ubntubnt

With a week to go to see out 2014 many of us may be thinking about drinking over Xmas and then starting fresh on Jan 1st. This would be a terrible mistake. So rather than jumping off the cliff in these coming days why don't we start a thread focusing on the positives from this year? There is good and bad in every year so here is my good from 2014, what's yours? Want a carry this week? No problem, jump on. Let's lift each other up.....

I quit my last job in December after 6 years. At this stage I was drinking extreme amounts of alcohol. I quit to take a break with family which I had never done and to write a book, also a first for me. I hadn't stopped working in 25 years. My research for the closing section of the book led me to the company that I am running now. It's the first job I have ever had where I feel I genuinely happy and don't want to leave it, ever.

The time off to write, combined with my contentedness at work allowed me to reexamine what was going wrong in my life and why I was so anxious and unhappy. This brought me to the conclusion that I needed to quit drinking. I know it seems obvious but I really hadn't fully connected the dots before. I didn't really have a plan or know what this would entail but thinking about it brought me to SR which was a real eye opener to see so many stories like mine. Turns out I had been an alcoholic for 20 years.

All of these things reconnected me to my family and my sons in particular. For the first time in a very long time I feel the alcoholic fog has lifted. You know that fog? The one that clouds your thoughts, obscures your vision, you feel it in your hair, on your skin, under your fingernails. It envelopes you, smothers you. Well, it's gone. And so is my anxiety and it's been replaced with a peacefulness that I have not known in a long time.

Now I can look forward to a 2015 where I simply consolidate this, build on it and enjoy it. I have no grand ambitions for next year. I'll take what I have now and that will be just fine. It's early days in my sobriety but I know I will never go back there.

Really, what I realised this year it that it doesn't matter what else we achieve, how big an empire we build or how many dragons we slay, removing that alcoholic fog is the best gift you can give yourself, the real key to happiness and we can all work towards that together. Good luck in the coming week, maybe take a little time to congratulate yourself on the good you have done, stay sober and enter 2015 with peace.....

strategery

This is such a neat thread ubntubnt! Thank you!!! I also agree that starting to drink now with the goal of getting sober after the New Year is also a terrible mistake as it is so easy to slip back into old habits.

The good from 2014 for me:
1. I figured out what I want to do with my life and have a talent for the field.
2. I quit drinking and am now over a month sober.
3. I quit drinking diet soda (which was the only soda I drank) earlier in the year. Seltzer water doesn't count.

Soberwolf

Awesome post

Enter the new year with peace

PurpleKnight

Great post!!

determined99

Ubntub, your words were exactly what I needed to read tonight. Really resonated with me. I read it several times. Thank you for posting it.

WIP17

Thank you for this post!!!

BBQBiker

Excellent thread ubntubnt. Too often we dwell in the negative. After all, the news is filled with negative. Each day I make a conscious effort to focus on the positive and spread that feeling. While drinking I began to sink in the quagmire of negativity. The best part of being sober is feeling good, and that good feeling has brought my positive approach back.
I know that things happen for a reason and sometimes it's hard to figure out what that reason is.
I am so glad to have the positive energy back. Having experienced alcohol depression I now cherish the opportunity to make sober choices resulting in a better life.
Thank you ubntubnt.

Ellay

Love that, soberwolf - "enter the new year with peace" I seriously got a sense of calmness reading that. Thank you.

ubntubnt

That is how I feel also. I think that when we are drinking we are so much more likely to be self centered and negative. It took sobriety to allow me to feel positive and to want to feel that way towards people. And it doesn't cost anything so no harm in dwelling in that for a moment.

matilda123

Wonderful post! I agree that there is so much positivity to focus on. I've learned something about myself in this journey so far: I always seem to notice the negative and ignore the positive. For example,i might have 10 students or 10 colleagues tell me that a class or paper is good, and one person say,"Ah,not that great," and it is as if those 10 other people didn't even say anything. I am generally a pretty positive person; I think that this pattern has a lot to do with my inner critic, who can be a fierce witch.

So, my new year's resolution is to really embrace the positive and take the negative for the grain of salt it often is.

PS: Soberwolf, I, too, felt a wave of calm wash over me reading that sentence.

PaulinaPolitely

Thank you so much for this post U (and a bunch of letters)... The FOG, losing the FOG alone is worth all of the supposed "loss". And the "Loss" is really a lie.

Now I slow down, and realize that I am able to experience, to use all of my senses, over the simplest thing going on in life, and look at it knowing I will remember it all. Without that...FOG!

The fog that shape-shifts over a 24 hour period, from horrid morning, to skin-crawly parched middle of the day, to longing in the afternoon, to the buildup, to the 20 minute bit of a high, only to slide down the mudslide, back into the rotten night of sleep.

I've come to love the crunch and smell and and feel of my bed/sheets/dogs/dim light/awareness at bedtime...being present is a big fat gift!

THANK YOU for your thoughtful, well written post.

Merry Christmas...

JanieJ

Ubnt, thank you for your inspiring post.

Merry Sober Christmas to you, my friend.

Magellan

Ditto this. I read it last night and searched for it again today. I will enter the New Year in peace. I need to gather my thoughts, there has been a lot of self reflection these last few months and I need to put it all together...work, family, life balance. What am I doing with my life type of thing. Thanks for this post as it helps me continue and clarify my thoughts.
Merry Christmas UBNTUB (if I can ask, what do the letters mean/stand for)