Freshperspective14

Day one again, and I'm shocked at the amount of time I have spent thinking about my drinking these last couple of years. Trying to get my mind off of having a drink seems like a Herculean effort. I'm moody, and have no energy or motivation to accomplish anything. And then I think about the amount of effort and time I have spent planning the next drink. Finagling the home budget to hide the amount of money spent on alcohol, using different glassware because surely your family can't tell you are drinking wine if it's not in a wine glass, right? Obviously, vodka is helpful here. It comes in smaller bottles, much easier to avoid glassware with altogether. Deciding between booze and coffee in the morning is always worthy of fair consideration. My solution was simple...pour both, and finish whichever one was closest on the table. Dumped out a lot of coffee...and you know how expensive coffee is! Planning for outings to make sure that I'm beveraged enough to "enjoy" myself, and home in time to make up for lost drinks. Scheduling appointments for mornings only, cuz a spoon is about the only thing I can successfully operate after lunch. Finding polite ways to avoid sharing my sacred wine with company. Of course, that's easily solved by making sure that my hidden stash is at my disposal...and playing bartender of course...a drink poured for all, an extra swig or what the hell, two, right from the bottle for me. Ha ha! I'm a genius! Nobody knows that I'm actually drinking triple what everyone else is! And then there are always the occasional days where the guilt prompts some sort of gesture, like making a really great meal for the family. He is going to be so impressed with dinner, he won't think I could possibly have been sloshed while preparing it! Coming up with witty responses to friends' jokes about being known at the liquor store...formulating those responses is very time consuming! And by mid-afternoon most days, I'm moody, have no energy, or motivation to accomplish anything. Hmmm. Effort to drink, effort to quit. Please remind me that the energy it takes to drink would have continued to increase, and the energy it will take to quit will gradually decrease!!! I'm tired of drinking taking up so much of my energy!!!

sugarbear1

we get moody and non motivated, but it doesn't last forever!

you have to heal and give your body some time to do it!!

you can stay stopped!!!

whiskeyman

That was the most freeing thing, was to be rid of that obsession.
I had to throw myself into recovery the same amount. The same amount of time that i spent obsessing about booze i needed to obsess about getting well.

It is a tough battle to start but hang on and you can get there.
Seek all avenues and have an open mind to change your way of being. Your previous way didnt work and got you here, so anything you can do to change will be benefit

IOAA2

Hi and thanks for your post. It's been a long time since I've had a desire to drink. I need reminders like that of what the ending of my drinking was like. It wasn't a short process for me until I got honest with myself about my drinking AND accepted the fact I could no longer drink in safety, which should have been several years previous.


BE WELL

keithurbanfan

Hi there. You're so right. The effort it takes to drink is enormous! Your descriptions of the way things play out in your mind is very familiar to me. Please hang in there. You can do it!

nerraw

Oh I could have wrote ur post, im feeling the exact same!!
stay strong!!

Freshperspective14

Literally passing the day minute by minute...looking forward to one DAY at a time

ErikT

You can do this.....this site helps sooo much. I was a member here years ago and just sorta stopped logging on after I lost my laptop in a fire and couldn't afford a new one. But keep logging on and posting. I found one day at a time was the most realistic way for me in early recovery. Good work....keep it up

Dee74

why not join our Class of February support thread Fresh?

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...-2014-a-7.html

D

IWillWin

It does get better. I've just returned from a trip where 2 out of 3 hotel rooms had fully stocked mini bars and top shelf at that! Although I noticed it and thought wow, that's annoying it never occurred to me to drink it. I am about a year and a half sober and is say this shift took place at about a year give or take.

The obsession is overwhelming and heavy. Just wanted you know hear from yet another voice that it does get easier. I didn't believe anyone when they said it to me in early recovery but guess what? They were right. As usual

Freshperspective14

Thank-you everybody because I just spent the longest day that I can remember literally forcing myself to do anything other than think about drinking today. I painted (and by that I mean attacked with a paint brush lol) a door, and spent a lot of time reading posts from other members to get me through the day. I can accept that there are going to be a lot of days like today ahead of me...but I pray that it's not all of them.

ErikT

Doin' awesome my friend.....keep it up.... all the days won't be like today

gleefan

Hang in there. I'm on day 6. Reading and posting on the Adar forums has kept me focused on recovery and sobriety.

least

Stay sober a day at a time and you'll be feeling better.

masanori

This realization is what I find most helpful to me at the moment. Before this quit, I used to be fixated on the pleasures that drinking a couple of bottles of wine in the evening would bring me. Boy, that wine buzz makes everything fun. Studying, cooking, watching movies, etc., all more fun with red wine. You see successful people drinking wine on all kinds of television shows and movies. They sure enjoy some good wine on "The Good Wife."
One of the problems is that the next day, I would feel like crap. I started to google, "I want to go to sleep and not wake up." I started to search videos on sadness. Once I recovered from my hangover and depression, I realized I had a major problem that could not be ignored anymore. So now, when I think about alcohol, I skip the momentary pleasure wine is going to provide, and go straight to the depression and hell I'm going to have to pay the morning after.

Anna

I'm glad you found us.

I didn't realize how exhausting my drinking was until I stopped. It took so much work and planning. And, besides everything you mentioned, there was the constant worry that I had let something slip because I was a closet drinker. Had I gotten rid of the bottle properly, had I called someone while I was drinking, did I run the errand I promised to do, could I come up with a plausible excuse for being late? What a relief it was to finally stop drinking.

Each day will get better.

Freshperspective14

Yep, all those things too! Geez, when did I find time to shower? Oh wait, I forgot to do that some days too! It would be comical if it weren't so damn sad.

LadyBlue0527

Welcome to the board!

Re this:

As much as sometimes the beginning can be so hard the further you get away from that last drink the sillier you will realize how much of a time sucker that planning was.

You CAN do this!

SillyString

Fresh,
Hi and welcome. I'm on day 26 this time, and I'm feeling so much better than I did when I first quit. Even when I thought I felt better...I feel ever better now. Physically so much more energy - mentally, so much more energy, and I feel free. I really do. I have so much more time now. I'm not constantly stressed trying to fit EVERYTHING into the 5 days of the week I wasn't actively drinking. And one of those was spent literally in bed all day with a monster hangover. 3 more of the days were spent battling the guilt and anxiety. I was constantly either guilty and anxious or I was like, "Woo Hoo! It's the weekend! Time to get hammered." It was no way to live.

I'm glad you're here.