MARCH MOTIVATORS

[scottish lass]

MARCH MOTIVATORS

popping in & saying hello, having a really tough time for so many reasons, still checking in and reading. everytime i think things are staring to turn in the right direction, something else rears its ugly head - i think i have had almost as much bad news as i can tolerate!
will get there one day, but it isn't today.
well done to all of you who are succeeding, keep it up, i really need your posts! one day i will be riding the wave too.....

[mylife]

MARCH MOTIVATORS

Hang in the SL - this is such a hard journey. One of the things I keep reminding myself is that I can really feel things now - so it's going to hurt sometimes and that has to be okay. I hope your evening gets better! :l:h

[choice]

MARCH MOTIVATORS

Hey just popping in myself. Sorry to hear your having a hard time Scottish lass. I get bogged down with bad news too. I hope you feel better soon. Maybe do something nice for yourself. Even if it's small.

I actually am feeling pretty even keel today. Finally. Went for a long walk and window shopped all over the place. So, I'm gonna just keep on keeping on I guess and trust that I'm back on track.

Alright, I'm off to clean a very neglected flat.

[Unwasted]

MARCH MOTIVATORS

Hey Marchers, no time to post today/tonight but I should be able to catch up tomorrow. Wishing you all well. :lilheart:

[sunshinedaisies]

MARCH MOTIVATORS

Me neither - am off to bed - hope everyone had a wonderful day,

hugs, sun X

[WineWrangler]

MARCH MOTIVATORS

Had a very disappointing day, a fallout with one of my major accounts. It's a relief in a way another company that can not pay their pay their bills in a timely way. I feel good that I was the one who stood up and said "it's time that we end this business relation". Had I been recently drinking (65 days AF), I may not have been as assertive and allowed them to push me around. Tomorrows another day and I'm coming out of the shoot tike a race horse, going after new business. Starting to like this non drinking stuff, gives me "game".
Thanks Everyone WW

[daisy45]

MARCH MOTIVATORS

Hi everyone; Unwasted, good to hear you are doing so well - proud of you!
Hope you have room for another 'motivator' - great thread; haven't read it all but will get there.
Hi Winewrangler, you are doing great - so true that no matter what kind of situation we come across, it would be so much worse with 'alcohol on board'....
Just wanted to say hi - have been here since Oct 2010 and done ok, with ups and downs since then. Had my biggest fall back to my old ways since Jan this year. This is day 3 and the relief I feel being back here and getting myself back on track is aaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!!! Feel grateful and a great future is back in the picture.....phew! Looking forward to reconnecting with old friends and getting to know any newcomers....

[allswell]

MARCH MOTIVATORS

Good morning all,

Winewrangler, I'm self employed too and 90% of the headaches always come from the same 10% don't they? Sometimes the best thing is letting go of the shit business. Like you said, more time to find another meaningful account. Best to everyone today!

[sunshinedaisies]

MARCH MOTIVATORS

Good Morning everyone!

daisy - welcome back! Love the name - LOL What a great reason to have to edit - to add a day! Go you. There is always room here for anyone - love having lots of folk here! Do you have any sort of plan? Or are you just winging it? Those first few days are the hardest - at the time - once you get some AF days under your belt, you can begin to feel more confident about it. Well done and welcome.

WW - so well done - isn't it a wonderful feeling to have your head where it should be? I woke up this morning and once again, felt so good - it is my day off and got up early and have stuff to do - all with a clear head!

SL - happy you keep coming back and so happy you keep trying. yes, one day you too will be riding the wave - you did it before so know you can do it..... when I started again after quitting for a period of time, it took a while for me to get it all together to finally quit properly - you will get there and we are all rooting for you. :l

Choice, Mylife and Allswell and Ginger - sounds as if things are going well - that is so good to hear. Ginger - It is funny that you said about the liquor aisle - two days ago I was in the grocery store and deliberately went up to the front THROUGH the liquor aisle, just to show that stuff it has no hold on me and as I walked through it I kept telling it it was all POISON. Funny the things we do.

Hubs bought some booze yesterday and left it on the kitchen table before disappearing to his den with it - and when I glanced at it he said to me "I am going to stop again when I go back to work". he has been off work for 10 days - (heaven help me when he retires), so he knew that I knew and this was his way of letting me know that he knew and that he does plan on quitting again. I told him it was his choice and whatever he did was fine with me. I have to admit - I DO hate the smell of it - what a hypocrit!! I think it was WW that said that he hates the smell of it - as he said, it is fine within reason, but when hubs has too much i hate the smell of it - plus he gets maudlin which I find hard to deal with (I did even when I was drinking so that hasn't changed).

Anyway - hope you all have an awesome day - our temps are supposed to be in the high 60's low 70's - amazing for beginning of March and I am going to get my motorcycle out and go for a ride!!!

Hugs to all, Sun X

[Unwasted]

MARCH MOTIVATORS

Ginger, what a great post from yesterday! Isn’t it amazing that no matter what life throws at us, if we can just WAIT (which Antabuse forces you to do) and let our logical brain have its way with us, we will talk ourselves out of drinking. I hope you get to finish your kitchen…..how’s it going? I still think of the before and after picture you posted of your floor………you’re well on your way to becoming that beautiful transformed piece of work!!

WW (and others), you brought up the smell of alcohol. It bothers me now too and I can smell even the slightest amount. By the way, whatever happened with the gf? Has she gotten any more understanding about your not wanting to party and drink? I don’t know how long you’ve been dating, but that’s going to be a tough one. I’m lucky because my husband and I have been together 16 years, so we’re good at being low key together. It took some doing, though. He loves to go and he has a party animal side, so I’ve had to force the issue a bit.

Big congrats on handling your business like you wanted to rather than letting a bad client take advantage……..how wonderful is that feeling of knowing you’re taking charge of your life! Inspiring!

K9, I love your ability to see through the alcohol when you were looking at the people at the restaurant. I’m starting to do that too – and also with drinking on TV. I now see many of them on their way to having a problem – they just don’t know it. Or, I think to myself ……..they’re going to feel horrible tomorrow. One of the best things for me, though, is knowing that if I were getting trashed, I'd be saying things that weren't really ME........Everyone would be my best friend.........I'd feel love for everyone.........not a bad thing just bad when it's not genuine. Then, of course, I'd reget the next day....I would have invariably made some plan I couldn't care less about.......arranged for a get together or dinner.......something........that I wished I could take back. It’s definitely different not drinking now at a restaurant but like Allswell mentioned, it’s better than being obsessed over looking for that next drink and not caring about the conversation….just focused on getting toasted -- and for me feeling a lot of regret.

I feel like I’m doing a good job rewiring my brain and that this time is different. Fennel, you mentioned that this time feels different for you too. Do you know why? I think I’ve just finally gotten it and want off the roller coaster. I’m feeling a little better every day. And, when I have a bad day I don’t think of drinking, I just know that it will be better tomorrow. I have taken drinking off the table as an option, and there’s a real sense of freedom in that decision.

Daisy, welcome back to the site………wishing you the best on racking up those AF days……..It is so worth it, but it sounds like you already know that!

SL, sorry you’re going through a rough time……..feel free to vent if it helps!

Sunshine – the husband issue.......I guess it's good that he plans on quitting. Hope he can do it for both his sake and yours. Although, it sounds like his drinking isn't really tempting you, which is great!

MY LIFE – I too look forward to the day I don’t think about alcohol. I’m not sure that part ever goes away. But, I think the way we think about it will be much different. I'm already experiencing that and it's a very good thing.......I'm almost having a hard time remembering what being drunk feels like. Luckily I CAN remember what the next painful day feels like!

Choice – thanks for the HALT reminder – it does work…….

I plan to continue the AA meetings and am going to one this Friday, and two on Saturday. There are even noon meetings near me, which I plan to try too. I can't tell you guys how nice it felt to be in the presence of people who understand addiction. What a relief..........I'll keep you posted......

Hope you all have a wonderful AF day.

[WineWrangler]

MARCH MOTIVATORS

Good Morning, slept like a baby last night. Unfortunately I had to give up a significant amount of business yesterday, yet I feel good today. Ready to move fast and hit hard, in a good way. Change is always difficult, but much more manageable with a sober head.
Good day everyone and thanks for the support.
WW

[K9Lover]

MARCH MOTIVATORS

Hi Marchies!

WW-Good job on getting through your business difficulties...everything is much easier when you're not in an alcoholic fog!

As I was driving in to work this morning, I was thinking how I CANNOT believe how I used to function everyday with a hangover. How feeling like CRAP was "normal". I was dizzy/nauseated/foggy brained and I just accepted it. There were evenings when I was taking off my work clothes and couldn't even remember putting them on earlier that morning (because I was still buzzed from the night before). All the days I drove my daughter to school, I'm sure I could have gotten a DUI because of the residual alcohol that was still in my blood. "Coming to" in the mornings with a racing heart, pounding head, and overall feeling of dread and anxiety was a daily occurance. What a horrible way to live. I just thought I'd rehash it today to remind myself how far I've come, and where I never want to go again.

Hope you all have a great day! Be strong peeps, we can beat this stupid, ugly, evil beast named Alcohol!

K9

[Unwasted]

MARCH MOTIVATORS

K9, great post. The word incredulous comes to mind for me. Incredulous that we lived like that, that any part of our brain actually thought it was good, and that we did it for so long. When I watch Intervention and they show heroin addicts or meth addicts, I think.....really alcohol isn't far from that at all......it just "looks" different. I feel like the curtain has been pulled back and that I'll never be fooled again.

[choice]

MARCH MOTIVATORS

Good morning everyone!

I have so much to think about reading all the posts from yesterday and today.

WW- I am really happy for you to have found a new confidence with your business. I think so often we don't even know the toll our drinking has on us in this way. So much of it is existing and getting by that we don't make those kind of decisions which ultimately keep us from getting ahead. Or keep us in bad working relationships. Functioning alcoholic describes so many people.. who, probably without AL would be who knows how much more....., successful, happy, healthy etc.

K-9, it makes me sad how I use to function with a hangover too. Being awake felt like a punishment. I remember changing my cloths or sleeping in them and just really hanging on for the whole next day... trying to pass like I didn't have a drinking problem. Only to do it again the next night and day.

Sunshinedaisy- Does it feel kinda better that your husband's drinking is out in the open again? I think your handling this all very well by the way. I'm glad he is addressing it too and has sorta a plan to quit again. It's so hard. When I had company, there was a box of beer in my kitchen and I was really amazed at how it made me feel. The association with bottles.. cans, logos... all of it makes me uncomfortable if I'm too physically close to it. When my uncle was in town he poured me a glass of wine. He didn't know I'd stopped drinking and was just pouring a glass of wine for everyone.. and setting it in front of people. I didn't tell him to stop pouring... but I didn't even touch the glass as soon as I saw a polite time to move I did.

Well, here I am just popping in for a quick hello and started typing! Hello to everyone... I never mean to leave anyone out.. I just really could go on and on and on..

This march threat is great Unwasted!

[scottish lass]

MARCH MOTIVATORS

keeping accountable, checking in - couldn't bring myself to say day 1 again yesterday - but I have to print it so I can win it! This last few weeks since my slip in Feb have been hard, and I see myself finding reasons why my behaviour is ok! A little nuts - yes, i have way too much going on in life right now, but that does not mean drinking will make anything better!
Hi Daisy, yes I remember you - and sorry you are back, but lovely to have the company - March 4th is my day 1 (yet again!!) - and I do want to do this. Wish the slip in Feb had not happened, I feel myself sinking backwards and hanging on by my nails!
thanks for the support everyone, I aim not to be mucking everyone around like this for much longer. Feb 3rd was my slip after 66 days, so I have had a month of procrastinating, time to walk the walk instead of just talking about it!
first goal 7 days!