Great post Alpha, almost seems like yesterday! Thanks for the great post :)

Amazing! Thank you AO.
I missed this post until now, but am thankful for your generously and eloquently sharing your experience. It helped me today more than you know...as the beast hunts me...

Alpha - I know all too well the 3am wakeup and heart pounding. In fact on nights where I drank too much I could almost predict I'd wakeup at 3am. Then the combination of sleep deprivation and hangover rendered me useless at work the next day. Bad times.

Reading that first post....drinking is sooooo stressful! Not to mention, the physical stress it puts on our body.

Amazing how we looked to it to relax....and how each day after work at 5pm I could hear it calling me, particularly in early sobriety....I thought that damn voice EVERY single day in the beginning would never go away.

Drinking has been the single most damaging cause of stress in my life in the past 10 years...and yet I thought it was calming me down and my escape from life.

Scary, scary beast of a thing.

I clicked on this link from Lunalight's post.

I literally cried reading it. This was me. The anxiety, the benzos, the 2 bottles not being enough and drinking vodka to sleep. The calling in sick to work, the going to work completely hung feeling as if I was going to die at any given second. The guilt. The "just one glass" turning into 2 bottles in hours. The being certain that day at work that I would not drink that night then the.. "just one glass" rearing its ugly head again. I can't believe I just read MY LIFE in your words.

I am on day 5 off alcohol and day 13 or so off benzos (evil).

Thank you for this post. And for giving me hope. Congrats on 6 months.

Wow! Thank you so much for sharing this, Alpha!! I'm so sick of the anxiety, the feeling of paralysis, the having to call other adults to take MY kids to school because I'm too hungover to take them and am afraid of having a panic attack. A couple of years ago I was taking Ativan, but stopped after I almost died from mixing alcohol with it. Instead I just put up with the anxiety, which is now debilitating. Enough is enough. I'm going to read your amazing detailed description every night for a while because I need the reminder that the next day is going to royally suck if I choose to drink. Thank you for painting such a grim picture--how easily we forget when it's happy hour!

Wow ! How did i miss this ! This deserves a bump .
I know you wrote this a whole ago AlphaO but I'm was losing my breath reading this.

It took me back to such a dark place i never want to revisit.

I actually have shivers ...everything you describe pertained to me withdrawing.

The most dreadful part being the heart beating out of your chest and waiting for an impending stroke or heart attack . Holding onto the chair with both hands to feel safe.

I feel sick ...but for the right reasons this time .

Thank you , my friend


xx

Oh. My. With goose bumps & tears I thank you from the bottom of my heart for this. Can not tell you how much I needed to read this tonight. AV was starting to chatter. This shut her up!! :tyou

Fantastic post!! I need these reminders every now and then to realize that sobriety is the only way to go. That was pure he!! that you went through and it was as though you were writing about my life. Word for word. Thank you for this post!! And keep up the good work!

Wonderful Post/posts xxx

What an awesome post!! This really hit home! Congratulations on two weeks and welcome back to SR!

Having to give up driving as a result of hangovers I could not longer handle, I'd get in the car with my husband, put the air on cold, and try to breathe through what was surely my last day on earth. I would get to work and spend the next 7 hours trying really really hard not to pass out, fall over, have a heart attack, stroke, and die. I was always dying. Always. Every minute of every day was my last. And when It got so bad that I would actually start to pray for the end, I would take a Xanax. And after about an hour, my nerves would start to ease up on me.


This sums up so much of me several years ago, the two years, or so before I was diagnosed with diabetes and discovered I had an enlarged liver and spleen at that same checkup. My sober journey started then, and I still struggle. But I am light years past that time, and working towards complete sobriety.

I ma grateful to have read this today. Thank you, Alpha for such an honest and raw post.

What a well written post....It is a baffling thing this alcohol...

Great post. Really hits home for me!

Lifeisforling .. I'm so glad it had the same impact on you .

If a post like this can help just one person , it has done its job.

People write from the heart for a reason , AO really empathises with people and can articulate it so well .

I feel so proud of her for writing this

ITS BRILLIANT .

poignant , raw , painfully honest .

I hope you write it out and put it on your fridge where mine is or bedside cabinet .

Good luck ;-) you deserve it xx


Xx

Snoozy - you just touched my heart in such a profound way. Thank you for your willingness to share how this affected you.

Im going to print what YOU said out and hang it on MY fridge.

We are all connected. So SO connected.

Wow. I related to so much of that post. Thank u for sharing. I usually stuck to one and a half bottles of vino on a week night )just to pls my husband) but then followed it up w a few shots of vodka after he had gone rip to bed:thanks. Painful to envision myself doing that in retrospect. I had to throw in xanax to sleep in the nights I didn't drink or in the mornings to rid myself of the shame brought on by not remembering the night before. toothbrush gagging.... Yep. I also considered it a win if I completely covered my contacts with solution. Really... How sick is that? Even with all of that said, I'm 11 days sober. Even went out to dinner tonight and ordered iced tea. I am still taking xanax to sleep. I plan to try to week myself off starting Friday night when I don't have to get up for work the next day. Related to so much. Thank u.

Wow. I related to so much of that post. Thank u for sharing. I usually stuck to one and a half bottles of vino on a week night )just to pls my husband) but then followed it up w a few shots of vodka after he had gone rip to bed:thanks. Painful to envision myself doing that in retrospect. I had to throw in xanax to sleep in the nights I didn't drink or in the mornings to rid myself of the shame brought on by not remembering the night before. toothbrush gagging.... Yep. I also considered it a win if I completely covered my contacts with solution. Really... How sick is that? Even with all of that said, I'm 11 days sober. Even went out to dinner tonight and ordered iced tea. I am still taking xanax to sleep. I plan to try to week myself off starting Friday night when I don't have to get up for work the next day. Related to so much. Thank u.

This post is going right into my sobriety tool box. AO= Awesome One. Thanks and congrats. Luv ya.

For myself, I can not even have one drop of alcohol. Complete 100% Entire Abstinance from all alcohol substances, no matter if its the Nyquil, Neo-Citron, Listerine, Chocolate Rum Balls, Desserts with alcohol in them.
Why? Because I am an alcoholic.