March_19,2006
 

Today three years ago I woke up still drunk, yet already shaking uncontrollably, hungover, feeling sick as a dog and all I wanted to do is go back to bed and die.
I called my husband who was five hours away and got him to call into work for me. He did that, he also called the police to check on me as he was concerned (I don't miss work). Apparently I convinced the officers that I was just ill and needed rest (damned if I remember).
I then went to bed and with a last large swig out of the whiskey bottle took an overdose. I wanted to 'kill the drinking'. I don't know what I took, it could have been vitamins for all I know.
I ended up in the ER with the worst withdrawal. I remember sobbing when the nurse asked me if I wanted help. The relief was amazing - somebody offered help.
Detox and rehab. Pink cloud for quite a while. Did I stop drinking? Of course not, I am an alcoholic.
I never let myself get to that point again, but I didn't remain sober and this time it's been almost 6 months thanks to SR. Am I sober and recovered or on my way? No I don't think so. I have not been drinking that's all.
I still struggle - I still want that drink. What stops me is that I don't want to be drunk if that makes sense. I keep asking myself that question every time those thoughts creep up. Drink? Yes Drunk? No.
I wish I could have held onto that pink cloud.
As for today - I will not have that drink.
Thanks for listening.

I remember doing a year by myself when i was 28, it was always a year i tried to get back and could never understand why it was so good! Never dawned on me that it was the lack of alcohol that made it better than real out there active alcoholism!

Anyways i remember, that year, i must have drunk say about 3 times...each time was just one or two drinks...BUT that was just enough and with just enough frequency to ensure that i never forgot about drinking, it was always with me even though i wasn't doing it...it's like some unconscious thing that when i got too comfortable or heppy, i would go off and administer some booze out of some kind of perverse pleasure of me suffering?!

Of course i later, last year, in AA learned that all the time i had been as sick as hell and that i am alcoholic which was such a relief...i mean if you are not an alcoholic and you have done what we have done then you are just plain crazy, right? No sane person would have done all this to themselves?!

Point is, and this isn't another AA thing, is that i needed to change myself fundamentally to be able to live free and to have the opportunity to be happy, i couldn't just put down the glass and be myself because myself was the reason i drank in the first place...i mean thats so obvious isn't it now?!

I love the pink cloud bit, i took time off to get sober last year and didn't work so my days involved lying on my bed, eating, gym, going to meetings and step work...social occasions with AA, lots of coffees with new friends, walks around town etc...all before finishing the steps of AA btw! I was thinking last week why is it when i listen to the same song i used to love listening to on my bed last year (Breeders - Cannonball) why is it i am not so 'happy' now...well here is why, cos i am working now, i have responsibilities, i am part of life and society and i am well, in other words i am not lying daydreaming about meeting Kim Deal (lead singer Breeders) at some rock concert (never been to one in real life btw?!) in America (went 17 years ago) with a crap load of cash and everyone saying what a great guy that cliff is, much the same sort of day dream that i have 'enjoyed' since 17...this is my experience with the pink cloud...

My sponsor said to me the pink cloud may last a few months may last a lifetime but eventually reality will set in, the novelty of sobriety will wear off and it will be you by yourself dealing with life again (obviously you can have support through groups etc still)...he also said that when that happens if you have done enough work on yourself you will be ok, if you haven't you will be in trouble and this made so much sense to me...always i would get some time without drink under my belt and go back to it...everything would go great, work, finances, hobbies etc then why not have one and off to the races again!

I've said this before but we had a meeting last year and we were sharing about how we would have been able to get this sooner and get, in this case, into AA quicker...the only thing that myself would have listened to in 2000 standing on the cliff (no pun intended), looking over the bay of Gibraltar thinking i am in deep poo here, is maybe not to try and control the drinking and by this i mean, just for me this is, to get out there and get on with it or get help, stop screwing around wasting time trying to fix yourself because that is just what you will be doing...wasting years of your life in limbo...

I hope you get to somewhere, be it AA or some other sort of support that can help you through this and guide you to being sober as you want to be not just abstaining...6 months is great and if you can just muster the willingness to believe in some sort of support 100% and do what they say without question you don't have to go back out there...it took a lot more drinking for me to finally be able to admit i don't know what is best for me and i DO need help:-)

I guess if we knew how to get people like us to see that they dont know best for themselves at that point on their lives we could save people a load of pain, the glaring evidence that was in front of me for all those years that i just dont know whats good for me, sitting broke at my mums house looking for another job to start again at mid thirty still saying what the **** do they know, im off to the liquor store, if i buy just 2 bottles of wine tonight and just 4 beers and eat before i go to bed, thats ok...pure insanity!

Long post?!

Drink no drunk no.

many of us would like to drink but, we can't drink just one. We get up in the morning, we're an alcoholic. We go to bed we're an alcoholic.

Change your thought process about a drink. I've never met a drunk yet that had a drink, it was always a drunk!!!

If it's any help, I feel "steady" in sobriety.

Not always elated, or overjoyed, no, but not drowning in a whole collection of miserable feelings: fear, anxiety, anger, remorse, guilt...etc, etc.

I do feel a lot of feelings of simple happiness everyday. Happiness to wake up sober. Grinding my French roast coffee beans and having that first steaming cup. Happiness to start a job, enjoy working at it and then finishing it. Happiness truly enjoying a good meal. Lots of other simple forms of happiness. Things I never could enjoy when I was drinking.

Fireworks blasting off in the sky and elation that's taking me to the moon? No, but drinking never brought me those kinds of feelings anyway. And, maybe I am simply not the personality type to feel that kind of bigger than life happiness. And, I am starting to think that little joys are good enough for me!

Thanks, you are all right.
I was just writing down my thoughts as the date, 03/19/07 (see what drinking does? I couldn't even get the year right :)), will always be special for me. The day I was offered help for something I thought I could only fight by ........well I already told you about that.
I see many pink clouds in sobriety on here, it reminds me and I miss them.
I hope theirs, as yeargr8 put it, will last a lifetime.

Saphie the key I found to escaping that mental obsession for a drink was in CHANGE!!!!

What did I change? ME!!!!

I can only share my experience with change, if I did anything else but that I would be expressing my opinion............ and we all know what they say about opinions! LOL

I found change in the steps, through change my HP lifted my obsession to drink, I can say with all honesty that my obsession to drink was almost totally GONE once I had taken step 5, by the time I was working steps 9 thru 12 it was gone!

The obsession has not returned, but I am well aware that I need to daily continue to apply the steps daily to all of my affairs to stay spiritually fit in order for things to stay the way they are & for me to continue to grow as a human being.

Recovery I have found is an ongoing process where we daily work on improving our physical, mental & spiritual states in what ever manner works for us.

Hi Saphie,

The important thing is that you are back here now and you have almost 6 months sober.

I never found the pink cloud. I was too devastated by what I had done to my family and myself and I had to work through a lot of guilt and shame.

Saphie, I think it's great you felt comfortable telling about this. I was the same - wanted to drink and have fun with it, not go off on another life-threatening binge. In the end, that's all it ever was, though. No more control - ever - and I felt I was reaching the end of my life. I wasn't ready to check out quite yet.

Like Anna, I never had the pink cloud feeling either - and for the same reasons she stated. It was so hard to claw my way back into some sort of a life, after all I had destroyed - but I wasn't ready to let the beast win.

I know how you feel - you are sober, but would like to feel really happy & good about it -enough to keep you holding on to your sobriety at all costs. I was thankful to be sober, but still felt some resentment for about the first year. Then a calmness & acceptance came over me. I hope that happens for you, my friend.

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