Ananda

Is that a resentment brewing????

scoob

joinedintime

Resentment? I wasn't thinking it at the time but if that picture is what it looks like, I'm ready. Let's go.

Ananda

For vacation this year my mom is gonna hire a tornado chaser to take us chasing

She's 81 and still full of the adventure of life....I wanna be like her when i grow up

joinedintime

Nice! Good for her, and for you. Do you live where tornadoes happen fairly regularly? If we hired them out here they wouldn't be earning their money.

Hey, I got new business plan! I'm going to open up Earthquake Chasers! We'll have a reality TV show in no time too.

Ananda

I live in kansas JIT...did you miss the exitement a few years ago when a tornado hit my workplace and messed up my roof and deck?

I stayed upstairs watching till the 3rd time the sirens went off and the tornado was hitting the city limits

yeah...I jump off cliffs and walk through dark alleys too

joinedintime

Yeah I missed that but ok, you're in tornado alley. We got 'em when I lived in Illinois so I moved away to SoCal where we have earthquakes. But, really, the fires have been WAY worse than the earthquakes. More baking than shaking.

BTW, I walk down dark alleys but no cliff jumping yet.

flutter

Hey all Happy Saturday!
I don't have much time right now to post, but I'll be back later to read and post. Taking baby Jameson to his grandma and grandpas for the night, which will really free up some time!

Ananda, we had some tornado action here too a couple of days ago, then yesterday it snowed.. and today all rain. Colorado weather is not for people who need any predictability in their lives!!

I'll be back..

Ananda

my sponsor has me doing something i consider stupid and disruptive...but...i am learning alot in trying to comply lol lol maybe thats the point!

Rule 62 = don't take yourself too seriously

flutter

Ok, better late than never. My story (nutshell version).

I was always a drinker, high school, college. I always drank to get drunk, I never saw the point otherwise. When I went to graduate school in another state, all alone, I kept drinking but often by myself, and I knew by then I had an issue.

Moved back and continued drinking almost nightly to 'have fun' and relax, began feeling aching around where my liver lives.

Met my husband, got married. Drinking was our form of 'something to do', became very well known at our local bar (very Cheers-esque), I thought I had a ton of wonderful fun friends, who also liked to drink like fish. Went to work most days hungover, eventually fired from a job for not doing my job well, I know looking back that had I not always been in such a haze, I would have performed better.

A few key things happened that I look back now and can identify as important in the escalation of my drinking.
~2 years ago my pup was diagnosed w/ diabetes, it threw my world into a tailspin, and I began drinking before giving her her injection, to 'relax' because of the anxiety I felt.
~Shortly after that, we attended a destination wedding for a week in Mexico, all inclusive. I finally had 'permission' to drink all day every day, and boy did I.
~Then in that same summer (08), a local grocery store started selling liquor. It's otherwise illegal to sell liquor in stores other than liquor stores. My sick mind found this as a great way to 'hide' buying alcohol, adding it to my grocery receipt, and that is when I started drinking vodka in my closet.

I'd drink it when I got home from work, I'd slam it before we'd go to the bar. My poor hubby actually thought I had cut down on my drinking a ton because we'd then go out and I'd only want a drink or two, because I was already so buzzed.

Of course THAT escalated and I began drinking when I'd wake up on the weekends, to kill my hangovers. I took that way too far one day (8/31/08) and woke up in the ER with my parents and hubby at my side, and a doctor telling me he didn't know how I was alive, but that my BAC was .568

I drank again 3 weeks later, having convinced my husband that since I went three weeks, I could control it.

On 12/17/08, I showed up at work after drinking several shots before going in.. forgot I had a meeting w/ my boss. My entire world collapsed.
I haven't drank since.. I didn't lose my job, I didn't lose my husband, but I came horrifically close to both.

I entered into counseling, 1:1 two times a week with an addiction psychologist. That coupled with wanting to be sober WAY more than I ever wanted to be drunk again, and a vow to myself, my husband, and my job that I would never drink again, something clicked, and I haven't.

I love my sober life
Several months after that incident, we became pregnant. Something I had put off for YEARS so as to not interfere with partying (ugh!).
I have a beautiful baby boy who is about to turn 5 months old, and he is the greatest blessing I ever could have asked for, a true gift for a life better lived.

If you got that far, kudos to you!!!

HideorSeek

Wow, flutter, thanks for sharing that and congrats on your sorta-new baby! What a blessing that he/she has a sober mom. I'm afraid that I'll be making amends to our 2 girls for the rest of our lives. But, it is what it is and all I can do is move forward as a power of example. I came within inches of them giving up on me and just the other night, our youngest told me that I am one of her best friends! But I know that that would vanish in an instant, were I to pick up.

joinedintime

I got that far.
Thanks for sharing
I can relate to much of your story....except I didn't get pregnant after getting sober

but seriously, regarding this part -

Wow. You were lucky. And is sounds like your husband and your boss were lucky too.

Ananda

I'm struggling ... I'm very uncomfortable....

I've been reading my diaries and poems from my first 2 year sobriety in 85-87. Its all rather mind blowing...It's both inspiring and depressing at the same time.

I know lots think just leave the past alone...but seeing my past as I wrote it down at the time...it helps me have more balance today utlimately...but first as I knaw through the bones of it...I feel very very wierd....

I don't know..just needed to share that...I don't feel "fun cheery and light right now...and i am not gonna fake it....humor and laughter and joy are important..but so is honoring your past and the people in it....

I want to appologize for being a bummer, but i'm not going to...I am where i'm suppose to be and I don't need to appologize...

Thanks for listening.

HideorSeek

Ananda, I agree about the benefit of rereading our journals. While I am going through something, it helps me vent, safely, and work things out in my head. In hindsight, it shows me, more often than not, that whatever was bugging me at the time, wasn't as catastrophic as it seemed. And, thirdly, it helps me see the themes of my issues. Invariably, the same defects rear their heads in different ways. My particular ones are expectations and fear.

I think that it's good to look at our pasts. I do think that we are making progress, but we often don't see it at the time.

You can say anything you like, because we love you.

Ananda

I like the me i was better than i like the me now

even though i remember being depressed and hurting almost all the time back then....i was a better person...

it confuses me.

joinedintime

Hey don't apologize for being down or not wanting to be funny. Fun is great here, and great period but I, for one, wouldn't be here if it was only for fun. Plus I think a lot of us avoided sobriety for years because it didn't seem like it was possible to have fun unless we were drunk or high. Truth is that sober fun is much more real. Along with that the down times are real too. The beauty is that seeing feeling and experiencing the real fun and the real down can bring real peace and wisdom. It comes to us, I think, in glimpses and flashes but it does come. What's really interesting to me is that you can't chase it, you have to let it come to you.

Looking at your past is good. Visit it, examine it when you feel moved to do so, but don't move and live there.

You're doing well, Ananda.

HideorSeek

Hmmm....you said "85...that was 25 years ago...a long time. Why is it that you liked yourself better then? As opposed to liking your life better, which of course, are 2 different things.

Ananda

funny thing is my LIFE wasn't real good back then...

but i had real faith that life had a purpose and i accepted things as being how they were supose to be regardless of any hurt I felt about it. I just had such confidence...and I was compasionate and I really sought out the best thing to do in any cercumstnces and was honest to myself about my part....rather than blaming others...

today i fall off balance continually....I look at how I was and wish i had that inter attitude.

Anyhow I'm better today...I can't really go back to who I was...I will need to accept that I am who i am today because that is what i need to be right now if that makes sense....

Dee74

I'd hate to be the me I was 25 years ago dealing with this ****

You're doing great Nands - I think maybe this time you're really delving into all sorts of areas you haven't before? that has to be rough and scary and uncomfortable sometimes - but you're doing it...

You're a great example


D

joinedintime

Yes, I'll second that thought, you are a great example.
You are exploring yourself and your life and you're sharing it with us as part of that exploration. I think that sharing is key because, at least for me, I find sometimes that I don't really know how I feel about something until I have to find words to describe it to someone else.