JackDsMissus

Morning sober squad. Day 16 here. 6 hours kip last night (not bad). Fresh new week to get our teeth into. Let's do this

Mentium

Good to see so many people checking in. Day five here now after a restless night, though I slept reasonably well. Dreams!

I'm lucky - no cravings to speak of - or if there are, ny determination at the moment seems to be wiping them out.

There are four local AA meetings a week - and more about less than an hour away. The one tonight is chaired by an old friend so I am looking forward to that.

Pixie30f

Joining again. It's Day 1. I have a gadget that tells me my blood-alcohol level and it's been screaming 'don't drive' at me since 5.30 this morning. It's now 8.45 and I should be at work. I sent an email to work lying about why I'd be late. Pretty much encapsulates how great alcohol is in my life. I did stop before, this site being the main motivation and support, for around 6 months a couple of years ago and have never managed to get back on the wagon - haven't wanted to, telling myself it's too hard to give it up for ever. Well, this is too hard too. I don't mind giving this kind of crap up forever.

I'll be reading even if I'm not posting.

Px

Pinky1

Morning everyone ☺

Start of day 5 for me. I survived the weekend and feeling pretty good today. Hope everyone had a good weekend.
Plan for today: Housework, ironing see therapist then bath and early night as up at 6.00 for a 13 hour shift
Have a good day everyone and will check in tomorrow

Trees39

Night all. End of day 2.
Everyone here is super supportive.
Good for us

Dee74

Welcome back Pixie30f

D

Mentium

I am sure I drove to work 'illegally' for many years. Luckily the police here don't seem to be on the lookout in the mornings, but in retrospect I was very lucky. I suspect that applies to an awful lot of normal/heavy' drinkers too! All the best on day one! Five days in here...wasn't so hard. : )

labgirl

Hey all. Morning of day 2 for me again. I'm still in for the January Class. I'm going to beat this this month. I'm working to make this my last day 2. I'm off to work out and then go to work. Grocery shopping after work and then I'll be back here tonight.

Prayers for us all to be strong and stay sober today. One day at a time.

dontlookbacchus

Week 3
Woke up lacking proper sleep but looking forward to reading these posts. Proud again I didn't drink yesterday. As it was a weekend day those are even harder.
I have goals today that I want to achieve. Those goals would not be possible if i was hungover or waiting until I can drink gallons of booze create my next hangover.
Have a great week all. Welcome to all the new classmates. We are all struggling with you.

Sunflowerlife

If you did it once you can do it again. Just take it one day at a time and forget about the future or "never drinking again." For us it's a day by day mentality that gets us by. You can do this! I hope you manage the day and get some rest tonight. Keep this pain in the back of your head and remember it every time that craving comes up. It is just never, ever worth it. Not then, not now.

PhoenixJ

Keep posting, Pixie.

Sunflowerlife

Day 5- happy to be alive and sober.
I am having a hard time with my emotions being all over the place but I know that's normal. I yelled at the kids a lot last night and feel guilty about that but what can we do? I see 3 different types of therapists and am getting all the tools I can. My kids trigger an awful anger inside of me and I just wish I could get it to stop (when they don't listen, or when my 5 year old hits me.)

Anyway- I have been doing a hypnosis almost nightly which I believe is helping so I wanted to share. His name is Benjamin Bonetti and you can find the apps on iphone (not sure about android.) Cool thing is you can combine different areas of interest and create one long hypnosis. I am doing "quit drinking," "get fit" and "deep relaxation." His voice is so soothing and I love everything he says about drinking. The point is to change your subconscious mind so that you don't want a drink, and don't consider yourself a drinker anymore. I believe a lot of an alcoholic's problem is the subconscious mind and the habits we have created over time. If we can change the way we automatically think, our AV will no doubt get weaker.

Good day January friends- stay sober, stay full of light- we've got this!

PhoenixJ

SFL-I am dealing with anger stuff. The anger is my problem, no one else's. What I think and project- that is me. The only thing I can control is my reactions.

Trees39

I want to fall sleep

taplow

This is day 6 for me. No significant wavering yet. When drinking thoughts show themselves I'll kill them stone dead. It's the only way.

dontburntheday

I love this. Thanks.

dontburntheday

Start of day 7 for me and officially completed my first sober weekend in at least 3.5 years. I also struggle with anger issues and the inability to cope properly. Today is a holiday so I am hitting a 10am meeting, grabbing a few things at the store for a project the kids want to do, then home to finish preparing for the week. I've got a rough schedule of meetings that I need to nail down. I think I am one of those that uses activity to hide from my feelings so I am going to have to be careful not to do that - but as a single mom of 2 teenagers with a job, house etc, that's a daily challenge. My sobriety has to come first but balancing everything else is going to be an ongoing work in progress, I think. I hope everyone has a good Monday.

CatfishKid

First sober weekend since august and it was great. Took the family to a local botanical garden to escape the freezing cold outside. Rearranged my fish tanks and gave them a thorough cleaning. Volunteered for some Saturday overtime at work. Woke up today(Monday) in a better mood than I can remember. And as for my wife I was sure didn't know about my drinking, I can't recall a time when her mood was better toward me.

StartingOverNW

Its the start of day 10, and I'm feeling really grateful to be sober this morning, and very grateful to have today off work. I'm going to meet with my sponsor this afternoon for the first time in awhile and will go to week 2 of my mindfulness meditation class. Beyond that I'm going to get some chores done and just try to keep things as mellow and relaxing as possible.

I feel like I have a bunch of stuff I need to get done which I've been procrastinating on for weeks, and sometimes months or even years, but its also good to keep in mind that the only thing I absolutely need to get done today is to stay sober, and everything else is 2nd. If I stay sober all of the rest of it will get done in time.

I'm also doing the same. In essence I'm emotionally unstable, in addition to having social anxiety (avoidant personality disorder really), and other issues. Mindfulness has been a big help here, in learning to pay attention to whats going on inside me (which I generally register first as physical tension in my body or hot/cold flashes of various types and often increased heart rate - my relationship with my emotions isnt very healthy).

I'll post more about this in a blog post or in the mental health forum eventually, but basically I've come to realize that I usually get myself wound up emotionally before I even get triggered to use, so trying to always be aware of whats going in is really important to not getting myself into the danger zone where I'm actually triggered with cravings. I try to notice when its first starting (the tension/flashes in my body) and then quickly determine if I'm doing something which is causing it or making it worse (I often am), or if I'm interacting with someone or something in some way which is causing it and if I can quickly stop doing that or back away from it and do something else so as not to cause the emotional tension rise in my body (usually I can also do this). Between those two things its helped me be a lot calmer over the last month or so, and also made me realize how much of the process of being triggered to use takes place sometimes long *before* I ever even think about using. I gotta stay as far away from that mental state is possible because when I'm triggered to the point of thinking about using I'm in real danger and it can be really hard to get out of it at that point. So far so good on day 10, I've only really experience 1 set of really strong cravings since day 1 and thats been really different than what its usually like for me to get through the first week.

Take care all and have a great day!

site1Q84

Welcome toru!

Hang in there bluedog - I'm sorry it's been so rough for you. A halfway house isn't a bad idea! Maybe that's just what you need.

Michael66 I think your bad sleeping patterns are rubbing off on me. I was sleeping so good and last night I had the strangest dreams and kept waking up. No drinking dreams though, I remember those from last time. Boy, I would wake up in full blown panic mode thinking I had actually had a drink!

cyclicalwand That's impressive! I was doing pretty good on eating healthy until I splurged a bit this weekend. Still pretty healthy, I just ate a LOT of it haha

Welcome Pixie30f! I think a lot of us have been in your shoes. Both with having to call off work and trying to quit and not having it stick.

Pinky1 Sounds like you have a lovely day planned out!

labgirl glad you're back! Check in more often, I swear it helps!

Sunflowerlife What a cool idea! I never even thought of that. I may check that out!

Trees have you tried any sort of meditation stuff? That's helped me before. Gets my mind off of thinking about how little sleep I'm getting! Haha


dontburnthedayGlad you mentioned the holiday! I had completely forgotten about that!

CatfishKid It's so nice to see the struggle actually pay off! Glad you had a nice weekend!


My microwave is on the fritz, but that's one of the upsides of being in an apartment - I don't have to fix those kinds of things!

Day 8 here for me. Busy day, but not too terribly busy. A little bit of work and hopefully a bit of time later to finish this book I'm reading. Hope you all have a lovely day!