dwtbd

Hey Sohard Rootin for ya !

silentrun

You're back in one piece. That's all that matters.

silentrun

I think part of the problem is when we think there is something good about drinking. We tend to focus on that and it outshines the reality of the situation. This is a very serious thing for us. It has the potential to kill us. Personally, I have never allowed myself to remember any of the good feelings of drinking. By the time I escaped the cycle I didn't much enjoy it anymore so maybe that's why it was easy for me to block it out.

Sohard

This is true. Thank you for your support. Day 4.

Hawkeye13

Great job--keep going and treat yourself kindly today

ScottFromWI

Welcome to day 4 Sohard, keep doing what you are doing because it is working!

Sohard

Thank you, Hawkeye and Scott. I really appreciate the positive encouragement. It helps enormously!

Fusion

Posted on SR by Sohard on 24th December 2017:

Please make this your last time stopping drinking, Sohard. Thereby getting your life back. Please don't continue romanticising ethanol, and prevent yourself from falling as I low as I and others did. I care ❤️.

Hevyn

Very happy you're on Day 4, So. You're doing this.

Sohard

Thank you for reminding me of these words, Tatsy. Wow. Three years ago, and here I am again. Hopefully this is the last time ever.

Sohard

Off to bed and excited tomorrow is day 5. I’ve only reached that once (just last week) in five months. I’m reading the new book by holly whittaker. It’s good, but I feel like I’ve heard it all before. That said, there’s so much information out there it’s good for me to hear it over and over and over again. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read something or listened to something on YouTube and thought, “oh that’s right! That’s a really interesting/valuable/helpful point. How did I ever forget it?!”

The last five months were not the hell that the previous 20 years increasingly became. I think that’s because once you see the emperor has no clothes, once you see alcohol for what it is, you can’t really ever unsee it. At least not 100%. So I was always aware that I was taking a drug, not casually having a drink. While I might’ve still taken that drug, and enjoyed the numbing aspect of it, there always remained a voice in the back of my head that was telling me this is wrong. I was trying to do things in a way that were somewhat controlled and yet not controlled at all. Ordering a bottle of gin, pouring myself a huge milkshake size glass of it, and dumping the rest of the bottle before I’d taken the first sip from my glass. Passing out and doing it again the next day. It’s very expensive way to live “safely”. I needed to make sure there was none left for me to have a second gin milkshake.

i’m excited about day five tomorrow. And while super hard, it’s not as hard as my first day five when I was initially quitting drinking before my year and a half success. In a way, though, that itself makes it harder. So I’m reminding myself of the withdrawals I had way back then and how lucky I am to have made it back now. And that is something I can’t take for granted again.

I am driving up to see my mom and sister for Martin Luther King day weekend. I’m nervous about it but I am going. I know everyone would say don’t go, but it is important to me to see them. So I am going, and I’m just trying to get myself mentally prepared. I don’t feel I am yet though. But I know if I can get through this weekend, I’ll feel it was a major achievement and I’m on my way. I’m just trying to figure out a way to feel stronger. This early in the game, I still feel in danger. But I know I made it through all the quarantine not drinking, a month at a summer home we rented summer 2019, etc. I just have to remind myself that I can do this and I can do it easily. I just hope that I can get myself to believe this by Friday. And as of now, I still feel a little bit in that, it’s so early you can just restart phase. And that is wrong. I know.

Sohard

Day 5.

Mizz

YES! This is beautiful.
It is so hard to quit alcohol. Sohard! HA!
You are doing this and you will be better off. I do understand the "Ive heard all of this before" in literature. I think there are words that resonate now more than they did before; at least that is what I have experienced. Keep moving forward. One step at a time.
Stay close. We got you!

biminiblue

I think Socrates first said that all learning is really just remembering or recollecting. I believe Plato took that on, too. I'm still not too sure where it started. Probably with the first human. The idea is that human knowledge is not so much imparted as acquired at conception or even before. That we have already been born with it. I find that fascinating and also very believable, not in a religious way but in a, "Oh! That resonates!"

Sohard, so happy you're at Day Five.

fini

yes, you may have heard it all before, but your filters were likely different.
a useful concept to me that i read somewhere posits that insight can be/is a rearrangement of facts. something like that.

Obladi

SoHard,

You are now or have previously been a member of the AVRT party, am I correct?

If that's the case - or even if it isn't - you know all of that fear and doubt is 100% coming from your addiction and should be discarded immediately. I don't exactly mean don't doubt or fear (who am I to say?), but "all" it takes is a firm decision from you. Once you decide you are not going to drink this weekend with dear old mom, the decision will be made. Then all you have to do is stick to it. (Even if it does make you a little wobbly around the edges.)

"SoDear, wouldn't you like to share this bottle of wine with me?" "Nah. Thanks mom, but it really doesn't agree with me anymore. You go ahead, though; I'm perfectly content with my hot cocoa."

xo
O'McCarthy

Sohard

I'll try that! I like it.

I'm a believer in recognizing my addictive voice and working to change my brain patterns. I never, though, bought into the whole "you can make a decision and just never change your mind and if you do change your mind then you must not have made the decision" theory. You are 100% correct that I MUST decide. That is my goal - this work week I'm doing everything and anything to get to a point where I feel confident of this decision by Friday. I can feel I'm getting stronger (it's all still so new again though), but I am putting in the work. I spend 1/2 the day reading about addiction and the experiences of others and reminding myself of the things in my tool box which worked before. They're rusty, or rather I'm rusty using them, but I'm working. I literally wrote out a list of my tools so in a weak moment I don't forget one when I am up with my family (in the wrong order: (1) go to SR, (2) remind myself that no one ever said the next day they were glad they drank, (3) have inspirational sober quotes on hand (4) remind myself that, for now, my brain is broken and I can't trust it telling me to drink...promise myself I can have one another day if I still want it.... )

I'm just trying to get everything in order in my head for my first big challenge of this new recovery.

Sohard

Day 6.

ScottFromWI

Congrats on day 6 Sohard, looks to me like you are doing a lot of positive things to keep this going. What is the "first major challenge" you reference in your previous email?

Mizz

Day 6 for the WIN!
Rooting for you. Keep on Keepin on!