amy55

Been up a while today. Totally convinced that I need to do this. My problem is, I still have 5 beers left, so I wanted to post this, so that I can make myself spill them out.

MycoolFitz

Welcome to day one. Yea, spill them out before they spill you. They can be tricky little devils.

amy55

Mission accomplished. Except it was 6 and not 5. Any other morning, I would have thought that I hit the jackpot.

SoberHooligan

I've had many of those days Amy, but the great thing is we never have to have them again. Glad you had the courage to start your new life now. Welcome to the start of what will be an incredible journey.

Life is better SOBAH!

amy55

I also should really go food shopping today, but I'm putting it off till tomorrow. The beer store is right next to the food store.

DisplacedGRITS

The liquor department is attached to all the stores here and i'm on a first name basis with the cashier so I getcha. Congrats on dumping the beer. You do have the willpower to do it! Perhaps you could find a shopping buddy for a while to help keep you on the straight and narrow?

amy55

I'm new to this area, and haven't made many friends here yet, probably because I isolated myself, so that no one could see how much I've been drinking. This is another thing that I need to change. What I really just need to buy is milk, so tomorrow I will just go to a little convenience store.

DisplacedGRITS

Good deal. Making a plan and sticking with it. If you can get to an AA meeting, I bet you can find a shopping for the future. I'm going to break down and tell my cashier frind at the liquor department that i'm an alcoholic. It'll embarass me too much to buy from her in the future.

Snarf

Welcome Amy, and good job pouring those beers down the drain. They'll do you much better in the sewer system than in your belly.

I know how difficult it is to avoid the temptation to drink or to purchase alcohol. I remember early on when I would go to the store for groceries, and I would have trouble not walking down the beer or wine aisle. I just had to focus on why I was there and ignore the urge to pick up a bottle or 6-pack, even if I wanted them really bad. I heard something in a sermon this morning that pretty accurately describes my mindset at that point, and ever since:

"Discipline, not desire, determines destiny."

I may have had a great desire to purchase and drink alcohol, but I had to discipline myself not to do so. When I first started drinking, I was very short on discipline, but I had desire by the truckload. But I kept ignoring those desires and forcing myself to act in a disciplined manner. As time has passed, it's become easier to make myself do the right thing and not give in to temptations. And life is so much better today than that day 16 months ago when I took my last drink.

Discipline takes practice. It's something we have to work at consciously. As we do so, it becomes less difficult to exercise.

Discipline, not desire, determines destiny.

amy55

I've been in my house now for 3 months, it needs a lot of work. I think I might have been sober for only 7 days, and the days I took off from drinking, was to give my body a rest period. This time my mindset is different. This time I am quitting. I am divorced almost 8 months. It was a horrible marriage that lasted 25 years. The best revenge I can have on him, is to live a healthy and happy life. To do that, I need to eliminate the beer. It's holding me back from my "goal", also, it's keeping me from the work that I need to do in my house.

I wish I can stay away from my "drinking places", but, my drinking place, is my house.

amy55

That's a good idea. I am going to look into AA meetings. I remember how embarrassed I was going to buy beer, I was doing this too often, so I just made my rounds to 3 different places. Even that was too much, I was on first name basis with all of them. It should have proved to me right then, that I had a really big problem.

DisplacedGRITS

Same here! I always said I was buying liquor for the house and rotated stores. InAlabama I had no less than 4 stores and still knew everyone. It's awful 'cause i'm friendly and engaging and they are nice as well. I began to think of them as my friends even though I only see them in the liquor department. So silly!

Snarf

AA has been a tremendous help to me. The first time I tried it, I was a little too self-absorbed to actually get anything out of it. When I went back, in March 2010, I saw so many similarities between myself and the other people in the rooms. Though there were many differences in those rooms (people from every race, age, tax bracket, etc), we all had a lot of things in common. And I gained lots of wisdom and encouragement and hope from those people. Very glad I didn't let my first negative experience ruin AA for me; that would have been disastrous.

amy55

Back in 2006 I drank a bottle of wine (and I am not a wine drinker, it's just that it was the only thing in the house) and took about 6 OTC sleep aids. My ex called 911, and they put it down as an attempted suicide. I really just wanted to go to sleep. After that, they released me from the hospital under the condition that I was an acute outpatient, and had to go to the hospital daily 7 hours per day for 6 weeks.

I lied about my drinking there. 3 times a week, I had to do classes for alcohol dependency. I only did 3 weeks of this, instead of 6 weeks, because I was able to lie so well. I guess that's why I'm posting here now, so that I get used to admitting the truth about my drinking. I don't want to keep lying. I'm just lying to myself, and it's not helping me.

stevie88

Welcome amy,i threw out my last beer sunday night and now im on day 2 sober...It is hard but you gotta really work at it....

amy55

I can't believe that yesterday, when I got up, that I didn't have any intention on getting sober. It wasn't until about noontime, when I realized that I had already had 3 beers, and knew my day is shot again, that I started to do research and found this place.

I'm so glad that I did !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If I didn't, I would have had those 6 beers today, so that I wouldn't drive to get some more, and would have felt that was an accomplishment, that I only had 6. It actually did feel good to spill them out.

hector

Congrats on throwing out the beer, Amy. It takes determination and courage to change your life. I'm glad to see you have it.

My wedding was about six months before I sobered up. I had lots of leftover booze that the liquor store wouldn't take back: several partly full bottles of hard stuff and cases of beer with a few bottles missing. I kept them for several months, thinking that if I just couldn't handle sobriety I had my slip stash ready. Also, whenever tempted, I'd take a bottle of beer, open it, and pour it slowly down the sink. It stunk, I thought what did I ever gain by drinking that slop, and I rinsed it down with plenty of hot water so it wouldn't stink up my apartment. I'd had enough. I was done. I finally gave all the leftovers to a cousin whose son was getting married. There has never been liquor in my home since.

My sobriety date is Nov. 27, 1988. Remember, I'm pulling for you. We're all in this together.

amy55

Thanks Hector,

I still don't have the urge to drink today, but I knew I had to get rid of the beer, because I don't know how I would feel tomorrow. I made my mind up yesterday to stop, I feel good about it, and that's what is keeping me going today.

I'm hoping that tomorrow, my encouragement will come from today, of being one day sober.

I have stopped periodically, but never for the purpose of quitting. When I would do this, the more days I got in, the less I wanted to drink, but then a party would come up, and since it was never my intention to quit, I would start up again, even though the first 2 beers tasted awful.

artsoul

Isn't that the truth?!!! haha!

Keep that focus - that you're not going to poison yourself anymore. Keep taking it one minute or hour at a time. Things are going to start getting better and you'll feel a little stronger tomorrow than you do today. I remember waking up on day 4, laying in bed and feeling content just listening to the birds outside. Something had changed. I smiled. I couldn't remember the last time I felt that way.

You're doing great. It's so hard to throw alcohol out! If you need to avoid the store right now, do it. There's always the drive-through. For the first week, I treated myself to some good restaurant carry-out - it was something to look forward to each evening. I spent all my free time here on the forum to get through the cravings. You can do this - each day sober there will be some kind of reward, something you couldn't have predicted, that will give you a little more strength for the next day. You may even want to write those things down. It's nice to have a reference because when that craving hits and the alcoholic voice starts talking in your head, it's easy to forget why we want/need to stay sober.

Congratulations on the start of your journey. It's great to share it with you!

amy55

Still doing really good here today. Feeling a little sluggish today, because of yesterday. Can't get myself motivated to do anything, started to feel like I am wasting another day, but I'm not. Even though I can't seem to do anything or want to do anything, I am doing something for me today !!!!!!!!!!!! I'm not drinking, I'm not sitting here debating if I should go out and pick up some beer, I'm not going to do that.

I don't have the urge. What I am doing today is thinking about how drinking was affecting me, and ways to make myself stronger, and staying on SR today is helping a lot with that. I'm trying to re-train my brain, the way that I do before I would start a diet. With a diet, I would try to picture myself at the weight I wanted to be at, and how good I would feel when I achieved it. Today, I'm picturing myself at 1 week, 2 weeks, 4 months, and how good I will feel about myself being sober, being able to turn down a drink, even if it's right in front of me.