Rio97

Hey everyone. I'm feelin the stress too, everything is irritating me. But I got a week today and I don't want to start over. But I'm not gonna lie, the thought of a drink has crossed my mind. Fight on everyone, hang strong

sourgrapes

"One of the most common nightmares among alcoholics is the terrible recurring dream where you fall off the wagon. You fight all day to stay sober, then in your sleep you relapse."

Wow, I thought cracked was strictly satire, but there's definitely some truth in there. If alcohol makes an appearance in my dreams lately I get all panicky (within the dream) and think exactly this. Funny read Thoughts are with everyone struggling the last couple days, stay with us!

StrongEnough - I struggle with that sort of, uh, nihilism or apathetic type thinking too. Last time I broke my sobriety, I rationalized something like "if drinking is the thing that makes me happy, I don't care if it takes years off my life". And honestly if I felt I were able to live life remotely to the fullest in the meantime, I'd still be making that excuse. That combined with feeling better in sobriety leading me to think why not have my cake and eat it too? But inevitably attempts at controlled drinking lead me right back to obscene levels of drinking over time, making me miserable to the point of inventing new reasons to be apathetic, that excuse my drinking. Ugh, hopefully never again.

Eliasson

I haven't been good about checking in as I have been continuing to drink a lot of wine. It is so great to read of everyone's successes here. I threw all the wine away today and am praying I can make it through today without drinking so I can wake up to Day 2 tomorrow. I know I am killing myself very slowly.

charliesworld

Hi Everyone. Tuesday night here and I'm looking forward to a day off with my kids tomorrow and going out with a friend and hers.

Hang in there those of you that are struggling. It's hard in the early days but as time goes on it gets easier and easier.

I'm not counting days - there's no point as I have months between binges anyway. I had a melt down yesterday. My sister did something and although I was on my own I completely lost it. I was crying uncontrollably and was so upset and in pain (emotionally) I was seriously thinking I can't take this anymore. I got really tired and made up a make-shift bed in my office and fell asleep - for 3 hours!! Last night I didn't sleep well but feel much better today.

After all this time I know that staying sober is very much down to me learning to deal with negative emotions better. I honestly think it won't be long now before people figure out that emotional intelligence is massively important and should be taught in some way to our kids so they don't have to turn to substances to escape them like we have.

Aside from that I made my last apologies tonight about missing last week because I was "ill" so that binge is done and I can forget it and move on.

Night guys. I'll log on again tomorrow. xx

Tooshabby

Cbf123 - I've ruined many a holiday with my drinking. Awful. Let's make our next holiday the best of our lives :-)
Keep going needtostop...as Carver says, 'let's all keep being quitters'. Who would have thought being a quitter could be a good thing? In your face, culture!
CycleMania - prayers and good thoughts through this stressful time. You are above it, I can tell :-)
Good point, Charlie. They so should teach our children how to cope with emotions - instead of all this useless arithmetic shite (just kidding).
lol B...'a good year for rat poison'
Angd, that was absolutely hilarious. Frank, if you're there (here?), you must read it.
Love to all those who are struggling and all of you also who are doing so well. I love getting up in the morning and reading your posts xxx

Jimuk

Managed to go out for a meal this evening with my partner and son. We went to a pub on the coast to celebrate my partners success is business. (She's never been a drinker) we had a lovely evening and really enjoyed each other's company. I've been a mean drunk to them both In the past and I'm grateful they have stuck by me. I never even thought of drinking even though I could see it and smell it. I do know however if I had taken a drink I wouldn't be here now posting. Looking forward to day 4.

Please take care everyone, thank you all for the support shown in these pages. If you're struggling hang on. One day at a time.

Bluebird2007

Well done for hanging tough BBB. In case you think you've been missing something, it's been raining all day south of the border too! Even my dog wouldn't go out for a walk today.

Ladybug2

Hi all,

It is so hot here, ugh. Spent a couple hours at the pool with my mom and daughters. Home now in my danger zone, but no desire to drink. Weird how some days the AV doesn't even show up and then other days it is so hard to beat down?! This disease is such a mystery to me. Hope everyone is doing well today/tonight. Thinking of you all xxx

Bluebird2007

Angd, that's the funniest thing I've read in ages. I have just been laughing out loud which I don't do very often

"It'd be like if a normal person spontaneously decided to spend a week slowly eating an entire moose."

Thanks for posting it and giving me a chuckle.

Dee74

I had to remove your article Angd - it's been posted many times before. Unfortunately it breaks our 'worksafe rule'. Anyone interested can always PM you for the link.

As far as nightmares go - very common - but they fade.


Congrats to everyone hitting a milestone today.

Needtostopthis - whats your recovery plan look like right now? could you do more?

I worked pretty hard at my drinking - I needed to work even harder at my recovery.

The rewards are immense tho
D

Free2B84

So good to see soo many joining even though July is almost over. I wish each & everyone of you the best! Finishing up day 22 here I feel good & focused. No big triggers or situations coming into play in my life rite now. I know once school starts back in 3 weeks it will get a little better & a little harder. Classes are in the next town over(where I did most of my drinking). Had a habit of rewarding myself by going out with others after the school day was over. Not going to do that. Taking a bigger load this semester so hoping it will distract me. I know that my biggest enemy is thinking that 'life is passing me by' or 'i have nothing fun in my life'. Those thoughts r the worse. At least I'm aware of it. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I do have a question for the more experience julyiers. What happens after July is over? Do we continue to post on the July threads or will we communicate another way? Take care everyone

tokidoki

Hello Julyers (or 'Julysters'- liking that too, BBB)

Welcome to new members!

I'm glad to read all your posts.

Need to tell you what happened yesterday.
Okay, so I'm at the coffee shop drinking my chai latter with a good friend. We're having a great time gabbing about whatever. Since we will be working together (again) this coming school year, I ask her about how the health benefits have changed. She says (and I shouldn't have been surprised). "Well you know, toki, that family insurance plan still sucks so if you do sign up it will be xx amount a month. Yeah, it is a lot, takes away a huge chunk of the paycheck....)

So I drive home in full-on internal rant mode. My thoughts are something like "Well, wouldn't ya know.... here it goes once again... some things never change... gotta worry about health insurance for the umpteenth time... and other countries more or less have this down, and yet we have these ridiculous nitwit politicians saying this 'oh yeah, but here in 'Murika' we have the best system in the world'.... Blad-diddy-blah-blah.
Frickety-frack.

Well, this is where the AV starts raising its irritating whine, and it's all I can do not to swing by any random wine shop.

But I check in here and start reading posts. Start identifying with you all. Stop feeling sorry for myself. Begin feeling that 'kindship of suffering' thing.
Yes!

Today's been a pleasantly dull day. Maybe placid is a better word.

Placid is good.

You all are great.

Thanks!
a grateful toki

JL2014

Felt like garbage all day. Horrible til about lunch. Thank god for a few hrs of unconsciousness. Went and got one child then the other a few hrs later. This evening we rode the atv down to the lake and swam. Now moms home, and I'm ready to fall out again. I'm gonna call this day 1, because it's the first day I've said hell with living in shame and pain. Hangovers about 3 days old, but who cares .
Epsom salt bath was a lifesaver. So are you folks !!
If god can forgive me, I've got to move on and climb out of this self imposed prison of cyclical depression/alcohol.

Dee74

God forgives you already JL
do you forgive yourself tho?

D

Tooshabby

Oh boy. If it's any consolation (and I really hope it doesn't make it worse), I never, never take for granted that I live in a country that does have it down. It does seem a little bit third-world country on a big budget. So genuinely, sorry about that.
However!! You can put the money you used to spend on wine towards health insurance! (It's the only thing I could come up with).
(((toki))) and well done for driving right on past :-)

Tooshabby

Hang in there, JL. You can do it. Keep leaning on us for support. God doesn't judge, just loves you to bits - judging is a human thing :-)

tokidoki

Thanks Tooshabby. I should be grateful to have what I have (and I am), but I lived in another country for a loooong time and I know the insurance thing doesn't have to be as it is, so I get irrationally upset,,,,

JL, we're here for you. Hang in there!

kamm

I know the month is almost over but I'm joining anyway! I've made a recent commitment to sobriety. I will not drink this month (or ever).
My family and I go on vacation starting tomorrow. 2 days in japan at Disney. I can't wait to see all of ky childhood princesses and see the joy in my daughters face as she does too. My vacation goal is to be more present in the moments. And take a million pictures.... anyway thank you for having me here. The support is life saving.

forabetterlife

Toki, I am in the same situation with health insurance and I sit in meetings at work about it and I literally want so scream. For myself and my two daughters, it would cost me literally 1/4 of my pay each month. And the coverage isn't even that great. It totally infuriates me. And , yes, frustrations like that make me feel helpless and spark up my AV too.

I spent hours and hours this week filing paperwork with two separate companies to start getting my student loans out of default. This is another issue I lose sleep over and drink over. Interestingly, I am a week sober and finally handling it - Something I could have done almost a year ago.

It's truly amazing how things seems so overwhelming and unmanageable when we are in the fog and cycle of drinking. Too much time, energy and thinking spent on drinking it, buying it, hiding it, disposing of it, planning for it, and suffering from the effects of it. Then it's all I can do to just get though my basic responsibilities, forget about anything above or beyond.

Ending day 7. Nights are tough, I want to drink but know I won't, feel a little resentful about it and just kind of want to go to bed and sleep the night away. I remember this is typical for me from previous sober times. It's really hard for me to just be home and relax in the evenings without drinking. But I'll get there, everything else feels too good to give this up.

BobBFree33

From what I've lurked on the other months folks just keep posting, supporting, and helping each other as long as its needed.

Welcome Milly, Carver, and Time2Rise!

Finishing up 25 days sober. It was a good day at work. My running injuries are healing up so that's been positive. I'm one of those total running nuts that has not missed a day in, oh, about 400 days now. I've had to cut back and at first I was worried it would increase my likelihood of drinking. But that was all in my head, literally, it was my attitude and expectation when I got home that mattered. As long as I think ahead, have a plan, that seems to work. That's my thing, find something that works then beat it like a drum day in and day out.