I am with you Jane. I am going camping this weekend with family. They don't know that I am trying to stop but I don't think they will be suprised. Best of luck I am sure we will be just fine.:ghug3

Welcome ksan and Iwant! Welcome back - Alaska. We were in October's class and I have often thought of you and hoping you were doing well. I really like Payton's question on why we are seeking sobriety. Much like Leezmer, I see myself getting older and the continued drinking is making me miserable. I am 52 years old and have been drinking for 32 years. There is no joy in it anymore. I recently retired and now there is no excuse to not work a program of recovery and try and make it my full-time job. I received a DUI at the age of 20 and knew then I had a problem. I have made attempts through the years, but for whatever reason gave in to easily. I never bought into the progression of alcholism because my drinking remained pretty constant for 20 years. I couldn't have been more wrong. It did progress and to simply awful proportions and consequences. The hangovers and physical and mental anguish became unbearable. I simply cannot be the person I want to be or have the life I want if I continue drinking. My reasons for wanting sobriety are:
1. I will live longer
2. I will have more energy
3. I will be able to help others
4. I will have greater self-esteem
5. I will be happier
6. I will be able to think more clearly
7. I will have less panic attacks
8. I will have more time
9. I will be a better wife, friend, daughter, sister and pet owner
10. I will feel more relaxed
11. I will feel liberated
12. I will feel more mature
13. I will feel like I've finally started making smart decisions
14. I will feel physically better
15. I will become healthier
16. The opportunity to grow stronger emotionally
17. I will be able show my good qualities more often
18. I can start healing. My body will repair most of the damage alcohol has done.
19. All the things I want - to be loving, kind, considerate and compassionate are simply not possible if I drink.

This beautiful prayer by Saint Assisi captures perfectly what I aspire to be and is a strong motivation to not drink. Lord, make me a channel of they peace-that where there is hatred, I may bring love-that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness-that where is discord, I may harmony-that where there is error, I may bring truth-that where there is doubt, I may bring faith-that where there is despair, I may bring hope-that where there are shadows, I may bring light-that where there is sadness, I may bring joy. Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted-to understand, than to be understood - to love, than to be loved For it is by self-forgetting than one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.

Graduation Day
 

This is our graduation day, and I want to thank all of you for helping to keep me sober and happy and I sincerely hope that all of you will continue with the group in the other thread, and I imagine most of you will.

And sometimes I hate to send special shout outs because I do not want anyone to feel left out, but anyway, I wanted to send some special thanks to Payton and French Pink, and of course Dee, for motivating me early on in my recovery - now on Day 13!

I really like the idea of all of us posting reasons why we want to be sober. Mine will come later, for the time being I've been thinking of a song and video that would capture our graduation date in a somewhat unorthodox way (i.e., not the Animal House graduation, which I still love). So, I was laying in bed last night and this song came on and I said, hells yeah - Sigur Ros' Glosoli.

Reason: because I think it's the perfect metaphor for our journeys this month, and I see EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU as playing the role of the drummer boy at some point throughout our sojourn. And while I was going to originally put Dee in that position, it resonated more with me that all of you played that role, picking up people along the way. At the end, we let that drum of alcohol roll away, and we flew away ...

So, fly away with me Class of May of 2012, and let's look forward to congratulating each other on 30, 60, 90, and a year's worth of sobriety. Again, thanks to all of you, including those of you who joined in the past few days. Stick with us, because we tend to rock a little hard (=

Sigur Ros - Glósóli - YouTube

Harpo

Day 28 and I feel Grrrrrrrrrrrrreat! FDM, glad to see you back! We are with ya, man!

Lots to reflect on, on this last day of May. So much progress, so much work we have all put into our recovery. What a great group we are...I have no doubt we will be posting here in a year, five, ten.....Will always be a part of SR and SR a part of me!
Lee

That reminds me, I'm off to Download next weekend. Never been to a festival before. Don't think I've been to see a band without drinking, and I'm going to be in a field for three days. Don't know if I'll meet up with my friends who are going. They don't know I've quit, and I have a feeling they'll be drinking.

Oh well. Best thing to do is not worry about it. Let tomorrow take care of it's self. And that way, I'm sure we'll all be fine :ghug3

Good morning!!!

I am loving what everyone is sharing. Here is my list, in no particular order.

1. I want to be present, fully, in my daughter's life, and be the best mother possible.
2. I want my marriage to work and I want to be a good wife. I don't want to let my husband down.
3. I don't want to blindly repeat the past mistakes of my addicted family. I have enough knowledge to know where this went for them and where this goes for me.
4. My mom has a liver disease, and I want my liver to be in good shape in case she needs part of mine for a transplant.
5. Breast cancer runs in my family and I don't need any additional risk factors.
6. I want my actions to be in line with my values.
7. I no longer want nausea and hangovers in the morning.
8. I want to deepen my spirituality and practice and alcohol only removes me from that.
9. Alcohol is holding me back in my pursuit of fitness and clean living.
10. I want to have genuine interactions and experiences. If I'm laughing, I want to know it's because I truly find something funny, not because I'm intoxicated.
11. I want to be a whole person.
12. I don't want to disappoint my parents. They don't deserve it and have given me too much for me to throw it away.
13. I want to rid myself of the chaos, melancholy, obsession, and anxiety that alcohol perpetuates.
14. I want to live free of regrets.

Sounds like fun. Take in the atmosphere and the music. When (if) the urge comes on, ride out the wave. I am sure you will do fantastic.

Thanks, my friend.

Really great posts. I'm proud to be part of this group, and amongst such an inspirational bunch of people.
What a lovely thought of Lee's, that we will all be around to celebrate our anniversaries. A year, 5, 10 years....
Let's go for it. Together we are strong xxx

Great food for thought. My list is:
I want to feel good when I wake up in the morning
I want to be productive and feel good about what I can achieve each day
I want to fully experience everything
I want to remember everything and not regret time wasted or forgotten
I want natural self confidence
I don't want alcohol to claim me like it claimed people in my family (my father and great grandfathers)
I don't want to do or say things that hurt my husband and loved ones in a drunk emotional state that I wouldn't have done or said sober
I want to have children in the future and I don't want them to know this me even existed
I don't want to cripple or kill myself or anyone else because of a drunk decision

Yikes, thinking I should print this list and put it numerous places to see when my AV comes out. Thanks for making me think about this!
Having a good day 11 so far. Working til 5 then dinner and some cleaning. Trying to get a list of things to keep me busy this weekend when it'll be hardest. So far thinking about a movie, washing my car again (did last weekend and it's covered in pollen again!), scrapbooking, cousins high school graduation party (should not be tempting to drink while there but maybe afterward), cooking something new, probably need to think of a few backups. Hope everyone's having a good day!

Here goes Payton and others in the class...
I am 41 and have been drinking for the past 15 years. Before that is was drugs and clubs. Somehow I managed to keep my life from falling apart. My relationship with my partner of 20 years, my career, my new degree(magna *** laude). For the last few years though something changed. I began to need to drink heavily to fall asleep. We moved to FL about a year ago and I started the night shift. I was spiraling down with depression. The shift(mistake), the move(mistake), buying a house(mistake), my new workplace(mistake). I was trapped and becoming more depressed each day. I started binge drinking heavily about a year ago. Not every night, but at least 4 a week. I'm sure this was a major cause of my depression.
2 months ago I changed my shift 3pm to 3 am. It did a world of good for my attitude. I was now able to do thing with friends and take advantage of why I moved here in the first place. My drinking however continued, and was worsening. I knew it was a problem. I had tried to moderate, and was able to for a little while. But like everyone else here, I found moderation works for only a limited time. I wrote about my wake up call and why I joined SR already on this thread.

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...0-post105.html

Why I decided to quit drinking?
1.Never call in sick again due to alcohol after what happened 5/12
2.Never put my partner through the trauma again that I did 5/11
3.Never put my mind and body through what it went thought 5/12
4.To be the person my Partner deserves after 20 years together
5.To be a better friend
6.To be a better son and brother
7.To be able to answer the phone after 10pm in case of emergency
8.To actually deal with my emotions rather than bury them only to fester and worsen
9.To become healthier
10.To do a better job at work
11.To never black out again
12.To never kill myself or someone else while I am drunk

That is a beautiful prayer tanja...Keep going forward.

Day 9 and blood work came back normal. Normal?! I'm sure they read that wrong. Unless a nine day break from two decades of drinking somehow fixes your liver lmao. I wonder if they meant normal for an alcoholic?

Uninvited, if it's normal then WOW, what a blessing!

Nice question, Payton!

Why I am pursuing sobriety and wellness:

I haven’t been myself, the real me, since my age was somewhere in the single digits. I always strived hard to meet the expectations of others, was shaped by the intense desire to meet other’s definitions of happiness, success, likeability and so many other things. What I didn’t understand back then was that those “definitions” were mostly sound bites of a much deeper story, and that the truth lay somewhere below the tip of that proverbial iceberg.

As I progressed through grade, middle and high school, I couldn’t meet all those expectations and “definitions” by being myself, and with this insane internal drive to be the best and have the most, started figuring out ways to become someone other than me: self-integrity gave in to prideful thinking and actions; dishonesty replaced honesty; manipulation of self, truth and others became a masterful skill; my smile would have been dissected by a facial reading expert as unreal and disingenuous.

Being unfaithful to my true self started wearing on me. The moral compass I was born weighed in with all its might and created a confusing truth for me. And then I found the elixir. I started drinking in high school and my consumption looked like the stock market over the next 30 years: a lot of ups and downs and every few years there would be a new high, or should I say low, until finally I crashed.

So here is my list:

*I want to be me again. The mature version.

*Kinda like Payton said, I want to be fully present for my two little kids. I’m a single daddy and I want to set the best possible example of living a life filled with truth, kindness, compassion, fun and goodness.

*I want to someday look back on my life and feel good about it without selectively removing the ugly times.

*It has been 25 years since I ran my last marathon and 10 years since I’ve been in great physical and mental shape. I see a triathlon on my horizon.

*I want to be fully engaged with my work, now non-profit rather than for profit, and be the best workmate I can be.

A huge hug to everyone in on this thread. This class of May 2012 is beautiful. I am grateful to be here.

Middle of Day 7 and continuing sobriety with vigor. I'm having fun more often than not :-)

I like your List idea Payton...Very productive.

Well. I've made it through day 4. So that's an improvement over my second attempt to quit this month. Congrats to every one who's managed to go another day without slipping. And thanks to everybody here for all the help and support. It'll be June tomorrow. And I'd like to think we'll all still be in the class of may thread in a few days time.

I just want to add a word of caution here from my own experience - while it's great to see people getting out and doing things...sometimes I think we might bite off a little more than we can chew?

I took myself out of all situations where alcohol was the central interest for a while. It meant I missed a few parties, a few concerts...but there were more parties and concerts once I felt more secure in my new chosen role as a non drinker.

I could not have gone anywhere where there was a party atmosphere in my early days.

I know I'm not Everyman tho - I'm not telling folks what to do - I'm just saying...think about it...think about your priorities and have your recovery at the forefront of your mind.

If you do decide to venture out - have a plan - think about all the situations that you might find difficult and think of ways to get yourself out of trouble...and definitely think of an escape plan or a safe place.

D

As today is June 1 here I'll be moving this thread to the Daily Support Forum in a few hours...

I'll leave a redirect link here in Newcomers for a few days :)

D

Ah, the secret to Dee's good advice -- he's always posting from the future! :)