DrakeCKC

Congrats Biker!

Viperidae

Good job on 30 days DG. Biker, I really hope you can get privileges to drive to work.

Thanks to everyone who shares about consequences. If it is a relapse or a DUI, it reminds me why I cannot drink.

14 days today. Or 2 weeks, half a month... not bad.

DG0409

2 weeks is awesome Johnny!

dweill

day 18. still here. it's nice to read what others are going through. makes my own journey not be so lonely.

HML

Day 17. Truckin' along!

MustLoveCoffee

Ladybug - Thanks. I am way too hard on myself, I know that. I just don't know how to NOT be hard on myself. I can talk the talk, but I can't walk the walk. I hope that by talking the talk, the walking will come, but it's not happening that way and I'm really frustrated. We'll all get there. Glad you aren't fighting the urge to drink currently. I had many many days where the thought/smell of booze would actually make me kinda nauseated, but I would drink anyway, and by drink 2 it was almost always gone and I was fine to keep drinking. Be careful. Thanks for the heads up on being gone, I would have worried if you had disappeared over the weekend. Disney World is awesome!

Johnny - I went out to the main forum and posted a bit like you and Dee suggested. It did help, at least for the amount of time I was doing it. Thanks for the suggestion. Sorry your feeling strung out, did you tell the psychiatrist that or did you pretend everything was fine. For some reason I like to pretend everything is fine. My temporary sponsor keeps calling me out on that. I am grateful for the BS meter. So is your first goal going to be the gym? Did you pick one thing to work on yet? Way to go on 2 weeks!

Goat - Sorry the AABoston office wasn't keeping it's meeting list straight. That is a fear of mine with trying new meetings. Don't want to accidentally walk into a parenting support group or something (not that I don't need that) only to find out I'm in the wrong place. I'm still looking for other meetings to go to around here.

Fruity - Hi!

MsHyde - I think my pity party proved me arrested development yesterday. Thanks for reminding me that's expected. What kinda RPG? We've started to play some as a family and I'm always looking for new ones. Glad you're prepared for Saturday.

Scoutie - That's amazing about the whale. Thanks for sharing that. I'm not a big spirity hocus pocus type either, but maybe it's because I never thought I needed it so wasn't looking? I don't know how it all works; I'm just glad it works. Thanks for the compliment on the writing, I don't take offense at all. I'm always smiling at you, Scoutie. You seem like a great guy who's really open and honest with himself and committed to this process of getting sober. I enjoy reading your posts very much.

BikerAcct - Hope court goes well for you.

gunther84 - Glad to see that you're still sober and your wife and you are on your way to amends. Thanks for checking in. I often wonder about all the people we started April with that we don't hear from anymore...

DG0409 - Congrats on 30 Days!

dweill & HML - hi!

Things here are looking up in the last couple of hours. Spent the morning throwing myself into supermom mode to try to snap out of it. Wound up with an almost therapeutic hatred of Nintendo to distract me from more serious issues until I got to my noon AA meeting. It was a Big Book meeting and I could identify a lot with the story as could many in the group, and a lot of people shared being in dark places in the past and how they were feeling good now. It's exactly what I needed to hear. A woman also shared her desire to take on a new sponsee after my temporary sponsor told me to really start looking last night. I think it's going to be good for me. I don't feel so needy since she's feeling the need to sponsor for her own well being too right now, so I won't have as many guilt issues to deal with. I kinda feel guilty about calling my temporary sponsor now, although I think she's great. New sponsor, current temporary sponsor, and I are all going out for coffee.

I asked for the help of my higher power this morning, although that stuff just seems a little out there for me. I was feeling really desolate like it wasn't going to work and why bother, but who am I to know why things work the way that they do. Instead, I got awful news about my back, apparently my disc is at least 75% gone. I start PT tomorrow, but it very much sounds like my running days are over. Not that I loved it all that much, but I was starting too, and I hate the thought of not being able to do something! Then I went on a wild goose chase for a video game that my son wants for his bday tomorrow, of course it was no where to be found. But maybe Nintendo didn't send stock of the game to ANY stores in my local area except one so that I would have something to keep me busy and distracted until I could find the help I needed at my afternoon meeting. Maybe I got the bad news on my back today to help me tomorrow in PT, or so that I didn't need to get bad news again a few days or a week from now. Kinda a ripping off the bandaid approach to life's pitfalls. I guess I just have to let it go.

Thanks for reading and for all your support. As Ms. Hyde said, I suffer from arrested development, but hopefully with the aide of my new sponsor, I'll grow up a bit!

AnotherPaul

Day 33. Been fighting off a nasty cold for three days now, but other than that, I'm feeling pretty good. Haven't gotten overly angry in response to something minor or felt depressed for no specific reason in several days, so I guess that's progress, lol. This is about where my moods started to even out the first time through this process, somewhere around day 30 to 45, so hopefully that's starting to happen again and I can get back to being on an even keel from now on. I also finished Step 4 and set up a time this weekend to do Step 5 with my sponsor.

Everything else in my life is going fairly smoothly all things considered, so no complaints.

Hope all are well and full of strength.

Viperidae

Well, today was a leap in feeling good. The guilt and the doubts, the OCD and the depression are much better. They have been getting better every day. That is what happens when you take your Prozac for 2 weeks without drinking. Every night I go through a period of feeling strung out. In my experience that should pass in another couple of weeks. Also 9 days without a cigarette makes one a bit uneasy.

I did not go to the gym, but I did make calls to several agencies about the process to start working and get off of Public Assistance. What a trap it's been for me. I made a bit of headway.

I had to wait out my desire to shut everything off this evening. It's gone.

roosta

roosta checking in on the night of day 10. Been so busy with work and my husband being home (yay!) that I haven't been on here very much the past few days. I hope everyone is doing well and staying safe.

:-)

MsHyde

DG and Biker, congrats!

MLC I hope you understand that I was including myself in the "emotional teenager" thing. But yeah, it makes sense to me that we have to get to know ourselves now we removed the screen of adiction (or are struggling to).

RPG boring paragraph : We're playing many things, but tomorrow will be a RPG based on a French system called DK system (it's actually a generic) and my husband will be GMing in a Victorian setting as far as I know. It will be a one shot thing. We use that system a lot to develop one-shots in various settings. But besides that we play Shadowrun, Warhammer, I'm GMing the Call of Cthulhu 1920 England, and we also play several home-made games.
Sorry that was the geeky / RPG part I've been in love with gaming since I'm 11...

Lovely weather today. Our friend will be home tonight and we have lots of things to do, so I don't really have time to realize that it's day 20 already! Yay I'm in the 20s! That's definitely progress.

So today: groceries, cooking, housecleaning... but before that I have to do my daily workout (and since I'm very self consicous I won't be able to workout with people around so that might be my last before monday...)

Roosta, happy to know the hubby is home! Hope you're doing great!

Have a great sober day, everyone!

ScoutBall

A bit ill today.

I think residual feelings, I dunno. Discouraged with work, wife is stressed about hers, and just overall blah here at the house. Even Blue Dog seems affected as he is a bit sullen. Sleeping by himself in the kitchen. Odd for that one, I am sure he's feeding off my bride and I's negative vibes and staying away.

Going for some salt water therapy tomorrow...
Be well...

Dee74

Feel better soon Paul and Scout
Glad you're doing ok Johnny!

Enjoy the RPGs Ms Hyde

Glad everything is going well Roosta!

how are you Coffee?
D

Pedro1234

1 month and 1 day here

roosta

Edit-double post from last night

Good morning

Day 11 here, my day off and I'm up before the birds. At least this time I'm not fixing myself a drink or cursing myself for being hungover.

Off to do some SR reading. Have a super sober day people!

Trubbled

Guilty, very guilty. I log in and read and mean to post but keep putting it off. It's day 19 now for me and I've not really been having a hard time. I think that not having any alcohol in the house and the distance to go get some definitely helps. I did go out to a friends the other night and was worried, but I told them before I went that I wouldn't be drinking and even though they asked me twice if I was sure I didn't want something I stuck to water.

I've put myself on a rather strict cleansing diet and that's helping too, since I had to buy special foods and supplements. The beautiful weather does put thoughts of sitting outside with a drink(ssssssssss) in the evening but I just put them out of my head. I really do think that my semi-isolation is helping me a lot with this.

I am reading frequently even if I don't post, I tend to spend too much time on something when I really get into it so I've been trying to just get on with the day when I get up instead of frittering away hours online.

Good to see so many of you still fighting on!

MustLoveCoffee

Trubbled - Don't feel guilty. If reading works more for you, than read away. Clearly it's working with 19 days and not finding it that hard. We'll be here if you need us. Glad to know you're still around and still doing well. Good for you on the cleansing diet. I think about stuff like that from time to time, but I don't even get to Day 1 because I can't even get enough momentum to bite the bullet, never mind continue. I'm really impressed!

Roosta - You go dancing banana! Congrats on the double digits!

Pedro1234 - Congrats on a month! (and a day!)

Ms Hyde - Thanks for the update and the info on the RPGs. Maybe what we are playing are not RPGs, it's more D&D superlite type stuff. Maybe when my son gets a bit older, we'll try out one you suggested. He really seems to like them. No offense taken whatsoever on the arrested development stuff. It's a frequent topic here in my circles. I've also heard it called "prolonged adolescence" and it doesn't just pertain to those of us that have fallen into a bottle...

Dee - I'm hanging in there. Feeling a little bit angry with hubby for not being who I want him to be, which is totally stupid and on me. Just trying to find a way to let it go. He's supportive, but I'm being bratty and I want the support the way I want it, and that's just not him. I feel hopeful that my new sponsor wants to dive right into step work. I'm hoping if I can just hang on a bit longer, then the step work will help. Thanks for checking in on me.

Scoutie - Feel better! Hope the surf is good for you today.

johnny - glad the medication is helping. I've tried SSRIs before, but always discontinued as I thought it was bad to mix them with the booze. If the therapy and the step work don't prevent me from having melt downs like the other day frequently, I will reconsider. I'm glad you're making headway on the PA thing, I know you were pretty down on yourself for needing that (not that I think you should be, but if it bothers you, I'm glad you're working on making it a non-issue).

AnotherPaul - Wow, you are flying through the steps? Are they helping? Please tell me their helping! I need hope! LOL Sounds like they are if you're not flying off the handle, but I don't know you, so maybe that was never your modus operandi?

Hoping today will be a good day. I'm off to physical therapy for my first appointment/evaluation. I really hope they have some good news for me. It's my son's birthday and I do NOT want to be in a funk tonight, he doesn't deserve that and I've had a hard time (as you all know!) recently of keeping my hand firmly on the emotions joystick.

Later Bandicoots!

DrakeCKC

Great to see so many of my "classmates" doing well! If I can do it you can too!

DG0409

Day 31

I am feeling much better that I was a few days ago. For now at least the bad feelings are gone and I'm in a good mood. It's nice to be moving on from the first month. I don't expect everything to be perfect from here on out, but I do in many ways think the first month has to be the worst. Now I feel like it's time to ENJOY my life sober. I'm through the detoxing part. I'm through the part where I have to remember how to feed myself (well, mostly anyway, lol). No more hangovers. As long as I just don't drink, I'll get to enjoy the benefits of a sober life.

I don't want to set myself right back to day 1 now that I made it through the worst of it. So, onward and upward!

Yesterday was a good day. Nothing exciting really. Today will mark a week of planning out the day in my planner... and life is boring. The day reads something like SR/meditation/push-ups&yoga/breakfast/shower/work/snack/work/lunch/work/break/snack/work/drums/dinner/chores/walk/snack/SR.

It more or less looks just like every other day since I quit. (Ok, sometimes I visit SR like 100 times a day and that's not on there). So for anybody asking, "How did you get through 30 days?" Well, the list above is pretty much it. (Each snack and meal includes drinking a glass of water or two... that part is important). I end up having a nap most days too, but I don't schedule that, it just kind of happens, lol.

But I AM feeling better, my schedule and new routines are kind of solidifying...I add more stuff in some days.

Last night, I had a nice walk. It just felt so different walking around at night and sober. It was really quite nice.

Things are good. I'm glad I'm not hungover this morning.

I just wanted to make sure and tell everybody I was feeling better. I don't want anybody to get the idea that the bad feelings are all the time or last forever. I DO post about feeling bad and going through that so as to help other people see that we are all going to have rough patches and there are ways to cope with them. Sometimes, it's not pretty or easy. But it's worth it to go through it. The confidence and pride gained are amazing feelings.

So keep at it Bandicoots! We can do this.

NotSoIvory

Anyone else been having dreams about drinking?

I've been having dreams about drinking and being out of control probably every day for the past 5 or so days. In my dreams it's usually triggered by problems with family members driving me into an exasperated angry spiral. Maybe it's because I've been trying to suppress that anger for so long and now it is all coming to the surface and that's the only way I've known to deal with it for so long now. I wake up and am so glad that I didn't actually drink and knowing that I don't have to and it's a new day and a new way and I am on a path to look forward to better things in my future.

DG0409

Sounds more like a nightmare than a dream.