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Numblady, so sorry for all of the turmoil surrounding your vacation. Does your friends son have any kind of background in drugs or alcohol, or something similar, that would have precipitated his disappearance? Prayers coming your way over that horrible situation. Hopefully you can still make an enjoyable time out of the trip. Are there any good books you have been waiting to read? Lounging in a comfy chair, overlooking the beach, and reading sounds quite relaxing. |
NumbLady Praying for you, your friends, and their son. Text me if you need anything. I’m always here for you 💕 |
Hi all! Numblady, I agree that the situation with your friends' son sounds absolutely terrible, and so incredibly stressful on his parents. I'll be hoping for a quick and positive resolution, and that your poor dad is feeling better soon. Even if things don't go exactly as planned, it will still be nice to get away from your office and find some quiet time to read, exercise, and of course, my favorite and yours...SLEEP. Please keep us posted on what is happening, OK? :) NewChapter, your posts are so upbeat and it sounds like you're really doing everything possible to maximize your sobriety. I hope you had a good riding session, and enjoyed yourself without worrying too much about keeping up. So many parts of our lives seem so competitive, and sometimes it helps to remind ourselves why we're doing something, not to "win" but to relax. Super difficult, I know! Chase and Scotty, hope you're both hanging in there! :grouphug: I have lots of logistics to work out over the course of the next few weeks, keeping track of the kids and where they need to be, commuting at least 45 minutes each way, the dogs, the house, blah blah blah. Luckily, I have my trail walks, which I'm hoping will become runs once I rebuild my strength and lose some more weight. It's so lovely and peaceful to be in the woods at a time when I would normally be totally drunk and useless. I need to remind myself of all the small benefits of sobriety when my AV is trying to whisper her horrible ideas. |
I hope all you folks have a good weekend. D |
Well hello again! So today seemed a little bit better. My friends are still able to track some activity by their son so it seems he is still alive but just not well. He did have a history of hard drinking and i think smoking weed but as far as I know nothing else. Some depression but nothing quite on this scale. It could be that too much work and partying came crashing down and he had some kind of mental break. I’m guessing my friend has speculation but I’m trying not to press her too terribly much. And my mom, who I think is very wise, just said it was good I was able to focus while they were here, i.e. it wasn’t so bad that I was distracted and couldn’t hang out. It was good that i could focus on the things I needed to focus on. I think part of the crushing guilt is that we are sneaking in the night in Houston even though they are in Houston. It’s like tell tale heart stuff. I can’t help but feel the guilt in the back of my mind! Speaking of wise. Thank you all again for the encouragement. It really helped so much. Scotty, thanks for making me feel better about what feels like whining. I definitely agree on the mock tails front. I need to expand my repertoire although not that long ago I too discovered lemonade. Just lemonade. It’s so good! Why have I overlooked it for so long?! I do have my stash of ginger brews and strawberry shrub. Two of my favorites to get it all started. Thanks for the icy/hot tip too. I’ve been trying a lot of stuff but even yoga hurt it today so I guess I need to try more stuff :) Dee, thanks for the prayers and support. Hope your weekend is super too! NC, your advice was really good. I can feel both things (sadness for my friend, sadness my friend is preoccupied and I can’t spend the same kind of time with her; relief my dad will get some relief for his stomach, sadness I won’t have the chance to have fun with them). Oh wait, I just re-read and you are the pink lemonade lady! Yum! Chase, you are absolutely right I am still going to make a nice time of it. I’m planning to go on Monday, my birthday, and do yoga and maybe later get some spa treatments. That night my husband and I are going out to dinner at our favorite restaurant. It will be different since part of what I loved so much were the pre-dinner drinks. The at dinner drinks. And the post-dinner drinks. And instead of the 6 people we thought we would have (us, my parents, my friends) it will just be me and my husband. I’ve kind of been there, done that on being the sober date while he pounds drinks but I’m hoping to just enjoy the food and the fact that we are out without the kids at a romantic spot. And I can be the driver! Which I still love being able to do. Sunflower thank you so much and I know you are totally there! I will hit you up! Palmer, you are darn straight I’m going to enjoy aspects of the trip. I walked out of the office around 8 tonight — and I had NINE emails in my inbox. NINE! I don’t think i’ve Gotten it down that low since I started there. I have my out of offices on. And I turned off email notifications completely. This way someone can call me if they need me , or text, but I hopefully won’t get sucked completely into work. I just have a few things here and there I want to do ( a job offer, calling candidates not selected, etc.). But i am definitely going to enjoy it. And I’m going to work on not feeling guilty even though I kind of do a little bit because the number two guy that you’ve all heard me complain about never just takes off. And neither does the # 3 and the kind of almost #3. They are literally killing themselves and i just have to try and remind myself that no amount of pounding myself into the ground is going to stop someone else’s pounding. I guess I’ll go to bed soon. I’m using my bad back as an excuse to not ride my bike but I think part of the issue is that I have too much to do to get ready for the trip and the house sitters and not feeling completely harried. I’m really trying to tell myself to focus on health and strength and not the fact that the bit of weight I had lost has seemingly come back and I’ve really slacked off in the fitness department. Vacay should offer some nice opportunities to work out, if my back will cooperate. Well thanks agin little sober family. You really did make my day. Back soon! |
Hi all. Quick one. Getting on an airplane. I will try to get back later, but probably won't. Hope everyone is well and enjoying the weekend. |
Update: my friend’s son turned up at her place. Shaking, crying and admitting he is an alcoholic. The tendrils of the scourge of alcohol addiction are everywhere. I guess he spent the past 5 days suffering mercilessly through the DTs with no medical help and nothing other than his trusty dog by his side. Said he was drinking a fifth of vodka a day. I volunteered to go to a meeting with him. I am glad I am sober so I can speak with at least a little credibility if he wants to talk about it. Right now he’s not up for company which is understandable. But the less evolved part of me is bummed because I won’t really see my friend, which the kids will struggle with. Apparently they are coming by tomorrow at our rental. To drop off all the alcohol from their house. Sigh. I said it was fine. I am around alcohol constantly so what’s another damn shipment of it, really. But focusing on the positive my husband and I are having a solo night out of town. I’m looking forward to eating Mexican food. And I”m not working!!! And I’m going to go to yoga Monday morning. LIke in a real yoga studio with a human being who teaches me in the same room. To chase’s earlier question I’ve brought all of what’s on my kindle (to which I will almost surely add Liar’s Club) plus a couple hard copies and a bunch of magazines I’ve held on to for pretty much years. This time, if I don’t read them I’m leaving them behind! Enough with the carting around baggage for when I finally make time to read my hand me down cooking lite magainzes or my bar journals. I’ll probably be back on after dinner to whine about all the margs and post-dinner drinks my husband has. ;) |
I'm sorry about your week-end, but I'm glad the kid came home Numblady. Enjoy the Mexican food :) D |
Morning everyone. NumbLady I’m so glad your friend’s son showed up and now he knows he has support from you when he’s ready. Hope you enjoyed the Mexican food and there wasn’t too much drinking involved. |
Hi all! I'm sorry for not posting yesterday, I was definitely checking in and reading all the posts. I just never remembered to do it, and then it was glorious bedtime. In retrospect, I definitely should have posted to clear my mind a bit, because over the past few days I've been struggling through a bit of a rough patch with cravings. It wasn't until I was falling asleep last night that it hit me: DUH, you've been focusing too much on losing weight! I've slowly been drifting back into my old deprivation mindset, which of course is a recipe for disaster, and it poured down rain yesterday on top of everything...so no evening power walk. I slept late this morning, though not as late as I wanted to, and the day is bright and sunny. I have tons of laundry to do, which I'm actually looking forward to because I'll be able to watch TV or maybe a movie. Definitely a walk/run tonight, and mindfulness about the pace at which I'm trying to lose weight. Numblady, I'm so happy that your friend's son was found safely, if a little banged up from a horrible experience that we all understand, a bit too well. I think offering to go to a meeting with him, even if he doesn't take you up on it, is a tremendous gift because it reinforces that he is not alone. And he clearly felt that he was alone, or he wouldn't have just run off like that (with his sweet dog, aww). I really hope that the family is able to move forward, and that you are able to enjoy this long-awaited vacation! I do have to say that all the alcohol you're facing seems kind of excessive, I mean there's your husband's drinking and now you have to be the shelter for homeless bottles on top of it? It sounds like you're regarding it as annoying and nothing more, but I think it would be more than understandable if you pushed back at some point. :smashfrea |
Sorry I’ve been a little quiet - busy few days! Hopefully will have more time to read and respond tomorrow. All good this end and so happy to hear your friends’ son is OK @Numblady. Sorry for the drive by, more later! |
Driving by here too! Thanks for all the kind words. It’s been a fairly tiring day. Almost all good but just time in the sun, time on feet, time getting settled in. We are now ensconced in the beach rental and I already have my reservation for yoga tomorrow. I think I already said that. Not sure. Super sleepy now! Off to read Liar’s Club which I bought as a treat to myself yesterday. Did I say that already too? Ha. I think I just said i was going to buy it but i’m Too tired to remember and too lazy to look so that’s where we are. More tomorrow friends. |
Hi all. Late one tonight. Work was crazy. Numblady, happy they found your friend's son. It is scary where the disease of alcoholism can lead. Great job offering support. Getting out of your own head and helping someone else is supposed to be one of the best things for your recovery. That is one of the main cornerstones of AA. I hope he gets to a point where he accepts the offer. Hi to everyone else. I will try for a more in depth post tomorrow. Now I must get to bed before, hopefully, a slightly less busy day, tomorrow. |
HI everyone. Hope all is well out in your world. Things are good here. It’s my birthday so that is nice. I got up and went to yoga as planned. It’s so funny that when i envisioned a sober life I imagined myself waking at dawn, serene, content, energetic. I still kind of roll out of bed like I partied until midnight even though the most wild thing I did was have coffee at 9:30. I actually wasn’t even that early to the 9 a.m class which is kind of pitiful. Oh well! It was a sweet little class and I told everyone it was my bday. They clapped. How kind to have a room full of total strangers clap just because I was there on the anniversary of my birth. I’d showed up! And I got some applause. :) The a/c went out, which was not planned. Actually the electricity in the whole studio went out. It was an unexpected almost-hot yoga class. It felt really good to be that warm and limber. I can now understand some of NC’s love of bikram. Then we hung at the beach. Which was fine but did involve a LOT of time with my daughter not wanting to be apart from me for thirty seconds. Then my friend showed up with her grandson. Not sure if this makes sense. My close friend here has two of her three adult kids living in town. One, the now recovering alcoholic, is in her house. The other, who has a son and lives down the road, is the mother to the little boy she brought over today. It was nice to finally catch up just a little and hopefully offer some entertainment for him at a time she is completely exhausted. She told me about going to look for her son at his hotel and just sobbing for hours a few feet away from the front desk clerks. What an exhausting week. They are also totally going without alcohol even out of the house. So that’s why she asked if it was okay to bring the booze over. I told her it was okay. Deep down I don’t really want it but on the other hand my husband is going to buy it and drink a crap ton of it any way so we may as well give it a good home. It is very different this trip as their house was always a party house for us. Now I don’t drink at all already and the hosts (who were always waiting with a pitcher of strong margaritas and a fridge of beer) are on the wagon too! It’s very different. Nice from my perspective except we can’t really be at their house because their son is not up to company and my husband won’t hang out somewhere he can’t drink. At least I would be very surprised if he did/would. Speaking of friends, I ran into my best friend from growing up yesterday. This also sounds very weird now that I write it. We went to the beeach for a while yesterday and we had parked at the public beach so we could unload our stuff (almost all of which later got stolen—ugh!). Anyhow I was going to drive the van back and I look in front of me and see someone who looks like my old friend and her mom. Sure enough! It was them. My friend lives in another state but teaches so she spends most of the summer at her parents’ house which is less than an hour from here. she brings her 3 boys down to the beach and apparently this is the beach they also go to. Small big world. She knew I was coming and we’d planned a fishing camp for our boys later this week, but I guess she didn’t realize I was here yet. It was great because our boys got to play for a while and now we’re all doing the water park together tomorrow. What a beautiful trip this is so far. Now if my daughter plays independently for long enough that I can read a page of a book at the beach it will be a real paradise! :) Tonight we are going out to a fancy restaurant for my bday. YUM. It’s such good food. And hopefully my husband’s drinking won’t cross over into annoying slurring land and we can just enjoy being out. More when I can! |
Hi all! Kind of a busy day today, starting super early and lots of driving all over the place (so, pretty much typical). I'm waiting for my husband to come home so I can go on my walk, it's funny how quickly I went from "exercise, who me?" to actually needing to burn off some stress and calories. We've had so much rain, but right now it's sunny and I'm hoping to squeeze in a few miles. I go to a trail which has mile markers, but I'm planning to get an Apple watch soon so I can track my mileage wherever I go. Numblady, happy birthday!!! I'm so happy the beach trip is going well so far, and lots of sober people around...which is always good, even if your husband is not one of them. I hope you have an awesome dinner. Ooooh, my walking window just opened...I'll check in later! :) |
Hi all! Man, I hate responding to my own post...where are my people? ;) I had a nice walk last night despite the rain (even though I only did 3 miles and I was hoping for 5), and tried to go to bed early since I had another ungodly wake up time this morning. It is still raining relentlessly, and I'm rushing to get some face time at work since I'm only in the office for a few hours. I may try to squeeze a nap in later, and will make my best effort to get out on the trail this evening. I'll check in later to see how everyone is doing! |
Hi all. Sorry for the absence yesterday. Work, this weekend, did not go as planned. Lots of emergencies and disruptions that had to be addressed, including an unplanned trip to Puerto Rico, yesterday. I didn't finish up until after 0200 this morning. Still trying to recoup. I will check-in later. Happy Birthday Numblady!!! |
Hi 👋🏻. I’m here just busy. Planning a vacay to San Diego and my mother is coming to stay with me this evening. School registration for my boys and college books and classes for my daughter. She has switched her major again. Grateful to be sober. Happy belated birthday NumbLady. Have a great day everyone. |
Sorry guys, another drive by for me. Thinking of you all and will be back to read and post properly tomorrow. |
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