My love letter to SR
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2017
Posts: 185
My love letter to SR
Hi, everyone,
Hope this is the right place to post; if not, please re-direct me!
I’ve been spending a lot of time with you all, unbeknownst to you, as I worked through my first weeks of sobriety. I just counted, and I’m proud to say I’m at 45 days without a drink and don’t intend to change course.
My alcoholism crept up on me. I never thought it would become a “thing”—not for me. I had a couple of aunts with terrible alcoholism, and I remember watching my grandmother stumble to bed during our annual visits to see her; so, as a child, seeing their sloppy, unintelligible behaviors, I decided alcohol was just a bad, bad idea. After a bad first-drunk experience in high school, I didn’t drink again all the way through college. It was me who held my friends’ hair as they puked in dorm restrooms. I took plenty of crap from them—peer pressure is a very real thing—but didn’t have any problem being the teetotaler. I suppose I just assumed I'd live a relatively alcohol free life.
I began to drink in my twenties, because that's what you do when you are employed, single, and living in a city for the first time in your life—going out at night, a life full of health and friendships, free and happy, putting away some girl-time wine, and laughing and flirting the night away. Then, my SO and I met, dated, and married doing some moderate drinking together, but within a year or two, I had a nagging sense (as I read somewhere else here, weeks ago) I was “getting too good at it.” I have a very high-pressure job, and began to see myself taking a few glugs the minute I could get home every day. And then more glugs. And more.
Dry for my first pregnancy and breastfeeding, we unfortunately suffered two miscarriages that devastated me to my core. I didn’t talk about them much, because I tend to avoid drama at all costs, but I started drinking more and more to numb the pain and get through the day-- at work, and also at night when I mourned the miscarriages. I went dry again for the pregnancy and birth of our second child, but I remember worrying about how very, very badly I wanted wine during the pregnancy and after the birth. As soon as I could, I started enjoying a glass (or two, and then three, and then more) every night.
I must have known it was unreasonable, because I hid it all; my husband hadn't a clue how much I was drinking. By this point, he had pretty much stopped all drinking, in what seemed a natural and logical maturing process as our kids grew. Not me. I couldn’t seem to get enough. So I drank myself blind every day, carefully rationing until it got close to bedtime, and then I'd drink hard and fast, toward drunk blindness.
Then the wine got too expensive and cumbersome, so I switched to vodka. More bang for the glug, so to speak.
In time, stress from my job and exhaustion from being a parent to very young children had me slipping down to the basement countless times every single night, taking huge swigs from a vodka bottle—a huge bottle I’d bought in secret, one I hid behind the freezer, one I watched carefully so I knew when to replace it.
Over the course of just one decade, I went from a casual and “just for fun” drinker to a woman who could only think of where and when to get her next drink. I was such a sick stereotype—yes, I put alcohol in sippy cups. Yes, I sipped wine at restaurants and then went to the restroom to swig from the bottle in my bag. When traveling for work, I stashed Gatorade bottles full of vodka in my suitcase. I became a lonely, depressed, ashamed woman who was burning the candle at both ends. I hated myself. I woke every day wondering what in the world would get me through the day.
In retrospect, I think I drank so much because I just wanted to sleep, deeply, without interruption, for hours. Blacking out and sleeping became one and the same for me. I was exhausted from life—work, marriage, young children, and the ghosts of those two children I lost before they even became my own. I loved the first glug of vodka because I felt all the sharp edges softening, and then becoming hazy, and then blacking me out so I could just be gone for awhile.
I knew I had to stop—I felt horrible, my eyes were always bloodshot, I was angry and sluggish. Always an avid exerciser, my workouts grew arduous and flat.
I tried quitting twice: Once, I white-knuckled it (with the help of a couple of AA meetings) for five days and, after a few pesky withdrawal symptoms, decided I was okay and could easily moderate. As they say happens, I was back to my secret glugging within a day.
The second time, I got sober because I got scared—one night, after putting my daughter to bed, I fell on the way to my bedroom. My SO helped me upstairs. He thought I had the flu, and I didn’t correct him. Again, I attended a few AA meetings (in secret), and this time I also stumbled across SR. I was astounded to find so many like-minded souls here on this site. It gave me home.
That second time,the withdrawal was much worse—terrible night sweating, anxiety, and depression. I lasted thirty days before that old “I-can-moderate” thing happened. And there it was: Two more years of my version of alcoholism: work hard all day, parent all evening, with taking swings of vodka in secret until I mercifully put my kids to bed and fell into a blackout sleep.
Shockingly, my husband suspected nothing. Nor did my colleagues or the people I supervise. I am not a fool--I assume they thought something was wrong--but I am relentlessly energetic and positive and somehow managed to hide it all. I am, apparently, a masterful liar.
For the past year, though, I have known I had to stop. I was terrified, though, because I knew withdrawal would be awful… and I was scared to not be able to sleep.
But every day, it became more clear: I knew my health, my sanity, my life, my marriage, and my legacy with my children was hanging on by a thread. The knowledge that I couldn’t sustain the madness was always with me, along with the bloodshot eyes and increasing depression.
So… I don’t know what made me stop this time. I was at an after-work event and watching some of my colleagues drink themselves blind and just decided, “Today I am done.”
The withdrawal was horrible. It still is, to some extent. I still have anxiety, depression, and those awful night sweats. I thought those symptoms were supposed to last a week—not for me. Kindling, I guess. And I envy those of you who say you found sleep relatively quickly; I have not. I toss and turn; my bladder is apparently going through a re-training as I get up multiple times in the night; and I still wake up soaked in sweat. SOAKED.
Even with all that, though, it’s better. My eyes are clear. My children delight me instead of irritate me. I don’t think about when I can have a drink with that scary obsessiveness. I’m in this for the long haul. I believe I will not drink again, and I’m committed to that—although I am not a person who tells herself, “just for today,” because I know the statistics, and I have never done well with absolutes like “never” and “forever” and “always.” But, like many successful abstainers, I now find drunkenness pathetic and senseless. I don’t crave a drink. And avoiding HALT is a sure-fire success trick.
I hope, in time, my sleep will come back in a natural way. I hope the depression will lift and I can find joy again. (Someone posted about a disorder in which people seem numbed to genuine emotion—I don’t recall the name—but boy, I think I’ve developed it!)
All of this is to say: Thank you. Every night—every night!!—since my first dry night, I have read and read and read and read my way through SR. I cannot emphasize enough how grateful I am to the stories, the frustrations, the anxieties, and the kindnesses I have seen here. It’s a big fat virtual hug ever night—a way to feel less alone and like I’m not the only lost soul who numbed the pains of life with gulps of liquor.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
And… yes, a question… will the night sweats ever stop? For the love of Pete, tell me they will…
Hope this is the right place to post; if not, please re-direct me!
I’ve been spending a lot of time with you all, unbeknownst to you, as I worked through my first weeks of sobriety. I just counted, and I’m proud to say I’m at 45 days without a drink and don’t intend to change course.
My alcoholism crept up on me. I never thought it would become a “thing”—not for me. I had a couple of aunts with terrible alcoholism, and I remember watching my grandmother stumble to bed during our annual visits to see her; so, as a child, seeing their sloppy, unintelligible behaviors, I decided alcohol was just a bad, bad idea. After a bad first-drunk experience in high school, I didn’t drink again all the way through college. It was me who held my friends’ hair as they puked in dorm restrooms. I took plenty of crap from them—peer pressure is a very real thing—but didn’t have any problem being the teetotaler. I suppose I just assumed I'd live a relatively alcohol free life.
I began to drink in my twenties, because that's what you do when you are employed, single, and living in a city for the first time in your life—going out at night, a life full of health and friendships, free and happy, putting away some girl-time wine, and laughing and flirting the night away. Then, my SO and I met, dated, and married doing some moderate drinking together, but within a year or two, I had a nagging sense (as I read somewhere else here, weeks ago) I was “getting too good at it.” I have a very high-pressure job, and began to see myself taking a few glugs the minute I could get home every day. And then more glugs. And more.
Dry for my first pregnancy and breastfeeding, we unfortunately suffered two miscarriages that devastated me to my core. I didn’t talk about them much, because I tend to avoid drama at all costs, but I started drinking more and more to numb the pain and get through the day-- at work, and also at night when I mourned the miscarriages. I went dry again for the pregnancy and birth of our second child, but I remember worrying about how very, very badly I wanted wine during the pregnancy and after the birth. As soon as I could, I started enjoying a glass (or two, and then three, and then more) every night.
I must have known it was unreasonable, because I hid it all; my husband hadn't a clue how much I was drinking. By this point, he had pretty much stopped all drinking, in what seemed a natural and logical maturing process as our kids grew. Not me. I couldn’t seem to get enough. So I drank myself blind every day, carefully rationing until it got close to bedtime, and then I'd drink hard and fast, toward drunk blindness.
Then the wine got too expensive and cumbersome, so I switched to vodka. More bang for the glug, so to speak.
In time, stress from my job and exhaustion from being a parent to very young children had me slipping down to the basement countless times every single night, taking huge swigs from a vodka bottle—a huge bottle I’d bought in secret, one I hid behind the freezer, one I watched carefully so I knew when to replace it.
Over the course of just one decade, I went from a casual and “just for fun” drinker to a woman who could only think of where and when to get her next drink. I was such a sick stereotype—yes, I put alcohol in sippy cups. Yes, I sipped wine at restaurants and then went to the restroom to swig from the bottle in my bag. When traveling for work, I stashed Gatorade bottles full of vodka in my suitcase. I became a lonely, depressed, ashamed woman who was burning the candle at both ends. I hated myself. I woke every day wondering what in the world would get me through the day.
In retrospect, I think I drank so much because I just wanted to sleep, deeply, without interruption, for hours. Blacking out and sleeping became one and the same for me. I was exhausted from life—work, marriage, young children, and the ghosts of those two children I lost before they even became my own. I loved the first glug of vodka because I felt all the sharp edges softening, and then becoming hazy, and then blacking me out so I could just be gone for awhile.
I knew I had to stop—I felt horrible, my eyes were always bloodshot, I was angry and sluggish. Always an avid exerciser, my workouts grew arduous and flat.
I tried quitting twice: Once, I white-knuckled it (with the help of a couple of AA meetings) for five days and, after a few pesky withdrawal symptoms, decided I was okay and could easily moderate. As they say happens, I was back to my secret glugging within a day.
The second time, I got sober because I got scared—one night, after putting my daughter to bed, I fell on the way to my bedroom. My SO helped me upstairs. He thought I had the flu, and I didn’t correct him. Again, I attended a few AA meetings (in secret), and this time I also stumbled across SR. I was astounded to find so many like-minded souls here on this site. It gave me home.
That second time,the withdrawal was much worse—terrible night sweating, anxiety, and depression. I lasted thirty days before that old “I-can-moderate” thing happened. And there it was: Two more years of my version of alcoholism: work hard all day, parent all evening, with taking swings of vodka in secret until I mercifully put my kids to bed and fell into a blackout sleep.
Shockingly, my husband suspected nothing. Nor did my colleagues or the people I supervise. I am not a fool--I assume they thought something was wrong--but I am relentlessly energetic and positive and somehow managed to hide it all. I am, apparently, a masterful liar.
For the past year, though, I have known I had to stop. I was terrified, though, because I knew withdrawal would be awful… and I was scared to not be able to sleep.
But every day, it became more clear: I knew my health, my sanity, my life, my marriage, and my legacy with my children was hanging on by a thread. The knowledge that I couldn’t sustain the madness was always with me, along with the bloodshot eyes and increasing depression.
So… I don’t know what made me stop this time. I was at an after-work event and watching some of my colleagues drink themselves blind and just decided, “Today I am done.”
The withdrawal was horrible. It still is, to some extent. I still have anxiety, depression, and those awful night sweats. I thought those symptoms were supposed to last a week—not for me. Kindling, I guess. And I envy those of you who say you found sleep relatively quickly; I have not. I toss and turn; my bladder is apparently going through a re-training as I get up multiple times in the night; and I still wake up soaked in sweat. SOAKED.
Even with all that, though, it’s better. My eyes are clear. My children delight me instead of irritate me. I don’t think about when I can have a drink with that scary obsessiveness. I’m in this for the long haul. I believe I will not drink again, and I’m committed to that—although I am not a person who tells herself, “just for today,” because I know the statistics, and I have never done well with absolutes like “never” and “forever” and “always.” But, like many successful abstainers, I now find drunkenness pathetic and senseless. I don’t crave a drink. And avoiding HALT is a sure-fire success trick.
I hope, in time, my sleep will come back in a natural way. I hope the depression will lift and I can find joy again. (Someone posted about a disorder in which people seem numbed to genuine emotion—I don’t recall the name—but boy, I think I’ve developed it!)
All of this is to say: Thank you. Every night—every night!!—since my first dry night, I have read and read and read and read my way through SR. I cannot emphasize enough how grateful I am to the stories, the frustrations, the anxieties, and the kindnesses I have seen here. It’s a big fat virtual hug ever night—a way to feel less alone and like I’m not the only lost soul who numbed the pains of life with gulps of liquor.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
And… yes, a question… will the night sweats ever stop? For the love of Pete, tell me they will…
Member
Join Date: Jul 2015
Posts: 666
FindingMyNext,
Thank you very much for your post, so beautifully and vividly expressed. Your story is incredibly moving.
I am so very happy for you, that you've been able to start climbing out of the darkness you were in and have 45 days of sobriety behind you already! Your post may have started as a thank you letter for the support you've gained here, but your story will be helping countlesss others, who are reading quietly behind the scenes, just the way you did, and I did, too.
I was a secret drinker too, also "high functioning" on the surface, hiding it successfully from my family and friends, after years before of normal to non existent drinking, ashamed and overwhelmed by what I"d devolved to.
I am so glad to know you and hope that you will stick around to be part of the community. Meantime, congratulations! And continued best wishes as you build up more days.
It truly does get better and better.
Thank you very much for your post, so beautifully and vividly expressed. Your story is incredibly moving.
I am so very happy for you, that you've been able to start climbing out of the darkness you were in and have 45 days of sobriety behind you already! Your post may have started as a thank you letter for the support you've gained here, but your story will be helping countlesss others, who are reading quietly behind the scenes, just the way you did, and I did, too.
I was a secret drinker too, also "high functioning" on the surface, hiding it successfully from my family and friends, after years before of normal to non existent drinking, ashamed and overwhelmed by what I"d devolved to.
I am so glad to know you and hope that you will stick around to be part of the community. Meantime, congratulations! And continued best wishes as you build up more days.
It truly does get better and better.
Member
Join Date: Nov 2014
Posts: 403
Thank you for your post--a lot what you wrote really resonates with me. I, too, was a teetotaler for most of my very young adulthood. For myriad reasons, I began picking up in my early 30s and had an eight-year career (hardcore toward the end), which ended, twice, in the hospital because I'd really damaged my body. I relapsed the first time. At this point, I've been sober for 16 months. I'm really glad you were able to stop before you hit "rock bottom."
My husband, a heady intellectual, took no note of my alcoholism. Of course, I didn't want him to, but it's always amazing to be how someone could be so intellectually savvy and so emotionally clueless. I also started out with wine and quickly graduated to cheap vodka which I'd slug ruthlessly. I made sure I always carried a spare in my purse (but, I had to become crafty during relapse because my family would randomly open my things). I hid vodka everywhere and sometimes I was caught. Near the end, I couldn't pull more 45 minutes of sleep together, so I was up, delicately snaking that bottle out from under the bed in order to put myself down again. It was mess.
I'm glad to be free of all of this--though, it hasn't been an easy year and I've largely been my own moral support system. "Luckily", I was high functioning at work. My job is isolating and I'm isolated, so it was quite easy to keep up the sham. I hope this is all in the past for both of us. Good luck on your recovery.
My husband, a heady intellectual, took no note of my alcoholism. Of course, I didn't want him to, but it's always amazing to be how someone could be so intellectually savvy and so emotionally clueless. I also started out with wine and quickly graduated to cheap vodka which I'd slug ruthlessly. I made sure I always carried a spare in my purse (but, I had to become crafty during relapse because my family would randomly open my things). I hid vodka everywhere and sometimes I was caught. Near the end, I couldn't pull more 45 minutes of sleep together, so I was up, delicately snaking that bottle out from under the bed in order to put myself down again. It was mess.
I'm glad to be free of all of this--though, it hasn't been an easy year and I've largely been my own moral support system. "Luckily", I was high functioning at work. My job is isolating and I'm isolated, so it was quite easy to keep up the sham. I hope this is all in the past for both of us. Good luck on your recovery.
Member
Join Date: Sep 2014
Location: Woodburn, OR
Posts: 422
Thank you so much for sharing your story. Congratulations on your sober days and keep going! My night sweats lasted about 7 nights solid then a couple staggered after that. I hope they clear up soon for you.
Member
Join Date: Apr 2016
Posts: 973
Welcome FMN and congrats on 46 Days Sober Thanks for sharing your story with us here at SR! We all come from different places and backgrounds but we all share 1 a common goal-a life well lived without alcohol 
Welcome aboard
Thanks for sharing your story with us here at SR! We all come from different places and backgrounds but we all share 1 a common goal-a life well lived without alcohol Welcome aboard 
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2017
Posts: 185
Follow up: As I begin Day 46, I am grateful I no longer spend my days:
Blowing copious amounts of snot from my sinuses in an embarrassing, loud snort-- and always carrying tissues so I could handle it whenever it snuck up on me
Swinging between Advil, Tums, Mirolax, more Tums, and (when the Tums didn't work) Zantac)
Feeling unidentifiable muscle aches and finding mysterious bruises
Trying hard to ENUNCIATE when I felt myself slurring
Waking up with such blurred eyesight I could barely read the numbers on the clock
Trying to remember if I even remembered to kiss my husband goodnight
Re-reading any emails I sent the previous evening to see if I made any sense
Struggle to recall important commitments on my daily calendar
Planning my next trip to the liquor store, and hoping there would be a new cashier who didn't yet know me
Listening to people ask me, "Are you okay? You look so tired."
Realizing, day after day after day, that of all the things to be ashamed of in this world, it was MYSELF that brought me the most shame of all. Recognizing yourself as the biggest liar you know is a cripplingly depressive exercise.
Annnnnd..... it's worth pointing out that, at some point along the way as a drinker, I considered seeing (or saw) an eye doctor, sleep specialist, GI doctor, dermatologist, dentist, and sinus expert for various ills. Turns out all I needed to do was stop drinking.
Blowing copious amounts of snot from my sinuses in an embarrassing, loud snort-- and always carrying tissues so I could handle it whenever it snuck up on me
Swinging between Advil, Tums, Mirolax, more Tums, and (when the Tums didn't work) Zantac)
Feeling unidentifiable muscle aches and finding mysterious bruises
Trying hard to ENUNCIATE when I felt myself slurring
Waking up with such blurred eyesight I could barely read the numbers on the clock
Trying to remember if I even remembered to kiss my husband goodnight
Re-reading any emails I sent the previous evening to see if I made any sense
Struggle to recall important commitments on my daily calendar
Planning my next trip to the liquor store, and hoping there would be a new cashier who didn't yet know me
Listening to people ask me, "Are you okay? You look so tired."
Realizing, day after day after day, that of all the things to be ashamed of in this world, it was MYSELF that brought me the most shame of all. Recognizing yourself as the biggest liar you know is a cripplingly depressive exercise.
Annnnnd..... it's worth pointing out that, at some point along the way as a drinker, I considered seeing (or saw) an eye doctor, sleep specialist, GI doctor, dermatologist, dentist, and sinus expert for various ills. Turns out all I needed to do was stop drinking.
Member
Join Date: Jul 2015
Posts: 666
Originally Posted by FindingMyNext 
Follow up: As I begin Day 46, I am grateful I no longer spend my days:
Blowing copious amounts of snot from my sinuses in an embarrassing, loud snort-- and always carrying tissues so I could handle it whenever it snuck up on me
Swinging between Advil, Tums, Mirolax, more Tums, and (when the Tums didn't work) Zantac)
Feeling unidentifiable muscle aches and finding mysterious bruises
Annnnnd..... it's worth pointing out that, at some point along the way as a drinker, I considered seeing (or saw) an eye doctor, sleep specialist, GI doctor, dermatologist, dentist, and sinus expert for various ills. Turns out all I needed to do was stop drinking.
Blowing copious amounts of snot from my sinuses in an embarrassing, loud snort-- and always carrying tissues so I could handle it whenever it snuck up on me
Swinging between Advil, Tums, Mirolax, more Tums, and (when the Tums didn't work) Zantac)
Feeling unidentifiable muscle aches and finding mysterious bruises
Annnnnd..... it's worth pointing out that, at some point along the way as a drinker, I considered seeing (or saw) an eye doctor, sleep specialist, GI doctor, dermatologist, dentist, and sinus expert for various ills. Turns out all I needed to do was stop drinking.
I, too, realized that many of my complaints (depression/anxiety, exhaustion, vitamin deficiencies, achy joints, bad sleep, puffy and bloodshot eyes, dull skin, weight gain, gastrointestinal problems, creeping blood pressure, on and on) ALL were a result of or made significantly worse by my drinking.
As a woman in my 50s, too, just from a point of vanity, I realized that the easiest makeover or cosmetic procedure I could have to improve my looks would be to Just Stop Drinking.
In just two months, it has made a huge difference, physically and emotionally. Please keep posting, FMN. Love your insight.
Member
Join Date: Apr 2017
Location: California
Posts: 50
Wow, that was one of the more powerful message I've seen on SR. Thanks for sharing, Tealily. And congrats on the 45 days! 😀
Stay strong, move forward! 👍
[FindingMyNext;6551901]Hi, everyone,
Hope this is the right place to post; if not, please re-direct me!
I’ve been spending a lot of time with you all, unbeknownst to you, as I worked through my first weeks of sobriety. I just counted, and I’m proud to say I’m at 45 days without a drink and don’t intend to change course.
My alcoholism crept up on me. I never thought it would become a “thing”—not for me. I had a couple of aunts with terrible alcoholism, and I remember watching my grandmother stumble to bed during our annual visits to see her; so, as a child, seeing their sloppy, unintelligible behaviors, I decided alcohol was just a bad, bad idea. After a bad first-drunk experience in high school, I didn’t drink again all the way through college. It was me who held my friends’ hair as they puked in dorm restrooms. I took plenty of crap from them—peer pressure is a very real thing—but didn’t have any problem being the teetotaler. I suppose I just assumed I'd live a relatively alcohol free life.
I began to drink in my twenties, because that's what you do when you are employed, single, and living in a city for the first time in your life—going out at night, a life full of health and friendships, free and happy, putting away some girl-time wine, and laughing and flirting the night away. Then, my SO and I met, dated, and married doing some moderate drinking together, but within a year or two, I had a nagging sense (as I read somewhere else here, weeks ago) I was “getting too good at it.” I have a very high-pressure job, and began to see myself taking a few glugs the minute I could get home every day. And then more glugs. And more.
Dry for my first pregnancy and breastfeeding, we unfortunately suffered two miscarriages that devastated me to my core. I didn’t talk about them much, because I tend to avoid drama at all costs, but I started drinking more and more to numb the pain and get through the day-- at work, and also at night when I mourned the miscarriages. I went dry again for the pregnancy and birth of our second child, but I remember worrying about how very, very badly I wanted wine during the pregnancy and after the birth. As soon as I could, I started enjoying a glass (or two, and then three, and then more) every night.
I must have known it was unreasonable, because I hid it all; my husband hadn't a clue how much I was drinking. By this point, he had pretty much stopped all drinking, in what seemed a natural and logical maturing process as our kids grew. Not me. I couldn’t seem to get enough. So I drank myself blind every day, carefully rationing until it got close to bedtime, and then I'd drink hard and fast, toward drunk blindness.
Then the wine got too expensive and cumbersome, so I switched to vodka. More bang for the glug, so to speak.
In time, stress from my job and exhaustion from being a parent to very young children had me slipping down to the basement countless times every single night, taking huge swigs from a vodka bottle—a huge bottle I’d bought in secret, one I hid behind the freezer, one I watched carefully so I knew when to replace it.
Over the course of just one decade, I went from a casual and “just for fun” drinker to a woman who could only think of where and when to get her next drink. I was such a sick stereotype—yes, I put alcohol in sippy cups. Yes, I sipped wine at restaurants and then went to the restroom to swig from the bottle in my bag. When traveling for work, I stashed Gatorade bottles full of vodka in my suitcase. I became a lonely, depressed, ashamed woman who was burning the candle at both ends. I hated myself. I woke every day wondering what in the world would get me through the day.
In retrospect, I think I drank so much because I just wanted to sleep, deeply, without interruption, for hours. Blacking out and sleeping became one and the same for me. I was exhausted from life—work, marriage, young children, and the ghosts of those two children I lost before they even became my own. I loved the first glug of vodka because I felt all the sharp edges softening, and then becoming hazy, and then blacking me out so I could just be gone for awhile.
I knew I had to stop—I felt horrible, my eyes were always bloodshot, I was angry and sluggish. Always an avid exerciser, my workouts grew arduous and flat.
I tried quitting twice: Once, I white-knuckled it (with the help of a couple of AA meetings) for five days and, after a few pesky withdrawal symptoms, decided I was okay and could easily moderate. As they say happens, I was back to my secret glugging within a day.
The second time, I got sober because I got scared—one night, after putting my daughter to bed, I fell on the way to my bedroom. My SO helped me upstairs. He thought I had the flu, and I didn’t correct him. Again, I attended a few AA meetings (in secret), and this time I also stumbled across SR. I was astounded to find so many like-minded souls here on this site. It gave me home.
That second time,the withdrawal was much worse—terrible night sweating, anxiety, and depression. I lasted thirty days before that old “I-can-moderate” thing happened. And there it was: Two more years of my version of alcoholism: work hard all day, parent all evening, with taking swings of vodka in secret until I mercifully put my kids to bed and fell into a blackout sleep.
Shockingly, my husband suspected nothing. Nor did my colleagues or the people I supervise. I am not a fool--I assume they thought something was wrong--but I am relentlessly energetic and positive and somehow managed to hide it all. I am, apparently, a masterful liar.
For the past year, though, I have known I had to stop. I was terrified, though, because I knew withdrawal would be awful… and I was scared to not be able to sleep.
But every day, it became more clear: I knew my health, my sanity, my life, my marriage, and my legacy with my children was hanging on by a thread. The knowledge that I couldn’t sustain the madness was always with me, along with the bloodshot eyes and increasing depression.
So… I don’t know what made me stop this time. I was at an after-work event and watching some of my colleagues drink themselves blind and just decided, “Today I am done.”
The withdrawal was horrible. It still is, to some extent. I still have anxiety, depression, and those awful night sweats. I thought those symptoms were supposed to last a week—not for me. Kindling, I guess. And I envy those of you who say you found sleep relatively quickly; I have not. I toss and turn; my bladder is apparently going through a re-training as I get up multiple times in the night; and I still wake up soaked in sweat. SOAKED.
Even with all that, though, it’s better. My eyes are clear. My children delight me instead of irritate me. I don’t think about when I can have a drink with that scary obsessiveness. I’m in this for the long haul. I believe I will not drink again, and I’m committed to that—although I am not a person who tells herself, “just for today,” because I know the statistics, and I have never done well with absolutes like “never” and “forever” and “always.” But, like many successful abstainers, I now find drunkenness pathetic and senseless. I don’t crave a drink. And avoiding HALT is a sure-fire success trick.
I hope, in time, my sleep will come back in a natural way. I hope the depression will lift and I can find joy again. (Someone posted about a disorder in which people seem numbed to genuine emotion—I don’t recall the name—but boy, I think I’ve developed it!)
All of this is to say: Thank you. Every night—every night!!—since my first dry night, I have read and read and read and read my way through SR. I cannot emphasize enough how grateful I am to the stories, the frustrations, the anxieties, and the kindnesses I have seen here. It’s a big fat virtual hug ever night—a way to feel less alone and like I’m not the only lost soul who numbed the pains of life with gulps of liquor.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
And… yes, a question… will
Stay strong, move forward! 👍
[FindingMyNext;6551901]Hi, everyone,
Hope this is the right place to post; if not, please re-direct me!
I’ve been spending a lot of time with you all, unbeknownst to you, as I worked through my first weeks of sobriety. I just counted, and I’m proud to say I’m at 45 days without a drink and don’t intend to change course.
My alcoholism crept up on me. I never thought it would become a “thing”—not for me. I had a couple of aunts with terrible alcoholism, and I remember watching my grandmother stumble to bed during our annual visits to see her; so, as a child, seeing their sloppy, unintelligible behaviors, I decided alcohol was just a bad, bad idea. After a bad first-drunk experience in high school, I didn’t drink again all the way through college. It was me who held my friends’ hair as they puked in dorm restrooms. I took plenty of crap from them—peer pressure is a very real thing—but didn’t have any problem being the teetotaler. I suppose I just assumed I'd live a relatively alcohol free life.
I began to drink in my twenties, because that's what you do when you are employed, single, and living in a city for the first time in your life—going out at night, a life full of health and friendships, free and happy, putting away some girl-time wine, and laughing and flirting the night away. Then, my SO and I met, dated, and married doing some moderate drinking together, but within a year or two, I had a nagging sense (as I read somewhere else here, weeks ago) I was “getting too good at it.” I have a very high-pressure job, and began to see myself taking a few glugs the minute I could get home every day. And then more glugs. And more.
Dry for my first pregnancy and breastfeeding, we unfortunately suffered two miscarriages that devastated me to my core. I didn’t talk about them much, because I tend to avoid drama at all costs, but I started drinking more and more to numb the pain and get through the day-- at work, and also at night when I mourned the miscarriages. I went dry again for the pregnancy and birth of our second child, but I remember worrying about how very, very badly I wanted wine during the pregnancy and after the birth. As soon as I could, I started enjoying a glass (or two, and then three, and then more) every night.
I must have known it was unreasonable, because I hid it all; my husband hadn't a clue how much I was drinking. By this point, he had pretty much stopped all drinking, in what seemed a natural and logical maturing process as our kids grew. Not me. I couldn’t seem to get enough. So I drank myself blind every day, carefully rationing until it got close to bedtime, and then I'd drink hard and fast, toward drunk blindness.
Then the wine got too expensive and cumbersome, so I switched to vodka. More bang for the glug, so to speak.
In time, stress from my job and exhaustion from being a parent to very young children had me slipping down to the basement countless times every single night, taking huge swigs from a vodka bottle—a huge bottle I’d bought in secret, one I hid behind the freezer, one I watched carefully so I knew when to replace it.
Over the course of just one decade, I went from a casual and “just for fun” drinker to a woman who could only think of where and when to get her next drink. I was such a sick stereotype—yes, I put alcohol in sippy cups. Yes, I sipped wine at restaurants and then went to the restroom to swig from the bottle in my bag. When traveling for work, I stashed Gatorade bottles full of vodka in my suitcase. I became a lonely, depressed, ashamed woman who was burning the candle at both ends. I hated myself. I woke every day wondering what in the world would get me through the day.
In retrospect, I think I drank so much because I just wanted to sleep, deeply, without interruption, for hours. Blacking out and sleeping became one and the same for me. I was exhausted from life—work, marriage, young children, and the ghosts of those two children I lost before they even became my own. I loved the first glug of vodka because I felt all the sharp edges softening, and then becoming hazy, and then blacking me out so I could just be gone for awhile.
I knew I had to stop—I felt horrible, my eyes were always bloodshot, I was angry and sluggish. Always an avid exerciser, my workouts grew arduous and flat.
I tried quitting twice: Once, I white-knuckled it (with the help of a couple of AA meetings) for five days and, after a few pesky withdrawal symptoms, decided I was okay and could easily moderate. As they say happens, I was back to my secret glugging within a day.
The second time, I got sober because I got scared—one night, after putting my daughter to bed, I fell on the way to my bedroom. My SO helped me upstairs. He thought I had the flu, and I didn’t correct him. Again, I attended a few AA meetings (in secret), and this time I also stumbled across SR. I was astounded to find so many like-minded souls here on this site. It gave me home.
That second time,the withdrawal was much worse—terrible night sweating, anxiety, and depression. I lasted thirty days before that old “I-can-moderate” thing happened. And there it was: Two more years of my version of alcoholism: work hard all day, parent all evening, with taking swings of vodka in secret until I mercifully put my kids to bed and fell into a blackout sleep.
Shockingly, my husband suspected nothing. Nor did my colleagues or the people I supervise. I am not a fool--I assume they thought something was wrong--but I am relentlessly energetic and positive and somehow managed to hide it all. I am, apparently, a masterful liar.
For the past year, though, I have known I had to stop. I was terrified, though, because I knew withdrawal would be awful… and I was scared to not be able to sleep.
But every day, it became more clear: I knew my health, my sanity, my life, my marriage, and my legacy with my children was hanging on by a thread. The knowledge that I couldn’t sustain the madness was always with me, along with the bloodshot eyes and increasing depression.
So… I don’t know what made me stop this time. I was at an after-work event and watching some of my colleagues drink themselves blind and just decided, “Today I am done.”
The withdrawal was horrible. It still is, to some extent. I still have anxiety, depression, and those awful night sweats. I thought those symptoms were supposed to last a week—not for me. Kindling, I guess. And I envy those of you who say you found sleep relatively quickly; I have not. I toss and turn; my bladder is apparently going through a re-training as I get up multiple times in the night; and I still wake up soaked in sweat. SOAKED.
Even with all that, though, it’s better. My eyes are clear. My children delight me instead of irritate me. I don’t think about when I can have a drink with that scary obsessiveness. I’m in this for the long haul. I believe I will not drink again, and I’m committed to that—although I am not a person who tells herself, “just for today,” because I know the statistics, and I have never done well with absolutes like “never” and “forever” and “always.” But, like many successful abstainers, I now find drunkenness pathetic and senseless. I don’t crave a drink. And avoiding HALT is a sure-fire success trick.
I hope, in time, my sleep will come back in a natural way. I hope the depression will lift and I can find joy again. (Someone posted about a disorder in which people seem numbed to genuine emotion—I don’t recall the name—but boy, I think I’ve developed it!)
All of this is to say: Thank you. Every night—every night!!—since my first dry night, I have read and read and read and read my way through SR. I cannot emphasize enough how grateful I am to the stories, the frustrations, the anxieties, and the kindnesses I have seen here. It’s a big fat virtual hug ever night—a way to feel less alone and like I’m not the only lost soul who numbed the pains of life with gulps of liquor.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
And… yes, a question… will
Member
Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: Planet Earth (most days)
Posts: 1,596
Welcome! Great post, by the way. As far as the night sweats go, everyone is different. And, depending on your age, it might also be hormones. Night sweats are horrible and a sure fire way to lose sleep waking up ever couple of hours! If it continues much longer, you might want to go to your OB/GYN.
Member
Join Date: Mar 2017
Location: Colorado
Posts: 1,298
Thanks for sharing, it is a great reminder to all of us to stay on course. Especially for our kids. I have teens, they see everything, but understand very little. What they do understand is that they want a sober parent. I'm proud to have provided that for the last 103 days. It does get better.....much better!
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