Today Is The Day
Member
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Irish
Posts: 552
The Guitar has been my Best Friend sense I quit Drinking and Druging 25 years ago.......Keep Practicing and get AA Meetings........Congratulations on your Soberiety.
Here is a great Site to help you with Chords and Songs.
http://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&rct=j&...5U-wmiYY1kzc6A
Here is a great Site to help you with Chords and Songs.
http://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&rct=j&...5U-wmiYY1kzc6A
Member
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Ninja Camp
Posts: 495
Hey Huntress.
Do you have any good books? I haven't read it but everyone here says "The Help" is good.
You could also make crank calls. I don't know what the equivalent of Prince Albert in a can is where you are...but you get the idea.
Hang in there!!! Have a great day!! 17 is a lucky number!!
This is you on the end in a few weeks.
--------->
Do you have any good books? I haven't read it but everyone here says "The Help" is good.
You could also make crank calls. I don't know what the equivalent of Prince Albert in a can is where you are...but you get the idea.
Hang in there!!! Have a great day!! 17 is a lucky number!!
This is you on the end in a few weeks.
---------> now what?
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2011
Posts: 85
A personal observation regarding my past alcohol consumption:
I think a large part of my addiction was the ongoing knowledge that I wasn't supposed to be drinking that much or drinking at all in some cases. It made it more fun somehow. It's like a part of me was perpetually five years old and getting away with something while my parents weren't around.
Sick sick sick.
I think a large part of my addiction was the ongoing knowledge that I wasn't supposed to be drinking that much or drinking at all in some cases. It made it more fun somehow. It's like a part of me was perpetually five years old and getting away with something while my parents weren't around.
Sick sick sick.
Member
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Alaska
Posts: 1,458
I think a large part of my addiction was the ongoing knowledge that I wasn't supposed to be drinking that much or drinking at all in some cases. It made it more fun somehow. It's like a part of me was perpetually five years old and getting away with something while my parents weren't around.
For me now a days drinking always symbolized "Wow, I'm a grown up now and I can be treated like one because I drink"
Rather stupid idea actually. LOL
Member
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Ninja Camp
Posts: 495
Hi my sober twin!!! Day 18!!
I will have to figure out how to do the quotes. For now I wanted you to know it has been a hectic day and this totally cracked me up:
- Dance like it hurts. Love like you need the money. Work when people are watching. -
Have a great day!
I will have to figure out how to do the quotes. For now I wanted you to know it has been a hectic day and this totally cracked me up:
- Dance like it hurts. Love like you need the money. Work when people are watching. -
Have a great day!
Soberawake
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: New York, NY
Posts: 3
different & exactly the same
huntress, (good pseudonym)
i am in nyc, a librarian not militarian, with college age sons. i am home right now because everyone i know or socialize with drinks at this time of year. as far as i can tell they drink normally and i most definitely do not. my husband went to a party without me and i am trying to figure out how to use this "site" because aa and other groups make me uncomfortable for many reasons. really, my fault for finding only friends who drank and then when people started tapering off, i did not.
too unhappy, too programmed, too fragmented who the hell knows? not me (yet).
soberawake (i may change mine)
i am in nyc, a librarian not militarian, with college age sons. i am home right now because everyone i know or socialize with drinks at this time of year. as far as i can tell they drink normally and i most definitely do not. my husband went to a party without me and i am trying to figure out how to use this "site" because aa and other groups make me uncomfortable for many reasons. really, my fault for finding only friends who drank and then when people started tapering off, i did not.
too unhappy, too programmed, too fragmented who the hell knows? not me (yet).
soberawake (i may change mine)
Soberawake
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: New York, NY
Posts: 3
Originally Posted by Cascabel 
Thank you for your articulate post. Your struggle is similar to mine but without the isolation of being overseas and with the difference that I was sober for over 30 years before resuming drinking again. I am in my mid 70's and quit drinking for the first time when I was in my 40's. I quit for many of the same reasons you have listed: the need I felt to increase the amount I drank; the need I felt to hide from others how much I drank and the feeling that alcohol was beginning to interfere with my health and family life.
I started drinking again about 2 years ago at a stressful time in my life; my wife had serious health problems and drinking seemed to ease things. She has now recovered but I am struggling with stopping my drinking. I want to quit, I like myself better as a teetotaler, but can't seem to put together more than 2-3 sober weeks in a row.
I don't drink huge amounts, at least not according to some of the accounts I have read here. I will typically drink about a bottle of wine per day, sometimes more, starting in the late afternoon and finishing by dinner. But, I feel a constant desire to have more. I have no withdrawal symptoms when I quit although I seem to be less depressed and sleep better after a few days. My main problem is that I just can't seem to stick with quitting. Sober time will pass and I start thinking "what the hell, you were never a drunk, things weren't that bad, you can control what you drink" and then I fall off of the back of the wagon again.
Well, like you, I am quitting again today and will do my damnedest to stick with it this time. I wish you the best with your sobriety.
I started drinking again about 2 years ago at a stressful time in my life; my wife had serious health problems and drinking seemed to ease things. She has now recovered but I am struggling with stopping my drinking. I want to quit, I like myself better as a teetotaler, but can't seem to put together more than 2-3 sober weeks in a row.
I don't drink huge amounts, at least not according to some of the accounts I have read here. I will typically drink about a bottle of wine per day, sometimes more, starting in the late afternoon and finishing by dinner. But, I feel a constant desire to have more. I have no withdrawal symptoms when I quit although I seem to be less depressed and sleep better after a few days. My main problem is that I just can't seem to stick with quitting. Sober time will pass and I start thinking "what the hell, you were never a drunk, things weren't that bad, you can control what you drink" and then I fall off of the back of the wagon again.
Well, like you, I am quitting again today and will do my damnedest to stick with it this time. I wish you the best with your sobriety.
same experience
bottle of wine and frequent strong cravings for more
out at gatherings for awhile now getting drunk while others were NOT
terrible shame, yet can't seem to quit for good
soberawake
now what?
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2011
Posts: 85
I'm still here, lurking a bit since I haven't had any insights about drink lately. Plus, I have a cold that hit me pretty hard last night and today, so I'm padding around the house in my jammies feeling sorry for myself.
How are you?
d
How are you?
d
Member
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Alaska
Posts: 1,458
Not bad. At work, bored. Can't work on my son's new netbook because we don't have any wifi hotspots in the building. Drinking my tea, lurking on the message threads here. Should be planning my meals for next week but don't feel like it, should be writing on my gardening blog, but don't feel like it, should be reading my kindle book but don't feel like it
LOL
LOL
Re-Member
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado
Posts: 7,583
I have a tiny insight, that is just hitting me today. I am noticing a lot of pre relapse posts, where the person is all but saying that they don't think sobriety is all it is cracked up to be. Last year was my first sober New Years in a decade or more, but this year I am tuned into others a bit more here this year.
Lots of folks are see-sawing back and forth today. Setting up excuses and rationalizations.
I am as last year fine personally, and will stay home and off the streets with the love of my life and two pups tucked in bed wondering when all the scary firecrackers are going to stop and come running into the living room with us!
It is another day and night like any other. I now assign it as a bright new year to do better than we did last year, nothing more, and nothing less.
Everybody keep your mind on the goal. And happy New Year if I don't see y'all before then.
Lots of folks are see-sawing back and forth today. Setting up excuses and rationalizations.
I am as last year fine personally, and will stay home and off the streets with the love of my life and two pups tucked in bed wondering when all the scary firecrackers are going to stop and come running into the living room with us!
It is another day and night like any other. I now assign it as a bright new year to do better than we did last year, nothing more, and nothing less.
Everybody keep your mind on the goal. And happy New Year if I don't see y'all before then.
now what?
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2011
Posts: 85
Thanks, y'all. I'm still under the weather--fever, aches, sore throat, congestion--but time (and maybe some Motrin) will take care of it.
I've been seeing the same posts/comments, Itchy. I wonder if said people have forgotten what the bottle was actually like (as opposed to their rosy, poorly-informed memory).
You know, I had a lover many years ago who was wonderful at first and I fell desperately in love with her. I was still in love a couple of years later when her affections drifted to another. I gave her chance after chance, but she was emotionally gone. I finally scrounged up what little was left of my pride and I left. Funny thing, though: I remained in love with her for several years after that, even after the fights and the rejection and the pain, after I knew there was no heaven there and never would be again. Eventually, I got over her, but emotions are not swayed by reason; they need time.
Drinking is the same, I think. It is a relationship that is wonderful at first, and despite how awful it gets, we insist on remembering how it was in the beginning, even after we know it will never, ever be that way again. It doesn't matter that it hasn't worked for us in years. It doesn't matter that it has brought us untold anguish. We still see it as that perfect love that makes everything all right.
It isn't, though, and over time, I trust we'll relegate it to the same musty halls where all the other lovers gone bad go.
d
I'm still under the weather--fever, aches, sore throat, congestion--but time (and maybe some Motrin) will take care of it. I've been seeing the same posts/comments, Itchy. I wonder if said people have forgotten what the bottle was actually like (as opposed to their rosy, poorly-informed memory).
You know, I had a lover many years ago who was wonderful at first and I fell desperately in love with her. I was still in love a couple of years later when her affections drifted to another. I gave her chance after chance, but she was emotionally gone. I finally scrounged up what little was left of my pride and I left. Funny thing, though: I remained in love with her for several years after that, even after the fights and the rejection and the pain, after I knew there was no heaven there and never would be again. Eventually, I got over her, but emotions are not swayed by reason; they need time.
Drinking is the same, I think. It is a relationship that is wonderful at first, and despite how awful it gets, we insist on remembering how it was in the beginning, even after we know it will never, ever be that way again. It doesn't matter that it hasn't worked for us in years. It doesn't matter that it has brought us untold anguish. We still see it as that perfect love that makes everything all right.
It isn't, though, and over time, I trust we'll relegate it to the same musty halls where all the other lovers gone bad go.
d
Life Health Prosperity
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Louisana
Posts: 6,752
Just dont drink
Originally Posted by huntress
I'm still here, lurking a bit since I haven't had any insights about drink lately. Plus, I have a cold that hit me pretty hard last night and today, so I'm padding around the house in my jammies feeling sorry for myself.
How are you?
d
How are you?
d
now what?
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2011
Posts: 85
Another observation that I just made while chatting with my partner....
I've read a lot all my life, but for many years now, I've not had the patience or concentration to sit down with a good book and lose myself in it. I've recovered this ability with sobriety. I had been working on it before I quit, and yes...some of the ability to read for long stretches simply comes from practice, but my abilities have shot through the roof now that I'm sober.
Just one more awesome thing about sobriety.
d
I've read a lot all my life, but for many years now, I've not had the patience or concentration to sit down with a good book and lose myself in it. I've recovered this ability with sobriety. I had been working on it before I quit, and yes...some of the ability to read for long stretches simply comes from practice, but my abilities have shot through the roof now that I'm sober.
Just one more awesome thing about sobriety.
d
now what?
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2011
Posts: 85
I keep reading other people's comments about having strong urges and weakness and relapses and one day at a time is all you need and "forever" is just too much to handle at once, and I honestly don't get it.
I understand doing it "one day at a time" in the beginning--through the withdrawals and while you're developing new habits and discovering new interests--but I can't imagine living the rest of my life focusing on not drinking today. Somehow, the very idea seems to keeps drinking too immediate in my head. As long as I am focusing on surviving the day without drinking, it remains a part of my life--a part I must constantly reject. I find it easier to just embrace "I will never drink again" once and for all then move on.
I realize this strikes people as strange, but it really is easier for me to face the fact that my life has changed forever, that I can never go back. Now I am free to go about filling the spaces with stuff I enjoy that is not bad for me (and maybe is even good for me).
When I was a kid, my parents punished me one summer, for failing to make all A's and B's on my last report card of the year, by taking television away from me until I brought my grades back up. It didn't matter that television was not the reason I'd not made the grades; that was the rule. I decided immediately that it was only a punishment if I sat around wishing I could be watching TV. I spent most of the summer in my room, writing, reading, drawing pictures, listening to music. After I did bring my grades back up, six weeks into the next school year when the first report cards were issued, I got my TV privileges back but didn't return to watching television. I had learned in the ensuing months that I didn't even like it that much. My life was truly happier and more rewarding without it.
Bars do not a prison make.
I think alcohol is the same way. I can't have it. There's no point in mourning it, or even giving a passing thought to it, let alone focusing on it for any reason. Life is so full without it--already.
I'm not knocking what works for everyone else. I'm just saying I don't really understand what's so hard about putting down the bottle and getting on with your life, because that's the way I'm wired.
d
I understand doing it "one day at a time" in the beginning--through the withdrawals and while you're developing new habits and discovering new interests--but I can't imagine living the rest of my life focusing on not drinking today. Somehow, the very idea seems to keeps drinking too immediate in my head. As long as I am focusing on surviving the day without drinking, it remains a part of my life--a part I must constantly reject. I find it easier to just embrace "I will never drink again" once and for all then move on.
I realize this strikes people as strange, but it really is easier for me to face the fact that my life has changed forever, that I can never go back. Now I am free to go about filling the spaces with stuff I enjoy that is not bad for me (and maybe is even good for me).
When I was a kid, my parents punished me one summer, for failing to make all A's and B's on my last report card of the year, by taking television away from me until I brought my grades back up. It didn't matter that television was not the reason I'd not made the grades; that was the rule. I decided immediately that it was only a punishment if I sat around wishing I could be watching TV. I spent most of the summer in my room, writing, reading, drawing pictures, listening to music. After I did bring my grades back up, six weeks into the next school year when the first report cards were issued, I got my TV privileges back but didn't return to watching television. I had learned in the ensuing months that I didn't even like it that much. My life was truly happier and more rewarding without it.
Bars do not a prison make.
I think alcohol is the same way. I can't have it. There's no point in mourning it, or even giving a passing thought to it, let alone focusing on it for any reason. Life is so full without it--already.
I'm not knocking what works for everyone else. I'm just saying I don't really understand what's so hard about putting down the bottle and getting on with your life, because that's the way I'm wired.
d
Re-Member
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado
Posts: 7,583
Huntress,
We are of the same mind and experience. I had little problem because I was committed to quitting for life from before I detoxed the first and last time. That was step one. I was helpless to get a day at that point. I pushed through some horrible Paws, thus my name Itchy when my skin overnight when I quit and turned three sizes too small or so it felt and started to flake and itch. Much more but immaterial.
The point is that it turned my equivalent of cravings, a thought that before I would have wanted to drink for this or that, and now my thoughts are "Boy I was stupid I sure won't fall into that trap again." And I actually smile at myself and shake my head. NO problem. I have also found other kindred spirits who say the same thing. That this time is different somehow. Several on here said that it was like a switch had been thrown, a realization that not only would they never drink again, but that it was good! I absolutely agree and do it.
Now how about after a year and three months? Heck the thoughts were gone after three months and I was in PMs and emails with several people here who run the forums because I wanted to give back some, but from 3 months to about six months I stayed away a lot because I was tired of reading how relapse was almost inevitable and everybody goes through several before they learn enough to make it. I got over the fear of a relapse as inevitable and realized that relapses were inevitable if one thought they were, and I don't.
So now my real work begins. With that commitment the first year was enduring a lot of healing and PAWS. The same as if I had a serious illness or got in a car wreck which required a year of physical therapy and just grinning and bearing it until all was back to normal. Just as we would not say that suffering while our bodies fought off the illness was too much so we want to go back to the first day of illness when it wasn't so bad. I can't stand these casts for my broken limbs please let me go back to the coma I was in after the car wreck! Nope. Not perfect but you get the point.
I blew it early in my sobriety when the energy and pink cloud had me and started working out but let a pulled muscle sideline me. I also made sure that both my quitting cigarettes (3 packs a day,) and alcohol were not compromised by each I stayed on the patches for nicotine for a year. You know the one month three steps patches? I used the 21 mg for four months, 14 and 7 MG same. I just finally got off the nicotine replacement on my own three months ago and my eating and sedentary lifestyle along with some water retention issues caused a 50 pound weight gain!
The previous 15 months were crisis management. But not having been through this myself before, and being older I made some serious but recoverable mistakes. I could easily have worked out from my first day and after i pulled a chest muscle badly the first day (Yep, and on base at the base gym with a trainer standing there with me personally for that day to set my baseline.) I could have continued my stationary bike baseline and the other parts that did not aggravate that injury.
So now the hard work starts. Today is my second day with no food all day except for a banana in the morning with my coffee. I am drinking more coffee but that is with equal and I have drunk a lot of coffee all my life, no real issues with it or my health from it. I have gotten so large that I get out of breath walking now. I walk my dogs on my property plenty of room on 5 acres, but I need more. Today we go to the river parkway walk and they get to walk on asphalt which helps with their nails and see new things and other dogs. I will work up to several miles a day, and then with diet and that should get back enough tone and weight loss to start some biking and swimming, and then back to the gym.
I do not feel sorry for myself. Like the drinking, self inflicted, nothing to see, let's move along. Although until this year I have never been anything but trim and fit for whatever age I was, I can handle it. Just slowly at my age.
Ok kiddo we know we have some things in common but this is amazing! I am seeing that in the military folks more than any others, and the military dependents. Or maybe we just speak the same language.
So what I can tell you is that in the first few months you will still not be thinking straight enough to see clearly yet. 6 months minimum for that for me. Get the 30 days it takes to establish any new habits, that you initially plan to do later after you get sober, while you are in the pink cloud. If part of the new life is working out more, or at all, start now. Same with any other changes you plan for later.
Those are just my hindsights. I am not even remotely tempted to drink, I don't even think about it except as an abstract when here. No relapse danger because I am fat. I know how to fix that, duh!
Take what you can use and leave the rest, because that is the way I am wired too!
Sorry for the long post.
We are of the same mind and experience. I had little problem because I was committed to quitting for life from before I detoxed the first and last time. That was step one. I was helpless to get a day at that point. I pushed through some horrible Paws, thus my name Itchy when my skin overnight when I quit and turned three sizes too small or so it felt and started to flake and itch. Much more but immaterial.
The point is that it turned my equivalent of cravings, a thought that before I would have wanted to drink for this or that, and now my thoughts are "Boy I was stupid I sure won't fall into that trap again." And I actually smile at myself and shake my head. NO problem. I have also found other kindred spirits who say the same thing. That this time is different somehow. Several on here said that it was like a switch had been thrown, a realization that not only would they never drink again, but that it was good! I absolutely agree and do it.
Now how about after a year and three months? Heck the thoughts were gone after three months and I was in PMs and emails with several people here who run the forums because I wanted to give back some, but from 3 months to about six months I stayed away a lot because I was tired of reading how relapse was almost inevitable and everybody goes through several before they learn enough to make it. I got over the fear of a relapse as inevitable and realized that relapses were inevitable if one thought they were, and I don't.
So now my real work begins. With that commitment the first year was enduring a lot of healing and PAWS. The same as if I had a serious illness or got in a car wreck which required a year of physical therapy and just grinning and bearing it until all was back to normal. Just as we would not say that suffering while our bodies fought off the illness was too much so we want to go back to the first day of illness when it wasn't so bad. I can't stand these casts for my broken limbs please let me go back to the coma I was in after the car wreck! Nope. Not perfect but you get the point.
I blew it early in my sobriety when the energy and pink cloud had me and started working out but let a pulled muscle sideline me. I also made sure that both my quitting cigarettes (3 packs a day,) and alcohol were not compromised by each I stayed on the patches for nicotine for a year. You know the one month three steps patches? I used the 21 mg for four months, 14 and 7 MG same. I just finally got off the nicotine replacement on my own three months ago and my eating and sedentary lifestyle along with some water retention issues caused a 50 pound weight gain!
The previous 15 months were crisis management. But not having been through this myself before, and being older I made some serious but recoverable mistakes. I could easily have worked out from my first day and after i pulled a chest muscle badly the first day (Yep, and on base at the base gym with a trainer standing there with me personally for that day to set my baseline.) I could have continued my stationary bike baseline and the other parts that did not aggravate that injury.
So now the hard work starts. Today is my second day with no food all day except for a banana in the morning with my coffee. I am drinking more coffee but that is with equal and I have drunk a lot of coffee all my life, no real issues with it or my health from it. I have gotten so large that I get out of breath walking now. I walk my dogs on my property plenty of room on 5 acres, but I need more. Today we go to the river parkway walk and they get to walk on asphalt which helps with their nails and see new things and other dogs. I will work up to several miles a day, and then with diet and that should get back enough tone and weight loss to start some biking and swimming, and then back to the gym.
I do not feel sorry for myself. Like the drinking, self inflicted, nothing to see, let's move along. Although until this year I have never been anything but trim and fit for whatever age I was, I can handle it. Just slowly at my age.
Ok kiddo we know we have some things in common but this is amazing! I am seeing that in the military folks more than any others, and the military dependents. Or maybe we just speak the same language.
So what I can tell you is that in the first few months you will still not be thinking straight enough to see clearly yet. 6 months minimum for that for me. Get the 30 days it takes to establish any new habits, that you initially plan to do later after you get sober, while you are in the pink cloud. If part of the new life is working out more, or at all, start now. Same with any other changes you plan for later.
Those are just my hindsights. I am not even remotely tempted to drink, I don't even think about it except as an abstract when here. No relapse danger because I am fat. I know how to fix that, duh!
Take what you can use and leave the rest, because that is the way I am wired too!
Sorry for the long post.
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