NewlySober

sitting here, in the middle of the night, and i am not even trying to go to sleep, though i should be since i have class at 7 30 am.

i already know i am going to skip it. i won't fight the urge. how could i possibly when i feel greeeaaat right now and as alert as can possibly be. i don't even want to go to sleep now and not till the sun comes up and the rest of the city and country start to awake. that's my cue to shut down.

it's so peaceful and quiet in the middle of the night. it's a magical, mystical time almost, sometimes. it's the one time of day that other people are doing what i do all day. so it's the only time i feel like i fit in, like i belong.

today was eight weeks without a drink. and ten days without a smoke. the latter not being so amazing since i have only been smoking since sept 2004. and not smoking is already not a prob, but the first couple of days were slightly annoying.

i sat down the other day and made a chart of all my sober periods and found that i have been sober for one third of the last six years, a fact which kind of surprised me. 2004 was not a good year in that sense, i drank every day starting in march. well, every day except three or four in each month.

i really really really hate the state of maine. what a silly, ******** place to live. i wonder whose bright idea it was to colonize or settle this place. that mistake must have been made sometime between may and aug. earlier today, i had this recollection of something that happened last may in the southeast and just thinking about the warm weather made me happy. i haven't experienced normal weather in six months now.

no matter what the ups and downs of life, i have never suffered the torture of a brutally cold climate for six months straight. the other day, i mused that it will probably be a lot easier to stay sober after leaving here but then i realized that a lot of my sobriety is probably rooted in not having a car and impassable roads even when i do.

ok, that wraps up my stream of consciousness rambling. normally i wouldn't post such drivel, but i will today. i don't know why. maybe it's because i want to share my love of the night with other insomniacs, although it's not that for me because i want to be awake at these hrs and i like it.

TnLark

I love the nighttime too. Everything is asleep and peaceful. The darkness is so serene.

Here's what I've been doing a few days now. I force myself to go to bed at midnight. I turn on the tv and have a book. I do one or the other or alternate reading/watching tv. I have been able to fall asleep between 1 and 2 am everynight that I've tried this. Last night, I drank coffee until 10pm and still fell asleep.

Congrats on not smoking also! I have been smoking for 21 years and have quit about 20 times. I always said I'd have to go to rehab to quit smoking. I get nervous just thinking about quitting, which IS my next goal.

dave65

i also like the nighttime when i was drinking i didn't realy notice it and was always asleep by about midnight at the latest, but when i first stopped drinking i couldn't sleep so would often go to bed around 2 or 3 in the morning and i seem to have developed a habit of staying up till late, i sometimes feel tired the next day but its still its a million times better than waking with a hangover.

GettingSober

8 weeks without a drink is awesome. Its really tough when I get home to get anything done with a 4-year old and her mommy. They have just gone to bed, either I do also and get up super early or I work now. When I have difficult research to do at night its hard to concentrate and get much done with the constant interuptions. I hit work at 7:00 am today so I could get all my analysis done before the office filled up with talk and speakerphone.
It can be too quiet. As a night freight pilot out of Chicago you would go the whole night and only talk to enroute traffic control. One nite over indianapolis I got carbon monixide poisoning and stopped hearing even the tower controller. I never get headaches so that got my attention, then I noticed it was hard to think. I heard a quiet voice in my headset asking if I was going to ever descend or just overly the field 6000 ft above it. That little voice saved my life.
Colorado is nothing compared to Chicago, summer is about 9 mos long here and even in winter you can find 60 degree days, some winters its been 70's near xmas in the middle of winter. Always sunny. Well thats Boulder anyhow, soon as it snows it melts.

Time4Me11

Hi Newly

Early, early mornings for me! Love getting up before dawn, piddling around, doing my meditations, checking out SR, watching the sunrise and light change.

Wonderful on your 8 weeks. Glad you are able to be so positive about it still...I am only at 3 weeks, but I have found that listening to people's positive stories to be incredibly helpful....

Waking up is GREAT>

Lance

Chy

Congratulation on 8 weeks! That's awesome, now get to class anyway!