jojoreese

I associated drinking with talking on the phone. I am on day 4 and haven't really talked on the phone that much. I will, of course, but I want to be stronger first. I am trying to replace the behavior with something healthy, but it does not come naturally. I have to force myself to change my patterns, and it isn't easy, but my favorite part is each morning so far I've woken up and grinned super big at making it another day. I've considered journaling, but I have little girls and a husband and I'd be scared they would find it and be ashamed of me. I hope you stay determined and please continue to come here!

Imabuleva

Jojo,

Your husband should be doing a happy dance that you're trying to escape alcoholism. Many alcoholics just die and emotionally cripple their family in the process.

As for your children, that's probably a lot more complicated...

Resilient

Stay away from stress, drink water, excersize, be active no sitting around try doing things to keep your mind active get support from family.

These things have helped me through my first week

Aellyce

I also have not "talked" to those older friends online yesterday and today, except work-related interactions (one of them is a current colleague, but we only interacted about work in the past two days).

YES my favorite part of the process has also been the mornings when I wake up and know there were no crazy behaviors the night before and I've made it to another day without deluding myself...

I've done journaling in the past many times, for shorter periods (I think the longest was a few months but it was focused on a specific subject and not widely on well-being, happiness, and thought about life in general). I really enjoyed it and found it helpful for the specific purposes, though. So yeah I'm considering starting a journal again where I would write mainly about the thoughts, feelings, and experiences regarding alcohol abuse and quitting. Could you maybe do something similar privately and store the journal in a cloud-based server, password protected and all, for a while? Then maybe with time, if you keep up with sobriety and make positive changes in your life and thinking, perhaps could share it with your husband (given you have a honest relationship)? I do think we all need and must have some privacy for ourselves, no matter what, I don't think this violates the idea of having close intimate relationships and family connections.