Good morning everyone. I went to bed last night feeling very grateful that I found this site and for all of the people I have already connected with. Today I feel driven, enthusiastic, and proud about my future. I have so many plans for myself and my family and I will be putting all of my energy towards that. Tonight would normally be a drinking night for me, but I've already been making plans to keep myself busy. I really like that I dont keep alcohol in the house. I dont know if I would drink it even if I did. I'm very strict about not drinking around my kids or at home. I feel excited about being sober. I feel excited about getting in shape an having more energy and living the life I know I should live. I hope you all have an amazing day. Anyone struggling today please look to God and ask for his help. Also know that if there is ever anything I can do to help any of you please let me know.
Morning RTC, ... you helped me already this A.M. just by posting ... you'll learn that as alcoholics. we don't stay sober by ourselves, it's one alcoholic talking to another alcoholic that makes this whole thing work, where 99% of other methods fail ... ... ...
Love ya and God Bless, Pappy
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'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
Good Happy Sober Morning ready to change! I was so glad to see your posting here this a.m. and you sound amazing! Yes, not having alcohol in your home is a big plus! I couldn't and probably still cannot have any in here. Your enthusiasm is exciting and I am so happy for you!!
BTY
Thank you so much! Waking up with a clear head is an awesome feeling. I have to remember what this feels like every time I think about wanting to go drink. A lot of my problem is after the kids go to bed there is nothing to do. My husband likes to lay in bed and watch TV pretty much every night. What are some things you do for fun and you keep yourself content at home?
That clear-headedness is another huge plus, rtc. I tried (and still do) to tell myself to remember it and how much better it is to think clearly rather than be hung over and foggy. And having nothing to do....when I would drink for hours and hours is a concern for many of us especially early in sobriety. I used to think just like you and would wonder how I would fill up all the time. Much of that time I spent planning how to take better care of myself... I started going to AA meetings, which I mentioned already. Then I started researching healthier drinks. I read everything I could about detoxing. (Well, first I read about the dangers to my body excessive drinking had been and could do if I kept drinking, to build up a bit of fear in me and make me want to quit even more.) There are so many great sites on detoxing from alcohol so I would know what to expect. I got into spirulina powder and wheatgrass powder--now these are both very healthy btw, so I am not trying to give any medical advice on this site. I probably should have gone to a detox center because depending on how long you've been drinking and how much you have been drinking it can be extremely dangerous to stop drinking abruptly without medical supervision. (Foolish me, however, I was very fortunate, some folks are not.) I got into fruit smoothies--which helped with the cravings. You may have read or heard that since alcohol contains sugar, our bodies craving for the alcohol can be lessened if we add some sugar to our diets. I also got into eating too many sugary treats--so that is not as healthy. I started drinking herbal teas and there are actually really great ones out there. I read about the vitamins which are depleted from alcohol and take supplements (although I forget to take them some days and I can actually tell a difference). I researched movies about alcoholism and ordered them online. My name is Bill W. is a great one which helped me understand the founder of AA and learn more about his story. I steered away from watching as many of those Lifetime and other movies where characters were drinking. I wanted to watch ones which had characters which had been beaten down and made changes in their lives for the better. If you search Alcoholics Anonymous movies, you will find others if that is what interests you. I stopped going through the wine aisles at the supermarket--avoided and still do them like the plague! I stopped hanging out with neighbors who drink. I got on this site (when I was not as new as you to sobriety) and came everyday and read about others with this problem. Exercise is good I know for recovery, however, I am ashamed to say I haven't really done much of that. I am a big tv watcher myself and have done quite a few leg lifts while laying on my butt watching it. Now I can watch people having their drinks on tv sometimes, although if drinking is glamorized in anything I watch, I turn the channel. If I was feeling any negative emotion or something that I didn't understand as well as that or physical, than I researched it and/or came to this board to figure out what was going on. I even got into poetry for awhile--reading and writing it, which helped me. There is so much that I found to do which took up my time and it was so great that all the while I was doing other things, I was feeling so much better while doing them because I wasn't drunk. Oh, just thought of something else....we figured out how much we were saving by not drinking. That was a real eye opener as it is a very expensive habit. Although the actual financial cost of drinking didn't compare to the high cost of what it did to my personal life. I lost my marriage, I haven't seen my daughter in six years, friends, my good credit, I've been in jail twice and the hospital three times, I'd lost my self-respect, too. If I start drinking again, I would probably end up losing my life and you cannot put a price tag on that.
-- Edited by betterthanyesterday52 on Sunday 29th of June 2014 10:38:39 AM
I was thinking last night of things I could do to occupy my time. Just last week I started going to the gym, which I've never done before, and I love it. I used to read books all the time and I started learning how to knit. Both I gave up because I was spending so much time at the bar. The money I was spending was ridiculous. What hurts me the most is what I was doing to my children. They deserve a better mother than what I was being. I grew up with an alcoholic father and went through that and can't believe I would do that to my kids. I know its only my second day, but the difference between now and past days is that have truly taken time to realize what I have become. I should have lost my marriage, but by the grace of God I haven't. I want to concentrate on making my marriage better and my relationship with my children better. I would go out to a bar, spend the entire next day in bed hungover, and then be somewhat functional the day day but I would go out that night and start the process again. What kind of life is that? And the people I was choosing to spend my time with either caused trouble or drama in my life or didn't contribute anything to my life. Either way, there was no good that came from it. I know I am rambling now, but just being able to put all these thoughts out there is so helpful. I have kept things inside for so long. I never had the guts to actually say these things to anyone. Its such a huge relief.
Welcome! I hope you are going to meetings. I got through rough spots calling my sponsor and going to meetings and doing things within the fellowship of AA. If you only stay home and "not drink" it will be harder.
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
Each day WE all awake as newcomers(to the day we are graced with)Just For Today,,,continuing doing the work,don't pick up and get into the Solution,the Steps ,worked with a sponsor and application into all areas of your life. More will continually be revealed.Thanks for the help today reminding me of my day 2................
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Selfishness-self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles.
I was thinking last night of things I could do to occupy my time.
I'll tell you what I did Ready....I studied the Book...The directions for the 12 steps....That's how we get better. I went to a lot of meetings...Sometimes two and three a day...I wanted to learn everything I could about this program. My life depended on it. I found people at meetings that had recovered...That were happy living without alcohol...Something I knew nothing about. I let them help me...I found a guy to sponsor me...I just asked him if he would take me through the steps as they are laid out in the book. He was honored to. And he did. And it worked like they said it would.
This program is all about action....You'll hear.it from anyone that has succeeded. You'll see it in the book. It just doesn't work without us taking the suggested action. Let me ask you a question....You've been very honest...It's what my sponsor asked me.....
What are you willing to do to have a new life without alcohol?
You can think about it. By the way....There is not a person on this site that would want nothing more....Than to see you make it. That's the truth.
Honestly I dont need to think about it. I am willing to do anything. Alcohol is destroying so many people in my family. My dad is an alcoholic, my brother is in jail for the second time. This time he's doing three years because of dui's, and my brother in law just spent a week in the hospital to detox. I have not fallen that far yet and I am willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that doesn't happen. I dont want my kids to look back and say that I was never around because I was at the bar. Or that all we did was lay around all day because mommy didn't feel good. I have huge dreams and goals, and this poison is the only thing standing in my way from making those a reality. I am determined, strong, motivated, and still scared. But I am done hiding. I'm done hiding behind the bottle to mask my problems. I was a coward. Instead of dealing with things head on, I hid. Well, I'm done hiding. I know the type of person I am and the great life I can have. The great life that I thankfully still have but was taking for granted. Now I'm ready to start living it. One day at a time.
The word desire in my picture just doesn't mean willpower to me. Like Stepchild said to me, what are you willing to do to have a new life without alcohol? And by desire I mean that not only do I need to look at myself but I also need to go to meetings and need support from others who have gone through the same thing. The desire is in my heart which is what is going to help me take the steps I need to take to change. I know I can't do this alone. I know willpower alone is not enough. But my desire to have a better life is so strong that I will do whatever it takes to get there
-- Edited by ready_to_change on Sunday 29th of June 2014 03:07:21 PM
Sounds like you are at a good point of surrender. I'm glad you are willing to actually go to a face to face meeting. Getting to AA was hardest for me, once there, I just did what they told me.
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
Honestly I dont need to think about it. I am willing to do anything.
That my new friend....Is the correct answer.
I'll let you in on a little secret.....I asked God....As I understand God....To help me....For the courage to go to that first meeting.....To come across the right person to take me through the steps....To give me the willingness and the honesty to do them.. And to let me serve Him by trying to help someone else. And the God that I understand....Has been with me the whole way.
And just so you know.......You've helped me today.
I dont understand how I could possibly be in a position to help anyone at this point, but I am overcome with emotion by the fact that you said that. I feel like all I've been doing today is rambling on and on about my problems. But if anything I said helped someone else then that absolutely warms my heart.
Well you have Ready...Think about this.....Think about the person reading this....Too scared and hopeless to even sign up for an account here. Seeing the hope that you feel....Just from you getting honest with yourself....My guess is you probably helped them too. You read any of that book yet?
Everything you need to know about the program of AA is in that book. They call it the Big Book. The Doctor's Opinion is written by Dr. Silkworth....He treated Bill Wilson...One of our founders in Townes Hospital when Bill was hopeless. He actually gave him our first step. I remember reading this part....And it all suddenly made sense to me.
Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks-drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.
When he says...Men and women drink....He's talking about alcoholic men and women. That phenomenon of craving is what makes us different. It's a physical craving....Once we have one....In most cases we want more. Our body craves it....And our mind tells us this time will be different....Over and over....That cycle you talked about....Let me ask you something....You ever go out for a beer...Just one or two....And come home after you've had 10 or 15?....I thought so....Me too.
You have any questions about that book....Fire away. It's a text book....It's good to have questions.
-- Edited by Stepchild on Sunday 29th of June 2014 06:25:35 PM
I feel like I was just reading a book about my life.... I tell myself when I go out that I will only have a few. Hours later I'm finally going home. Each new day vowing not to drink again. Just to wait a few days and start the cycle over. As I said, I normally would have been going out tonight. But instead I'm getting ready to watch a movie with my kids and husband and then maybe play a game of scrabble with my husband after we put the kids to bed. What sounds so mundane to others sounds like paradise to me.
Amen to that.....So what is most important for us...Is to never have the first drink. I had an oltimer...He passed away sober this year...50 years in AA....He told me..."If you never have a drink...You'll never need a drink." Pretty simple. Problem is...If I just stop drinking without anything else...I'll be restless, irritable and discontent....That's what the steps are for....To give us a design for living....An entire psychic change...So we can live without it and be happy, joyous and free. You'll get there....Have fun. Sounds like a great evening to me.
I remember come to an early understanding RP that I knew nothing about alcoholism and didn't even know that I didn't know. Alcoholism, the disease is a compulsion of the mind and for me that ran underneath my consciousness. It was subconscious and was running itself. It permeated every level of my life and deep into my family and we drank because we could whenever we could. It was a cultural habit and not a moral issue. Problems?...every body has problems and I just was never asked or considered what if anything did alcohol have to do with the problem. I married addicts and alcoholic/addicts...the women I chose from my drinking culture and it was at that point, watching other have problems drinking and using that HP use them to get to me.
The first thing I did was get around and hang tight with the people who knew and knew that they knew what this whole thing called alcoholism and drug addict was about. I had some energy left to just about want what they had and used it to keep coming to meetings and listening to and taking suggestions. I learned that it was my own best thinking that got me into the mess my life was and I learned not to trust my own thinking and perceptions. I started using the thoughts, perceptions and behaviors of others who went before me and I still do.
Just by coming here and announcing you desire and excitement about getting and staying sober you have helped those who have read. Keep coming back there is a lot more coming...(((((hugs)))))
