22 Days and not feeling good
 

Hi all, I have 22 days today. It's been up and down. Anxiety has been bad and the past several days I've been so tired I can barely function. Anyone else feel like this early on? I feel like all I read is how great everyone feels and I don't feel that way :(

Hang in there! Everyone heals differently.

Your not alone I have felt exhausted today, on day 9

Stick with it GreenThumbRN 💜 hope you feel better soon x

I struggled in many ways the first month. Certainly lacking energy, mood swings, monster headache that seemed to last forever. Every once in awhile I'd feel great, but only for a day or so. It did improve steadily though and the second month was much better and not such a day by day event. Hang in there, my guess is you're about through the worst of it. Getting through my first month gave me the resolve that I never wanted to do that ever again. Stay strong!!

I'm just finishing Day 7 and very tired however when I've tried to go to sleep over the last few nights I've tossed and turned until about 2am. I can't switch my mind off things. I have felt better in other ways - I'm more patient and coping better but my emotions are still all over the place. You are 2 weeks ahead of me so I hope you have some positives too X

I was speaking at a detox unit this morning and this topic came up. One guy was saying he just really wanted to FEEL better. Alcohol was killing him and he couldn't remember what it was like to feel good. Said the past four days had been wonderful because he was feeling better...... human.

I shared with him my experience; be prepared NOT to feel good.

Sure, sobriety will without question bring on better health, deeper presence, greater overall wellness. You'll feel a LOT better overall than you did overall while dependent on booze.

BUT - that first year can be really rough sometimes. We're faced with all sorts of physical weirdness as our bodies try to re-calibrate. We're faced with all sorts of emotional states that can be overwhelming and scary and depressing. for years we numbed all of our emotions out. Now we need learn to FEEL again. Some of that is going to mean NOT FEELING GOOD.

Turns out - BEING HUMAN means not feeling good sometimes.

But stick with it. Hold faith. Remember that not feeling good because you're anxious means you're now coming to a new layer of Self. Learn about that. Experience it. go to a counselor. Meditate. Deepen your self awareness and self knowledge and in so doing - your self LOVE.

You'll have good days, you'll bad days. You might even have bad weeks or months.

None of which will be anywhere near as bad as drinking would be for you or for your life.

And ALL of which will lead you more deeply into the actual, real, pure richness of life. Embrace it. Work with it. Don't fight it.....

You can do this.

:grouphug:

22days here too. Not over tired but it is very hard getting up in the morning. Triple shot of espresso gets me going! :)

About a week ago (3 weeks sober) I posted a similar question. I felt exhausted all the time and mentally very drained. The last week has been a bit better, but still not great.

We got used to an "instant fix" with the booze. Lol I was awful my first 90 days - a real brat. Thank God for the patient people and tough love on this board.

i just hit 6 months yesterday and one thing that has been very apparent is that this is a gradual process.

it has been said around here before, but it bears repeating: we spent years damaging our bodies with drugs and/or alcohol, we cant expect complete recovery in just a few weeks.

my first few months were riddled with all sorts of physical and emotional issues. there were some days i felt "good" and many i did not, at the time it seemed rather endless. but what i try and do is look at snapshots of myself. if i examine my overall state of being today compared to 2 or 4 months ago i can recognize a clear improvement. overall i feel much better and am in physically better shape than i have been in years. emotionally i am getting better too. my head tries to focus on negatives, so even though overall i am doing much better all i will see is the stuff that is still bothering me. the truth is, i AM recovering, it is just taking longer than my rather impatient mind expects.

congrats on 22 days, that is a great achievement and nothing to scoff at. just keep doing what you are doing and without a doubt things will get better.

good stuff on 22. Perhaps see your doc for a physical. I did and do- and it helps.

It depends a bit what the problem is. If you are a problem drinker and you stop drinking, you are gonna feel great because alcohol was the problem.

If you are an alcoholic of my type, what AA describes as the real alcoholic, then alcohol isn't the problem, it is the solution. When I stop drinking, I take away my solution to life, and things just get worse. Sobriety for me was always a miserable affair. I think it is great you have lasted 22 days. My record was 21 before I became so uncomfortable in my own skin that I picked up again.

I was suffering from alcoholism, and just not drinking does not treat that.
The usual pattern for me was a few days hungover, a few days of feeling quite good about not drinking, then an increasing discomfort around the sober life, until I again sought out the old solution which at least gave me temporary relief.

I needed to do something to treat this internal condition. I never drank for any external reason. It was the internal discomfort. I found a solution in AA. They really seemed to understand what was going on with me, and showed me the way out. When I treated the internal condition through the steps, the drink problem vanished and has never returned.

Thank you so much.
I needed to hear this.

Hey GreenThumbRN,

Sober exhaustion beats a drunken blackout any day!

Or... maybe I can just have one drink? It doesn't have to be outrageous does it? For real, just a "normal" drink; not the half-bottle that I used to call a drink because I could fit it in a blender jar.

That might make me feel better, after all, we all need a little dopamine right?

Naaaaaaaaah Even though that strategy failed a hundred times before, the thought always comes back when we're at our lowest and weakest as though it were fresh and original, a flash of "enlightenment." But it's a false satori.

Sober enlightenment is the realization that the nature of our relationship with alcohol is best reflected in the words of an old Irish drinking song: "If the ocean was whiskey and I was a duck; I'd swim to the bottom and drink my way up"

One is too many and a thousand is never enough!

Try paying attention to what's different in your life. Even though you are feeling exhausted, is it possible your job performance has improved? Is it possible you are more patient in traffic than when you were hungover? Are you able to pay better attention to others in your family and workplace?

I don't mean perfection in any of these, but a lot of people notice a steady accumulation of incremental improvements like "Wow, I haven't road-raged all day!" Or, "I did a good job today, crossed all my t's and dotted all my i's."

Maybe you've noticed that other people respond more positively to you now that your complexion has improved and the mask of death has faded. Could it be that they actually respect you, or is it that you are outwardly more confident? Probably both.

Keep up the good work, you may not have gained your "superpowers" yet (who has?) but you are making progress!

I felt that way for my first month - things got better after that.

I think it's pretty common - it's actually not that usual to quit drinking and feel great immediately - some of us poisoned ourselves over a long period of time....

I hope you'll start to feel better soon :)

D