Hi All, I have been sober for 3 days today and I am so grateful to not be hung over and feeling like my life is out of my hands.
I helped my daughter in law with she and my sons budget and to teach her somethings about interest rates etc. This was yesterday. It was a great day and I played with my grandkids a bit and we worked on it for eight hrs straight. It is very rewarding. I got home late and did not sleep well. I feel sick today and feel it is due to still detoxing. I have no desire to drink today. I am a binge drinker though and it worries me to be okay and then boom. I go on a binge.
I am glad to read here about binge drinkers and how it goes. It validates me and helps me to see that I need to step up to the plate against the drinking. Or should I say allowing myself to drink. It is my choice to make.
And in the meantime the choices I make to do things for health is something I have to get up and do. I feel tired today and have been working on more paper work and making phone calls to finish everything up to show my son and his wife.
It is such a relief for me and helps me to see them really doing well and making better choices. If I pass advice I like to think I can take my own and if I judge I want to look at me instead.
I feel it gives me peace to not worry about and judge people. And to not feel like I am enabling instead of teaching is freeing. I feel I am giving a gift to do it this way.
I am still having nightmares with my ex in them and his abuse. I am also fighting not having the feelings of sadness and feeling hooked by him. Or allowing myself to be hooked and give over my power.
It is hard. But I have hope with the feeling that I can stay sober. I know if I stay sober no matter how awful the pain is that I can grow stronger and this pain and torment that I have been left with will fade.
And the drinking and the relationship will be like a nightmare that passes in the morning light.
Your post got me thinking then to what i did in the first days and weeks to stop me binging again when I felt well and it took a while to remember. The fog hadnt lifted then. I remember surrounding myself with people who knew I was in recovery and would have tied me up rather than let me drink and we did normal things like watch films, drink hot chocolate and eat lots of fattening foods. Also, i went to as many meetings as I could get to at the time, i wasnt up to driving so had people give me lifts to them. It was quite some time before my legs didnt feel as though they were going to go from under me everytime I stood up. Thinking back, in those first few weeks, I dont think I spent more than an hour alone, even during the night my friends would stay here. Its really weird for me to remember having people here with fondness when as ive posted on this site, I am such a loner but they really helped me to stay sober those first weeks.
Its really hard in those very early days just to stay sober alone without the added heartache of mourning a relationship. Do you have people around you regularly who are sober? I dont know if I would still be here one day at a time had it not been for those people.
Keep strong and keep posting and letting us know how you are getting on.
Hi KLT, I do worry about being alone and knowing how I get to feeling when that has happened. It feeds the feelings of wanting to drink.
My sons do not drink and my youngest, middle were here yesterday off and on and then I went over to my oldest house yesterday to teach them about interest rates etc and I was there from 4 pm to 11 pm. So that was good and being with my grand children is so rewarding.
My two youngest have been here all day and my youngest son helped me a lot and made homemade pizza and I had ice tea and water to drink. I am burning a nice smelling candle and have puttered all day and done business on the phone and tied up some things for paper work my oldest son and his wife had me check over.
My sons are not here to help with not drinking it just happens they are around. I do not put my sobriety on their shoulders.
I feel good about things and feel hope. And for today no desire at all to drink. This forum has been a God send to me and I have another forum I am on for abused women that helps so much.
I have been on it for a year and a half. And I have many dear friends who email and we talk on the phone. They encourage me not to drink also and help me so much.
My Mom is basically my sponsor right now and she helps me so much. She is very wise and gives me so much to think about.
I do worry about the isolating. I have a workout room that I need to get into and to take care of myself more. I have maintained my home nicely, I only weigh about 118 lbs and in good shape for the fact I worked real hard mowing and doing yard work and helping my son remodel etc all summer and even though I ate well for health I put the alcohol in me and it has made all that void to many degrees.
I am feeling a nice strength now as it has been five months since my ex left and I feel as I have worked on getting over the abusive relationship that I am getting stronger.
And I am just plain tired of being sick of being sick. And of being sick and tired. I know what being sober is in all ways and I want it back. I want ME back. I miss all I hold dear. It would be nice to just enjoy it all again without the awful nervous sick feelings.
I felt ill this morning and I know it is the detoxing from the alcohol and that it will take a few weeks to totally feel okay physically.
I am resting and reading and emailing and will be talking to friends tonight. I just plain do not have desire today to drink and I feel my isms are doing well. I know though that it is not the initial time that tells for a binge drinker so I have to form a plan for that.
I appreciate your help so much. You are a life line to me. It is helping me very much. I am grateful for this forum because I had called the AA people here and no one called back so I kept calling and a lady called who I had been in meetings with and she was complaining about her life and I could not get a word in so I called back and asked for someone else and again no calls back so I finally got someone to call back and it was a man who said he would listen but I reminded him men and women do not do that so I told him to have a nice day but no thankyou.
So for me this forum is there for me anytime I want to bring it up and read all the great things here. Thank you Rosie
Congratulations on day 3, this is awesome, I am so happy for you and glad you are here with us, do keep coming back, i found this Board such a great meeting place.
You are a strong person and sounds like you are doing all the right things to help yourself stay sober.
I am also an abused woman so i can relate to that issue as well. But getting sober was the the best thing. I'm an alcoholic and a drug addict, learning to accept that i have a disease has been a process for me. I once heard in the a meeting something that has always helped me.
"Addiction is the ONLY disease that will TELL you, that you don't have a disease". Really for example, if someone has cancer and there is is tumour growing out of their arm they won't wave their arm around and say, see there's no tumour here. Everyone can see the tumour, so there it is. Or, for example if someone's arm is bleeding, they won't wave it around and say, NO, my arm isn't bleeding, of course, it's bleeding. So that story has helped me. The next rather odd, but very REAL thing is that if someone is bleeding or has a tumour, most people are willing to help right away, not so, with addiction. Other recovering alcoholics or addicts will step up, but many other people, don't seem to understand the way we do.
Some of this image is changing as more and more people get into recovery, I think. Enough from me, i have a meeting to get to. Thanks for sharing and letting me share. Deb
Hi Rosie..... Very happy for you on Day 3.... these are the important ones, and will make the future days sweeter, having gotten through this first week or 2. So glad you are here and posting!!
Joni
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~Your Higher Power has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
In the very early days of my sobriety I kept myself as busy as I could. I got round to doing all the jobs in my home that I had been meaning to do for a long time. I also started walking and that was a real help as it helped to free my mind and let me enjoy nature.
I also went to as many meetings as I could, both face-to-face meetings and on-line meetings. I had plenty of contact with other recovering alcoholics and read from Big Book, 12x12, Daily Reflections and Hazleden daily readings.
And, I remembered that it is one day at a time.
Please keep posting, won't you? We're all here for you and each other. It's a WE program.
Take care,
Carol
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Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. ~Dr. Seuss
Hi all. I appreciate your posts so much and feel I am where I belong. It is so nice.
Yes addiction will lie to us. Cunning and baffling are exactly right. I look forward to overcoming the fog and the habits that lead me into drinking. I have been real busy in my yard and doing many things I had not done because of the isolation of the relationship and then isolation even more when I drank during it.
And I felt as long as I was productive that drinking would be okay. But I was not feeling good while doing all those wonderful things like mowing the yard, putting out flowers and planting rose bushes and helping my son remodel (no drinking during the day but I did at night when I got home big time) and even without the drink during the day I was not enjoying things because of the monkey on my back of alcoholism.
Even in the midst I knew it was insane and that it was ruining my ability to enjoy everything but I kept doing it anyway.
Finances are scaring me due to over spending but I know I can rally but if I do not do something I will put my home and life in jeopardy and I just bought it June 30th.
And my feelings of self were not getting better and I just have felt hopeless. But now I feel hope and so much better about me.
Yes getting through the first two weeks is very rewarding. But I know I need to put things in place for myself and that means changing the daily habits that lead me into it and my mindset.
I would like to do the online meetings and need to see how that works. I would like that very much. This is a miracle for me to have found this forum.
Well Done Rosie!!! It was not so long ago that I was there my self, one day at a time and if that gets too much one moment at a time. One thing that really helped me was getting to as many meeting as I could and surrounding myself with sobriety and it got better. Keep coming back!!!
Hi All Thank you for your replies. They mean so much to me. I am on Day 4 and I feel so much better this time around staying sober. I white knuckled without help or support for not drinking or really talking about it. I also needed the medicine of other recovering alcoholics to feel stronger as I get sober.
