angd1978

Whiteturtle, I am really sorry to hear about your experience. I had virtually the same thing happen to me in 2006 on my wedding anniversary and luckily I too had my ex-husband and friends to help me get my car out of the ditch and get me out of the area, so that I didn't get a DUI. I ended up being charged a few days later with failure to report an accident though, because their were witnesses that saw me drive. Please let this be your rock bottom and commit to a plan. I don't mean to sound harsh but that should've been the biggest wakeup call for me to stop. At the time it was and then months passed by, my depression got worse and I ended up drinking even more. I wound up with a DUI two years later. It doesn't get better, the bottoms get worse.

BobBFree33

Finishing up sober day 30.

Whiteturtle you are not an idiot, not a bad person, and certainly not a failure. These are facts. You have a disease. Would you say you are an idiot because you developed cancer?

The thing is, a lot of us have done some pretty awful things to ourselves and to others with our drinking. And we kept on doing it even knowing how bad it is. The key is to learn from it and the really big thing is to be able to answer WHY we started and then continued to do it.

We are all different but we all share in the need to disrupt the dangerous pattern. Some do it with counseling, faith in God, and educating themselves. Me, I recognized certain patterns and I’m working to disrupt them. I recognize my thinking ABOUT alcohol, this entire empire of thoughts and memories all wound up around alcohol. It was a house of cards. A cheap Hollywood façade. Unraveling my romanticizing alcohol has helped tremendously.

So don’t hate yourself, that’s too easy. LEARN, that’s hard.

Eliasson, I swear just the simple passage of time helps. Early on I felt “eaten up” with my cravings and habits and I could not think. So I just stumbled forward finding some way to stay sober long enough for my brain to recover.

Dee74

I'm glad you're back WhiteTurtle, and very glad you're ok

I firmly believe it's never too late to turn things around - think about a recovery plan to help you stay sober - ask here if you need help with that

Dee74

Congratulations to all the 30 dayers

I think you made the wise choice BBB - another few weeks working on a plan to support you when you go back to work will really help

D

Tooshabby

Dee - thank you. I just want to say I feel a tremendous amount of love and support, and to say that makes a real difference is a gross understatement. I feel like crying just thinking about it. Thank you.

letitgo

So tired I can't sleep now. We have some strong storms and saw a funnel cloud forming. Glad I got experience and actually remember it.

I wish you well whiteturtle in the august class. Please drop by here and say hi once in a while. Forgive youself, let it go and learn from it. If you do drink please do not drive. Check out the madd website. Paying $20-40 for a cab. I wish you the best in your journey.

Hope you feel better Elaason and Rah.

Toady what tools are you using since you left IOP.

I got the Drinking a love story book. It is very good. Debating on getting the Allen Carr book. I read his quit smoking book and it didn't give me enough ammo to just quit. I don't blame the book because this was always my first vice and very difficult to quit. I did 10 days and a months and a half before. The chantix is working well. Day 7 tomorrow of no smokes hooray

My thoughts are that Allan Carr's book was just so repetitive and dry after a while. At least the drinking love story moves into numerous topics and is like a biography. It almost makes me feel like I was on the lower end of the alcoholic/drinking scale. Tried to stick with beer. I don't think I could have functioned on hard liquor or wine and still go to work or drink during the day.. Those were the worst hangovers (liquor and wine) I am sure it could progress to that. She seems really in love with the booze and everything about it. I really never crossed boundaries she did. So it makes me feel like I should quit while I am ahead or before it progresses to that point. Maybe my av is trying to lie to me and say you don't belong on this Forum or reading these books. Your weren't in LOVE with beer. However I recognize if I didnt have 6-12 my night would be ruined. I can relate to scheming and trying to hide the evidence.

Bob is the Allan Carr book worth buying? My thoughts on his other book was that it was dry and repetative.

Sounds like you plugging along toosabby. CONGRATS every day is a victory.

Bbb I am glad to her your going to put your self first. It's like the safety procautions on an airplane. Get your mask on first before you can help others. Way to recognize that you have time and are not ready. It would be a waste to go back to soon especially if your not at 100%.

Have a great night! You all . And I appreciate your thoughts through this process and support.

Bluebird2007

White turtle I'm so glad you're ok; it sounds like you had a lucky escape there. I have been trying to quit since 2010 and have had hundreds of Day 1s since then. Just keep going. One of my problems was that, whenever something awful happened, the shame would stop me drinking for a while but, after a while, the shame faded and my AV convinced me that it wouldn't be like that if I started to drink again. I think it's a bit like when people say that you forget the pain of childbirth! This time, I'm trying to focus on the future rather than the past and I'm trying to use visualisations of what my future life will be like. There was a TED talk a while back on your 'future self' and how we're only caretakers for our bodies for our future selves. I found this to be an interesting perspective; I'll see if I can find the link for you.

I am two weeks AF today and I've got to say that, physically, I'm feeling much better. I had my first full night's sleep last night and had a dream that I wanted a drink but, strangely, in my dream, I was having a conversation with my AV and the things I was saying to it were the things I've read on this forum - you're getting into my subconscious guys!

Have a strong day everyone

Tooshabby

Hey, that's a coincidence. I'm just over two weeks and last night for the first time in my life I had a dream that I DID NOT drink. Very strange. Usually I have nightmares about being hopelessly drunk and doing ridiculous and humiliating things :-)

Bluebird2007

Whiteturtle, the TED talk was by Daniel Goldstein and is called the Battle Between Your Present and Future Self. It's actually set in the context of saving for retirement but I interpreted it in relation to the long-term effects of drinking.

Jimuk

Whiteturtle, I hope your wounds are healing. I think you have had enough pain now for one life, as I and many others have. When you feel well again, walk, cycle smell the air, watch the children play, appreciate life and most of all love yourself one day at a time. You can do this you know you can deep down inside.
All my love and thoughts. Get well soon. Jim x

Jimuk

Starting day 9 and feeling good. I have more energy, I'm more positive in my thinking. When I say positive I mean in a way that when I worry or have a sad thought I can rationalise with it rather than sink lower into the hole of fear the thought produced and the void in the pit of my stomach. I've taken to seeking comfort in a higher power although I'm not really religious it's more like an invisible friend I can talk to. It may sound mad but the comfort I find is invaluable to my well being and state of mind.

Have a peaceful day everyone.

Tooshabby

That doesn't sound mad at all. It sounds blimmin' great!

Cbf123

Hope you are ok WhiteTurtle - best of luck on retrying for the rest of the month.

1 week in for me now, feeling good, happy but hopefully not complacent.

Hope everyone has a great, sober day!

2WheelsGood

Good morning (4AM here). Another night of recurring nightmares- fifth night in a row. Always about personal failures and inadequacies. Tonight was the classic final exam nightmare combined with relationship failure. Last night was public humuliation. Before that, quitting the best job ever.

None of these are real. Sure, I've had a lot of self doubt lately, but nothing debilitating during the day. Just some "bummed out / need a snickers" kind of episodes lasting a couple of hours at a time. But at night my brain is wreaking havoc with me, and it takes a while to shake it off in the AM. This sucks.

Given that nightmares originate in the primitive, emotional part of our brain I am chalking this up to my AV falling back and regrouping. My AV is now Freddy Kreuger, waiting for me to sleep so he can fill me with self doubt and resort to old habits.

I realize this is all part of my brain healing after many years of abuse. It's also part of addiction. But man I wasn't ready for Freddy to be there. <heavy sigh>. Oh well, here we go again.... Here I come Freddy, you jerk!

Dee74

The nightmares will fade and pass 2 Wheels, I promise

D

BringingBackB

Sadie, Iam glad the CBT tools are somewhat useful to you.

I think I was probably in that meeting! My username on there is MrBen, so you may well have been graced wih my British accent also! We get quite a few US visitors to the UK online meetings actually. 3 females and two males from who I have met so far.

WhiteTurtle - How are you feeling today? Hope you are feeling a bit better. Hugs to you.

Rah - Well done on getting through the weekend sober

2wheels - I had terrible nightmares the first week, i was dreading going to sleep at one point. They were so intense, i knew i was dreaming but couldn't wake up from it. They did fade however and i'm back to fairly normal dreaming now though so hang in there .

Day 19 here for me. Had another nice sleep and feeling good. Relief has washed over me now I know I'm not going in to work this week. Going to continue working on my CBT. Also - I enjoyed Golf so much yesterday I am thinking about joining my local course (Its just at the end of the road). Think it would be a great new hobby for me to get involved in

Hugs to all,
B

Tooshabby

I hate those final exam/haven't studied nightmares. Probably the most frequent nightmare I have is about filthy, disgusting toilets. I can't use them because they're too disgusting. I know what you mean about it taking a while to shake off the feeling when you wake up. Here's hoping they fade quickly.

BobBFree33

I got the Kindle version so it was 9 dollars. I found the internal, mental, reprogramming elements very valuable. That has helped me to in addition to all the bad things that come with alcohol to look into my head and examine the way I think about alcohol. Before the book I avoided the wine section in the grocery store and tended to romanticize drinking at events. Now I can just cold-stare at a bottle of wine and see it, really, as poison and the people that buy it mindless sheep, uninformed fools. Same thing at social events. I find drinkers entertaining....as I obviously used to be to those who knew what to look for. I'm a third of the way through the Drinking, A love story book and it is really well written. I like it a lot. Carr may not be much with prose but the concepts are very sound.

Starting a busy day 31 here. Already at work (remotely) getting quotes on telco junk for my office (6:44am here).

Have a great day folks!

forabetterlife

Hi guys... I've been crazy busy the past few days and today is my first day back to work. I don't even have time to read to catch up, I will try to throughout the day. Just wanted to check in and make myself accountable. I often get overconfident when I go back to work and think I won't have time to drink or it will be easy not to, but the reality is often that I get stressed and that's my go-to stress reliever. Can't do that.

kittycat3

Whiteturtle, I'm so sorry for your ordeal. I hope you can stay sober, it's clear that your life is at risk if you don't. Please do what you need to do to stay sober. Have you been to any treatment programs?

I am on day 12. Made it through a tough weekend sober, including a high school reunion. One of my former classmates got really drunk and ended up falling and being escorted out by security. I am embarrassed for her. I'm so glad I don't drink and embarrass myself like that any more!
I had to turn down an invite (over text, so not too difficult) to happy hour this week. I didn't feel comfortable saying I quit drinking, so instead I said I had a busy week and couldn't make it. Someday when I'm feeling a little stronger I'll let this friend know I am no longer going to HHs. For now the important part is keeping myself out of tempting situations.

Tomorrow night I have a date. I know I can do this without drinking. I actually look forward to it knowing I won't drink and get overly flirtatious or even just stopping at the liquor store on the way home (because I know if I have 2 beers on the date, that won't be enough.....) Then I'd drink more at home and wake up the next day feeling like crap....just playing the tape through helps me remember why I can't have "just one"....
Happy monday everyone!