Sapling

Never heard that.

Fdm

Yes, it's cherry cola, but not a Coke product. It's actually better, IMO, sorta like an RC Cola or a Sun Drop. Must be a southern thing. ;-)

Phils69

Love a cold cheer wine. It was invented in my home state of NC.

FrenchPink

Thanks! I'm good to go. Liquor stores are closed and it's smoooooooth sailing into soft, fluffy, Sunday.

So happy to hear you're doing so well yourself. Terrific in turning your thinking around from "countdown abstinence" to full on empowerment mode. Cue up Theme from Rocky.

Kinda on your own there with the maniacal laugh. Maybe there's an SR forum for that?

http://www.youtube.com/v/KrWxPUSJoeg...3&hl=en_US

flickedhisbic

Sounds like a southern version of an Izze. I've been drinking way too many of those in the past week.

FP - I'm really proud of you for pulling through today that took some strength.

Well I think I'm finishing up one week tonight, already took my night meds that make me sleepy so I'm going to bed soon. I'm really happy that I'm moving out of this house soon it was difficult coming back after being away for a couple nights. My roommates have a beer fridge in the garage and the counters are full of bottles. So if food has to be cooked or requires more than a bowl and a plate I don't eat it. I can't deal with that kitchen right now or the garage.

Fdm

Not to be all sappy, but I am grateful for the friendships that I have developed in this thread with y'all. I hope that I can continue to support my new friends here.

Payton

Thank you so much! That means a lot to me. I always look out for your posts because they are so helpful. I'm partly telling people to come in here because it has helped me and I have just 5 days under my belt so no great wisdom to offer, just support. But thank you very much.

Leemzer

GB, the way you are thinking is EXACTLY the way I am thinking....I really believe this is what "they" call recovery...it doesn't smack of just putting down alcohol at all...it has depth and a totally different feel.

Dinner tonight was interesting. It was not easy. I did not have the urge to drink, but I was painfully aware during dinner of how my drinking patterns WOULD have been were I drinking tonight. The restaurant was in a beautiful, Southern mansion and when we walked in it just SCREAMED for a cocktail to begin with. Normally I would have had a martini or some scotch. Probably two.

The dinner was great and it was so good to talk to my wife one-on-one. I am still so very much in love with her, she is the perfect mom, and just a real catch. We still are so interested in each other just as people but also as soul mates. During dinner I had sparkling water with lime and I noticed how much I was having. I was imagining they were gin and tonics, and I was not drinking them faster because they were water or I was stressed or anything.
Then my steak came, grilled to perfection and perfectly rare, and I imagined and wondered how much red wine I would have had...at least two glasses. And tonight before we even went out I would have had 2 or 3 glasses of wine with the wine and cheese spread.

Now I'm a big guy, folks, but those numbers are REEEE-diculous. I was adding in my head and it was like 8-10 total drinks. I would never guess it would have been that much but it would have been. I'd be DRUNK right now and probably already starting to get a headache. I'd be probably in the shower right now and telling my wife lame jokes that I never do unless I am drunk and acting like a high school football player again. This, my friends, is DONE. I am MOVING ON........

So much to reflect on. Such a nice time tonight but just constant flashes of the way I have lived my life for the past umpteen years. Totally embarrassing. If I were my wife I would not have put up with it, happy drunk or not. Man, I owe her so much. I don't even know where to begin, ya know?

I am sure growth will come out of this but right now, honestly, it hurts. I am embarrassed of myself. I am bigger than I have been. I'm not going to keep thrashing myself over it but I am waaay smarter than this. That is how I know this is a DISEASE, friends. It defies logic and renders us helpless. Well, I'm not going to be helpless anymore....never thought I was but man I was totally powerless......A WIMP with alcohol...a cryin' baby............so this is recovery. And this is shame. But this is the NEW me.......Bring it on.....I'm so embarrassed I am pissed, LOL.
Goodnight, friends...Happy sober Sunday to all of us! More strength to come. Thanks for reading.
lee

Payton

Isn't that the truth. Such great insight. That's one thing I was thinking back today. Let's be honest, with the way I like to drink, what's the point of 1 or 2. It only makes me twitchy as hell trying to sneak more so I can actually FEEL it and get lose myself in it. Only having 1 drink makes me unhappy.

Happy Saturday evening everyone!

FDM - I'm with you. I am holding onto this group for dear life. Thank you to everyone for being so inclusive and caring. Looking forward to continuing on this with you all.

Flick - hope you have a good night's sleep. When are you moving?

FrenchPink - yay you made it! Nice work!

Leemzer, enjoy the B&B!! Good for you for avoiding the wine. Cheese is so good. My husband has called me a dairy-tarian before because I love it so much.

Hit, one week is awesome! I hope you are proud of yourself!

Kelly, welcome back!

2magnolias, you give such wonderful advice. How are you doing?

chiyo, how are you doing? What you wrote reminded me of how I felt at certian points of my eating disorder...a fear that this is how I would live forever...and a fatigue at constantly fighting fighting fighting internally. Do not give up. Tomorrow is a new day for you and for me with a clean slate and a new chance for new decisions. Sounds cheesy but it's the truth.

AFM - well I have so many thoughts and I don't want to hog up the thread but I need to get some of this out of my head. First of all, I talked to my husband, so thank you to the people who encouraged me. I didn't give him any big confession as I'm just not ready for that. A little background - he doesn't think I'm an alcoholic, although he thinks I tend toward excess (duh) and often tells me to reel it in and chastizes me if he thinks I go too far (however he is a control freak so he tries to boss me around all the time anyway, God love him). Addiction is rampant all through his family so I wonder if the fact that I'm so high functioning makes him not worry as much. There are a few times in our relationship where I have gone haywire and blacked out, and at those points he completely flipped. Once I threw a huge tantrum after I found out I wasn't pregnant (I struggled with infertility) and drank like half a box of wine and it was a complete disaster. The last thing I remember is him freaking out and saying "I think you're an alcoholic" and the next day he wrote me a letter about it. Well as much as I have struggled with drinking I have never done anything like that again, certainly not since having my daughter. That was 4 years ago. So I think he considers those things immature blips on the radar. And as my concern now is frequency, though quantity has been slowly increasing, and my internal freaking out nonstop over it, he isn't aware of all of this.

Anyway I did tell him casually over the phone that I hadn't had anything in 4 days and that I am considering giving up alcohol altogether. He was interested/positive/surprised which I was happy about, although he said he could give up beer but he does enjoy bourbon and doesn't want to give that up (and honestly he does not have any problems, never drinks more than a shot or two of bourbon over ice, so he really doesn't need to). His next comment annoyed me though, he was concerned about our sex life if I give up alcohol. I guess I should laugh because I have a lot of issues and I definitely use alcohol for purposes related to our sex life. He mentioned how after two glasses of wine I'm fun. Well...that's the truth, poor guy, but I told him maybe I'll just have to figure out another way to find fun. Ugh. Anyway he was supportive but it was by no means the big confession or serious talk. Moving on.

I have struggled somewhat today. Fortunately I worked for 8 hours nonstop, running around and working with nice people, including several recovered(ing?) addicts who all inspire me (tho they don't know what is going on with me) so that is good. I am freaking out every time I think of the prospect of forever, or the future, and thinking of all these scenarios where I feel like I'd *have* to drink and so I just keep stopping myself and refocusing on today.

I missed my daughter a lot today at work. It made me sad. I wish I could be at home with my family but we can't afford it. My husband lost his job and we lost everything (I mean EVERYTHING, retirement, house, everything) and had to move a billion miles away to a new place for his new job. So now I have to work nights/weekends to earn a little more.

My other perplexing issue is that I have marijuana in the house, just for me. I live in a very bizarro place now where marijuana is actually legal for casual use, so in that respect it is not a big deal. MJ is nothing like alcohol for me, I could take it or leave it and we've had it forever and have smoked on and off at night. Today I felt like I could go for it, but I'm thinking it's not good to intoxicate yourself with something else for the same purposes of "checking out" when you have 5 days free of alcohol. I'm not sure if I would consider that a relapse or a slip or not, because alcohol is what I clearly have an addiction to. I have had the opportunity to smoke a million times and usually turn it down. Anyway. Not sure what to do about that. For now I'm just saying no.

Dee74

All the problems I had with alcohol later, I had with marijuana first.

I wanted to escape, I wanted to obliterate myself, I leant very hard on a substance to help me 'cope with life' and my feelings...I think any way you look at it those are not healthy aims.

I know not everyone's story's the same ...but anyone who's here for help with getting off one substance I think needs to be pretty careful about what else they're ingesting, y'know?

D

chiyo

Thanks everyone for the kind words of support. It's 1 am here and I just woke up so I'm going to read some posts for a while.

Payton

Lee, what an amazing post. You are doing so well. I too am a happy drink, but even if you're not fighting or crying you can still humiliate yourself. Many cringeworthy moments. The good news is that tonight, you were the REAL you, and I was the real me. That is wonderful.

On that thought, I did something that annoyed my husband tonight and if I had been drinking I would have no doubt been snarky back and fanned the flames. Instead I was able to get where he was coming from and tell him calmly that the way he was relating to me about it was not useful, and that was that. Refreshing.

Dee, thank you...I know you are right.

Chiyo, great job!!

Ok, bedtime here...day 5 complete.

Deserto

I went to school in NC. Perfected my "y'all" but never did develop a taste for Cheerwine. More power to y'all who can stomach it

Leemzer

Good morning to all!
It is about 7:45 a.m. in Savannah, Georgia, and for those of you who have never been here, if you are ever in the area you should visit. It is really amazing..the architecture, food, etc. But.....
I awoke with a fright. It was very dark about 6:45, and nature was calling, so I aroused from sleep in this awesome B & B and nearly skyrocketed out of bed: I was CERTAIN I had drunk last night. When I realized I had not, it was about the most amazing feeling I have had in a LONG time.
I walked a couple of streets over to move our car because they have street cleaners who come in the middle of the night to certain streets (the city is laid out like a grid), and I am so paranoid about my car because of that accident a month ago that I wanted to go get it and make sure it was OK. People do party here a good bit and I could just imagine someone taking a corner wide and wiping out into it and waking up to that today....luckily, in perfect shape.
There is a nip in the air and the town is TOTALLY silent and still. Absolutely beautiful. Big, mossy oak trees, uneven brick streets....unreal to look at through sober eyes. I am reflecting on the night I would have had last night, the headache I'd have this morning, how expensive the bill would have been, the intimacy I would have had with my wife once we got home that would be at best a blur, etc etc....it SCARES me, you guys. Alcohol is a BIG deal. It is a BIG problem for a LOT of people. It is just as deadly and insidious as any other drug that people consume for whatever purpose. I believe very, very few people can truly moderate it. For those who can, more power to them. I am NOT one of those people. And more and more I am OK with that. I am actually EMPOWERED by that. So instead of dreading today, instead of guzzling water today, instead of wearing my shades today because of a splitting headache, instead of riding home in silence not because of awkwardness with my wife, but because of feeling sick and not wanting to speak, instead of dreading seeing my kids because they will be full of energy and I'll be hungover......I will face the day with strength, serenity, and dignity. What a CHANGE.....
Payton, I really like your posts. You are very well-spoken and it is enjoyable to read what you are thinking. I am glad you found us. Do yourself a BIG favor and leave the MJ alone. It is just a different form of escapism. I am with Dee in that it was the first thing I did from teenage years to my late twenties (I am now 41). I have no doubt that I would still be smoking it today if it were not for the fact that it started inducing panic attacks in me so I had to let it go completely. When I did this and recovered from THAT addiction, I realized how much MJ affected me, even more than alcohol in some ways, as in my WAY of thinking. I tried smoking it about 2 years after I quit and had a terrible time. I did not have a panic attack, but I remember feeling out of control and realizing how STRONG the MJ is today and how oddly I was thinking and how NOT fun it was...never touched it again. It has been years and I never think twice that that was the last time I will ever smoke it. I can now say with resolution that I never intend to drink again either. I have an odd feeling I am going to make it.
I found this forum by luck because there was an online forum that I used to post on a couple of years ago but it is apparently defunct. I didn't get much out of the experience other than basically a blog-style journal, because nobody else posted on there (which was eerie) and after a while all of these pornographic threads were popping up on there as though someone was infecting the site. I did make probably 80 pages or so (maybe more) of posts but the site is now gone. So I stumbled upon SR in April and have been here ever since.
I am struck every day with the heart rending posts of everyone, the honesty, the humility, the genuine caring for others (strangers) and the absolute intelligence so many people on here exude. I am not being a snob, but we have A LOT of bright people on here. I don't know why I am amazed by that....I guess I think, like a fool, that if we all are so smart then we should all "know better"....
I think this is where we all need to take five here and there and not beat ourselves up, but really explore as Dee was mentioning WHY we hit the bottle so hard. We may have family predispositions to it (I do not, but then again not many people in my family drink very much, so maybe I do, it is just not evident), but there is a reason we are numbing ourselves emotionally and putting ourselves through hell.
I have a hard time figuring this out for me. I have always been relatively happy, was popular in high school, was always one of the "in" kids, excelled both in sports and academically, had lots of girlfriends, etc etc. A lot of what I think I experienced was pure, unadulterated BOREDOM. Instead of channeling all of this time (which I have again now, btw) into positive pursuits or really pushing myself to even greater limits, I just got wasted and pissed the time away. I am not killing myself over it, but OH THE TIME I HAVE WASTED...DECADES.
I almost wish, in a twisted way, that I could blame my use on a bad childhood, or abusive parents, or being bullied, etc etc, but I grew up in a very normal, well-adapted home. My siblings were high achievers but we were not pressured by my parents and my parents had a pretty good relationship. We just did not have the strife going on. I was the ONLY kid in my family who really gave my parents a hard time, and even then it was nothing directed at them, I just wanted to be wild as hell and they just didn't understand it.
I realize now that the path I was on was inevitable, but the outcome was not. I could easily have died in a million car accidents (most of them would have been my fault), I could have been arrested a million times, I could have been a dad a lot of times with girls and women I had no business being that intimate with (and would not have been had I been sober), and the list goes on and on.........but for some reason I did NOT do all of those things and they did NOT all happen....I am very lucky, I realize this. So what do I do to repay life, my wife, my kids, my parents, and myself? The greatest gift I know is to experience the rest of my life sober with the people I know and myself. I OWE it to THEM and ME.
I am excited about living life through new, fresh eyes. The world feels very new to me. Full of possibility, full of hope, full of, "Now what?", but unlike the first days of recovery it is in an EXCITED way.....I have no idea what will happen, but hey, I am open to everything.
Sorry for the long post guys, but today I am just really feeling it. I like the way recovery feels for me....I like the way it looks on US.
Happy Sunday and best to all------
lee

Leemzer

Don't know why that didn't indent...keep trying to fix it. Now it looks like 5 billion words. Sorry, everyone...

Fdm

Long read Leezmer, but well worth it. Thanks for taking the time to post it. I'm with you, my friend.

HitRockBottom70

Good morning everyone,
Working on day 9. Wow that sounds great, and feels good typing it.
I feel so proud to be a part of this amazing group.
Happy Sunday, have a great day.

FrenchPink

Thank you for the wonderful post, Lee. I agree with you 100 percent. I may be playing favorites, but it seems that we really do have a uniquely discerning, forthcoming, supportive, and knowledgeable Class of May here. So often many of us know innately what others are thinking and feeling, apply the right diagnosis and guidance at the right time, and deliver all of it in the most helpful and motivation manner. I love our class.

So happy to hear you're enjoying your sobriety to the fullest, too. It's wonderful to read that you're not only truly blessed with your life and family, but that you know it and sincerely appreciate it.

My choice yesterday:
Pot of coffee, freshly roasted.
Bottle of wine, I'm sadly toasted.

My decision:
Proud to celebrate sober Day 8.

Have a terrific sober Sunday, classmates. Thank you all for being available on this full-trigger coulda-been-another-binge weekend. I would not have been sober last night without your help.

chiyo

Only thing I've had way too much to drink of today is coffee. I may not have blinked yet but at least the housework is getting done Have a wonderful Sunday everyone!

2magnolias

Day Two-Oh!

Love, love, love all your posts.

Lee, thank you so much for your play-by-play.

Staying REAL busy this weekend...doing what I love...working on my gigantic/ancient/about to be condemned house! Unstuck the painted-shut windows in my living room (current project room) this morn...opened them, pulled back stapled-to-window-frame curtains, warm breeze coming in and fluttering curtains in wind, light French blue-gray walls, smell of fresh-cut grass circling throughout, dusted off 100-year old chandelier...enjoying the NPR classical station...and procrastinating. really don't want to spend the rest of the day on a ten-foot ladder painting crown molding.

But hey...things could be worse...three weeks ago I was in AGONY in bed...hungover in darkness, eating bojangles I'm sure, swearing that lifestyle off.

I'm here. I'm holding on. I feel your pain, and I share your joy!