Stayingsassy

Just so you know....my coworker went in for several ultrasounds, I don’t think that’s uncommon. Unsettling....and difficult...but not to be overly worried about it.

Hugs.

Stayingsassy

Yeah. Just cause we are sober, we are not spared trauma or pain. I feel you there.

Wholesome

That's reassuring that it's not uncommon to have more than one ultrasound. Hopefully this is the end of it and I can put it behind me.

Yeah quitting drinking just means we won't create new problems from drinking, which at least for me, was a significant improvement!

Everything will work itself out and I'll feel better soon. There's nothing wrong with being sad when sad things happen. I was really happy just a short time ago and I knew to appreciate that, because sometimes life can be hard. I just got blindsided and it was traumatic. It literally knocked me flat. I was really sick. I heard from other women that it was just like a bad period, but it was nothing like that for me. Several days were just a blur of vomiting and pain and spinning.

I'm still weak and tired. I don't have to worry about losing that last 10 lbs anymore. I've always been pretty healthy, despite how I used to abuse my body, and I don't feel like that now.

Glad I have a week off to rest. I need it. I'll make music and go out for walks and go to my old work and pay everyone a visit and see the counselor.

Wholesome

I was really coming apart even before I found out I was pregnant. I knew something was wrong with my mind, but I thought it had to do with this mild concussion I got back in early Dec. I was starting to doubt my own reality, like maybe I was in a coma and dreaming, or I thought it had something to do with electricity and florescent lights. It wasn't until I started being sick that I checked the calendar and made the connection.

At first I was happy too. I thought I'll get another chance at it not being an alcoholic. I have so many regrets that I didn't quit sooner with my boys and wonder how things may have been different, if I had.

But then the cynical, practical, 40 year old in me started thinking, and I panicked.

Plus all the hormones and feeling so sick didn't help things. That's the only time in my life that I had been repeatedly asking myself, Is all this real? Haha. I thought I was losing my mind. And I used to do a lot of psychedelics, not even on my craziest acid trip did I doubt my sanity.

I don't know. It was a real experience and it affected me deeply. Changed my outlook in a lot of ways and rocked my foundations. I feel like I'm reeling from it. Like I was walking down the street minding my own business and life jumped out from behind a bush and bam bam bam, punched me the head a bunch of times and knocked me out and I've come to on the sidewalk, wondering what just happened to me. And I have no one or nothing to swing back at because that's life.

dwtbd

"Glad I have a week off to rest. I need it. I'll make music and go out for walks and go to my old work and pay everyone a visit and see the counselor. "

From where I sit you're quite the slugger, a batting champ at that

PhoenixJ

Support to you

keep posting

Wholesome

So more bad news. I didn't get the bid at work so I'm still unassigned and they have moved me even further and still on midnight's. F*ck. But OK. It's only temporary and I'll just keep bidding. It's such a bummer that all this happened at once. If it wasn't for this pregnancy and miscarriage, getting my full-time would have been fantastic news and I wouldn't have cared if I had to sacrifice some more. Now it feels even more destabilizing and like more of a punishment.

But OK. I can do it. It won't be forever. I'll get settled somewhere and own a position I like again.

You know, all my co-workers threw me the nicest party on my last day and my boss came to me and told me what a good job I'd done and that I'd been like a pillar in the building. I went home and cried and cried because I had to leave.

I've got the ultrasound and counseling appt today, and it's supposed to be a big snow storm. I think the ultrasound will be fine. I feel a lot better and I think I'd still be sick if there was something wrong. And it's going to feel soooooo good to be able to unload on the counselor. Haha, she's in for an earful.

Man, I've been stressed out. I've been lonely too and housebound and it's winter. I can't talk to my boyfriend, he doesn't know what to say and I don't like him right now. My sister and that one friend haven't said the right things either. I don't think anyone can. And that's no one's fault, I know that. It just is. I'm sure even me posting here is making people uncomfortable, but whatever, it helps to feel like I'm talking to someone, instead of just living in my head with all this.

Dropsie

BillieJ,

Reading this thread give me hope for humanity.

The thoughtfulness and wisdom is remarkable from everyone, including yourself. Sassy's post were absolutely spot on and Eric so supportive, and this was amazing from you:

Two truths of life. You will suffer. And nothing will stay the same. It's just my turn, we all get one. I've been through hard things before. At least I'm not drinking so I will be able to feel what I need to feel and face it head on so I can heal.

I am thinking of you and hoping that you feel better physcially as the days go by, and that the new work and the boyfriend shape up.

Wholesome

Thanks Dropsie, your replies have been pretty sweet too. Everyone's been really great, that's what I love about SR. Just a bunch of recovery and people helping each other out. I will forever be grateful for this place and how it helped me quit drinking and turn my life around.

NYCDoglvr

Yikes, sounds terrible! I've learned to beware of thinking I won't drink. My sponsor said a relapse doesn't happen because of big problems, it's a run in your pantyhose. Take care of yourself and heal. A big hug!

Wholesome

I'm not in any danger of drinking. That's the one thing I am certain of in my life right now. I was just saying in my counseling appt that all kinds of other foundations in my life feel like they've been knocked out from under me, but my abstinence is the cornerstone that's going to get me through all this.

Stayingsassy

That’s how I feel about my sobriety. It anchors me in my grief. It gives me something solid to hold onto, to keep my eyes open and my thoughts clear, while the world spins around me.

Wholesome

That's a good way to describe it Sassy. It does anchor me.

It's also something I fought really hard for, it took me a long time to get it right and it matters to me deeply. I won't let anything take it from me. It's mine.

It's also one of those thing that I will never let happen to me again.

Stayingsassy

Yes, that’s it exactly: it’s the thing that’s hardest to do, that we make the highest priority in our lives, that becomes something we treasure and hold close to our chest. It becomes the thing that gets us through life.

I try to communicate his to newbies but often fail to get it to come across right: that their sobriety is their gift, not their curse. It’s what gets us through everything.

Wholesome

I remember members on here trying to convey that message to me Sassy. I think people's thoughts get so intertwined with AV, that they honestly can't conceptualize what a life without using in it, would look like. When the only thing that makes you feel good is the very thing that ruining your life, it's hard not to have your thinking all twisted up.

I feel a lot better today. I really needed to talk to someone and let all that out.

It's just a time of great changes and these things never happen when you expect them to. I was ready for this, even if I didn't see it coming.

Things with my BF have been unraveling since I quit drinking. He's just a lot younger than me and I want different things now, and so does he. He wants to be a father and I'm done. The baby factory is closed. I'm not going to do anything about it today, or this week, but it's on the horizon. It will be hard, he won't go easy. He's had a very sheltered life with little adversity, so it will be difficult for him, and I will have to hurt him. I don't want to do that, because I do love him and he's been good to me. I felt like I'd been going along to get along for awhile, but then when I was faced with the prospect of, going along to get along, myself into motherhood with him.... well that changed things. I don't know if I can come back from where my mind went, or the things I said, because I meant them.

I'm tired of trying to fit myself into my old life. It's not working. Like I keep letting my old friends hurt my feelings when they act exactly like they always did, but I'm the one who's changed and has different views and expectations.

My hormones have settled down too. My mind is back. Crazy how much of us is biological. I think I was like starving too. I hadn't eaten correctly in almost a month, I couldn't keep anything down.

GerandTwine

Hi Billie Jean,
I just caught this thread of yours.
It great to see how you’ve been coming into your own these past few years.
Not that it really matters, but, I guarantee the good side of the people who care about you has acquired a quiet and deep respect for the person you now are, especially through these last few weeks.
GT
PS. Did you ever rename your boat?

Wholesome

Hi GerandTwine Good too see you. Thanks man.

I ended up selling the Miss B Haven lol. That was another beef with my BF and I. He refused to get both his drivers license and boat license. So I was driving him around everywhere so he could party. I didn't want to watch him get drunk every weekend and always be the responsible one. There will be another time in my life where I'll have a boat again, when I leave the city and I'm kid free

Wholesome

I'm getting my optimism back. Everything is going to be ok.

It's so funny how things work out. At the same as all this happened, I had gotten really into politics, and history, and religion. I had gone right down the rabbit hole with it all and the things I learned really unsettled me and inspired me to get involved and do something about it. But I didn't know how hormonal I was, all I knew was that something was wrong with me.

All of it added to making me feel really destabilized. I started really questioning religion, not from a dogmatic place, but from a historical place and how it shaped human evolution. Religious books have been very influential and some people take them deadly serious.

All the things I thought I understood and believed in, I realized I didn't really understand and I rejected them and I'm still trying to figure it all out. There's just so much information and it all leads off in different directions. Like I think the world has gone too far to the left and we are watching it swing back to the right. Crazy time to be alive. My mom was a hippie and now she's going to political rally's with me for the right! Who would've thought?

Wow, I feel like I went on this crazy internal journey, all in a few weeks.

But I'm out the other side. I'm not having a baby in the fall. I'm going to get to follow this new path with wanting to be an activist and trying to be one of the good guys. I'm going on the move at work and it will stay that way for awhile as I slowly bid my way closer to home. I'm going to be able to keep making the piano boogie woogie I may find myself single again... or not. I don't know about that part. And, no matter what happens, I'm never going to drink ever again.

Wholesome

So I've been to work and I talked to my union and my friends. I'm going to fight the bid. I think I should have got it, and I pay a lot of union dues. Maybe I'll win, maybe I'll lose, but it's worth a try. I'm going to have to show up on Monday at this new place, no choice about that, but I'm not accepting my fate without at least trying to make it better. I don't think it's right that they've moved me so far from home, it's a long way and I'm going to be driving home right during rush hour after being up all night and I'm not well right now.

A friend mentioned that I should see a homeopath, that I may be suffering from adrenal fatigue. I've been under a lot of stress and my body has been through a lot. I've lost a lot of weight. Everyone said so. I'd lost 50 lbs in the last 2 years but I don't look healthy right now. I look like I've been through it. I can see it in my face.

It was good to see everyone though. I'm really going to miss them.

Hawkeye13

BillieJean, you are really doing an amazing job dealing with difficult things, looking inside with clear, relentless introspection, and managing to grow through all this adversity.

For what it is worth, my spouse has been a really negative influence on my own drinking these past few years. I had some solid sobriety--nearly two years--but felt disconnected from him and he also said I was "no fun anymore" which contributed to my own decision to relapse a number of times in the past two years.

I think I finally got my head on straight about this--my life, my choices, and if he can't handle it, than our relationship must change.
So far he has been pretty supportive about my decision.
I think he has his own problems with alcohol now and is beginning to see my point about how it just gets worse over time.

Follow your own true north star, and all will be well in the end.