wynwrights

That was a bit of a tongue-twister! Now 68 days sober (looking forwards to making the 90 mark; there’s a satisfaction in round numbers) and feeling pretty dreadful. I have a full physical booked next week, which should ferret out if anything out of the ordinary is going on, but I’m pretty certain that all this is broadly within the scope of normal in early-ish recovery. And yet, even so, I’m feeling fed up and impatient that I’m not bouncing about like a rabbit in Spring.

And this brings me neatly to the point of this post: I never understood it before, but my impatience tells me I have the mindset of a drinker overlaid on whatever else I might be. I’m looking for instant gratification and am fed up and self-pitying that I’m not now AFTER ALL OF THIS TIME SOBER (not even three months!) in peak physical condition. And yet underneath all this petulance, I know full well that I’m bloody lucky not to feel worse. Although my drinking has got much worse in the last five years or so after many years of not drinking much at all (I’m now early 40s), I was nevertheless first drunk at 15, did a lot of drugs in my late teens and early twenties and was a very heavy drinker indeed for a couple of years around 30 (blacking our, daytime drinking, you name it, I did it). Realistically, that’s quite some history there; the body can take a long, long time to repattern itself after injury or abuse as I know from my experiences working in a different field with injured clients, but somehow there’s a part of me that thinks I should buck the trend. That I should be different. And that’s the alcoholic part right there.

Thanks for listening.

CreativeThinker

If there's one thing for sure, we alcoholics are an impatient bunch! I felt exactly like you a few months into my recovery. All I wanted was to get to the point where I began to feel better. Ugh, it was exhausting. Give it more time...once I got past the 3 month mark things began to change and I was glad that I kept moving forward during the hardest times.

CT

Stride34

Not to worry you but at 68 days I'm surprised you're feeling so bad physically. It might be something else... ..gfood idea to go to a doc

tomsteve

i want what i want and i want it yesterday!
patience isnt about what im doing while im waiting; its about what im thinking. learning to turn my attention to something more useful took practice.
im still practicing as i can still get inpatient, but theres progress.
wynwrights, maybe you can do 2 things to help:
1- get pen and paper and write out everything that has improved in this time.
2- get pen and paper and write out a gratitude list- things youre greatful you have today and things youre greatful you dont have any more since you stopped drinking.

accpetance is a good thing,too. accepting it was going to take time for change to happen helped me stop focusing on what i wanted to change and start focusing on what i could change today.

MIRecovery

Recovery is a journey not a destination. I’m 8+ years clean and sober and I work on my recovery every day because all I have is today. Once we accept that recovery does not have an ending our level of impatience diminishes.

For me Mornings are made up of prayer, meditation, and readings. Afternoons and evenings are talking to other alcoholics and AA. In early sobriety every waking second was filled with recovery.

All I can say is I get out of it what I put into it. My only goal is to be alttle bit better than the day before.

AnvilheadII

well since you mention rabbits....in the story of the Tortoise and the Hare, it was the tortoise that won the race. slow and steady.

SoberLeigh

Hang in, wynwrights; I didn't BEGIN to feel appreciatively better until about the six month mark. It was a slow but steady improvement after that.

Sobriety and recovery worth every second of the time, and every step of the effort, it takes to achieve.

Sobriety rocks.

wynwrights

This is great and you’re so right.