sunset2000

I have been sober for about a week and a half now. Even though I was drinking quite a bit everyday, I didn't have much of a problem with withdrawals or anything like that. As a matter of fact until today the whole thing felt a little TOO easy. SR has been my only support so far and after reading many posts and gaining strength and wisdom from SR the past nine days, I have been feeling uplifted, empowered, strong and hopeful.

Until today. One of my old patterns was that some days I would wake up and just not care. I would feel overwhelmed by financial pressures, unfulfilled from personal relationships, haunted by previous mistakes and poor choices and generally worthless as a person. It was on these days that I would take to the bottle. All day. And those days were happening more and more often, and it was taking more and more booze to "shut off".

I knew when I stopped drinking all together that the next time one of these days rolled around I would have to figure out a way to get through it, without the escape I got from the booze.

Today was that day. A cold, rainy day in an otherwise normally sunny Southern California. At first I resigned myself to just staying in bed and watching movies. But half way through the day that just didn't seem like it was going to do the trick and I got this unbelievably strong urge to buy a bottle and nurse it the rest of the day.

I was just about to do it when something stopped me. I went into the chat room and voiced my urges. I asked "what do you do to stop drinking on the days where you wake up and just don't care?". I said the only thing preventing me was that I didn't want to ruin my ten days.

Then someone came on and said, "and you don't want to ruin the person you've become in those ten days". It bought tears to my eyes and talked me down off the ledge.

So I would just like to say how much I appreciate this site and those of you on it who continue to help us newbies. Today I dodged a huge bullet. One of many to come, I can see that now. Thank you....

thirtybubba

Welcome to SR, Sunset

I'm glad you came into chat... I wasn't there for your story, but I was there for your epiphany--it made me smile too.

'Cause I'm living in that same bleak So-Cal rain.

Baby steps when you have to... just keep going forward.

Take care,
TB

Dee74

I'm glad you dodged that bullet too sunset

D

Sneezy

Thanks, Sunset ... I'm only four days in and have the very same feeling. Things are going along pretty well, only a few mild cravings ... but I know that day is coming and I'm really afraid of it, and afraid of myself and how I'll deal with it. When you described today, and your reaction to what the chat friend said, I definitely heard you and will not forget those words of wisdom.

I wish you all the best on the path and please keep coming back. I'm a newbie here too and know that I've been blessed to have found SR!

Anna

Welcome Sunset,

I have been around here for a long time, and there are miracles that happen here every day.

I hope you keep reading and posting.

Stereosteveo

I like the 1-day-at-a-time deal.

In early sobriety sometimes when I would struggle I would say: "OK I haven't been sober in 20 years. I'm just going to do this sober deal for 1 solid year. Then I'm done." That seemed to help sometimes for some reason.