TryingSoHard

to everyone and I hope y'all are all having a great (and sober!) day!!

My day is just fantastic so far. I'm truly happy.

About to have to go start doing prep work for dinner... I was so behind schedule yesterday that I didn't get to do any of my prep work so I will pay for it today :P but it will be okay!!

See y'all in a while!

Dee74

I've got nothing against Xmas LB, just the ppl I have to spend it with
Hope evryone's well

D

JigOvLife

Little bit numb through lack of Alcohol and Nicotine and wiped out by so much food but generally had a really nice time, despite being the layabout, epic fail, in a family of go- getters.
Everyone's making an effort to enjoy the day.

Glad to see my fellow SR's are doing well

Ananda

Hi all

Pixie...you sound incredibly wonderful!!!! we are getting this thing aren't we

Cola girl...I am soooo glad you checked in...honestly I've been worried you had moved on to sobriety without us

Lb...my gosh but i am so proud of you and taking the time to make your little girls holidy special

TSH...it's been so good to have you join us! I'm counting on you to keep me constantly tormenting fizzy with our little games over on trivial

The boys have dropped the ball on that one and it's up to us women folk to keep it going till they come back with their tails between their legs!

Jiggy....self talk self talk (slap accross the face with a fresh fish) the words "epic fail" have been surgically removed from your language. I wanted badly to text you some off color joke to keep you giggling with your family

wibbs and timmy...I choose to bellieve that you two are off with your wives having an incredibly wonderful time with your families and just not feeling the need of support because your sobriety is so strong...really...i'm not being sarcastic at all...lovey you bunches.

Someone hit my on switch when I walked in the house yesterday evening and I have never had so much laughter and fun with my family...I was the perfect peace maker and creator of good feelings and it was truley a wonderful time...It was like i didn't have an off switch...not sure my family knew what to do with my constant banter.

I spent time with my new step-nephew for the first time and it really made me think of the boys here...we hit it off great and I'm so glad. He will be living with my mother starting in a week and I look forward to that. He is also insisting that they get internet access...so now I don't have to go without SR if I go to visit my mother and him.

I'll be honest though....was worn out this morning and nothing sounded better than to stop for a big bottle of rum and getting totally trashed. It's really all I thought about all the way home. It's Christmas and my understanding is the liquer stores are not open on Christmas and i didn't drive by any to test out this idea I have. I think maybe getting close to people is a little scary....but no worries tomarrow I will be so happy about having the best christmas I ever had and this strong desire to ruin it all with a drink...it will fade probably in the next few hours certainly by tomarrow...

I feel verymuch like you are all by my side and truley appreciate all the extra support you have all given me the last few days...it's made a big difference

merry xmas and happy boxer day right?

lostbutterfly

Boxing Day, lol! Boxers are underwear or a breed of dog!! (no-one seems to know what it is for or why it is called Boxing Day - we could put it on the Trivial Thread - you know, throw it open for discussion and lively debate )

I just survived 8 hours of being surrounded by alcohol - I didn't think there would be that much drinking (am I thick, it's Christmas Day?). I'm quite exhausted now!

Nands, I'm soo glad you had such a lovely time. I know what you mean, I could murder a bottle of vodka right now! TSH - it's so nice to hear you are happy. Pixy - have a lovely time, see you later.

Jig - no such talk, otherwise I will join you. We are all black sheep, and we have found our cyberflock!!

Ananda

Answering on trivial...

Pixy1

Home sweet home. What a lovely day but i'm so glad it's over.

The kids have gone to bed happy and will hopefully lay in tomorrow.

I am quite amazed how much I thought and worried about you all today. It's like your all part of my day.

Whats the plan for boxing day?

Ananda

glad you said that pixy..i felt really rather silly about how manytimes i thought about each of you throughout my evening (I'll pm you in a minite with all the gory details)

I'm so glad you had a good day....

Well..I was gonna "trade" day off wednesday for the day off tomarrow but now that push comes to shove i don't want to....so i'll use some of the very few vacation hours i have left to cover wednesday and use the holiday day today.

Will go to the noon meeting and the 5:30 home group meeting.

I'll proably get up at 2:30 in the moring so I can come on here and talk with all of you as I am feeling a little lonesome...If i have to go to work to keep from sitting around I will....really need to work on the house...the dogs had way too good a time while I was gone.

What about you pix..what's your plan (other than DON"T DRINK)

Pixy1

I'm going to the stables in the morning and food shopping in the afternoon.

My family are coming down from scotland tomorrow. I have said before that we always drink but I so don't want to and dreading the next week of drinking while they are here. I know you are all thinking, well don't drink then, but it's so feckin hard when it's a tradition and habbit. It's all we know!

I also know that there will come a time when I have to go through this sober cause I will not be drinking much longer. I need to do it sooner or later.

Ananda

Oh pixie...there's no time like the present! If you decide it needs to stop now...I will be off tomarrow and you can pm and email me all you want....

It's so hard to put the bottle down, but if you do it now....you'll have gotten through this sober this year and next year will be sooooo much easier....

Maybe even tell them...I am not drinking anymore and if I get bothered I'll be taking a break in my room...then come type on SR about all the crap it is....

Don't want in any way to make you feel like I'm gettin on you...just offering that if you are ready to make the commitment...i'de be more than happy to walk through it with you...I'm far enough along the path I don't even need a meeting tomarrow if being here would help you....bet we could get some others to help you out too (hug)

don't run off upset now either (kiss)

lostbutterfly

I'm finding it quite exhausting Pix - being sober. Like you say, it is so part of it. I couldn't cope with it in my house. At least I have been going to other people's and I can leave it behind.

Yesterday I set my watch to beep every half an hour. By the end of the evening the half hour was going really quick. We had started playing games like Jenga, and I actually was having fun. All sober and everything. Whatever next?

Driving helps. Someone really tried to get me to drink last night (95% alcohol Polish vodka - just to try it). I knew it would be such a trigger and goodness knows where it would have stopped. But so many people were on my side, because I was driving, and they did help me not take it.

Even tho I haven't been honest, I have put myself in situations where people will help me not drink, or at least understand why I can't. Tonight, I can walk to where I'm going, but I'm going to drive for the same reason.

Pixy1

I think it's so damn great that you haven't given in LB. You are doing so well.

I will be really busy over next few days trying to be the perfect hostess. I have just been telling Nands that I need a new normal and it's starting with New year. I have bought comedy DVD's to watch, rather than have a party. I just couldn't cope with it. Even drinking I couldn't face it. I am sure the family will be fine with it.

Hang in there LB x

JOL how are you doing?

How are you all spending Boxing day? I am off to feed the Pony's back later

FizzyWater

Don't know if this will help Pixy but I find it easier being the host, maybe just me but I find offering and pouring drinks for others and not drinking myself easier than actually saying no to being offered a drink.

Think its my way of showing people that not drinking doesn't bother me, I can be around drink no problem.

Yes I do have thoughts that I could down one, I've been so much happier these last 7 months though, don't want to go back there.

Ananda

I get visions of pixie running around moving horses from one stall to another to another trying to decide the best place to put them...

perhaps this is going to be a strictly female thread now? I can be pretty scary.

despite wanting to drink yesterday, i did have a decently good holiday. I feel pretty good this morning. My environment does have an affect on my desire to excape through alchohol...I am determined to do some cleaning today and get rid of some of the physical chaos in my house.

The law of cause and effect clearly tells me wht my next indicated actions should be...but child that i am, i'de rather have a magic cure and the house just clean itself....

I had a friend in my first sobriety named pixie...she use to talk about sprinkling us all with pixie dust and making everything better....always think of her when i think of you pixie!

LB....so proud of you...do i see a connection, cause and effect at it's finest...no alchohol, no drugs, no shagging of lodgers.....just a thought

Ananda

Once I know something....I can't "unknow" it.

Thinking about this alot today...culmination of stuff really.

looking back...I did decide maybe i wasn't an alchoholic..maybe I'de fixed myself. It was a long process building up to my last drunk of 8 years.

But once I picked up that first drink...well...I couldn't un-know what i knew...I couldn't drink enough to make it go away...In my heart of hearts I knew I was an alchoholic and all those years changed nothing.

Knowing you are an alchoholic or addict, and using/drinking anyways...it's the most horrible horrible place to be. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. really scks.

Course there are lots of other knowings that happen as I stay sober...and once I know, again I cannot un-know.

Yep...knowing sometimes sucks...but just the fact that I become aware of some truth about myself..tht i am a drunk that i have a particular "character defect" that i am doing something that is wrong (for me)....just the knowing changesw the dynamics and the growing begins.

It isn't always a very pleasant place to be....but I believe I can have faith that once I open myself to see things as they are, there is a light at the end of the tunnel and it isn't a train (one of my favorite little sayings).

I suspect the change can't happen until I know something so well that i can't twist it around and try to make it different than it is anymore.

I am sober today because I know I am an alchoholic, and I know that no amount of booze will make that knowledge go away.

Pixy1

Nands That makes so much sense. I have known for so long. At first I would ignore it then over the last couple of years it shouts at me every moment of the day!

colagirl

I started drinking about a year before I learned my mom was an alcoholic. Because of that, I was paranoid from almost the beginning that I was one too, but I thought I was overreacting. After all, I was in college and everybody else drank like I did (well, not really, but it seemed that way since I was always the life of the party). Because of this, I was able to convince myself that I was just being paranoid, wasn't really an alkie. Since then it's consistently gotten worse - drinking more and more often, mostly by myself, looking forward to an evening of drinking while I was still at work. Even though I would wake up hungover and disappointed in myself, it still didn't click that I had a problem. It's only been in the past year or so that the light went on - mostly because I was finding it hard to make time in my evenings for anything but drinking, drinking alone every night, and drinking more and more each time. What a sad, pathetic existence! Not what I want for myself.

Sorry for this long rant... there's a star to make up for it.

Pixy1

Rant as much as you like CG. It helps me when I hear from others.

All family are here now so I will post when I can.

Ananda

Hi pixie
Hi cg

Thanks for the post CG...I like the way you rant.

lostbutterfly

It is lovely to wake up the next morning without a panic attack, wondering what you did (and who you did!) the night before. And what you said, and who you offended.

And where the fck are my shoes and coat? Why did they not come home with me - I know I walked and it's December!

And why is the front door open, and I am on the floor downstairs? Oh yeah, coz I drink too darn much! My judgement about when I've had enuff is fatally flawed!

First sober Christmas - had a great time tonight at the Boxing Day thing. There wasn't so much drinking, but it was still flowing. I don't know if it is the sugar in Coke, or because I sort of think it is vodka and coke, but it seems to help me. (Coke is very sweet if you don't use vodka as a mixer, lol!!)