Again thank you for all your advice. This thread will be memorised by the time this weekends over as I'll be rereading it A LOT!

It's just comforting to know I'm not alone on this one, that I can move on from it and I'm not going to have that shame over my head preventing me from being the person I know I can be.

Thanks for responding everyone, means a lot.

I hear u Panache..I think this site is a good idea tho ..meetin who understand whar u goin thru..its hard but we gattaa try..in my city its 2 am but i cant sleep coz of insomnia but with time the body will get back to normal i think

Hi Panache. I spent the first few weeks having flashbacks to all my behaviours whilst drinking. They would come out if the blue and I'd feel awful. I did a bit of online research and found that in Chinese and other eastern medicine practices it's believed the liver is an emotional store. As I detoxed random emotions came to the surface but I felt calmer knowing this was the process. It does get better and at 149 days now, I feel so calm, centred and emotionally stable. If I get a memory from my bad behaviour I think 'at least I'm doing something about it now'. Other people used to remind me of incidents and I'd get really uptight and defensive. Now I just laugh because it really is all in the past.

Good luck Panache

S x

Yeah Sazzle that's exactly how I feel! And I would get so defensive so angry (being honest) if someone brought up my behaviour from the past right now. I need to focus on the fact I'm doing something about it, earn my self respect back and maybe then I can gain other people's respect.

Yeah, I keep having really unpleasant dreams about things I've done to people in the past. Even such minor rude things that in my dreams are blown out of proportion, and I wake in a panic. I am pretty riddled with guilt, shame, and anxiety, but I'm working on it.

I hope you get to a good place. :c031:

Me too Vastreaction, but I guess we just have to accept it and move on. I always say "cancel and continue".

Like Sazzle and so many others have put, at least we're doing something about it now. I believe, of all the stupid things I've done, if someone did them to me, but then got sober, I'd forgive them. I'd have respect that they took the initiative to realise that the alcohol was causing these problems so they abstained completely - I hope eventually people can find it in themselves to think that about me. I know many normal drinkers won't realise how hard it is to stay sober everyday (as they're not alcoholics and don't realise what power it has over us) but even just a little understanding would go a long way.

I think accepting there were going to be realy sucky horrid days in my sober life was important for me .
In compairing my behaviour to others , i didn't notice many other people buying a whole bottle of whiskey and drinking it because they got cut up in traffic, were feeling stressed at work or if family members were rushed to A&E ..

Bestwishes, M