ExNavy, Congrats on Day 6! I am still hanging in there too!

Thanks for all the suggestions. I am back from Mom's and now I get to assemble all the stuff I got - or read directions for new electronics.

I will also be careful to not diagnose too much. I think I am just being enthusiastic and proud.

The nature of the net is to assume if we are writing something down (i.e. willing to say it out loud) that it might be burdening the author.

So far I have not felt a weak moment, other that regretting not visiting the Napa/Sonoma Wineries anymore, but that was fleeting.

I have been smart enough to stay out of my old drinking places for now. There are several places I go that are more restaurants than bars that I liked to drink at because I am single and would sit at the bar and eat and watch a game or whatever was on.

I will go back to those places and just start ordering tea. Those are not likely to be my trigger locations, not like my Irish Pubs where I would start out on Guinness and make my way to the Scotch.

Every day is a new day and I don't want to get too ahead of myself.

Right now at 12:46 on Christmas Day afternoon every thing is super groovy.

It sounds like you're doing really well ExNavy!

I do deal with depression, but haven't experienced anything like you are with your head. I do know this though - my three years of drinking did mask some physical problems that I had. Either I was unaware of them or I thought they were alcohol-related. Basically I didn't pay attention to my health while drinking, so recovery was a time to begin doing that.

I'm glad you continue to post and that you are doing well.

Alcoholism Recovery & mental illness...Depression
 

Hi Ex-Navy From Housten,

I have something that happens in my brain when I am stressed...it feels like my neck & on into my head are tingling...in a line that curves around near the top of my head.

I have had depression diagnosed when a teen and was on and off meds for several years until I was married & discovered alcohol. Then I would self-medicate with alcohol but each time I got pregnant, I would quit drinking until after my baby was born.

I eventually passed over the invisible line of alcoholism leading to the late stage after another catastrofic event in my life. I still worked, had my own home and one daughter at home. :Xmassstar

I went to mental health to make an appointment & within a few days was put in the local hospital for a medical detox. Then I started AA & also got counseling for my depression at the same time. This worked very well for me.

I made a lot of goals & followed them through..have been sober 20 years & still going. I do a lot of exploring & research of my illnesses & keep taking my meds for my depression. I do forums on my computer for Alcoholism & Depression which keeps me up to date on what is new & new people to help through my experience, strength, & hope. :Xmaselfb :Xmastc

kelsh

Alright -- the obsessive cleaning phase has started. I am cleaning out all my liquor cabinet(s).

Wow - did I have a lot stashed away. I think I was ready for Doomsday.

I boxed all the GOOD stuff, including my 3/4 $200 bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue (sigh), and the rest of the bar stash. It's all going to my best friend who just built his dream house with a running water bar.

The partials, 6 cans of Guinness and several bottles of beer all made their way down the sink.

He also gets my Refrigerated Wine Cellar and all the wine stuffed into it.

Then I have all the bar paraphernalia such as shakers, shot glasses, strainers and stir sticks. Oh yeah and my ever growing stash of wine bottle openers.

It feels good and I freed up cabinets too! I think I increased the storage capacity of my kitchen.

Good job! Congrats! Feels good, doesn't it?

Love,

Lenina

Oh yeah -- here is another Day 6 Moment:

A little personal background first:

For those of you getting to know me here and through my anecdotal stories of my life - I am single, no kids and haven't been looking for a long time.

Because of my secret life, I just knew in my heart I was not good enough to be the MAN a woman deserves to have in her life.

I am not putting myself down either.

If you take my drinking out of the equation, I am just not interested (at this phase of my life) in having a girlfriend just so I can have someone for the sake of it.

Over the last few years I have gone out with a few girls, seems I try it about once a year. But, if after a few months I am not getting a feeling inside that this is leading to love - I ended it.

There are noble reasons and selfish reasons for this behavior. The noble one is that for me I don't like to date women when there are no feelings developing (certainly not just so you can get casual sex). I have it in my head that within a month or two you should have a gut feeling if you are longing for someone or have a strong desire to protect the budding relationship.

The selfish reason mainly was I didn't want her to find out about the drinking side of me. As I have written before, I tended to let people see one side of my life -- the good guy. My bar friends knew the other guy.

Well, I would notice that I would avoid making plans for entire weekends, or during the week so I could protect my drinking time.

I have just never been the type that needed a woman in my life to keep me ship shape and enable me. I have to feel like I am admired and respected and deep down (or not so deep) I knew if these women knew the total me - they would not want me.

And worse, if they would accept me that way then I wouldn't want a woman with those kind of standards. A vicious circle no doubt to protect my drinking lifestyle. :)

Ok, that leads me to tonight.

A friend of mine has been trying to set me up with this really nice woman my age and has many of the things I am looking for going for her.

We had only spoke on the phone once before and that's when she was at my friend's house. All of us were partying, just at different locations.

Keep in mind this was about a month ago, and I have put off meeting her because I knew I was getting close to cleaning up my act. So tonight she sends me a text asking if I had plans to go out. This would have been a first time meeting.

So I just sent her a note back that I was 6 Days Sober and didn't want to go out for a little while longer. She writes back, "I didn't realize that was a problem."

Now we know that was the kiss of death for that circumstance. Any woman in her right mind would run from a guy who admits he is an alcoholic and only 6 Days clean. Of course, I don't have a history of attracting lovers in their "right mind."

It felt good to tell her. I felt I had been stringing her along anyway. I am who I am right now and I need to live as the person I am. That person is a fragile alcoholic trying to make good decisions about how I live my life from day to day and into the future.

Having said all that -- that tells me I have no business even flirting with the idea of dating right now. Since I am all alone, being selfish right now and focusing everything on me is what I think it is going to take for me to become the kind of person who is worth dating in the future.

ExNavy,

For what it's worth, I think you did the right thing by telling the "new" woman the truth. Getting sober is a full time job and the distractions of a new relationship can make it harder than it needs to be.

When I first got sober, I was in no mental shape to be in a relationship. I was lucky that I had lots of sober friends and a job that kept me busy. I also went to AA meetings and did some volunteer work. I spent a lot of time reading about alcoholism and addictions and just working on getting myself healthy.

It seems to me you are working hard and doing the right things. Keep it up! And you can always come here for support or if you have questions.

Love,

Lenina

Day 7 -- this week as flown by so fast.

Normally, since I reached my 40s I don't like the days passing so fast. This decade for me was the one I realized that I wanted to enjoy every day that comes. You start having conversations and suddenly you are not in your 30s anymore and say things like, "Wow, I am 15 years from 60. Just 15 years ago I was 30."

But it's OK this time. That means I flew through my withdrawals. I started loving myself instead of hating myself and my daily actions."

I'm not kidding myself though, I know I have so much more to heal and to recover some of the years I have lost in a drunken haze.

Life looks so promising right now.

For those of you in single digits or inside 30 days -- I hope so much that you guys make it too. Your success feeds my fire too! Years from now it will be fun to be the Class of December 2008 together.

ExNavy- I am looking forward to our Class of December 2008 ten year Reunion!

Me too! Me too!

Congrats on one whole week! It does get better!

Hi there, I am in class of Dec. 08 too! Tenth day sober here.

In regards to a previous inquiry. I suffer from depression and anxiety. That pressure you describe in your head is what I get when I am overwhelmed and stressed. It is my body telling me I need to take a time-out for a nap or some 'alone time' for an hour or two. And I also get very testy and irritable when this happens.

Thanks for sharing your story!

Thanks Seahorse ... I just wanted some confirmation that it is not an abnormal sensation. I didn't experience it yesterday.

I haven't been all that keen to get out among the masses, but it is a Friday so I plan to tip toe into public tonight.

Finally, after blowing off my 9 AM and Noon workout class I made it to 5:30.

Today has been by far my worst day emotionally. I think part of it is I got this new coffee making device for Christmas called a Tassimo and it makes the coffees using computer technology (reads a bar code) and the cups were like 3 times stronger than normal.

Because it was my new toy, I had three cups right in a row this morning. I was more wired than three cans of Red Bull. Well that Over Indulgence spun my world out of kilter this morning.

I have been irritable, unfocused, and just plain looney all day. I have turned down 3 offers for human interaction tonight - I denied them all. I just feel way too anxious.

I do feel better after the Spin Class. So I am going to shower, and go have dinner at one of my old places and have a NON-caffinated beverage.

The last thing I want right now is alcohol. But I will be going to a place that knows me as a drinker and I will be sitting at the bar. The bartender is not a stranger so he will be learning my new state of being.

I think I am strong enough to do this -- and like the guy at the end of Dirty Harry's .44 -- "I got's to know. I got's to know."

I report back after I get back. I am sure this will be one of the fastest meals in history.

eat that meal like we drank Ex...

and get the hell out as fast as ya can bro!

I couldn't eat like I drank - haha! I had to get a "to go" container - I couldn't even finish it.

The bartender was like, "Club Soda - what are you sick?" :) I said, "Yeah, you could say that." And I left it at that.

Home Safe ... thanks for checking RZ.

I had to change my playmates and playgrounds.

I'm glad you are taking care of yourself. I limit myself to four cups of tea. Then I switch to decaf chai tea and try to drink plenty of water. Exercise is great for sweating those toxins out and de-stressing.

Be gentle with yourself. You are doing great!

p.s. I associate dining out with wine. So I have not felt safe to dine out and probably will be awhile before I can do that. Also I probably will not watch that movie 'sideways' for a long time..since I always drank wine when I watched it!
I saw that movie barfly with mickey rourke also, what an awesome movie. I, also have Netflix. You can watch movies that will enhance your desire to stay sober like Blow(because of the ending, and it is a true story). I also love watching documentaries on Netflix and there are some good ones on addiction, that I plan to watch soon.

do you have a dr so you can get a physical with blood work so you can make sure you have a healthy base to work from. years of drinking can wreak havoc with a body! especially the liver and nervous system.

keep up the good work!:Xmasbstar

Day 8 ... Morning - and Prescription Drug Question
 

This is the morning of Day 8. Please try to read the whole thread - I know it's long.

I'll give an update and then I have a very serious prescription drug question.

As some of you read, yesterday was a very crazy day for me. Nothing that made me want a drink. In fact, all my "good" liquor is in my kitchen floor boxed up awaiting my buddy to come get it. I have to walk around it and there is no desire to drink.

My struggles now are with symptoms, maybe PAWs, who knows. But to add insult to injury, I am now knee deep in the cold/flu that has swept the nation in the last 2 months. Yesterday as I was driving to the gym, I noticed some sinus draining. After the class I could tell it was moving to my throat.

Ok, I'm starting to think I should have posted this on the whiners thread.

Now on to the serious topic. A week before last Wednesday I had my once/twice a year visit with my Veterans Hospital doctor. They always ask about alcohol use and I am always honest - honest at least to the point that I admit I was a daily user, but not the amount of binge days. I tell them I binge on the weekends, but not the 4 - 5 days that was my regular average.

I have been in a really bad insomnia period, so I asked them to prescribe me a short run on something of their choice. I told them that I had gotten to 75 mgs of Benadryl and that I didn't feel it was right to take more than that - 75mgs was not effective any more.

So the the intern went to my long term Doctor (the VA is a training hospital for Baylor College of Med), and came back and said OK.

Well, yesterday I get a knock on the door and it is the postman. It was a "sign for" package. When I get it inside it is my newly prescribed VA sleeping meds. I open it up and it is the proper name for Ambien.

Now understand, I have never been a pill head. I know in my heart I am not likely to abuse another drug other than alcohol. But, I went to the SEARCH button on here and looked up AMBIEN and as I read I couldn't help but think, "Oh S##t."

This drug now has me scared to even take it.

My point is I am very confident I will not blow my sobriety with the Ambien, but what has me concerned is all the negative reactions.

What I'm asking you is -- is there anyone here that has had excellent results with short-term use of Ambien?

I was given 5mg dosage earlier this year for a long plane ride to Australia and since then I have tried them a couple times and had no sleep walking or loss of memory moments. The problem is that 5mg did nothing but help me fall to sleep around 10PM and I was wide awake by 1:30AM.

So the docs up'd it to the limit of 10 mgs for this prescription.

Anyone here sing the praises for Ambien in the short term (less than a month - no refills) or is it mostly a Doom and Gloom drug?

Hi ex!

Something in your post leaped out to me- the reference to PAWS. Although clearly you're making great progress, at 8 days you're not so much at risk for "post acute withdrawal syndrome" as just plain "acute withdrawal". To put it into perspective, people in detox are still at risk for developing DTs until 3-5 days after their last drink! Insomnia is on the (long) list of symptoms associated with the initial period after you stop drinking. I'm not going to say anything about Ambien or any other sleep aid except beyond antihistamines, they all have addictive potential. Maybe you could give it some time before you try any medication.

This too shall pass :) Your brain has to get its chemistry straightened out first and it takes some serious time. Months at least.