Daisywings

BTW I have three degrees - doesn't insulate anyone from this illness.

Cath1029

Day 18 for me today. Can't remember the last time I went that long without drinking. Wow.

My sponsor had me over for dinner last night and to work. She made a great big dinner, which was great since I have been eating Stouffer's for the past 2 weeks. I ate like a pig (lol). Then we worked for about an hour before going to a meeting, Steps 1-3. There is a lot of work to do, and it's kind of cool because in the beginning you learn how to keep your work sacred and give it the weight it deserves. A lot of it is preparing for Step 4, but it kind of trains you.

Still scared about the next 3 weeks and how I'm going to survive financially, but I am learning to trust that HP will take care of me.

Kez

definitely not.......it has been a struggle though

Kablume

Welcome Kez and Fletch. Congrats Carrie and Cath! I'm glad your dinner and meeting went so well Cath. That is wonderful. I am supposed to go to a new meeting with a woman I met at a meeting last week. She has 5 1/2 years sobriety. It is nice just getting to know someone sober. I am in the process of looking for a sponsor. Getting to know women at the meetings I am going to. But it takes time. I'll know when I know I suppose. Anyone got any tips on finding a sponsor?
Hope everyone has a good sober day today.

Cath1029

At my meetings, which are fairly large, they ask who is willing to be a sponsor, and they stand up so you can see them.

But I actually found my sponsor through a woman I befriended at one of the meetings who is working a great program. She prayed on it, and she said that HER sponsor kept popping into her head. So she introduced us, and the woman agreed to sponsor me. It has been a wonderful relationship so far. So just kind of keep putting it out there to people you feel comfortable with at meetings, and I'm sure you will be connected.

Kez

Thankyou Kablume, and sorry I have no idea about sponsors,,, although maybe I should...

ANGELINA243

Fletch2468--welcome back to the forum here--September class. Congrats on Day 1.

Daisywings--all any of us have is today......hang in there--you are not alone.

Renee B

Carrie- congrats on two weeks! Today is also my two week mark...hooray! Haven't been sober this long since my last attempt at sobriety about 4 years ago.

TB and LR- I hope you guys have a good day at work and get some sleep this evening! I am thankful that pretty much nothing keeps me awake at night.

Have a great day everyone!! First day of Fall today, isn't it? Or was that yesterday? Either way...summer is OVER.

endzoner

hi everyone ..... tue marks the first day of fall according to the kitty calendar hanging on my wall . I dont want it pweeeezzee can we just keep summer .. Its ok , Ill survive got SR and other supports to keep me going and not to mention my job .

Carrie and Renee9 thats fantastic 2 weeks wahooooo.. and just think what your feeling and experiencing is just a grain size piece of sand its gonna grow like the beach ! stick with what you ladys are doing, it works for you and thats what counts ! finding meetings that you can relate to and getting a sponcer and workin the program is a big part of recovery , dont know where i would be in mine if I didnt do my share .

Daisy day 1 for you and you should be proud of yourself for reaching out . just an fyi .. addiction dont care if your smart, or poor , or famous , or male or felmale its not bias, All it cares bout is that you love it more then anything . Im female btw , some think male because the name .. nope im all tomboy ( girl ) lol . 6 yrs of recovery and growing each day in my recovery ,
Many think at the stage of yrs in recovery its pretty done , you just keep doing what your doing , well thats moslty correct but we learn each day and find insperations in you newcommers and oldtimers as well . its being teachable I for one love learing ( gosh i wish i would of said that in highschool ) aslo Meletonins rock ! they do work and i still take them on occassion when i cant sleep , wish I would of known bout them yrs ago ,

as to the Gin comment ( so many posts to click back on sorry ) tho the reason may seem to make sence it all boils down to one simple thing thats " control " many have tried that thinkin process and failed , its seems logical and all , but it will be so easy for you to just open that freeze and takin it out and drinkin it , Soberity comes with work and determination , your alki brain is saying keep it , " whispers " just in case something makes you mad and you need to chill " , i know its a comfort thing being there , but does it really need to be there ? cuz if you really wanted it and drank it whats to stop you from going to get more ? all you gotta do is not"" take that first drink and NOT having it at a foot steps away. just my two cents on that .

Today im greatful for ...... the rain showers we had , washing away all the dry dirty dust and watering the fields of corn and such , having the day off and being lazy a wll needed day ( but im gonna bake yum yums ) so with all this said .. its time to go whip up a batch of Zucchinni breads .. much huggles ~ endzy ~

BetterTimes

Hour 36 of sobriety.

I wish I were in a better mood. I feel bad that I am not being more supportive to everyone else here, but I feel like crap (would have used a stronger word for "crap" given how bad I feel, but I don't want to be offensive). I'm feeling depressed. It feels like nothing will ever feel good again and I just want to shut down. Last night, a guy I am dating off and on called and I could not bring myself to answer the phone. Afterall, what would I say funny and entertaining if I wasn't drinking?

Off to work. I am actually relieved to have something else to focus on aside from how yucky I feel. I hope everyone has a good day today.

a fallen man

36 hours indicates you've made it through the first night of no sleep if you were like me. i love going to work because it eats up a major part of the day for me. then i just have to make it through the hard part....not stopping at the liquor store on the way home. trying to stay busy at home. checking this website has helped me.

you can do it better times and they will indeed be better times if you abstain. wishing you luck and peace in your battles.

a fallen man

working on day fourteen today.

passed the weekend tests again. we had a football game and instead of going up early for tailgaiting i made sure i wouldn't arrive until about 30 minutes before the game.

i ran into a friend who had an extra ticket for the club seating.....where they serve alcohol of course. i was able to just sit back and observe folks getting smashed and realized that would have been me had i not called it quits two weeks ago.

it's so much better to watch a game straight instead of on the verge of passing out. unfortunately we SUCKED and now i can remember it well....lol. still better than not remembering what happened.

my sleep is much better now and i feel so good when i get up for work.

how about my fellow day 14ers....you still out there???

karma79

day.. hmm, 22 I think today so I'm in the same range. I'm a little similar to you - college football saturday used to equal me being completely smashed by 3:00pm & trying to find Texas fans to yell at and/or beat up. I went to my moms saturday to watch a game and I found it to be just as enjoyable sober. Her and my step-dad drank but I didn't. She asked me why I wasn't drinking and I told her that the last time I wrecked my car (I was drunk AND sending a text message and ended up hitting a brick mailbox.... sooooo stupid) I figured it was time to stop. She said she was proud of me and agreed that it was probably a good idea, lol.

When I got home, my girlfriend and I had some friends over and us guys kicked the girls ass at trivial pursuit and played rockband until 3:00 am. I think I said this a few weeks ago as well but normally the party would have been over around midnight as I would have been too drunk to make sense.

Now that I am this far in, I am finding that I have absolutely no desire to drink anymore. I keep telling myself that yeah, it's fun... but only temporarily. Brutal hangovers are there for a reason I suppose. By no means am I saying "I am cured!" and I know I'll have to take things easy for the rest of my life, but my outlook is much brighter than it was even a month ago.

PLUS I get ID'd for cigarettes again. I took turning 30 pretty hard but that makes me feel good, lol.

Renee B

Fallen- I'm on day 15 myself. Congrats on dodging another weekend of drinking- sounds like you had some great control during the football game. Not sure I could've done the same and came out of it unscathed. Great job!!

Karma79- I'm newly 30 myself and am feeling similar about not having a desire to drink for the most part...but don't let your guard down. I've done that in the past and it just took a split second and I was pouring a beer down my throat. It's so refreshing to not have those nasty hangovers (I swore some days I thought I was going to literally die) and that you have a brighter outlook!

Endzy- thanks for the comparison of the grain of sand with a whole beach in my future...that sounds so lovely and encouraging...I WANT that! Thank you for reminding me. It's so nice having someone with several years under their belt to help guide us "newbies".

Have a great day everyone!

TheLadyb

Today is day one for me again.
September 21, will be my sobriety date.
I am going to do the 90 in 90 and throw myself into AA and this site.
I am trying, really really hard to stay sober.
But I can't do it alone.
I need to go to meetings, get a sponsor.
MY LIFE IS A FREAKEN MESS.
I seriously will try anything to stop this madness.

Lonelyranger

SO much to catch up on and i was gone for such a little time... Congrats to everyones day of sobriety. Welcome, to the day ones we missed you. Sry i have such a short attention span i hope i got everyone :P
So as far as work went, took lunch about 1hr ago was passing by the liquor stores made it by, working my self towards the nearest fast food joint, then i started seeing the lit up neon signs on the beer stores and made a U turn and came straight home.... Woot for will power :rotfxko.... anyway im home going for a run i think.....

Fletch2468

Well nearly made it through the dreaded day 1, feeling slightly better than first thing this morning anyway, but not looking forward to tonight's sleepless anxiety filled, freaking out night.
Lonelyranger well done on the U turn and will power. The run sounds like a great idea, tire yourself out a bit, hopefully get a better nights sleep. Ive got a 10k run next month for cancer research so I really need to get back in to training.

PrimalScream

Good day everyone...Isn't it great to be Sober!??? Day 12 for me. I slept crappy again last night but I still feel pretty good today. I did sleep for about 3 hours and woke up at 2am...laid there for about an hour trying to get back to sleep then dreamt the rest of the night in about 45 min segments...not to bad. Welcome to all the first dayers and congrats to everyone else on their continued sobriety. Good call on the U turn Lonelyranger. Nice string of days there Renee B, karma79 and a fallen man...sorry for anyone I missed, you are all awesome and courageous for deciding to live sober. Daisywings, I have tried melatonin before, many times actually. It does put me to sleep, it usually lasts about 5 hours for me and does give me crazy dreams...however I find it leaves me in a bit of a fog the next day and I find if I use it for more than 4 or 5 days I start to get a bad headache from it during the day. So I have been staying away from it these last 12 days...I am not sleeping as well as I probably would if I was taking it but I am clearer during the day and seem more upbeat. But it is good if you need to get some sleep, and not every gets the same effect from it I do. My ex girlfriend use to, and still does, take it every night and she sleeps like a baby and feels great the next day. Have a great day everyone!!!

a fallen man

thanks for the great post primal scream. you people give me strength to keep on truckin'.

yo want to heal and purple cat. it's almost day 14 under our belts....TWO WEEKS!!! great job guys.

thirtybubba

Wow, it's nice to read so many posts by so many people getting on with their sober lives. Inspirational...

I guess this is still my first 24hour of sobriety, can't even remember when I took the last shot. I thank everyone who was there with me last night, that was the roughest night I've been through in a long, long time. Everything kept going wrong, and I wasn't in any shape to deal with any of it.

And because of my state of mind, I forgot to do several things that only made it all worse. Especially eating. I was running on empty the whole time, forgot all about eating--which probably contributed to my sleep deprivation and slightly insane state of mind. That's probably one of the worst things about sobering up alone, in my opinion. Even if I don't want to do the basic things, I have to do them myself.

So now, I am forcing down some succotash I don't want, and drowning it in non-alcoholic water, which tastes so refreshing. My hands are shaking so bad everything keeps falling off the spoon. I finally did get some sleep last night, but not much. Had a board meeting and the publicity person suggested I go home and to sleep. After we adjourned, I decided to do that.

I feel really bad about missing a whole day of school, and I missed Thursday because of drinking. But I need to take care of myself right now, not everything else. When I'm better, I can do all those other things in half the time and a tenth of the mental energy required. That's my commitment to myself, today.

Take care y'all, keep up the good work.
-TB, curling up in a blanket.