venuscat

Yes....a long time ago.
I have tons of family there. ❤️

RAL

Ah fabulous. One of my favourite book series is Gabriel Allon by Daniel Silva about the Israeli secret service. So excited to go there and see all the sights

Chancellor

Good morning everyone,
Made it through Sat night sober - woke up annoyingly early on my one day off but I woke up and I woke up sober. Having a touch of a frustrating day but handling it much better than I would be if I had been drinking - I'm calmer when alcohol is out of my system. So that's nice to recognize and a nice feeling. Congrats Ral, Tanky and Lixie on your days and really everyone in here for continuing to try. Enjoy your Sunday.

venuscat

Sending you love dear Chancellor. s ❤️

Tanky

what chancellor says. We continue the struggle. Until the struggle gets less like crocodile-pit wrestling and more like walking barefoot on the freshly mown grass. (I hope).

I got about five hours sleep. So improving I guess. 😂

I am lying in dark trying to go back to sleep, but thinking about alcohol. And how I could get it before work. I also dreamt about it. And spent a few hours before sleep obsessing about, let’s be honest. sponsor and another were there to reach out to. Plus I went back to another meeting to get passed the time when I would have been able to order it for delivery or buy it at bottle-o.

I do feel like a madwoman, perhaps more than when I was actually a madwoman. rifling through the recycling to see if I really tipped out every drop from the bust, searching the house for anything I might have hidden and forgotten to purge. 🤦‍♀️ only I know it is just alcoholism.

Will get better.

Lixie

Hang in there, Tanky!

Tanky

love these travel plans , RAL. Definitely sneaking into your luggage

Tanky

thanks ((lixie)). How you doing, sweet?

Tanky

my fingers (and toes) crossed too. ..And sorry, I don’t know why I shared that story. Probably not all that helpful.🙈🙈 Just empathising with you that it is hard to find good fit. But worth pushing through until you do. Many lovely ones who will totally be led by you on what you need to speaking about and deal with.

how are you going today?

RAL

Very welcome Thinking Athens and Istanbul too.

Where would you all go if money was no issue and everywhere was open

Zura

Good Morning All,

RAL - I agree, everything you are doing seems to be working. I hope you enjoy the book and oh what fun to be day dreaming of travel plans! Very interesting choices.

Lixie - thank you for your kindness. I'm very sorry you had experiences that were traumatic but I'm glad you have a loving partner, I think that makes all the difference. Congratulations on eating well, I think that's a super important element as well.

Chancellor - sorry to hear you are having a frustrating day but wow are you doing well getting through.Tanky - no need to apologise, I'm glad you shared, it does help validate others experiences when we know other people have gone through the same. I also know what you mean about feeling like a madwoman.....the insanity of alcoholism/addiction is perplexing. But doing the research reminds me it's not a character defect.

Bob - hello my friend, hope your doing well. Good luck with starting your healthy eating 😊.

Barnaby - how are things going?

Sunny - missing you.....such an apt name for you cause you are a ray of sunshine. I hope you are ok and really hope to see you back here real soon xxoo
Tony - missing your posts too, hope to see you back too
Well, I had a very long, heavy sleep and feeling a bit more human today. Got a SMART meeting this morning. Hoping this one is more in line with the guidelines of goal setting and tools then the last one I attended. Our histories are not meant to be spoken about but the host was prompting people to share their stories which is not meant to be done and it took up pretty much the entire meeting lol. Anyway looking forward to it. Wishing everyone a wonderful day 🥰

EllyB

Tanky— Sorry you had such a rough time of it, but glad you made it through!
Chancellor— Good work getting through Saturday night!

Lixie—- It is good to see you here again!

It will get easier, guys. We just need to make it through the next few months and keep working on our coping skills in the meantime.

Zura

Hey Elly - hope you are having a good day 😊

EllyB

RAL—- The travel plans look great! I am thinking about places to go that require me to get in better shape and have plenty of nature.Went with the family in February last year to Yellowstone and it was awesome! I didn’t even drink much.

EllyB

Zura— you too! It’s crazy— over 70 degrees F here in Northern California in mid January. The high will be 26 C! I thought that watching videos of people and places with drinking problems would help, but there were just too many pictures of people in pubs having fun.. The statistics about how many people have issues was really sobering(pun intended!) Women seem to be drinking more and more these days in lots of places, not just our culture. I sometimes wonder if I would have avoided this if iI had been less easily lured into the “ wine o clock” myth. Some can just have a glass or two, but my glass or two turned into a bottle plus most day.

Zura

OMG Elly Yellowstone!! Sounds fantastic!! It's pretty high up on my bucket list! Wow that's warm (I'm assuming it's meant to be winter). Oh yeah, I've gotta avoid visual footage of people drinking too. I find it strange as the negative bias in humans is that we tend to remember the bad things in life......yet not with alcohol 🤦 THAT we romanticise the goods times with. We will have to work hard to break that false association

venuscat

And to remember that you are watching TV and stuff and it isn't real.....and when it is real....on social media maybe?
You get to see the beginning of the night, not the end when all sorts of bad stuff has happened.
When people are throwing up and hooking up and getting car keys taken away......and then waking up the next day feeling like death warmed over.

The only 'real' people enjoying a drink, in my mind, are people who don't do it very often. It is a special treat reserved for special occasions.

OK....that's a massive generalisation.

My parents were those types of people....a drink (or two at the most ever) at a dinner party or a dance or New Years.
In older years when they stopped going out every Saturday night, my mum had one brandy and dry ginger.
And usually she didn't finish it....well, not until she realised there was someone in the house with a problem (me).
And then they started hiding all of the alcohol.

Lixie

Heading to bed. Day 6 in the box.

venuscat

Fantastic. Nite love. xx s

Zura

Ain't that the truth Venus, we see the glorified parts.

Night lixie 🥰