congrats on 55 Bobdrop :)

D

Well done Greentree. You are setting yourself up for a much better Sunday than last week!

Day 22 here and everything seems to be going well. Went to the shops this morning, but now firmly in lazy afternoon mode.

All the best to everyone out there. If you think you might want to drink, come post here first.

Hi All - I'm doing very well on Day 5. Had a busy one yesterday. 4 1/2 Zoom board meeting. Hard to sit so long! Had a great dinner at a patio restaurant last night. Going to be busy again today. It feels so great waking early and not being sick. I had coffee on our deck with my wife watching the birds. I love being sober. Hope everyone has a great sober weekend.

Sending you so much love honey.

Also 15-20 years behind in my own life and I feel your pain.
It is hard for me, to be honest, but I am grateful I got the chance at a life at all.
Sober, I have options that I didn't have before, and I am so grateful for that.

We may never be 'normal' in our own eyes, but we can have really good lives one we put the bottle down. :hug: s xx ❤️

Day 19

Hanging on but life has stuck some big blows in the last 24 hours

I don't want to drink but it is horrible being anxious and worried all the time
(something nice is bound to happen soon - the odds are in my favour)

Thanks for the feedback on the vitamins - folic acid seems like a goody for me - I'll get some

I'm glad I have quit - waking up and grabbing a bottle is no life at all and it made my problems 'worser'

Anyway well done if you are still hanging on :-)
(I'm not being miserable on purpose - trying to be realistic so peeps know it's not all kittens and sunshine when you quit)

Well done for staying strong love.....would you like to talk at all about the stuff that is going on? :hug: ❤️

I'm with you on that, Red. Not all kittens and sunshine.
Yesterday, was awful. I've read some on these threads about urge surfing, but that was one wicked ride. Like Huey Lewis sang, Sometimes Bad is Bad. About 9:30 in the morning, dh and I were trying to talk through a minor decision while out running errands and somehow I ended up in a horrible state of mind. I felt as if I got sucker punched into DEEP despair. To add insult to injury, I cried all day long. All. Day. Long. I was helpless to stop. I had started the day with mascara on so you ladies understand what I mean when I say there was no question to everyone I encountered, even while wearing a mask, that I was having a hard time. Dh had no idea what the heck happened and frankly, neither did I. I must've cried in my sleep too because I woke with what I could best relate to as a hangover complete with eyes that don't want to open until rinsed clean.
I was just marveling the return to more level headed reasoning and behavior... then yesterday hit. Jinxed myself and it was gawd awful. My worst yet since my last drink.
The pits of despair like when I was on a good bender. Even though I could see no light, I refused to wave off. I was one hot mess. I am exhausted today but at least the apologies I made to my family last night weren't slurred platitudes and today I don't have to deal with my drunk aftermath. Going to go visit a friend later, I need to get out and talk to more than my family, the cashier at the grocery store, and my pets. Going early to avoid her Happy Hour. After yesterday, I fear I would burst into tears if even offered a drink. I really would like to keep my sh*t together.
I hope everyone gets to enjoy their day. Life can feel like it is crappy but it will always get worse when drunk.

Back from my visit. Friend had a small party for her kids graduation and we had a great visit. Didn't miss Happy Hour, she parties like I did so we stayed for a couple hours and then left. I did not drink, did not have the urge to drink. There was someone there that was a mean drunk not yet up to a full head of steam, I had enough of her pretty quick. Nice to be sober and can run circles around them and they leave you alone. As the day went on, I continued to feel better. I hope to figure out just where things went off the tracks yesterday. I need to not have more of those days or at least be able to plan for when they happen. Just got to reflect to figure out the trigger or warning signs.

I see we're pretty quiet here today. I hope that means everyone is also out having a good day. Stay sober, my friends.

I’m back again, it feels hopeless since I always relapse after a few days or weeks. My drinking is starting to really scare me I need to do something.

Welcome back hills :)
what do you think to need to do to stay sober more than a few days or weeks?

D

Sorry you’ve been having a tough time of it Redcard and Kaptn. I hope things look up for you soon.

I’m having a pretty crappy day myself, just in a sad, bad, grumpy, blah head space. No particular reason, unless it was the sugar I ate yesterday. The AV has been going nuts again today so I just had a big bowl of icecream to shut it up. It’s quietened down, but now I feel fat and blah. Trying to switch it around to grateful, but I’m just in a really bad mood. Definitely no kittens and sunshine here today, despite the fact there IS sunshine! I think that after years of drowning all emotions in grog, it’s difficult to just accept that emotions come and go, and that’s ok. We don’t have to feel happy all the time. In fact it’s never going to be all roses, we’re just not used to feeling our feelings. This post isn’t really going anywhere, just my random train of thought lol.

Congratulations on 55 days Bob :)
And 22 Captain Haddock :)
And day 5 Scott, and 19 Redcard :)
I’m on 33.

Welcome back Hills, it’s great that you’re still trying. One of these trys it will stick!

Hi Dee, to stay sober I know I need a concrete plan. My recovery attempts are all hungover good intentions and zero follow through. I need to go to AA regularly and go back to therapy where I have to be completely honest instead of telling half truths to downplay my problem. I’m scared of AA and therapy but I’m even more scared of my drinking. I’ve had some really terrifying binges recently and I’m blacking out constantly.

I think a concrete plan and following through are great ideas hills :)

D

That sounds like a pretty solid plan Hills.
I’m using SR and a therapist, plus ensuring that I always have alternative N/A drinks on hand. I’ve stocked up on lots of different flavours of sparkling water plus a range of herbal teas to try. Plus sweet snacks for emergency backup, which I resorted to this weekend. Too much sugar, but I’ve made it through the weekend alcohol-free. 6.30pm Sunday here now and I have no inclination to drink now that I’m full of dinner and dessert lol

Morning checking in for day 7. No cravings no urges to buy alcohol, just feeling weary of it all. My medication has kicked in again also which is helping, I'm an anxious over thinker/worrier and it makes me feel indifferent to everything, including alcohol. Captain haddock this week is considerably better than last week sat peacefully with my coffee and fruit rather than sweating in bed wondering if anything would ever feel ok again, deep in those pits of despair you describe kaptn I think all of us know them.

Scott sounds like you had a nice peaceful moment there, I like those and have found I really appreciate them when I've had long periods of sobriety, its all about those little things in life.

Kaptn sometimes its good to let all that emotion out, I usually bottle everything up and drink my feelings away sometimes its good to just have a good cry. Well done for not drinking at the party. Its interesting to be sober and observe what drink does to other people and then go home and feel good that we will be fresh as a daisy in the morning and they won't be. and willow too its ok to not be ok but like you say we are used to drinking away all the negative stuff its difficult to 'feel' stuff again. I love my sparkling water and teas too they really help. I like green tea at the moment.

Hills hope your doing ok, my last couple of blackouts have scared me also. Its good to make a plan even if its just for one day at a time.
Sorry you have had some bad news redcardid, just post here if you need to and keep remembering that drink does make it worse.

Otherwise it seems a little quiet in here hope everyones made it through the weekend. Congrats on all your days and stay sober xx

Thanks Willow. I go in and out of blah. I have found it to be a dangerous time for me. Even typing this, I could feel playing the tape forward into a f*&^it moment. It does go away.

Kaptn-Watching others drink at get togethers have really been an eye opener for me. Some people can really get obnoxious when they drink and then it makes me wonder how I managed to stay married and still have any friends. I find that I almost never argue with my wife anymore because I think back to what she put up with for decades.

On to day 6. This recovery has been pretty different for me. I really didn’t drink heavily this time except for a couple of days during a few week period I relapsed. I haven’t experienced any withdrawal per se. I feel much like I did when I was sober for that 4 months. However, reading what others are going through brings back the nightmare of my first real withdrawal after 20 years of non stop drinking with the last 4 months of that period drinking morning to night. I was sick in bed for 3 days. I experience auditory hallucinations. I didn’t eat and just laid there hoping not to die. That was back in January of 2019. Even after that, I drank again most of 2019. Even after all that, I still drank. I can hardly believe I did that. My doctor told me that quitting was a process and it has been. As I stated earlier, I have come to accept that I am an alcoholic and can never drink again. I plan to stick to that. I feel for all of you who are suffering. Please keep trying. It does get better. You will get your life and health back without the poison. I do feel that we are all in this together and need to help each other. Life without alcohol is a better life for people like us.

After some of the things I have done, I can't believe I've carried on drinking either. I've broken my leg in the house and was rushed for emergency surgery I have a metal plate and pins holding my leg and foot together , made a fool of myself at a wedding, ruined lots of other special occasions. christmas... birthdays. I was still in denial it took me a long long time to accept I had a problem to get help, then to have some sober time with attempts to drink in moderation, then longer sober periods, where I have seen there is a better life for me and realised I can't drink at all. ....I am still relapsing but I can feel I'm really getting there, and I'm going to put it down for good. The auditory hallucinations are horrendous... I usually get a feeling of bugs on my skin and hair too, not fun! I don't want to have those again.Its such a long slow process but we can do it

Morning. I feel ashamed to post this but I think I just need to get it off my chest. Compared to the troubles other people are dealing with this should be easy.

Though a trivial problem, my allergies are especially bad right now. Don't know if I mentioned it, but a few days ago my passive/agressive Mrs opened all the doors and windows and had fans sucking the outside air in on an especially humid and wet morning. One of my worst allergins is mold spore. I am fine in my bedroom as I have a HEPA air filter running constantly and keep the room as sealed off as possible. Unfortunately, now as soon as I step outside my bedroom, my eyes tear, it gets hard to breathe, my lungs burn, my nose runs like a faucet, sinuses swell, and I feel very much like I'm hung over or worse. And guess what, she's being especially p1$$y to me. I so wish we had never met.

My allergy med helps take some of the worst off but it's just too easy to tell myself that a drink will quell the symptoms. And it does - if only it could be a drink. We all know how unlikely that is. So I'm paying the piper not having danced. Tomorrow I'll call my primary physician and see if there is another allergy med I can take that might work better. I have to take so many other meds that there aren't many I can take that don't conflict with something or other.

It's going to be far too hot and humid to work outside and SharkFest is on the tube. Maybe I can rest up and distract myself with that. Either that of Forensic Files. I'm also going to grab up the SMART handbook and work some of the tools on maintaining motivation and dealing with urges. At least I'm not hungover even though I feel like it.