Bekindalways

That's a great way to think Dee and one I personally have trouble with.

Katy, again so so so glad you came back. The picking yourself up and trying yet again must be tough specially in the face of shame and self disgust . . . .yep, been there too. However I don't get tired of wittnessing the courage you and Darkling display. It is a big part of why I stay in this group.

Okay, so in solidarity with Katy and Darkling, I am rededicating myself to my lenten self care: exercise, sewing, making plans to meet with friends and icing my knee.

Ayers

Tuesday evening

In the light of what has happened to Darkling and Katy I will keep my experiences of my week away for some other time. Suffice it to say – it revolved around alcohol – the whole, whole time.

I had to be stronger than I ever thought I could possibly be . At one specific incident I was willing to just throw my 7 months in the gutter and give in. So, Darkling, Katy , I understand. I understand so well . This is one heck of a scary road – because you never know if you are going to be strong enough, even though you are so, so committed and so completely done drinking and so absolutely sure that you are doing the right thing and on the right road.

Reading a while ago about people 3 years sober taking a plunge made me realise that this is not only about staying sober, but to keep coming back and to keep trying. And that, both of you have done – and I am so grateful that you did. As Bee said, it cannot be easy , but I do permit myself to think and hope that you feel safe here , knowing that we will never , ever judge – even if you fail 100 times or more. Not giving up trying , is the main thing !

To all the rest of my dear classmates, Bonnie with your Mom’s move and your ill fur-baby, your friend’s brain surgery , Barbs – missing your daughter – my heart goes out to you. Alice, worries about your son and dealing with your daughter’s fears and anxieties – hugs, my friend. Bee, I love how your are actively fighting the anhedonia – I am very well aware how difficult that is. Dee, struggling with back problems – and I think with much more than you ever will mention here - you are an amazing human being , so very strong .

Katy and Darkling, please know that I am sending good karma your way – we believe in you , even if you might not feel so strong at the moment. And I am so proud of you for not giving up. We’ve got your backs – be strong .

Lots of love XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

DarklingSong

((((Katy)))). This is rotten for sure but at least we are still here and trying.

Beautiful, supportive posts here.....thank you.

Ayers I hope you feel you can post the good bits about your experience too. Really, it gives me hope and shows a way it can be done.....so please don't censor that.
It is inevitable we are all going to have very different experiences on this journey. I think we can tolerate that difference. There is such a connection between us now.

Be kind....I am going to give the reverse lent a go.....good luck with yours....

Strength to you all.

Barbs

Ayers, yippee….sooo glad to see you back!!! Glad you had a good trip

Katy, so glad that you are back here with us. Hoping that your dad recovers soon.

Ayers, during my son’s visit, I had a few moments when I too almost tossed out my 8 months of sobriety. It is a bit scary to think how committed we are and how easily we can through it all away. Time to double down!

Alice, I share your feelings of loneness. My son just left today to head back to Seattle I love spending time with him. Although, a few of our conversations became a bit heavy this visit (a lot of self-examination regarding my daughter, ugh!) I did have to laugh when he told me that I love to completely and unconditionally, lol…. I can’t wait till he’s a daddy and see the same kind of love

Dee, “Treasure yourself, nourish yourself. Drinking is just giving our soul away, little by little” such wise words. A work in progress…

Well, I am a bit behind in my CBT this week. Crunch time since I have a phone appointment tomorrow with the therapist.

matrac

Some good quotes...

“Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending”. Carl Bard

“If you hear a voice within you say, ‘you cannot paint’, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.” — Vincent Van Gogh

“I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.” — Muhammad Ali

They say it much better than I can, but seems like the common theme is perseverance even when you falter and even when you’re in pain. Don’t let your failures and challenges define you or your purpose. There is reward that results from the struggle. Life can be better

Bekindalways

Reading your post here Barb, I'm thinking that none of us have reached escape velocity. I've often heard a year kicked around as significant. I've mentioned before that a friend of mine said she never wanted to drink as she didn't want to do the first year of sobriety again. Perhaps it is like the first year after a family member dies and you have to do all the first without them activities and holidays.

Good parts of my day:
1) finished the frilliest victorian bosom buddy shawl you ever saw in your life

2) sister pitched in and did some major work on my Dad's taxes

3) let my brother's chickens out and watered them (they were very happy to see me which felt good)

I'm now sitting by a roaring fire (fueled by old papers of my Dad's) and am about to knit and watch The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

Hope you all can get in another day, hour, 15 min of sobriety. This is serious stuff we are doing.

Sunflower84

Morning,

8:50am here, I got up at 6:40am. Still feeling the after effects of the alcohol. Just very overtired and anxious but my Skullcap is keeping that at bay enough for me to function. I've had my Dog out for a walk and made my bf a nice lunch to take to work and done some washing.
Sat with a coffee now and some time here then I'm working all day and really do need a good day. This month has been a real flop so I could do with turning it around....same old boring bloody story but as you all kindly keep saying, at least I'm keeping going and keeping on fighting.

All your words mean so much, felt quite emotional reading them but in a good way. It warmed my heart reading all your posts this morning. The bond between us in this group really is something special and a real rock of support.

Ayers I echo Darkling's words on you sharing your experience. I too think hearing the differences and how you dealt with certain situations is a positive so please don't hold anything back on my account. I love to hear of your life journey everyday so keep it coming

I'm still just really shocked I drank and feel worried I'll never get to my 6 month target but I'm not giving up. Maybe taking this day by day as I'm constantly told to is the right way. I always like to have targets set, specific dates and so on but maybe I will just go back to day by day...

My eyes are rolling typing this, need another coffee and my vitamins I think. Got to find the energy from somewhere to get a real good work day in. I'm so anxious as I have a meeting in the office next week and I've had such a rubbish month... Well, here goes, time to turn things back around.

Thank you again all of you for the kind supportive words!!! Can't tell you how much it means.

Darkling I'm thinking of you, I'm so glad we've both come straight back here like you said. We can do this!!!

Much Love to you all.

Back Soon.

Katy xxxxxxxx

DarklingSong

Good luck with the work Katy.

Aliceiw

Hi all --

It's an absolutely gorgeous late afternoon in TX as I type this. The sunlight is slanting across the field in back of our house illuminating clusters of bluebonnets and pink evening primroses. The dogs are sleeping peacefully in the shade of an oak tree bursting with lacy light green buds and leaves. The breeze is blowing softly making the wind chime on my porch emit a soft and sleepy jangle.

This is exactly the kind of evening that, in the past, would have triggered me to drink and to be honest I feel a little pull to enhance the beauty of the moment by pouring a nice glass of pinot grigio and sitting and sipping it ass I watch the evening approach. Fortunately I don't have any wine, of course. But I'm kind of disgusted with my AV for suggesting that getting a buzz would enhance the beauty of this evening somehow. In truth, drinking would most likely unleash a string of thoughts in my head focusing my attention inward rather than outward.

You're so right Dee -- little by little it robs you of your soul....and many other things too.

I was thinking this afternoon about how so very much of my past marriage revolved around drinking. We met in a bar. He was drunk at the time, and then we drank our way across 30 years. There was hardly an occasion or emotion that we didn't somehow manage to pour copious amounts of alcohol on. It's so sad and such a waste of time. I'll never get those years back. I wonder how things would have been different if one or both of us didn't drink. I doubt we'd have met at all.

There's no calling back the past lost time, though. We all have to live in the present moment. I'm very grateful for my current situation and not only that, I'm far more able to remember any memories I'll make.

Sorry for the self-rumination tonight. I hope you all are well and happy this evening. Bekind, it sounds like you're doing really well today - accomplishing things and keeping busy.

Darkling, Katy....just keep putting space between you and that last drink.

Barbs, It sounds like your CBT therapy comes with homework in the way you describe getting ready for your upcoming appointment. Do you have to do things during the week and report back to your therapist? Whatever you do I hope it works for you.

Ayers, I look forward to hearing about your trip.

Bonnie, thanks for the quotes. I like the Ali one best. I'm using it as a mantra to stick to my diet!

Love to you all XO

Bekindalways

Hope you all are making this Wed a good one.

Ayers you are probably already into Thursday. Katy you are probably headed to bed.

Slept late this morning and am feeling anxious as my sister returns home Friday. She needs to go back to her life and has been so so helpful as our Mom entered end of life care and then the funeral and figuring out Estate, lawyer, papers, bank accounts and credit cards . . . . taking apart the riggings of a life is a lot less fun than putting one together. It does help me grieve. So much that was so important is no longer relevant. I do think/pray to my mom, "Well done and congrats for a life well lived."

Carry on all . . . .do your best whatever that looks like today.

Ayers

Thursday morning

Good morning , Sunshines !

Alice, you sound completely serene, sitting there and marvelling at the natural beauty around you. I am so happy that you are happy. And so true what you said about reliving/inventing the past as opposed to just grabbing what you have now and running with it.
(I’m writing on Word now, without the webpage opened next to me as usual, so if I misquote, please excuse) Just felt like writing from the heart, instead of responding to posts.

Darkling and Katy – you were in my thoughts so often yesterday. By thinking of you it feels like I am willing you/ sending you energy across the continents. I hope it reaches you and you are blown away by it . If you feel a sudden gust or energy surge – let me know . 😊

The trip was so wonderful. As we left the airport I was excited and full of trepidation at the same time. I looked at my husband , without saying a word, and he looked back at me and said : “No, don’t worry. You can do this. You have come so far. You will hate yourself if you give in now”. Mindreader !!!

There was no judging or lots of questions about my not drinking. It was just slightly odd – at first- and then my glass was filled with sparkling water everytime the other’s was with wine.
I think my kidneys had a great good flushing – drinking sparkling water for hours on end .
But, I did sense a teeny weeny bit of “less warmness/ forthcomingness” from the friends who own the wine estate. I hope wine wasn’t our only binding element in this friendship. Also, I might be over sensitive – looking for something/some sign where there really is nothing.

I have come to the conclusion that my relationship with alcohol is/was very much the same as being in an abusive relationship.(Not that I am in one – happily married) First the denial , then hiding the signs, then letting him back in your life,believing the lies, believing things will change , and then finally slamming the door in his face and telling him to get the hell out of your life.
Then the power and peace being restored – clearing out his junk , rearranging the furniture, opening up rooms that had been dark – reinventing yourself. Discovering facets of yourself that you had forgotten even existed. Breathing freely without that lump of tension in the pit of your stomach.

This is how I feel right now. As if I have walked away from the most horrible, abusive relationship. And now I am free. To be who I am. And to try and discover what makes me tick.
For the first time , in a long time, I feel like I can breathe again. This is my truth – and I will never allow my peace and serenity to be destroyed again. My life is just too precious to me.

Love to you all .
OWN YOUR TRUTH !!!!!!! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxx

Ayers

This is a direct translation of an article in our newspaper today. It is written , trying to make light of the “blackouts”/ “loadshedding” we are experiencing at the moment because our principal power supplier, Escom, is going bankrupt.
Hope my translation does it justice….

SMALL, BUT POWERFUL DEEDS TO LIGHTEN THE “load”

Loadshedding is not such a terrible thing, says my friend.

Her face is shrouded in darkness, all I can see from the opposite side of the table, is the light from the full moon shining through her hair like a halo.

Our supper is savoury wafers and cheese. A preferred meal for many women over 50 and nowadays also known as the “Escom Special”

I add some half melted ice cubes to her drink , wondering if my cellphone battery will last long enough for us to listen to my playlist of songs to the end. I am so tired of half-finished things. It feels as if everything has to be plugged in to charge in the few hours we have power to our disposal.

She starts reminding me about times in the past – the road we have travelled together.

And when someone who knows both the sunny and the shady parts of your past speaks, you listen.

“There was the day I was admitted to hospital unexpectedly and you took over the mommy-role for my kids. And that day I was crying buckets about … what was it again? . And the night you came to tell me the horrible news about your son”, she says.

My deep thinking friend sighs when she sees I am not completely getting her point.
“Each one of us get a chance to recharge the other, from time to time, to take of the load.”
A proverbial light goes on for me, just like a generator kicking in , and a surge of memories of shared burdens and pleasures looms up from the darkness.

How can I forget about the time when she arrived that woeful Wednesday and made me laugh at her lame jokes after lugging my woebegone body out of the house and up the mountain trial? Or the time she saved me from impending death- by- routine- boredom with a surprise picnic under the Mango tree at three in the afternoon?

It turns into a “and do you remember the time…” game and invariably lots of other people get included. Her dear mother, whose cooking could dissolve any lump in the throat or knot in the stomach. A lady who always had the exact right and apt message to forward – to brighten up the bleakest day. A sister , sending you the most beautiful old picture of your sweet baby daughter, at the moment when you feel like wringing her teenage neck. Or a beloved, who not only replaced your car battery for you , but left you a full tank of gas.

Small, powerful deeds. Sometimes your time to receive and sometimes to give.

I don’t say it out loud to her, but I am left berating myself for all the times I let the chance go by without “lightening the load” for someone. Maybe she feels the same, because both of us are dead quiet , sitting there in the pitch darkness.

Sunflower84

Morning,

I'm so busy today but I wanted to just check in and let you all know I'm ok and sober!!!

I really have no time to say anymore but I will check in later tonight. I have a huge work load ahead, a healthcare worker coming to the house this morning and my AA meeting.

I'll post properly later and Ayers, what a powerful post!!!! I'll have more to say later but your words have helped immensely!

Thinking of you all.

Back later xxxxxxx

DarklingSong

Wonderful post Ayers. Thank you.
Katy good luck with the meeting tonight.

Alice you paint a very vivid picture. You sound like you are in a good place.
Be Kind- thinking of you with all the steps you are taking in grieving your mom. I hope you will really ramp up the self care as much as you can.

I had a productive busy day in work but am stressed about all the work left to do. I am experiencing a lot of friction, disappointment and frustration as a mother. I am very impatient and feel really guilty. Anyway....have to keep working on it.

Strength to you all.

DarklingSong

Meant to say....

Hope your dog is holding her own Bonnie......and all is well with your Mom?

Best wishes with the CBT Barbs. Hope you are finding it helpful.

Barbs

Bekind, escape velocity…I am looking forward to achieving that. My longest sober time was about 15 months. Surprised me that I drank without even giving it a thought. I am feeling a bit steadier, even though a thought or two will cross my mind. I am so focused on controlling my anxiety that the last thing I need is a drink. How wonderful for you to have had you sister throughout such a difficult time (((hugs)))

Alice, what a lovely description of the scenery. Glad you got to enjoy it. The CBT does involve a lot of homework, ugh. I did not manage to spend much time on it last week and really feel I need to review the past sessions again. When I spoke with my therapist, she told me this is not a race and there is no time-line for completion and that a review was a good idea. So, that’s where I am, reviewing…

Ayers, wow… great post. Thank you! And the “abusive relationship”, such a perfect analogy.

Katy, I hope you have a wonderful and productive day. Don’t forget to breath

Darkling, motherhood is so full of joys and sorrows. When you’re right in the middle of it, it is so easy to miss the joy. Even in the mists of the frustration and disappointment, love over powers it all. The CBT does seem to help if I make the time for it. Making the time is my problem, ugh.

Thanks for the quotes Bonnie. How is the pup? Has your mom settled in?

I have had such a busy day at work and have to go into the office tomorrow too (usual day off). We have three trials to prep for, and I leave away for a week on Wednesday, ugh…never enough time. I wish people would just stay married, it would make my life a lot easier, lol.

Well, hubby is working late tonight. I will be busy with laundry and puppy training. So grateful to have you all here

matrac

Thank you for asking Barbs and DS. I hope you are well and feeling better. My mom sent me a picture today of the dinner that she made for herself in her new kitchen. She said that she is doing fine, but perhaps a little lonely. Hoping she will make friends.........My dog is pretty sick and I am heartbroken. I have been back to the vet twice since she was in the animal hospital. I am told that it is a matter of weeks. She isnt eating much and she stays away from us. She doesn’t even bark at the mailman anymore. Her time is coming and I am missing her already. Can’t imagine our home without her.

I hope you all are well and sober. I do read your posts. I have a lot on my plate at the present but I’ll post as soon as I can. Keep up wth your great efforts

Bekindalways

So so sorry Matrac. Losing a dog is very tough. They are so much part of the family and part of your comfort too. Take care of yourself.

I did more self indulgence today; ate an entire batch of Panna Cotta. I prefer this to drinking but it doesn't leave me feeling great. I didn't eat it because of stress but because I had the ingredients to use up . . . ah well.

Barbs, are you a lawyer?

Ayers

Friday morning

Bonnie, I am so happy for you that your mom has settled in. She will make friends soon, I’m sure.
Lots of hugs to you and your doggie – it is absolutely horrible when you feel so helpless and can’t help her feel better. My heart goes out to you.

Barbs, isn’t Katy also doing the CBT ? Where are you going next Wednesday and for how long?

Darkling, I understand how you are feeling as a mother. There were times when I thought my relationship with my kids was damaged beyond repair, times when I thought I made a botch-up of their upbringing …. But those were all just phases . I promise you, it does pass. Just dish out as much love as you can , even if you sometimes don’t feel like it. Just the fact that you are questioning yourself proves that you are an excellent mother.

Katy, hope you managed to do all you had to yesterday with work. How did the AA meeting go?

Bee – you go girl – annihilate that panna cotta 😊 😊 😊

When I signed in today , I clicked on August 2013 by accident. Those people are still posting to one another after 4 , some 5 years. I thought it wonderful. And immediately thought of our group and imagined us 4 or 5 years down the road. Exciting !

Stay strong today , my friends. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Ayers

Dee, helloooo

How are you doing? Is your back better now? xx