caribbean

Isaiah, wow, that must have been scary! I have yet to have a drinking dream. Then again, when I started drinking seriously, my dreams went away almost completely -- I wonder if the part of my brain that dreams knows it doesn't want alcohol!

I'm travelling for a little while, my first time doing so in sobriety. Drinking and drink specials are everywhere around me at the moment. I'm not tempted, but I feel like it's a bit of a nuisance -- not something I want to *have to* think about.

deakanutz

Hey Kae, same date 10/10/10 we will never forget that one heh? Isaiah, same here first week I had a dream I was drinking at a bar, woke up scared outa my mind and was so thankful it was only a dream. 17 days and feeling freaking awesome. Thannks SR

Really4Real

Hi Stroopwafe, Tom101010 and Kae! Glad you're here!

I'm closing out three weeks tonight! Didn't have time to do the soda and lime thing I was talking about. My dog got ahold of a sleeping pill (OTC) - can't seem to get tired tonight... I dropped it and my dog was right there lickety split! Called the emergency vet and they said to give him peroxide. Poison control said I may have given him just a little too much... so I hope I'm not up all night with a sick dog. They said the pill won't hurt him... so that's good. Bad thing is they charged me $65 to tell me that. Oh well, he's worth it and my peace of mind is worth it....

Isaiah, I had a dream last week that I was at a party and ask someone to get me a few of my favorite beers (just in case). Woke up thinking I hid them somewhere and I needed to dump them out!

Caribbean, I don't know how you do it - but I'm glad you're able to be in it, but not a part of it all!

Congrats on day 4, Celx!!!! To you deakanutz for 17 -- Awesome! And to you Mick for 3 days up and gone! Great job everyone.

Have a great night!

tomdecel

Isaiah,

Man, you had me there for a second. I thought you blew it there for second. I usually get those "wet" dreams once in a while after a couple of months of sobriety. Mine are so vivid that I will wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, running to the bathroom looking for the mouthwash.

I was a closet drinker, used to wait for my wife to go to sleep to have a couple of stiff ones by myself, but in those drinking dreams, I would be drinking with other family members present and I would always be trying to discard the empty bottles before being caught.

Guilty conscious, I guess.

So far so good on my end..... day 28 in less than an hours. No craving, no desire to drink whatsoever.

MickInMd

Morning, all... beginning of Day 4 for me, and I'm starting it out by logging onto SR. It's so helpful to be part of a like-minded community, and even though we all have our own unique challenges and issues to deal with, there is this one thing we all have in common -- our overriding desire to stop drinking.

Today, unlike the last three, will be a bit more challenging for me. I've been on vacation the last three days, but today it's back to work. And, while I love my job, it's the "coming home" part that I have trouble with. Home life for me has been less than ideal for the last few years, for a variety of reasons (including, but not limited to, drinking.... both my wife's and mine.)

Still, I am committed to quitting drinking, regardless of how overwhelmed I may feel at times by my family situation. I have been told, and I believe, that a change in me will lead to changes around me, so I am going to work on me.

Starting the day off by reading everybody's posts has already got me off on the right foot today. Wish me luck ;-)

Wishing you all a pleasant and sober day.

Wrangling fear is the biggest challenge the world faces now and the challenge we all face, now and again, at our crossroads, in the dark moments, at those times we are asked to compromise, at those times when we know deep down that we must revolutionize our own lives.
~ Holly Harris, Author

tjp613

Well, Mick, I dont know if you've ever worked a recovery program before, but they do a fabulous job of restoring us to sanity just as they promise. I started on this path many moons ago (4 yrs) in Al Anon because my son was/is addicted to drugs. I credit Al Anon and SR for giving me the tools and wisdom to make some drastic changes in my life over these last few years, including this most recent change of quitting drinking and joining Alcoholics Anonymous. Getting sober will go a LONG way in helping you to manage your home life. There is always hope.

If you think about it, it's actually inevitable. I can't remember -- did you say you tried AA?

ForwardLooking

Good luck, MickInMd. My situation is similar in some ways to yours. Let me know what you plan to do when you get home, instead of just reaching for a beer.

It's now day 3 for me. I've got a bad headache: I have been drinking too much coffee and didn't sleep well last night. It will pass.

ForwardLooking

caribbean - funny that, my dreams have been paltry things for along time now, but they didn't used to be. I'm looking forward to them coming back strong.

tomdecel

Scarier than waking up from a drunk dream while sober, is waking up after a long nap while loaded, looking at the clock and not knowing if it is 10:30 in the morning or 10:30 in the evening....That has happened to me only a couple of times but it did the Sunday of my last 5 day binge and scared me into realizing it was time to stop.

deakanutz

You bring back memories DeeCelt, I too would wait for my wife to go to sleep so I could go in the bedroom and get my hidden bottle of vodka and start drinking, at this time the wife hated me so she would sleep on the couch, I actually liked it because it made my drinking easier. I also couldn't wait for her to leave for work on Saturday mornings at 8 a.m. so I could start drinking, Sick Sick Sick!

lilac0721

Good morning, all! On day 4. I feel awful. I have the flu. The first day I thought I was having withdrawals, now I realize that I was probably having both withdrawals and flu symptoms. UGH!
I haven't been to work yet this week, and am really stressed about not being there. Then again, I don't want to make my coworkers sick.
Have a good day, everyone!

caribbean

@ForwardLooking -- yes, they likely will come back. Among other factors, alcohol disrupts REM sleep, which is when dreaming happens. Also, I sleep through the night like a normal person again, instead of regularly waking up at 4 a.m. unable to go back to sleep (I almost never got hangovers, but the lack of sleep sure took its toll on my brain). It took a couple of weeks for me to "tune in" again to my dreams, and I am so grateful to have them back now!

caribbean

@MickinMD, good for you for recognizing the trigger beforehand and staying on guard. The end of the workday is a trigger for me, too. I did find that the craving and restlessness I experienced at this time of day dissipated in strength week by week (I'm on day 29 now). Making plans to do something else right away may help you reset the pattern more quickly. It does get easier, though!

Having just typed that -- wow, I can hardly believe I have four weeks sober. It has been a life-changing four weeks for me. I am grateful to have the support here at SR as well as in-person support from the AA community. A month ago, as I was coming to accept that yes, I really do have a serious problem and I needed to get out before something happened that I couldn't get of or repair -- no one could have convinced me that AA would work for me. A program started by a bunch of white men 75 years ago that talks about God is going to help me stop drinking? You gotta be kidding me. :rotfxko Now I'm so incredibly thankful for it.

I again have a chance at the future I want instead of a future that will include more and progressively worse destruction. Everyone who posts here helps me with that; thank you.

caribbean

@lilac -- feel better! I think our immune systems readjust when we stop drinking, and this is the time of year when lots of viruses are making the rounds anyway. I got a cold early on in my recovery, too, and I rarely get sick. My theory, and this is not medical advice in any way, is that my body was no longer fighting the effects of all the poison I was routinely dumping into it, so it relaxed its defenses more than usual. Wham!

13579

It's almost November, but since we still have a couple of days, I thought I'd pop in and say good morning.

I've read some great posts from the "Class if October 2010", thanks for sharing.

tjp613

Lilac - If I'm not mistaken "flu-like symptoms" are common in alcohol withdrawal...so you may not be contagious.

Some of these sure sound like they could be mistaken for the flu!

tjp613

WELCOME 13579! Should we just call you 13 for short? hehehe

caribbean

Ha, tjp -- I think s/he's just "odd".

13579

Nice... you got my "odd" reference. I've always thought I was a bit out there compared to some of my peers, not that it's necessarily a bad thing!

tjp613

Oh Dang... I didn't catch that... I thought it was a zip code! duhhhhhhhh