Day 2
 

I have been drinking heavily for 30 years. I have a boat load of regrets associated with that. No lost job, my wife hasn't left yet, I've never been in jail, but I have lost so much time. When I think about my children's lives flashing by while their father sat in front of the TV getting drunk it makes me very angry with myself. I don't understand how I can still have a family. When I think about what my life could have been had I not made the drinking part of my paradigm of life...

Enough wallowing for the first post. Today is day 2. Last night was rough: sweats, nightmares, cold spells etc. Of course, I feel better after a fitful nights sleep than I ever did after a 12 pack. I'm done drinking! I'm going to use this website and all of you to help me. I thank you in advance.

Welcome and congrats on day two. Keep coming back!

Welcome dirk626, congrats on day 2. You will find tons of support here. I'm glad you have joined us. Best wishes. :)

Hi Dirk262
It's my day two as well. I went to bed early last night and I was a bit hot and cold. Woke up a few times. At one point I woke up thinking I had been drinking then realised it was just my mind playing tricks I guess. I was also quite dehydrated last night and drank a fair bit of water.
I woke up without a fuzzy head today and I feel really pleased. I do think this website is going to be incredibly valuable as we move on our journey. xxx:c011:

Hi Dirk, I'm on day 3. I notice that I feel pretty groggy when I first wake up. It takes a few minutes to get going, but to be able to think clearly 15 minutes after I wake up is amazing. Usually after a binge night, it would be about 3pm before I could string a few rational thoughts together. To have the whole day in front of me and not feel sick is amazing. I have also started to dream again. I know there is a difference between being passed out and being asleep. My body is showing me that now that I have given it 3 days off. I like this feeling and I don't want to give it back to the booze. Stay strong and come here often. It has been an amazing experience for me to have people just like me tell me it is possible to be sober and happy. Very motivating. Have a great day 2!!

:welcome to SR! I'm glad you found us. :)

Dirk626, day 2? You are FANTASTIC. Congratulations. Rootin for ya. :egypt:

The first thing I did when I woke up this morning was panic about what I did last night. Then I realized that I didn't do anything. Went to bed sober and woke up sober. Awesome! I imagine I will have many more mornings when I wake up that way because I am so used to trying to put together the night before because I couldn't remember much of it after a certain point. I love waking up not feeling bad about myself :c011:

I dreamt that my wife, daughter and I were on a trip out of state. We had gone to a restaurant to eat dinner. I didn't like the menu and demanded that we leave. My wife said no that her and my daughter wanted to sit for a bit. I got mad and huffed off telling my wife, "Fine, I'm leaving. You two can catch up later." I left the restaurant and began walking down the street. After a spell I came to regret my actions and returned to the restaurant to eat with them. When I got there they were gone. I looked frantically for them but couldn't find them. I thought, I'll just call them. But, when I reached for my cell phone it wasn't there. I began searching for a pay phone but couldn't find one. They don't exist anymore. A stranger in my dream, a lady, noticed my predicament and offered me her cell phone. I was so grateful to her that it made me tear up. But every time I tried to dial my wife's number I miss dialed. I was so frustrated! The tears in my eyes made everything so blurry. Then I realized it wasn't tears blurring my vision, but my drunkenness. I was drunk and now I couldn't find my family. Holy sh*$! Stay on track! We can do this!

Thanks beancounter26! I know that we can succeed on this journey. I offer my support.

Welcome, dirk. And congrats on Day 2. You sound very determined and I look foward to reading about your progress :c011:

welcome Dirk :)
I reckon it's never to late to be the man you want to be :)

D

I guess I will be a pest over the next several days while I try and occupy my mind. I've been on vacation all week which was part of the situation with the latest bender. I'm looking forward to work tomorrow. I ran my daughter around this morning running errands and it was nice spending time with her on a Sunday morning. Normally I would spend most of the morning sleeping and if I did take her around I would be disengaged shall I say, do to the hangover. I look forward to climbing into bed tonight sober. That is my favorite time when I don't drink. I relax and enjoy the thought of how lucky I am. Then when I wake up I'm so glad that I went to bed sober...it's like a double bonus. When I drink I snore. When I snore my wife goes to the spare bedroom. I woke up the other night after getting drunk and the bed was empty. I stared at the ceiling and thought to myself, "She can't hold on forever. Someday she is going to give up and you will wake up without her every night. You will be alone, and it won't be in this bed or in this house." I felt profoundly sad and so guilty for cheating on my wife and kids with the booze. Alcohol has been almost a living thing in my life for nearly 30 years. But in moments of clarity I know that it is nothing but ethyl alcohol. A disinfectant and poisonous. I see myself as this ridiculous person taking sips out of a poison bottle marveling at the effects as it starts to shut down my body. Huh, what a fool I have been. A buffoon! I am overwhelmed with the support you folks have given me already. I have been reading other's stories and the support and encouragement they are receiving. Thank you!

Alcohol looks ugly when we really speak the truth about it. It is hard to live in a world where it is glorified and celebrated. It even has it's own aisle in the grocery store and bars dedicated to serving it up. But we alcoholics know the dark side of it. It is a poison and it is used to disinfect and kill germs. It also kills us if we let it. I am a very logical person and I can't believe that an alcoholic and a logical person can reside in one body. Sounds crazy, but it is my truth. It angers me that this addiction has such a stronghold on me, but I think taking off the rose-colored glasses and putting away the lies I tell myself about my drinking will help me to see it in all of its ugliness and never pick up that first drink. SR is helping me keep it real and honest. Congrats on day 2!

Welcome and congrats on day 2!
I too drank for many years and also beat myself up for everything I missed but then I just figured- I'm starting something new today and that included a new healthier relationship with my family. You can't go backward so just keep going forward and make the next 30 years amazing!

Welcome dirk! I can relate - I drank 30 yrs. too. I'm glad you found us.

I came stumbling in here completely shredded - and I never left. The friendship and encouragement I received here was more than I could've ever hoped for. It gave me the confidence and courage to change my life. I never thought I could live without alcohol, but it was killing me - I was numb & foggy all the time. Plus my anxiety was through the roof. It does nothing for us - it is great to be free! :)

Looks like day 3 is about to begin. Still restless sleep and some sweating. Vivid dreaming and I keep feeling like I have hair on my face. But better than the night after day 1. Thanks for the encouragement! Today is going to be a great day.

dirk, welcome to day three. I'm on day 6. Sleeping much more soundly. Pete

dirk - congratulations on day 3 friend - what you are doing, regardless of when you do it, can be part of a great legacy that you leave with your family, as you get a bit of sobriety, the stinging memories fade, and you start inserting new sober ones that have others best interests at heart, as opposed to our self centered addictions which only cared about one thing.

way to go! have a great day 3. :c011:

Hi Dirk, Welcome to day 3! I am on day 4 today and my dreams are very strange also. I dreamed about snakes and trying to get away from them. Scary, but I know it is an obvious relation to alcohol and trying to get away from it. To be honest, I am just happy to be dreaming again - snakes and all!

Enjoy your day!

I'm on day 2 today! Wow! I'm in the same boat as you guys. Last night I had the impossible dreams all night, where I was trying to do something and I couldn't, over and over and over. I do feel really good today even though I feel that I did sleep very much. I'm 32 been washing them down pretty heavy everyday for about 10 years. The money, the time, and toll on my waist has made me very angry with myself. I just hope I can occupy all this time that I once spent drinking beer. Everything I do I structured around drinking. You hang in there dirk! You are not alone!

Dirk, good luck and kudos and your bravery. I have never had alchohol problems but grew up with a very bad drunk of a mother who is (thankfully) been sober for about 3 or 4 years. She is so amazing when she is just her...You are so lucky to have a family still as well because I know that there was a time when I was fully prepared to cut my mother off from my life as if she were a corpse!! Scary heavy stuff, nothing but best wishes and love buddy, hang in there, I know it is super cliche but take one day, one hour, one minute, one second at a time!!

Hi Dirk and Welcome to SR. Supports our name and recovery is our game. Congrats on day 3! I'm not a drinker, but I had those awfully vivid dreams when I quite smoking cigs! My RAD had horrible dreams, when she quit opiates, nightmares in fact. Her Dr. gave her a med for the nightmares and she rarely has them anymore. I cannot name the med but if you PM me I can talk to you about it. No medical advice, I remember. Good job so far and welcome back to the word of sobriety! TF

Hi Dirk
I am just coming to the end of day 3. I feel quite well for it BUT I do feel tired, a bit fuzzy, but at the same time more awake having quit the booze (I hope that makes sense). I think my body is physically working overtime to rid the toxins out of me and that's making me a bit restless in the night.
I had some REALLY odd dreams last night- one centred on me and my family living in some great big house in the country (we live in a little apartment in the city!) and the toilet in this property was outside, down a lane, ages away, and you had to walk in the dark to get to it. When you got there you couldn't see properly, and then the toilet was all broken. And in my dream I got upset and started crying- because in my dream I had been drinking, and nobody could help me relieve myself.
I am no psychologist, but THAT dream was very vivid and I was so glad to wake up, realise it wasn't true and relax. I hope they go in time! xxxx Good luck with day 3 :c011:

Dirk, instead of being upset about the time you spent drinking instead of fathering, focus instead on what a good example you are going to be to your children for admitting and addressing a problem you have and putting everything you have into your recovery, for the sake of yourself and the love of your family. That will be a major blessing for them, especially when they turn into adults and run into problems in their lives. You want to be an inspiration to them that problems can be solved. You can do this!

Good job! I noticed that several of us on this string are in our first week and having weird dreams. Some even similar in meaning or symbolism. Fascinating! I feel physically tired as well as emotionally tired also. But, I have not had a craving. Hang in there with me and the others.

Some powerful posts here, dirk. Thank you. :)

Keep it up! I plan on chasing you in days, so you keep running ahead!

Thanks! The encouragement from everyone is amazing! You caught on and took action 15 years earlier than I. Think of all the positive things you can do in the next 15 years... Keep it up!:c011:

I posted about the nice time I had yesterday morning with my daughter running errands but I forgot to tell you about something that happened last night. My wife had been working on a project for work all day on the computer. Just before bed she lost the document she was working on. She told me that she had saved it several times but for some reason the document crashed and she couldn't find it or recover it. She tried document searches and other tricks but to no avail. She was in tears. She had spent hours on that work and was going to use it in a meeting today. I told her that I didn't know how to help her. I went about my routine and an idea struck me. I went back and as it turns out she had opened the document originally from an email and was clicking save instead of save as. We found the document in a temp folder in tact. The drunk me would never had thought to look at that. Because I had not been drinking I saved her hours of rework. That was positive reinforcement for me.