Day 31. I really want to beat my personal best and get past two months. The Good - I have told the two people I dreaded telling most that I am AF. During a family emergency I could drive and look after my dad in A and E. I am doing my exercise and feel happy. Making time to get away and listen to sobriety Podcasts.
The Bad - Desperately wanting a drink when I had an argument and hurtful things were said. Drink dreams. Sudden panic at the thought of never drinking again. Being a bit hyperactive and difficulty sitting still.
The Ugly - Resenting people drjnking wine in the sunshine. Eating loads of cake and chocolate. Being ultra sensitive. People not accepting I am not drinking and offering, handing me drinks. ( I think they just forget but tricky....) It's taken over a year of educating myself, practising abstinence and getting the courage up to get here.
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Jampacked
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I can relate to what you said. That was my state of mind before working into the rooms of AA. That vicious cycle of staying off booze, then running into some circumstances, where I couldn't handle it emotionally and sucumbing to the drink and then a phase of daily drinking and then once again stopping to drink. Later in the book Alcoholics Anonymous, it talks about selfishness and self-centeredness being the root of all our problems. The alcoholic mind is very cunning and baffling. It will trick us over and over again if we dont realize this. Alcohol cannot fix anything but just that we are so used to the "effect produced" by the same, we take it and unfortunately our body and mind demands more of it once we put couple of drinks in our body.
For me once I realized I am alcoholic, the solution presented to me gave me hope and I have lost the desire to drink. I hardly think about it. But I stay on top of watching the selfisheness and self-centered behaviour.
Wanted to add. There is this promise where it says: And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone— even alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality—safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is our experience. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.
This was very luring for me, and it started my AF journey.
Hi, thanks for asking, I am still on a roller coaster, generally only A.F. for 3 to 5 days then I succumb. But on the positive side I drink much less than I used to on the days that I do have a drink. I really envy your determination and hope that you beat your personal best. Keep us posted on your progress.
Some people in the sober community are spontaneously sober they make a decision and that is that.Sadly neither you nor I fall into that camp. Its a long process of re-education and rewiring and two steps forward and one back for me. However we have set the main sail and are heading for sobriety isle. We all arrive by our own individual means and encountering our own weather storms on route. I am glad you're keeping the units of alcohol down so you can sail more safely. Keep going ( sorry, feeling poetic today 😅)
Yeah it's not surprising that alcohol is everywhere but the added awareness really drives it home. Work Christmas dinners where the serving staff are constantly trying to fill that glass even when it's upside down, or one near you when you've had them take yours away, for example. Having to make a fuss when it's normally so normal. At least the low-and-no-alcohol beers are better and better. And (I think on the back of advances in tolerance for a lot of things in the last few years) I've found it to be largely uncontroversial, but then there are the adverts everywhere showing people wrecked (The Jack Daniels ones seems to be amongst the worst). All that stuff. Meh, I suppose.
The thing I'd offer as an incentive (minor, and ymmv) is that after about three-ish months I found that for the first time in my life I was (and still am) getting good sleep -- go to bed, sleep, get up. Might be getting older too, but I was always an insomniac and after I switched from pot to alcohol (it smells, and I'm all grown up now, also my partner doesn't) and got fat and ill, I'd have to drink myself to sleep (drifting off stoned was easier).
I still miss the stage-2 buzz, and especially the self-annhilation, and the adventures at 3am (which is possibly weird but whatever). And I never thought it would cure anything(!) I'm just a bit like that -- everything to excess. But I also like my life now, and though I don't know if I'll go back (it would be a slow death given my liver and pancreas, but maybe if my partner died before me or something), and I've gone back lots of times (currently at ~9 months), I'm honestly, genuinely better. Just got to lose three stone now and finally knock the fags on the head.
Wow 9 months impressed. That's officially enough time to grow a whole new person. Recovery is discovery! I can't believe your Christmas Dinner experience you are made of sterling stuff to resist. Thankfully I work for the public sector you wouldn't get free flowing wine ever the tax payers will be relieved to know lol. I love the idea of sleep. I am on anti depressants which help sleep. As a fellow insomniac I am looking forward to natural sleep and reducing and stopping medication at some point. Don't go back to drinking I reckon you are getting to the good bit. I just put my headphones on and hide or walk. The family seem to be starting to understand my need for headspace now and again ( escapism to replace annihilation) Thanks for your sage words.
I've done crap this year haha knocked January out of the park full month sober then since then I’ve drank nearly every weekend. Gotten back into my boxing recently so hoping that strays me away from it.
Thank you. It's Sober Spring 20 March -20 May hop on board a bit late via Try Dry if you benefit from the challenge of a specific time scale. I do. I used to love boxing as a teen girl too old now. Lots of boxers overcame addictions Micky Ward and loads of others there are some sober boxing clubs out there as well. Great idea I think it will help.
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My life became unmanageable….
Sober night on the town
Hi, I’m G and I am an alcoholic 
