One Year Ago...
One Year Ago...
A year ago Friday, I drank my last gin and tonic. I came crawling back here to this site for the umpteenth time, declaring day one, cranky, anxious, sick, consumed with self hate, self pity, anger, resentment, despair, fear. For about three months I posted almost every day, and visited multiple times. I listened, and did everything suggested here to do. I joined the August class. Practiced gratitude. I made a plan. I adjusted my plan. I made sobriety the most important thing. Like it was a fragile life I was protecting.
It was. It was my life.
I don't post as often anymore but I do visit. My life isn't perfect but it's entirely different. Although, it's also the same. I live in the same house. I have the same job. Drive the same car.
But I navigate that life differently. It's filled with much less drama now. That's not to say it has no excitement... not at all. No more late night yelling. No more flying off the handle at normal everyday life occurrences. Less generalizing. More listening. More learning. More lightness.
I have low/normal blood pressure now, and I go for long walks everyday, that are often run/walks. I've lost a total of 25 pounds although 25 more would make me much happier. I don't have headaches and I don't have circles under my eyes and morning isn't an enemy.
I have different friends, and it's ok. There's a few people who I drank with that I still like, but if the friendship was about the booze, we just drifted away. No hard feelings.
The hardest thing that has ever come my way came seven months in - finding out at age 40 that my biology was a lie and I have a different father and a slew of siblings on the other side of the country. I met them and found out that alcoholism (surprise) runs in that family, and my father and brother are both sober now.
I'm so grateful I didn't meet them drinking. I'm so grateful that I got to feel those feelings.
It's one day at a time. I didn't drink today and with the guidance of my higher power I won't drink tomorrow. 367 days.
Thanks SR and the August 2016 class: The A-Team! I can't believe I'm one of those people who gets to make a post like this. If you're new, make a plan. Work your plan. Put your sobriety before everything else in your life. Make it work. It is so worth it. I hear it gets even better. I want to stay on that wagon.
Love you all!
In Gratitude
Bexxed
It was. It was my life.
I don't post as often anymore but I do visit. My life isn't perfect but it's entirely different. Although, it's also the same. I live in the same house. I have the same job. Drive the same car.
But I navigate that life differently. It's filled with much less drama now. That's not to say it has no excitement... not at all. No more late night yelling. No more flying off the handle at normal everyday life occurrences. Less generalizing. More listening. More learning. More lightness.
I have low/normal blood pressure now, and I go for long walks everyday, that are often run/walks. I've lost a total of 25 pounds although 25 more would make me much happier. I don't have headaches and I don't have circles under my eyes and morning isn't an enemy.
I have different friends, and it's ok. There's a few people who I drank with that I still like, but if the friendship was about the booze, we just drifted away. No hard feelings.
The hardest thing that has ever come my way came seven months in - finding out at age 40 that my biology was a lie and I have a different father and a slew of siblings on the other side of the country. I met them and found out that alcoholism (surprise) runs in that family, and my father and brother are both sober now.
I'm so grateful I didn't meet them drinking. I'm so grateful that I got to feel those feelings.
It's one day at a time. I didn't drink today and with the guidance of my higher power I won't drink tomorrow. 367 days.
Thanks SR and the August 2016 class: The A-Team! I can't believe I'm one of those people who gets to make a post like this. If you're new, make a plan. Work your plan. Put your sobriety before everything else in your life. Make it work. It is so worth it. I hear it gets even better. I want to stay on that wagon.
Love you all!
In Gratitude
Bexxed
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