Yesterday was a wee bit challenging for me. It was Friday. I took my laptop outside in the beautiful weather for my entire work day. When the work day ended my wife came outside and began enjoying beers on ice from the cooler sitting by the pool with me. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tempted. I got some ice water with lemon and dove headfirst into hobby time on my laptop. I've been keeping to a fairly healthy diet since I stopped with the booze and cigarettes but I chose to have some pizza to fill my stomach up since I always preferred to drink on an empty stomach before. That got me through the cravings and I spent the rest of the night on ice water. I woke up early this morning and I'm feeling fantastic. This marks 17 days, 1 hour and 27 minutes sober. Woo hoo!!!

Congrats itsmeagain :)

Hi all day 20 for me I am still away so internet is limited. Il be posting more when I'm home. Doing ok with the av found some non alcoholic drinks I like the NA ginger beer is great with a slice of lime.I found a rhubarb drink I like. People always suggest j20 but just too sweet for me. Lots of milk lattes too ...not too much caffeine. I Hope your all ok and I will catch up with you properly when I return home. Great thing to do SirJ. Stay safe and sober xx

:) You sound great dear Greentea! :) :hug: ❤️

:grouphug:

Day 32

Bought some doughnuts yesterday as a treet
I thought they were going to be horrible and I would have to throw them away or feed them to the seagulls
But they turned out to be really nice

anyway - well done if you are still hanging on :-)

It's wonderful being able to enjoy a sweet treat again. :)
Well, it was for me. :hug: ❤️

Great, solid milestones! Congrats all!

Exercise and healthy diet finally starting to pay off. Just when I thought things had cleared, dealing with the release of hormones as I burn fat. I can feel the momentum of the past 2 weeks' routine, but who the heck decided I needed to battle AV AND hormones? Why don't we just bring on the locusts at this point?

If I make it to the other side of this sane, I will be amazed.

Congratulations on 3 weeks Robbie :)

That’s such a great response SirF, way to go! :)

That’s really good iIME! Well done on resisting the urge. Everyone was drinking around me last night and I did have a couple of moments where the AV tried to sneak into my thoughts but I kicked it out again.

Greentree I was drinking n/a ginger beer last night too, it’s delicious :)

Yum Red, they sound delicious! I definitely have a sweet tooth :)

Locusts lol, I hope not Kaptn :lmao

Sunday afternoon here, my danger zone, but I’m keeping busy and I am about to go out for a walk while there’s still some warmth in the sunshine (4.30pm here)

See ya later :wavey:

Bwuaha, that made me chuckle 🤣

^^^ Me too :lmao

Had an epiphany last night and it made me happy. I've been thinking about it since and believe it is a true mark of having turned a corner.
While visiting with out of state family last night, four of us played a game of Monopoly. Three of us (not me!) began drinking wine and 3 hours later, guess who's winning. LOL Two are just circling the board, no future having levied out all they had of value about the second glass. We took a break and will finish it today. I really enjoyed not being the one drinking. I realized that even though they were not drinking my preferred poison, I was not interested in copping a buzz, not interested in entertaining the idea of moderation, didn't need it. I didn't feel left out, I also didn't feel angry or resentful like the last time I was at a party. As I was on my walk this morning, I was marveling at my consecutive day exercise streak and thought to myself that I wouldn't miss a day at this point because I didn't want to break the chain. I don't want to start over. I didn't want to lose what I've achieved. This is how I also feel about drinking. I am beginning to accumulate enough days and have enough time sober that I'm not interested in giving up that ground. Like when I quit cigarettes, I got to a point where going back would not have been worth what I had gained and I didn't want to give any of those gains up. I finally got my stubborn streak in my corner.

My AV doesn't appeal to my empathy anymore. It seems to have taken on a pure Bully role. Somedays it puts up more of a fight than others, some days it gets me quite worked up, but I do not have any intention of rewarding it's bad behavior. I don't ever want to go back to that Hell hole. And that is my epiphany, that I'm not a slave to my AV. That it is becoming like my smoking habit, and my first boyfriend, great for stories but not related to my life anymore. It won't be a skeleton in my closet nor a monkey on my back.

I'm disappointed in myself that I have so much of my personal life/business to clean up. I was making things quite a mess.
Learning how to establish achievable goals again. A bit like learning to ride a bike again. You don't really forget but the muscle memory is weak and the core is soft. I'm making positive strides again, things are firming up. Finally.

Enjoy a sober Sunday all.

haha redcard the girl on my shirt is Britney Spears :) I've always loved her.
Yesterday was 6 weeks. Drinking has been a little more tempting as usual for someone like me at this point but I've yet to drink.
I bought something I saw on Facebook that has really good reviews for mood and energy. So when I get that I hope that helps me some as I've been kind of meh lately. Congrats to everyone racking up those days! Hope everyone has a great Sunday!

Please be careful Cute....that worries me. xx

you can make this time different CAGY. Keep on making those different positive choices :)

D

Kaptn what a great post! Thanks for sharing :)
My AV is still mixing up its tactics, but I just keep kicking it out of my head :buttkick:

Willow, you know that just because I wrote something like that here, that I am most certainly doomed to some sort of paranormal AV experience next, right?
It's just how my life goes! LOL
And why I needed to sober up.

Glad to hear everyone hanging in there. We are doing great, even when it doesn't feel like it.

Morning All. Still here and on day 38. The AV still visits from time to time, but thankfully only as a sort of fleeting thought that isn’t too difficult to dismiss with a “you don’t drink anymore”. I’m sure there will be more intense onslaughts at some stage, so I am hoping I’ll be ready to deal with that. Being grateful for sobriety every day and thinking about simple things that I managed to achieve which would otherwise have been doubtful seem to help quite a bit. Of course logging in to SR and being part of the community is just as important to me.

Off for some gardening seeing as it’s a public holiday over here. We are definitely seeing glimpses of the arrival of spring.

Best wishes for hanging on to all of you.

Monday morning here, got the week booked off work as I had some leave to use up.

For people struggling with their AV today..I must say that watching documentaries of alcoholics dying horribly in agony and alone has scared the hell out of me. Those poor souls. My AV has been extremely quiet ever since. Re-watching that kind of stuff when a bad craving hits definitely stops it in its tracks.

Wishing you all a chilled out, sober week ahead, one day at a time :)

It's day 19 here and I'm still completely sober. I took Owen90's advice yesterday and was also watching documentary videos about alcoholics. I must say I was disheartened to learn that people have gone 10 years sober and had a relapse. That was a harsh dose of reality. It made me realize that I will never be able to stop fighting. Even if I live another 10 years I'll always have to fight off the AV. I'll never be a normal person who can have a beer with dinner.

I'm proud of myself for making it 19 days sober and I'm proud of everyone else in this thread for the milestones they've met so far. Keep up the sobriety, everyone!