ReadyAndAble

Happy New Year!

And what a great way to start the year, seeing you all posting away before and after the calendar change! What a year this promises to be (as long as I keep the most important promise to myself)!

BF, my dog is always chill in the morning, but for the first time in ages my cat let me sleep in without the usual 6 a.m. wakeup meow. Slept to 8:30 for the first time in ages!

So what's with all the fondue? Is that some recovery trick I don't know about out?

BoozeFree

Ya I gave up on sleeping in when I got my dog as a puppy. Up by 5:30 or 6am for 3years now but I love her.

Maryjan

Happy Jan all! I am now on a business trip with no family and booze ads everywhere. I read some of the Big Book on the plane and it is fantastic. (I downloaded an app with the big book and a sobriety calculator...kind of cool.). It made me want to try another AA meeting and find a sponsor. The one I went to was really depressing. I don't know...a voice in my head kept screaming I DON'T WANT TO BE ONE OF THESE PEOPLE. But I am. I wish I could find a sponsor on line, but I don't think it works that way. More later, and contests, all!!

GirlFromCO

Fondue is the cure for a lot of things! Melted cheese or chocolate can fix just about anything. Happy new year, everyone! Ya'll will probably be seeing a bit more of me around here in the coming weeks. So far I've really had nothing to do but stay home and relax, but school is starting in a few days and I'm preparing for things to get harder in terms of my recovery. Working hard has been a big trigger for me. I like rewarding myself by drinking.

On the bright side, I'll be getting financial aid so I can stop working. Some of you know what a big deal that is going to be for me. It will be so good to stop but then I will really have to start processing and I'm afraid it's going to be hard to come to terms with. Baby steps! I'm just so happy I'm sober so I can face this with a clear mind and hopefully not get overwhelmed. The support I get here is so important! Thanks again to all of you. I am so proud of us!

maisy

[QUOTE=Maryjan;2814472] I don't know...a voice in my head kept screaming I DON'T WANT TO BE ONE OF THESE PEOPLE. But I am. ]



I SO know what you mean with that, MaryJan. I am feeling the same way about it. I may try out a meeting this month, still not sure.

sleepie

It's only the start of day 3 for me. I am tired and working late again. I just want to sleep. I have been out of my anxiety meds for the past few days too. I have to wait until Monday to get them, I hope I don't have a withdrawal induced panic attack at work- it would come around tomorrow if it did, usually on the third day. Last time I ran out I had a panic attack on a Sunday at work- it was so humiliating. I am already feeling edgy and irritable. My roomie was making noise today that is very specifically aggravating to the tics I occasionally suffer from, I was cringing and covering my ears. He thinks I'm a loon which is okay but I truly hate looking like a ******. For those that don't know I have Tourette's, and so the tics.

Dee74

I'm sorry you've ran out of meds again sleepie.
Is there a reason why you keep running out?

wishing you calm through the weekend
D

Soph

Happy New Year, Jan. 1, 2011. My evening last night was: I went looking for this 6:30 meeting at a new place and I could not find it. My stupid GPS kept telling me "you have arrived" and it was, uh, Walgreens? It was way off. I circled and circled (it was dark and kind of rainy out) and was cursing my stupid GPS. So I did not get to the meeting.

But...I went to a tiny (5 women) get together at an Al Anon friend's home and we laughed and laughed. I brought sparkling cranberry drink and I drank that and also mixed it with Sprite a few times. Since it was bad weather I headed home at like 9pm.

I ended up reading old journals, from back in 88, 89 and 90 and it really got to me. Over and over, the same old sh!te...my angst, lamenting bad relationships, guys, late nights, parents and family annoyances, gripe gripe gripe. Swearing off men, swearing off beer, etc...and this is, like 20+ years ago!?!

SO HAPPY TO BE SOBER today and last night and one day at a time.

My mantra: If nothing changes, nothing changes.

THANKS for being here Decembers and everyone!

SLEEPIE: I hope you can hang in til Monday when you get your meds. Keep posting.

sleepie

It's just my erratic work schedule and doctor appointments keep conflicting- and the one day I could have gotten them I was so beyond tired... I chose rest and sleep over getting them because I was working that night. And then with the holidays, the pharmacy wasn't open. So on Monday I can get them.

ReadyAndAble

Hope the weekend sails by, Sleepie, but if not hang in there!

Maryjan

I think I am going to need AA to stay sober. Already thinking, oh why not have a beer... Tonight is going to be hard. I am away from home, with a hard drinking crowd that I don't really know. I have to go down now and go to dinner...not sure what to say... No thanks, I don't drink... Or I'll just have a Coke... Oh, I'm an alcoholic I think, I have been sober 11 days, pass the coffee... Yikes. Wish me luck.

sleepie

Stay with coffee Maryjan. And more than luck I'll hope that you stick it out, you can do it!

Dee74

Remember why you're doing this maryjan - read back through your old posts if you have to.

one of the best lessons I learned was that what other people do, or what they think, is pretty much irrelevant really - this is about you

D

Maryjan

Back from cocktail hour. Nobody cared what I drank...Ginger ale. Phew, thanks for the support. I always get nervous about work things. Why did I imagine that everyone would stare at me silently while I announced my drink choice? I am ordering a cupcake from room service later.

mygrandfather

Day 15, wow. Hitting the sack xtra early today. Had a quiet New Years Day, am in the process of making a massive batch of Polish hunters stew or "Bigos". 5 hours in the crock-pot today and more tomorrow! Rummaging through my kitchen, I realized I need to shift some of my beer glasses and wine glasses to less visible space in the cabinets. I gotta say I feel some sadness thinking about how immense this change is, and no small amount of worry that I can't make this change a permanent one.

Goodnight all!

UAreMySunShine

I think that this is my class?! I just realized what these "class of" posts actually mean.
Wow...I really hope that what I have read is true about ones memory getting better the longer one is sober! One month and counting...sigh...
Hope everyone is having a GREAT evening!!!

nvrbeentospain

Good job, and the cupcake sounds yummy! Yeah, honestly, I don't think anyone (or well, most anyone) cares that we don't drink.

nvrbeentospain

Mygrandfather, I've also got the collection of tons of wine glasses, pint glasses and about a thousand different corkscrews and bottle openers. I'm just not spending much time looking at them now, but I'm really not sure what I'm going to do with them. Getting rid of them would make me kinda sad, though, and I'm not entirely sure why.

Welcome, sunshine!

My husband is busy making black eyed peas so we'll have good luck this year. I wish I actually believed it was that simple.

sleepie

Yay Maryjan!

Pax

One thing I keep thinking as I read posts, including several that mention collections of, what, drink paraphernalia? is that thoughts arise from all sorts of places--the Buddhists have a lot of useful things to say about this if you start looking--if you're Christian or whatever, think of them as Psychologists with a 2500 yr patient history. What I'm personally trying to do is catch myself as early as possible when a thought arises and then act upon doing the right thing, immediately. If I hear a little voice in my head saying, "You're acting like a jerk." I stop acting like a jerk, apologize, and then either work it out or make an appointment to do so.

Leaving things lying around, stein collections, my bottle of Evil Pills that I still have to take for some months (benzo withdrawal schedule), things that upset, stress or depress me--I find placing these things somewhere out of sight simply helps make things easier not to get caught in one of those blasted downward spirals of thought that can often lead to giving into physical addiction or, imho, worse, cruel psychological actions such as lashing out because I feel, physically, miserable and over-sensitive.

I'm trying to maintain a realistic view of where I am physically and psychologically and go from there. I'm not wishing the world were different, I'm not focusing on past mistakes I cannot change (other than doing what I can to make them right, but some of that's a lifetime of patience and unilateral love, honestly). What I am doing is, "Here I am, where do I want to go, what would make that easier." And we all need to do everything we can to make these journeys easier, God knows they're hard enough. There's far more involved than "easier," of course, but that seems to be an issue many, including I, am ignoring.

Actively find some peace where you may. Find the wise things that people have thought for thousands of years and identify those things that resonate with you. May you all discover beautiful lives.