Anyone in the First Week of Their Unpteenth Quit?

[LostSoul33]

Hi all,
I've been AF off and on since I joined MWO in April 2013. The events that occurred these past few months have been catastrophic. I am mortified by my behavior and feel so alone and broken.
I look forward to getting to know you brave souls and commend all of you for being here. We are stronger than we think.
Let's do this together.
:newhere:

[JackieM]

Welcome back Lost Soul. I have been mortified by my own behavior too many times to count-you are not alone.
Whatever you are feeling I guarantee there is someone here who has felt the same. It really helps to post and realize that we are all in the same boat.
Please let us know what we can do to help.

JackieM

[NoraC]

Hi Lost - good to see you back.
Jackie is so right. You are not alone and I have done things that I never dreamt in a thousand years that I would do.
So - hang on here and let's do this. :hug:

[LostSoul33]

Hi Jackie, thank you for reaching out. I'm looking forward to embarking on this journey with you

Hi Nora, good to see you are doing so well!

[LostSoul33]

What right actions are you taking?

Hi all,

Wanted to bring up a subtopic-- since we are all in the beginning stages of our recovery, I'm curious to know:

1. What positive steps/actions are you taking to fill the time you spent drinking?

We've freed up a lot of time now that we won't be drinking, sneaking our next drink, plotting to get more and being hungover. So what will do you do with all this space and time?

2. What are you doing to combat cravings and replace drinking thinking with the next right action?

The biggest problem for most of us is our thinking. We obsess about it, and the obsession prevents us from taking the next right action. So we pause and take the right action for the moment--because that is what will help us in that moment. The results are what keeps us alive, confident and sober.

[JackieM]

LostSoul-

I spent my first alcohol free month doing major house cleaning/organizing projects. I put on a Bubble Hour podcast and went to town. It felt good to work on projects I had been too hungover to tackle. I also spent a lot of time reading and posting on this forum.

As far as changing my thinking...it just kind of changed itself. I knew for sure I was ready to quit for good. I spent years "taking breaks" from drinking only to go back at it full force when my "break" was over. I finally got sick and tired of that merry-go-round ride.

Last month I lost a friend to liver disease. She was 48. Despite being sick for years she just could not put down the wine. I am grateful every day that I quit while I still had the chance.

I hope you stick close and make this your last quit. If there is anything I can do to help let me know please. I want everyone to enjoy the freedom of an alcohol free life.

Take care,

JackieM

[NoraC]

Good questions LostSoul:

1. What positive steps/actions are you taking to fill the time you spent drinking?
I have been spending much more time with my hubby/family. I have been reading. Watching Netflix. Cleaning up. Being more active.

2. What are you doing to combat cravings and replace drinking thinking with the next right action?
I am on here reading posts quite a bit. I have been eating way too much because if I get a craving, I eat. I drink a lot of ice tea, water. I am staying connected here. That's the best thing.

[NoraC]

Jackie - that is so sad that your friend died from liver disease. That was the path I was on.
I love what your wrote here:

As far as changing my thinking...it just kind of changed itself. I knew for sure I was ready to quit for good. I spent years "taking breaks" from drinking only to go back at it full force when my "break" was over. I finally got sick and tired of that merry-go-round ride.

I don't want to jinx it, but I am feeling positive. I am not thinking past today but it seems to be working.

Thanks for all your positive words.

[All done drinking]

LostSoul-


Last month I lost a friend to liver disease. She was 48. Despite being sick for years she just could not put down the wine. I am grateful every day that I quit while I still had the chance.

Jackie, This post caught my eye as i was perusing the boards and wanted to reply. Drinkers (especially heavy drinkers) can sustain what is nicknamed Holiday Heart Syndrome which was coined in 1978. It's a misleading name as people don't feel like they're on holiday when they have it! It got it's name because cases of the condition tend to increase around holiday times or after weekends, when people tend to drink more. When it occurs a person feels like they are having a heart attack – characterized by severe pain in the center of the chest. Their heart starts to beat irregularly and it makes them feel breathless. Their blood pressure changes, which can increase their risk of a heart attack and sudden death.

One of the hardest parts of my new found sobriety (after giving up the delusion that I can moderate my drinking like so many of us want to believe) is the change overall in friends as I haven't found a good AA group where I've made friends. I also would usually be the initiator of friends getting together and I haven't had the desire to go out as much and be tempted by drinkers around me as it's hard sometimes to see what I know I should no longer have. So, I am really feeling friendless at times. Coming here definitely helps although there can be times of feeling lonely as well. So, I get what you are saying Bri, but I think everyone experiences that here or there (where they feel like they don't fit in or are being left out). NN has gotten a lot of good posters speaking from the gut to help each other lately and any one of them (if they saw your feelings about NN) would tell you - you are most welcome. You have great input wherever you post. Just remember that sometimes it's easy for all of us to feel like the outsider looking in when some folks seem so glued at the hip, but truly I find that folks are helpful and good (or want to be) wherever we post.

For your info LostSoul as I believe you're new to us or returning from being gone? is abCowboy and I started a thread called Dedicated to the quit I love, where we discuss strategies to stay abstinent and have probably asked the same questions you stated here. He also started a fun Cowboy's Cafe thread where folks can gather for a cup of Joe and speak from the heart. LOL. Really so many good threads.

Have a strong Saturday everyone. We are going out for a belated 25th wedding anniversary and of course I would have been salivating at the thought of the champagne (especially on a Saturday night). Bit by bit, this does get easier and I will wake tomorrow with a clear head, lots of energy from good non interrupted REM sleep, and will be so glad I didn't give myself an excuse to blow my quit.

Addy

[briseus]

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[abcowboy]

Bri, why don't you come join us at the Cafe or Steppers thread, we'd love to have you!

[SalemWillows]

It's not my umpteenth time officially, because I can't even bring myself to try again. I have failed so many times and circumstances just don't allow me to have the strength to try again. My husband did not tell me he was an alcoholic when we met 20 years ago. My dad was an alcoholic and I swore I would never marry one. After we married and I was pregnant, my husband started not coming home after his job on the fire department. He started becoming angry and going out to the bars every day. We had been very much in love and now it was like he hated me, our home, our daughter... everything. Long story short he went on benders and got laid off several times before finally losing his job. While waiting for it to go to the union for appeal he committed arson, gave everything we had to his lawyer, and my daughters and I were on the street, with no home or money, no means of income and our father and husband in the penitentiary. I had started drinking when I found out he was an alcoholic. I had never had an issue but started to drink at home to deal with the disbelief that I had married an alcoholic and that our family had turned into my childhood family. I could not deal with it. I've been supporting our two daughters myself for ten years since the arson and I work at home as a writer. I drink all day, every day. I've been doing so for over ten years. I've tried to get help but can't enter rehab because I have no insurance but make $48K and can't get aid. I can't enter outpatient rehab unless I'm detoxed first but I can't find a doctor who will give me medication to detox. My younger daughter's mom committed suicide this summer. She was an alcoholic. My ex husband, now sober five years, tells our daughters it we ME who ruined our family. They don't remember his violent abusive drunks or how I devoted my life to protecting them from him. My younger daughter has taken to living at her friend's house because she doesn't like to see me drink, although I don't get drunk or violent, just drink to steady my constant anxiety. My older daughter has stopped asking me to stop; I guess she has given up hope. Alcohol is the most horrible thing in the whole world. I wish I could go back 18 years and leave my marriage and never look back. I've almost given up hope that I will ever get well or have my family back again with my daughters trusting me and wanting to be with me as they used to. I was the most hardworking, healthy, successful, dedicated mother and wife in the world. So much talent. So much love. I used to be very pretty, healthy. I've gained 60 pounds in two years. I have begun to isolate from friends and family. My mom is 89 and lives a block away. I see her once every two weeks because I have no tolerance for being in another person's company. I've seen my alcoholic husband destroy me over twenty years. Now he is super fit, sober, free as a bird. He's homeless and lives in an office he rents for fifty dollars a month. He hasn't had a job in ten years or filed taxes in twelve. He thinks there is nothing wrong with him and honestly believes what he tells our daughters about me. Meanwhile I am paying all the back taxes for the returns he never filed when we were married (which he told me he did). I look like I"m seventy years old (I'm 45). The irony is sometimes almost unbearable. I tried MyWayOut years ago. Did the hypnosis CDs, read the book, took the supplements. I took Topamax for two months, which worked like a charm but I found myself giving tours and lectures and completely blanking out, so I gave it up. I tried Topamax again a couple of years later and it didn't work at all. I've tried Kudzu and Dandelion tea and Taking dozens of vitamins a day. I've tried counseling, priests, women's counseling, AA. I've tried cutting down, giving it up, praying, begging God to save me. I just don't know what else to do. Thanks for listening.

[available]

Hi Salem. I think we have all felt how you feel now. Helpless and ashamed and alone and scared. Alcohol is a horrible drug and makes for an even worse addiction as it is so readily available. The truth is that you are the only one that can make the decision to have a better life and give it your all. It took me pure guts and determination to get al out of my life and i took it day by day and minute by minute. My ex husband was a drinker also and i thought one day that if i cant beat him i may as well join him. The worst thought i ever had in my life. I did finally leave him but then my sense of letting the children down and what would i do and my sense of failure made me drink even more until i was up to 3 bottles of wine a day. I was hurting my children and myself and i knew i had to do something and do it with every ounce of willpower that i owned. I stopped drinking just before 50 and wish i had done it years before.

I came on here and logged in constantly, i read stories similar to ours and felt safe here. I listened to the ones who had gone before me and i posted if i wanted a drink. It has been one of the hardest things i have ever done in my life but i now have a life. I dont hate myself, i dont blame anybody for what happened. What happened just did. I now love myself, my children are so proud and i am happy. Easy, certainly not, but the only thing that can take my sobriety off me now is myself.

Come and say hi over at the Newbies Nest. There is always someone there to say hi to and always someone who understands what you are going through.

Get rid of all the al in your house, ask your girls for support and make a small but doable plan. We cannot do this alone and there is no need to. You are worth having a happy life. Ignore your ex, you know the truth, dont waste time and energy on him, use that time and energy on you.

Take care and you can do this. We are all a bunch of alcoholics who understand.

[daisy45]

SalemWillows.....what a story! You need to take your life back. You are only 45. There is potential, a future waiting for you.
Easier said than done but let go of what is the past. I felt so much like you about my ex of 20 years.....there is a lot of blame I have always laid at his door. But a couple of years ago his father died and I made contact again....I found myself letting go of a lot of that resentment and it has made me feel better about myself. Maybe because I am now concentrating on moving forward for me and my family. I don't forget but I almost pity him for what he lost....us!
It sounds like you could really do with some counselling regardless of the alcohol. This would leave room in your head to face that.
I wish I could help more but I know if you stay here you will not feel so alone. You have made a start. There is more communication and people starting off (again,like myself!) in the Newbies.....you will feel that support very quickly and take baby steps from there.....

[Pavati]

Hi, Salem:

I know there is medical support for people who can't afford it. Do you have a friend or family member who you can trust who can help you figure everything out? With so much alcohol in your life it will be hard for you to think straight and rationally.

There are sites about tapering down to quit safely without a medical detox. That would have been very hard for me as alcohol had the upper hand once I started. What about reduced cost therapy?

I am sorry you are struggling. My advice is to ask someone for help in person. You and your kids are worth it.

Pav