Welcome to the rest of my life....
 

Hey everyone.

Today is my Day one. Ive been building up to this for a long time and with much advice, love and support (mainly here in chat) I begin outpatient detox tommorrow. Which means I have to get through today - so I can turn up there tommorrow morning with a zero breathalyser reading in order to get my meds.

Im terrified. I meant to go on a bender last night as a "farewell" gesture - but lol forgot to stock up and I am a high functioning alcoholic who will not drive to get more, so didn't quite make the bender. Oh well - thats gotta be a good thing, I may pay more attention in church this morning without a hangover. Its been a long time since I have lived without alcohol in my life....

Anybody that can offer support or wisdom or prayers, please do. Otherwise wake up at around 2.30am - that would be around 9pm for me in my timezone and Im likely to be in chat freaking out and hollaring for someone to come rescue me. Ha ha.

K - thanks for reading my ramble. Feel free to :skillet me.

Those last benders are overrated anyway :)

good luck for tomorrow Gertie!

D

Glad you posted! Just post, blog, chat, do what ever it takes to get through the day sober. Not sure what "outpatient detox" is? Sounds like you will be medically supervised so that is good.

Please be extra nice to your self...and no body (including yourself) needs to be doing the frying pan to the head thing (I do it to LOL)

I'm glad you made the decision to live a sober life!

"Welcome to the rest of my life...."

Good thinking, and know that you do have 100% of the rest of your life in front of you, regardless of your past.

Welcome and congrats on your decision to quit drinking!

Thank you everyone... for the record, I made the decision to get sober over a month ago. I have been waiting for Dr referals etc to go through so I can medically manage the detox, and organizing the IOP - and in the meantime all the advice I got was, just keep drinking while you wait. Its been a long frustrating month or two. But now its all go. Now that crunch time is finally here Im feeling terrified but very very positive. My hubby just told me I "stumbled" into bed last night (luckily he was expecting it) so maybe that bender was worse then I thought. lol. I have awesome support so I am going to make this this time - but just wanna keep a running record on here to look back on and when it gets tough in the future remind myself how low I got. Thanks for all your support peeps!

My last drunk was horrible. I felt bad physically and emotionally and was so disappointed in myself. The shame was overwhelming.

I hope for success in your detox. Glad you're being supervised to be safe. Just remember to take things One Day At A Time!

:ghug3

(((GERTIE))) I'm so proud of you! :Val004:

Hi Gert, congradulations, you are on your way. Take it easy and follow the doc's orders and it will all work out.

Good for you!
:cheer

A
Hugs, hugs and more hugs. Am very proud of you and you have really inspired me to get my act together. While you have been struggling/waiting you have been super-supportive and I really appreciate it.

And kick/punch that punching bag to &^% and back

J

Good work making a great decision mate.

Just as an update for all - today is now Day 5... Its been much easier then I expected. Havnt had to get to that puching bag yet! My first prob was a habitual one - reaching for my wine glass when relaxing in front of the TV or reading a book. Solved that one by using my wine glass, but filling them with soda water with a twist of lime instead! At day five Im running into a few more emotional problems, I hate upsetting people and if I percieve that I might have I run scared. Then theres the constant denial battle ya know - my brain keeps (forgettin entirely about the diazepam assistance) telling me, see you have done it for 5 days without a problem, maybe you aint really an alcoholic after all. Thankfully Ive wised up enough tot his condition that Im recognising the triggers etc etc and doin pretty well. Hiding from thw outside world aside from my alcohol counsellor, detox nurse, therapist etc at the moment, but I think in the short term this is healthy for me too. Im doing OK. Thanks all for you love and support! :ghug3 !
Gert.

5 days is awesome, I was quite different from you, the last 5 years of my drinking was spent drinking alone in my garage, in early sobriety for me being alone was similar to torture. In my head if I was alone and awake I was supposed to be drinking!!!

What saved me was meetings in early sobriety, lots of meetings, not being alone. In detox they told me to go to at least 90 AA meetings in 90 days and get a sponsor, they also told me to spend as much time on recovery as I did drinking. Well I drank 7 days a week for years and never for just an hour or so.

Well I have to say that they were right, I spent a lot of time going to meetings, reading recovery books, working with my sponsor, talking to other recovering alcoholics.

Today I do not go to near as many meetings as I used to, I spend good quality sober time with my family, I work with other recovering alcoholics and got to 3-4 meetings a week.

Keep up the good work Gertie, I have found that any time a drink starts to seem like it might be a good idea, it is time to take action, to do something I was unwilling to do before to stay sober.

Congrats on Day 5 Gertie that is amazing. I am so happy you made this decision. It may seem tough now and even for a while but you will be happy with the outcome. You are regaining your life :)

Gertie - Congratulations on day 5, that is awesome. :)

Congratulations and good luck. I am now on Day 3 and hanging in there. I know we can all do it together.