Hello
 

Hi All,
I'm starting my recovery from alcohol today and would like to just say hello to everyone on here. I won't say a lot just now but hopefully I'll be active on here for some time to come!
All the best!

welcome fellow UK person!

Congrats on your decision to quit. There are lots of inspiring people on here and good advice from voices of experience.

Welcome Chad!

Wow - replies already, that's really great to see - thank you. I think I'm going to need some help over the next 'however long', so it's great to know you guys are out there! Yes, FLCamper, I've already read a number of posts from various people and it really does make me feel like I'm not alone and there could be help at hand if/when I need it. Day 1 is just about over for me now (it's 19:45 here and and I tend to go to bed quite early these days!) :inbed I need to go through my books and find something inspiring (or maybe immensely tiring!) and hopefully get a decent sleep in. I'm looking forward to tomorrow already! Best Wishes everyone!

Welcome Chadders, all the best to you too.

Welcome to the Forum Chadders!! :wave:

Welcome to SR Chadders!!

Hugs and prayers,

Amy

Hello & Welcome Chadders

Hi Chadders - welcome to Sober Recovery.

If you have a Kindle some good books to download are:


Monkey on my shoulder [Kindle Edition]
The Monkey (Author)


Living Sober [Kindle Edition]
AA World Services Inc (Author)

Both are available through Amazon.

I found loads of great people and great advice (not all of it that I necessarily liked hearing at times, but it kept me sane when I followed it) on here.

Have you thought about your Sobriety Plan? I.e. tricky times / places / situations and how you plan to deal with them? There are lots of support options in the UK that you can make use of. It's really worth thinking about them.

Try to remember the main triggers (HALT) Hungry; Angry; Lonely; Tired.

Good luck. It might not be easy - but it will be worth it :)

Thanks again for the welcomes everyone! Beccybean, yes, HALT is a very good one, especially Hungry. When I'm hungry (and not at work) beer normally fills the gap. Even these last 2 days I've eaten when hungry instead of taking a stroll to the local. Believe me, resisting the beer garden on a beautiful sunny day as we have here today, is quite something for me! thanks for the book recommendations. I'm quite an avid reader and so I plan to fill a lot of my spare time immersing myself in books on sobriety, as well as on this forum. I do feel that if I keep sobriety front and centre I will be more likely to succeed. In terms of the tricky situations, I'm quite fortunate in some ways that I don't get pushed into that many. I'm quite introverted and over the years I've learned to say 'no' quite easily if I don't want to do something - this should hopefully help with invites to the pub and so on. I do have a wedding to attend in June (in France), but at the moment I'm not worrying too much about it. I do acknowledge that I will need a proper plan before I go though. One part of which will be coming on here and asking you guys for help! :-)
Cheers
C

I know what you mean about making the most of the sunshine when we finally get some in the UK!!

The plan is as much for daily situations - any time you might usually have a drink or come across a trigger. Eg. walking past / going in the shop where you'd usually buy your beer - will you take a different route or go in a different shop perhaps; that half hour when you come in tired and relax with a drink - what will you do instead to chill?; if you go somewhere that you are offered a drink and usually accept - what will you say? Some people include exercise and socialising in new ways on their plans. (Eg I find Friday evenings much better since I found a good AA meeting to go which is pretty sociable - it means I still feel like I'm going out and doing something instead of staying in an throwing myself a weekly pity-party) . It's often the run of the mill routines that are hardest to watch for as they're so ingrained we don't even notice them.

If you look up sobriety plan on here it'll come up with a lot of hits I'd have thought.
:)