15 Days it's been! On top of that, yesterday (day 14) I fgured 2 weeks, I can do this, no problem. Saturday=Party time! Well my sleeping is still erratic, so I went to work (voluntarily), and I have no urge to drink! I will go to a lounge tonight, but I think I'm gonna be ok. As far as meetings, I've been working 16 hour days and haven't had a chance to look for some. Man, last night I was coming up with 15 excuses to drink today. I was at my local bar/pool hall after work, inches from the beer taps and I had a small urge, but not overwhelming. I drank a coke. I was thinking 'come on, it's your b'day today, celebrate a little!'
Hi Tyson, It is nice to celebrate your birthday but hopefully the better celebration will be tomorrow when you wake up and can be proud you stayed sober!!!
I will say a prayer for you. Happy birthday. Rosie
Thanks guys! Exactly Pete, 30 days is the next 'step'. Actually the bartender said something that I thought was smart when I was contemplating having a drink today. He knew it had been 15 days and said 'not drinking is the best present you can give yourself'. I agreed with him and had a can of Coke. I'll stay out of trouble tonight. G'night everyone!
tysonmike, hello from peter in adelaide south australia, a nother member said stay out of the bars your setting yourself up, that may sound harsh and behond your apparent better judgement, but its true. theres a saying here in AA that if you sit in a barber shop long enough, you will get a haircut. since your writing on these pages i would suggest to you to seek out a live AA meeting in your district as there will be one, and like here in australia there would be meetings at night, go there instead of the clubs, you wont be dissapointed, and listen to the simmilarities not the differences, its the best way to go if you dont want to pick up that first drink. cheers peter.
I went to my local watering whole for dinner night before last. It wasn't pleasant. It is a nice Italian restaurant, great food, BETTER DRINKS! We went for food - and I had 7-up, but I won't be going back there again anytime soon. It ruined dinner. I actually ended up angry I couldn't drink, instead of relieved. Wasn't very proud.
I have been going to meetings and enjoying some of them. It is tough at first. I go to a book study, step study, and beginners meeting once a week. I like the study groups, it seems for focused on the "work" and keeps me from taking others inventory . I have taken my first commitment. The idea of sharing your ESH with a group of people suffering the same problem really does seem to help.
Happy Birthday - you sound very proud and have a right to be. Good job!
tlc
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__________________ "By swallowing evil words unsaid, no one has ever harmed his stomach." ~Winston Churchill
For this alcoholic, I wouldn't go near a bar or anywhere where there would be alcohol for a few months. I felt that I couldn't trust myself and didn't want to have any drinking thoughts.
Also, I knew that I couldn't do it on my own and that I needed the help and support of others in AA.
But, you gave yourself the best birthday present that you could ... the gift of sobriety!
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 Tyson, Happy Birthday and congratulations on 15 days.
My first attempt at getting sober was 5 years ago. My partner at the time owned wine bars and we spent most our time in at least one of them. At first I was always getting into trouble off him for telling the bar staff that this person or that person had had enough to drink and not to serve them.
I didnt attend many meetings, didnt stick with a sponser, didnt work my steps and didnt find a Higher Power. Guess what, 8 1/2 months later I was back out there and worse than ever before. Due to this, my relationship with my partner ended, although looking back I can see that was a good thing and the YETS had started to happen.
When I came back into the fellowship last December I was totally broken. My life was so unmanageable and most days I was either drunk or in bed unable to even lift my head off the pillow, it was dreadful. If it hadnt been for my dad I probably would have lost everything too.
This time I am working my steps, I have stayed with one sponsor who I think the world of. I have a Higher Power and I attend meetings and definately stay away from drinking places. Life is good today even though my physical health isnt.
As has already been suggested, stay away from the drinking places and hit the meetings before the booz hits you again. It creeps up on you so easily and the nature of the disease will tell you its ok.
The only reason for me to ever to into a bar or lounge was to drink. I used to tell myself it was to socalize, listen to the band, shoot pool or whatever but it was really to drink! I'm an alcoholic.
I can't be around booze for any length of time and sometimes not at all. I get that 'angry feeling" that tlc was speaking of. I never know when or even if it will happen, cause sometimes it doesn't, but why take the chance. My desire today is to be sober, one day at the time, and be happy, joyous and free.
Working long hours never interferred with my drinking, so I make sure it doesn't interfere with my meetings!
Congrats on 15 days and Happy Birthday
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Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass... It's about learning to dance in the rain.
I tried to maintain my regular ativities with my old friends etc... along with going to meetings for the first 2 years and would wind up drinking after every 2 months, like clockwork. I tried everything, drinking sodas, drinking ice tea, even non-alcoholic beer (not recommended), eating dinner first, going late leaving early, same result. Sooner or later my diseased mind won out and convinced me that taking the first drink would turn out ok. In the mean time I was not getting involved in the "Fellowship of AA".
2 years later, when I finally surrendered to the suggestions of a sponsor and others in the program, I let go of my old friends and the places that I used to drink. Didn't mean I didn't talk to them, I just didn't hang with them at drinking events or establishments. It was very telling when I would invite one of them to engage in a non drinking activity, and they declined almost every time. This made them companions, not friends. Drinking companions.
After getting to know people in the program, by going out for coffee, breakfest, lunch, or dinner I found people who were really interested in having a good time. It would take pages to list the things that I've gone and done with sober friends, but here's a few- Snow skiing trips, motorcycle riding (interstate, motocross, hare scrambles, road racing), Scuba diving (wreck diving, cave diving, spearfishing, shark dives, treasure hunting), International travel (cruising the bahamas, barefoot cruising, Europe, South pacific, South america....). Meeting Football club members at the NFL Hall of Fame induction (last week) in Canton for 3 days of activities, including meeting up with one of our board members and touring Dr. Bob's house and other historical landmarks in Akron (thanks JoniJoini) , litterally hundreds of concerts and music festivals... AA conventions at the beach, at the mountians. My 2nd sponsor and I (and others) would ride motorcycles interstate to these. 20 years later, we're still riding. We meet at Laguna Seca raceway in Monteray CA last year for the US Grand Prix motorcyle race. Then he and his wife rode down Pacific coastal hyw to San Diego, and My wife and I drove a convertible up the PCH thru the Redwood Nat. forrest to Oregon.
Once you get involved in real life activities, sitting in a bar watching people act like idiots loses all of it's entertainment value.
Hi Tyson, I will tell you now that I have read the posts I agree that you are setting yourself up. People PLACES and things are what we have to avoid at all costs.
And you say after work that you went to the bar. You may have used that time to go home and call the AA near you to find meetings. And go to a meeting on your birthday and I bet it would have gave you more strength and not spend time about worrying whether you will drink or not.
I write this if not for you but for others who may think that going to a bar as you sober up is okay. It is really not if you are truly serious. This is nothing to be played with.
I hope you are well today and that you did not drink. You deserve so much more. Take care Rosie
I haven't lost my job yet, I haven't lost my marriage Yet, I haven't gotten a DUI yet, I haven't gone to jail yet, I haven't had to drink in the morning yet, I haven't had a bankrupcey yet.... These statement usually form the basis for denial and help give the "they are not ready to completely give themselves to this simple program" reasons to compare out of the program. Sadly most of these people (19 out of 20) never come back, and the one's that do have to lose an aweful lot before they receive the Gifts of desparation and willingness. It's much better to pray for willingness than to go out and earn it.
That is what AA's have always told me, and they have always been right about the "YETs".
A lot of them had warned me that they had "set themselves up" by hanging around drinking people in drinking places. That I was really not ready to stop drinking until I was ready to give up the "life" that goes along with it. They were right.
Alcoholism can play with us by slowly but surely trying to convince us to prove to ourselves that we are NOT alcoholics. That alcoholism is not a "disease". Because if we are convinced that we have a disease called alcoholism, then we will not be found in places where alcoholism flourishes and thrives and gets "fed".
Tough stuff, and we each have to come to this on our own.
But I am very happy for you, Mike, perhaps you are different. And Happy Birthday!
Just let us know if any thoughts like: "I didn't drink on my birthday, maybe I'm not an alcoholic" "I can take it or leave it, see, I am not an alcoholic" "I have proved to myself I could go ___ days without a drink, so maybe I CAN drink normally"...
keep a close eye on your mind, and if you find any of these thoughts coming up, you may be headed for a relapse.
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~Your Higher Power has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
Hi Dean I had thought that is what it meant. I just wanted to clairfy. Thank you.
I feel when I keep paying attention more to stopping the drinking or worrying about the places I can go or not go more than I worry about the core issues and other issues that come into play in the first place that keep me drunk and if I do not take care of those then I fear losing sight of really becoming sober and working on what is important to do that.
I am speaking from experience because I totally concentrated on how much I was not drinking, how well I turned down people places and things in my life and felt as long as I did that I would be okay. But the core issues were alive and well and drove me nuts and back into drinking.
I now am not worried so much about people places and things this week and as I work on my issues and seek inside of me I feel hope and so much stronger. I know I have to avoid them like the plague but worrying more about them instead of my core issues is like putting the cart before the horse.
Both the cart and the horse are needed but the horse needs to lead the way and working on my core issues leads the way away from people places and things. It is so much easier and I am enjoying the ride.
It has been a painful week but reading here and applying healthy tools to it all helps me to deal with it all.
I feel it is like a person on a diet who keeps worrying whether they can have a fudge sundae. If you keep feeling deprived of it you will end up eating it. Because human nature does not like deprivation and instinctively will go toward the sundae for what is felt as survival.
I have had many YETS happen already. I got many YETS but they entail health and well being and doing all those things I have dreamed and worked hard toward. Like finishing my BA in psych with only 6 credits left and my internship, taking a nice trip to places I dream of and being a much better person on the earth, which is number one on the list.
"I can take it or leave it, see, I am not an alcoholic" "I have proved to myself I could go ___ days without a drink, so maybe I CAN drink normally"
Honestly, almost every day those thoughts go through my head. I feel like that Simpsons episode "Duffless" where Homer has to do 30 days without a drink. He sees beer everywhere he goes but at the end of day 30, he's saved over $100, he's lost weight, but goes straight to Moe's. That episode he doesn't drink but it feels like a countdown. In regards to last night, in the same episode, Homer is at a baseball game sober and after a few minutes "I never realized how boring this game really is" That's how I felt-loud music, screaming in someone's ear 2 inches away from you so they can hear you, it's kind of boring. The pretty girls are always good-sober or not, but it was kind of boring. I would've preferred to stay home. But now it's 16 days.
Hi Tyson, I am so relieved and happy to hear that!!!!! Good for you. And you also learned a lot for having gone. I like that you compared it to the Simpsons. That show has many messages in it.
My youngest son loves that show and also a few years ago he loved dark wing duck. And the big duck on there said "Is it, accept the things I cannot change" or "change the things I cannot accept?" It helped me to think of things differently with the slogan. It added to it for me.
I was surprised to hear an AA slogan on a cartoon but since then I noticed there are all kinds of messages from some of them.
Good for you in staying sober. This is all a learning process and in that process we have to change. I know for me I have gotten into a rut of habits and to change those is real hard. Even the routine of housework and yard work or the way I feel when I am doing it.
Hang in there and you will do well. Keep up the great work. I am glad you are here. Rosie
. I have taken my first commitment. The idea of sharing your ESH with a group of people suffering the same problem really does seem to help. 
, litterally hundreds of concerts and music festivals... AA conventions at the beach, at the mountians. My 2nd sponsor and I (and others) would ride motorcycles interstate to these. 20 years later, we're still riding. We meet at Laguna Seca raceway in Monteray CA last year for the US Grand Prix motorcyle race. Then he and his wife rode down Pacific coastal hyw to San Diego, and My wife and I drove a convertible up the PCH thru the Redwood Nat. forrest to Oregon. 
