effortjoy

When I decided to stop drinking I also decided to change my diet and increase my exercise schedule and improve my career and be a better mother. And even though I didn't join AA, I'm beginning to see the wisdom of 'one step at a time'. It is exhausting to have all these expectations of myself to change on top of not drinking. But what about 'nothing changes if nothing changes'? That idea seems to promote as much change as we can handle. Sometimes I find myself slipping into dangerous thoughts like: being sober didn't help me physically, I'm still tired so maybe I should just stop fighting. Or 'I'm not a better mother sober, I'm just more stressed so maybe....' etc etc etc
So I am thinking for a while I should just have one goal: stay sober and try to let the rest go.
I'm two and half months sober and it feels like it's been forever.

Chimp

effortjoy,

Sobriety is the key that will unlock all your goals. Ewan Mcgregor, the actor, said that once he was sober he realised that he had choices in his life. That happens to all of us.

So, I now have a choice to eat properly or not. When drinking I would never eat breakfast, nor lunch and cooking an evening meal was rare. Instead, drunk, I would ring up a take-away, spending money I didn't have and hardly eating it anyway.

Your comment on how long it seems since you became sober is something I have felt alot. The reason for that is that when we are sober we are actually living life, each and every minute we are truly in the moment and if you are like me then you have to do something to fill up the time.

That is where the goals and choices come in. That is when we can live life on our terms.

But only in sobriety.

Chimp!

Pondlady

effortjoy,
I think you are weighing yourself down with too many expectations. Keep it simple.....this is where the joy is found......then you can change you user name to effortLESSjoy - LOL Stopping drinking is a huge change and being a mom ( a working one too) is hard work!!! Congratulations of this important achievement

blueshades

One of the things I have gained from sobriety is better insight. This is what I see in your remarks here. I think it's perfectly reasonable to focus on sobriety and forsake some of the other goals, at least until you reach a state when tackling the other things seems less overwhelming.

As the old saying goes, "Rome wasn't built in a day."

Continued best wishes to you.

2granddaughters

Yup, that's our disease .... one extreme or the other.

AA helped/helps me achieve and maintain a balance in my life that I could never seem to get.

I'm an alcoholic and "normal" just doesn't seem normal to me .....


All the best.

Bob R

freshstart57

I agree with you, effortjoy, and with the other posters who have told you that the first thing to do is to lose the alcohol. When I stopped carrying around that millstone of my need to drink, so many other choices became available, and my own nature took me back to the person I used to be before the alcohol took over. Hobbies and pastimes, healthy ways of living, even connecting again with my faith, all of these things sort of happened by themselves. Sobriety left me open to them, all I had to do was to say yes.

candi7

Sobriety comes first, we are told in AA that whatever we put before Sobriety, we can lose. I have to say I did start with taking better care of myself.. who else could do that for me.. So I believe all your desires will come into play.

Anna

I find that balance is very important to me and I knew from the outset that my recovery would hinge on finding balance. I started out with small goals like taking walks, eating good food, along with not drinking. It wasn't long before I began to see benefits and was able to move forward with more changes in my life.

Be kind to yourself.