Thank you Sunflower and Palmer. It is definitely good to be back.

Palmer, the way you seem to be handling everything going on with you is nothing short of superhuman. Please be sure you are taking care of yourself too. It could be so easy to let it all overwhelm you.

I still didn't feel so great today, but it was a better day. I did some gardening and yard work among other things. Looking forward to a jog tomorrow.

I spent some time looking through our first couple threads. This was a great exercise and something I will be doing more often. Also spent some time working on my plan.

Hope everyone is gearing up for a great and sober weekend.

Hi everyone! Sorry to be a whiner when I’m here on a cool break with good friends but I’m still not feeling great at all. I’m grateful I’m at least somewhere where work and family don’t need me at least so I can be very lazy. And eat ice cream for lunch (perhaps there could be some correlation? ...Nah. We don’t want to get carried away with our wild theories...)

Still so glad Chase is back. Still hoping others will come back. Still whining like usual! :) Good news is things are stable.

Sleep tight buddies.

Hope you feel better soon numblady :)

D

Morning Class,

We leave for home tomorrow after our month long work trip, so we’ve been busy running around with last minute stuff and packing!

Will be back to post and read more after we’ve travelled back and settled home!

Hi everyone,

Palmer I have had you on my mind so much today. You write with such grace under adversity. I wish there was something practical to offer to do for you all. I guess we can offer to be a totally safe space for you to vent in if you need to.

Numblady I do hope you start to feel better soon. I know you have had stress with staffing at work recently, stress always seems to mess with my digestion, but usually only once I start to relax. I can totally relate to the ice cream prescription.

Chase congratulations on your wonderful baby news. That is a powerful incentive for sobriety. Please don’t be hard on yourself about having had lapses, we all have been there . Thanks for sharing your experience as well, it is a reminder that months of sobriety does not mean the alcohol beast is tamed or controlled. The ‘I’ve got this thing beat I can totally drink in moderation now’ thought is just AV trying on a different disguise with the same end goal.

New chapter safe travels.

Night everyone

Hi Newchapter. Hope your travels are safe and as stress free as something like that can be. It will probably be quite nice to get home.

Numblady, hope you are feeling better. Take full advantage of having a few days to relax.

Scotty, thank you for the kind words. Hope you are doing well.

If anyone is hearing that AV whisper in your ear let me recount what is awaiting you after a relapse: Woke from fitful sleep at 230 am with major digestive upset. After several middle of the night trips to the bathroom I finally had to get up for the day. Still have some minor shakes. The worst is the brain fog though. Only day 3, so I know this is normal. There is no way anyone can justify a night or two of drinking, that was not even enjoyable in any way, for this.

Hi all! Checking in on 5 months of sobriety today!!!

Thanks to everyone for all the well wishes and supportive posts. We are actually doing fine, all things considered. The one thing I MUST do to take care of myself is get enough sleep...sleeping on a pullout sofa with my son is NOT cutting it, but luckily we were finally able to locate hotel rooms for tonight. Our dogs were whining all night for no apparent reason, and the house where we are staying has a clock that chimes and then dongs every hour, which was making me borderline homicidal at 2 a.m. So I am planning to tell my husband tonight that I am not to be disturbed under any circumstances when I decide I'm ready for bed. ;)

Chase, thank you so much for the reminders of what is waiting for us if we start drinking again, even briefly. I have to keep telling myself that my drinking was not even relaxing or fun at the end, it was just numbing and sad.

Numblady, I hope you feel better, but in the meantime, let's not do anything drastic like curtail ice cream consumption. You're on vacation, after all!

Congrats PalmerSage :)

D

PalmerSage, 5 months!!! Amazing! Hoping you are already asleep, getting that much needed rest.

Palmer! Way to go friend. I hope you are celebrating with some super awesome uninterrupted sleep. Sleep deprivation certainly rivals drinking for how it wrecks your life.

Chase, it is really kind of you to be willing to talk about your experience so that others can be informed by it. I am grateful to you for coming back and sharing.

Today was okay but the shooting situation hit really close to home. The friends we went to visit...the husband is a former teacher at the school and knew the shooter. They are all just devastated of course. I mean who isn’t devastated by a shooting especially when young lives are involved but I know they are especially rattled and broken hearted. I hate that there is that much pain in someone to harm so many. Anyhow I don’t want to make it sound like I was focused on the shooting all that much today, just that our friends sure were and it’s just awful.

Now I’m settled back home and not as ready as Palmer for some sleep but definitely ready.

Hope all are hanging in there.

hugs to you numblady and to anyone affected by the events in SantaFe/Georgia.

D

Numblady, that is really scary to have a situation like that hit so close to home. We are, unfortunately, used to seeing this on the news. When someone you know is directly involved that is a whole different situation and stressful. Hope you are okay.

As I put more work into my recovery plan I have had a thought that I need to express. It might be a little long, feel free not to read.

The following section is not meant to be boasting or bragging in any way. It is simply to inform the rest of the story. As I truly look at it, I have a wonderful life. I have a great career with excellent pay and benefits. This allows me to provide for my family in ways I used to dream about. My family is amazing, supportive, loving, and expanding. We live in a nice house in a beautiful area. We have good friends right on our street. I have fairly good health, at least when i am sober. My parents are both alive and even still married after 45 years.

Life is not perfect. I have normal stresses, like everyone else. And, sometimes more than normal stresses. I have insecurities, doubts, and fears. To this point in my life nothing has been insurmountable. Even with the added hindrance of drinking.

Here is where it starts to get a little crazy. With regular frequency this little voice, AV, starts singing in my ear. It says "wouldn't it be great to take a little mini vacation? Just get away from all the stresses and fears for a few hours. Get out of your head. Just a few drinks and this great relief is yours." I know I must fight it. Sometimes, though, it sounds too good to pass up. The rest of that story ends the same way every time. 2-3 days of binging followed by a week of self loathing and hell.

This is where it gets even crazier. During the week of hell all I want is to get back to the normal life that I thought I needed to escape. I beg and plead and pray for everything to get back to normal. This cycle repeated for years.

When I step back and look at this whole charade objectively I can see that it is an entirely new level of insanity. If a stranger told me this story I would slowly back away until I could run for help. Why do you want to escape such a nice life? If there are problems this 'escape' is guaranteed to make things worse and you know it.

Long story short is that when I look at this incomprehensible level of insanity the cycle takes, if I ever drink again I don't need rehab, I need a straight jacket.

I needed to accept that my 'mini vacations' were actually incredibly stressful, not to mention downright dangerous.

These days I work hard at maintaining balance work/play.
Of course sometimes I still feel overwhelmed.

If I feel stressed and I need a break I take one - even if it just sitting someone for 30 mins and enjoying the view - that does more for me than a week of drinking ever did Chase :)

D

Numblady, I'm so sorry that your friends were personally impacted by this latest, horrible tragedy. Also sad is the fact that these shootings have become so common that this horrific event didn't even make a dent in the coverage of the royal wedding.

Chase, thank you so much for your post, and I can completely relate 100% to everything you said. I keep writing and erasing my comments because I can't really describe the way I'm feeling. A laundry list of things to prove we "aren't that bad" and circumstances--whether they are luck, privilege, a drive to succeed or any or all of the above--may make us feel like we are in control of many things, and if we can find the magic tools, we can control this too. But as Dee said, these aren't mini vacations at all, they are mini prison sentences, which taken together, can comprise a life of drinking and feeling trapped, the insanity of a self-imposed prison. Of course, this may not apply to you at all (forgive my rambling), but suffice it to say that I'm thrilled that you are back and are open and willing to share.

Wow! So much good stuff here. Thank you chase for sharing. I am late for a bike ride but hope to be back later! Sorry I’ve been mia ish.

Good morning all. Yeah, some vacation alcohol provides, huh? A vacation from health, sanity, money, a brain capable of thought, a life worth living. When you look at it like that it is no vacation but, like Palmer said, a prison sentence. After taking a real look, the level of insanity was shocking.

Hope it was wonderful bike ride, Numblady.

Newchapter, did you make it home safely? Hopefully you are relaxing and enjoying being home.

I was finally feeling well enough for a jog yesterday. It was raining, but I still went. After living near Seattle for some time I have learned to enjoy runs in the rain. I believe it cleanses the soul.

Hey everybody! I did have a great bike ride. Very tiring though. 50 or so miles and there were some really fast parts.

Well if much more time goes by without me saying this it will feel even weirder so I’m confessing now. I didn’t drink on my actual mini vacation but I did take part in another substance that we vaped. Hint: it has five leaves and is legal in several states. I didn’t really feel anything and the second day I tried it, it was at least in part so my stomach would feel better. So I guess technically I’ve only been sober off booze since January 2. But not completely stone cold sober because of this interlude. It’s hard to explain why this seems like less of a sin in my mind. I guess because I was never really into it and don’t feel like I’ve opened some kind of Pandora’s box because I have no desire to smoke, eat or vape it any time soon. Part of me kind of still wants to be able to do something like that or take a muscle relaxant for fun or something just on vacation, not in ordinary life. But then again part of me feels like doing it just made me tired and less in the zone in terms of being present and focusing on being a kind person etc. I guess being all natural and sober is better than any alteration even if it’s rare. I feel like this post needs more of a lead-up but I’m just blurting all this out before it grows even weirder, as I mentioned. I thought about just not saying anything but then I thought that was a recipe for disaster. Need to not leave this little door open in my mind for the next beach trip. At least, I don’t think I should. Like I said it’s never been something I struggled with. I’m not tempted by the idea of it except on really, really rare occasions. But I guess any mind alteration is a bad thing. Unless it’s with coffee. Then it’s okay.

Okay confession over. Don’t expect anyone to absolve me or anything :). But I am betting you have some words of wisdom. And with thatI am going to sleep!

Stay safe out there sober buddies!

Good Morning Class!

So I am back home and in the office with my usual giant coffee (unfortunately my desk lily did not survive my absence, I guess the other guys in the office don't exactly have green fingers!).

@Chase: Huge congratulations on baby news! So happy for you and your wife. what a wonderful motivation to commit to long term sobriety. It sounds like you've been working on your plan, which is great. I definitely find reading over old posts is a great force for steadying and eradicating any inclinations.

@Palmer: I am so impressed by how well you are handling everything. I hope you have managed to get a decent night's rest! Sleep deprivation is torture in itself, amidst everything else that's going on right now, it would be the final straw to send me over the edge! You are very impressive.

@Numbaldy: I'm sorry you haven't been feeling great but I do hope that you have been able to enjoy the ice cream and spending quality down time with your friends away from the chores of regular life! Thank you for being honest about your little indulgence. I must say that I'm not sure that I have any advice to offer on this. It seems pretty harmless, however I'm sure alcohol was pretty harmless for us all once upon a time. It seems to be such a complex, subjective matter, our individual reactions to using substances like food, alcohol, etc. I'm sure that there are people who abstain from alcohol who can use other things recreationally and not have any issue. I just know that in my experience, my own extremes in excess seem to transfer - for example, my binge eating issues and how I drink (when I used to drink) were very similar in pattern. this to me suggests that anything of a similar bent is not an option for me in sobriety, as I am sure that personally, I would be exposing myself to the risk of ending up in the same place with merely a different vehicle. Having said that, I genuinely believe that we are all so different, that it's not possible to generalise experiences or opinions, so I'm simply offering my own experience as food for thought, rather than as any intended advice or opinion! Maybe some of the others might have some more objective experience to offer? As for coffee - that is one 'drug' addiction I will go to the grave protecting and defending! Haha I am so sorry to hear that your friends were so directly affected by such tragedy. It is just heartbreaking to see things like this happen over and over. Sending so many hugs to anyone affected by this awful, awful event.

Hi @Scotty, @Sunflower, @Dee! Hope @Milly and @BTLover pop by soon, and anyone else out there reading - please pop by for a check in!:grouphug:

Numblady, I don't really know anything about vaping, so no insight there. I think you're wise to consider the "transfer of addiction" element, not because I think you will suddenly start vaping 24/7, but I would guess it might be a slippery slope into other substances, which might eventually lull you into thinking that alcohol isn't a terrible idea. Are you feeling better from your stomach issues? It would really suck if you were sick for your vacation and felt great as soon as you got home! ;)

NewChapter, I hope you're adjusting well to being back at home, despite your desk lily! As long as you have your giant coffee, anything can be overcome!

Chase, how are you feeling overall? Are you back to counting days? I always found it super helpful, because it gives a sense of accomplishment even when things can seem to stand still.

We're having a lot of trouble finding a suitable place to live. From an insurance standpoint, we have the option to be comfortable, but there are very few homes to buy, let alone rent, and even fewer that allow pets. We've even contemplated buying another house, but again, there is very little available and with the current market, now is really not the right time to buy an investment property. In the meantime, we are managing, even if our daily routine needs to start much earlier and seems to take much longer. I've been packing lunches in the trunk of my car, if that gives you any idea! On the plus side, our jobs, families, and friends are super supportive, and doing this without alcohol is SO much easier than it would have been otherwise. :)