solid program.
My best words are: keep going. Life gets better as it gets clearer. Promise.
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