Six and a half years later ~ A long time coming

[Tabbers (a.k.a. KTAB)]

Re: Six and a half years later ~ A long time coming

Thanks for your continued support folks. I always believe there is strength in numbers here at MWO and together we can move mountains. Without support from people who have walked in the very same steps, or should I say staggered, it is so much more difficult to keep this thing caged up where it belongs.

[mario]

Re: Six and a half years later ~ A long time coming

Hi ktab :-) For me & I be honest here with you I never thought you would break your addiction, I have met up with you quite a few times & talked to you & I new there was just that tiny something missing from your approach to getting free, I always wished & prayed& hoped that you did but when I seen you going missing from here, well one can only think of the worst.

It was with great pleasure and happiness that I seen you bursting out this time with more conviction & determination than ever before & I just knew this time you were really going for it, You just seem to have the final link & acceptance in you this time around , So well done my friend & keep going strong, I with ya every step of the way.

[Tabbers (a.k.a. KTAB)]

Re: Six and a half years later ~ A long time coming

Thank you my friend, I much appreciate your kind words, saying it like you see it and your continued unswerving non judgemental support.

[Tabbers (a.k.a. KTAB)]

Re: Six and a half years later ~ A long time coming

Week 10

Getting into double figures sounds good and time to take stock I think. Forgive me if I repeat what I have posted in earlier weeks but it is important for me to constantly keep in touch with how this is evolving and what is working for me and what isn't.
So what has changed since I started out last year, I like the sound of that ‘last year’? I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say I actually feel like a new person. It feels like a prison sentence has been lifted, the daily drinking was destroying me, mind body and probably worst of the three, my soul, I knew it but just didn’t fully see the severity of everything combined till the fog fully lifted, it was a slow suicide.

The clarity of thought now is still a wonder to me and I am far more rational in my assessing of situations. I didn’t actually realise at the time the full extent of my anxiety but that has definitely lessened greatly. The clearer eyes are noticeable and the tiny broken veins in my face seem lesser or maybe that is just wishful thinking. The waking with aches and pains is actually gone, I blamed it on a bad mattress, but I haven’t changed it only myself. The release from the chains of having to plan where my next drink was coming from and making sure I always had more than I could drink is such a release. I convinced myself people couldn’t see my red bloodshot eyes and smell the stale alcohol on my breath every day, I even ate raw garlic if I needed to really hide it. The shame, embarrassments, regrets and sheer cringe worthiness will stay with me for a long time but we have to learn to forgive ourselves and let go of the past. The present is where we should live and the future is whatever we decide to make of it.

I feel I have approached this with an holistic approach. Eating very healthily, regularly and proper portions, starting with a proper breakfast every morning, for which I am now hungry and wanting on waking. A far cry from 3 mugs of strong black coffee and maybe a slice of toast which was the norm. I walk every day and swim every week. I meditate and do yoga and I love it. I try not to let things get to me, don’t sweat the small stuff is a fantastic mantra. My BMI is down to 24.2 and I wake with a new enthusiasm for life. I notice things around me instead of walking around on auto pilot. I watch at lest one youtube piece a day around the subject of alcohol abuse, recovering alcoholics, what al can do to our bodies etc. I find it helps to keep me focused and reinforces exactly what alcohol means to me on a personal level. I am planning on going for a full medical soon, I was scared what I might be told, in particular with regard to liver damage but I am now thinking because I am feeling so well in myself that maybe I dodged a bullet. Time will tell.

All these upsides may now seems like a wish list fulfilled but it isn’t what I wished for when I put down that last drink, I just was so sick and tired of it and wanted the madness to stop. Everything else is a bonus but what a bonus and after such a short time sober. It fills me with hope for the future.

Are there really and truly are no down sides to this, maybe count the social aspect where we can possibly feel a little isolated initally when getting clean, not fully joining in at a social setting where others are drinking? Well that, for me, is no loss, I am so happy not to be one of the people who after a few beers repeats the same thing they said not ten minutes earlier, do I miss that, hardly. Remembering the night, all of it, is still new for me. I used always, and I mean always, drink to the stage on a night out where I couldn’t remember all of it and a lot of the time hours would go missing, with no idea what I said or did. Drinking to blackout is so final. That is no way to live now is it?

Thanks for reading, take care and remember to be kind to ourselves, we are worth it.

[lifechange]

Re: Six and a half years later ~ A long time coming

Thanks so much for sharing that, Tabbs.. very honest and full of promise..

[Tabbers (a.k.a. KTAB)]

Re: Six and a half years later ~ A long time coming

Thanks everyone for the encouragement, it is great to know my fellow travellers here think I am moving in the right direction.
Hi Molly & Lifechange, I don't know what finally clicked, maybe true acceptance. I thought for years yeah I am an alcoholic, but deep down was I holding on thinking this might change, be controllable and now I have completely let that go? It is a little difficult to explain but being 100% honest with ourselves is paramount in my opinion otherwise nothing changes. Being honest with myself was hard because we don't want this to be the truth, nobody choses to be an alcoholic, but by bad choices it choses us. It is unfortunate that we don't have a crystal ball and can see how it would turn out many years ago for then maybe we might never have drank to level where there was a loss of control and a descent into addiction, who knows. Either way it is what it is and there is no point in mourning some rose tinted memory of drinking a nice cold beer on a warm summers evening, just as the tv adverts would have us believe, and thinking we are now being deprived in some way. The truth for millions of us around the globe is somewhat different. The reality is that it shortens people's lives and what there is quality wise can be severely damaged for us and those around us.

[lifechange]

Re: Six and a half years later ~ A long time coming

You hit it on the nose! 100% honesty with onesself is what's needed. I know my truth in my heart and in my mind and each and every time I've decided to drink, I've ignored that truth.. closed my heart, shut my mind, put up a barrior. I really don't want to run or hide from this reality any more, never again. I appreciate so much you (and everyone here) who decides to live honestly and share.. I'm in the beginning days, full of hope and feeling strong in my decision. But I've been here many times before.. So there's a part of me that is really afraid. One day at a time! Several times a day, checking in here, keeping myself in a positive state of mind..Slowly but surely it will become my normal..

[Tabbers (a.k.a. KTAB)]

Re: Six and a half years later ~ A long time coming

It is great that you have reached this point Lifechange, I am delighted for you. I can say with hand on heart this is do-able, not saying it is easy, it took me years and many tries but then anything in life that is worth having has to be worked for and then cherished. There are folks on here with years of sobriety and I would bet not one of them thinks their lives are any the poorer for stopping the madness, quite the opposite I bet. I guess by your time of postings that you are in a similar time zone to us Irish etc. I am usually found over on the Army thread in general, everyone is more than welcome to come and join in, generally there are people posting everyday and I find checking everyday a must for me. I tend to isolate and then drink which makes me isolate even more. Recognising what the danger signs is the second step after being honest with ourselves.

[NoSugar]

Re: Six and a half years later ~ A long time coming

Your thread is so full of hope, kTab. I am so happy for you. I don't know if you did this during previous quits but in my opinion, it is a key point:

I watch at lest one youtube piece a day around the subject of alcohol abuse, recovering alcoholics, what al can do to our bodies etc

These videos and blogs are so helpful to condition/brainwash us into being non-drinkers. I immersed myself for months. I still watch and read periodically as "maintenance" of this better wiring and read MWO each morning to check on my friends and to start my day in the right frame of mind. I figure I worked on my old neuro pathways for about 4 hours a day, each and every day - no wonder they were so strong! The new ones don't require that much time and effort but they do need attention.

All the best to you and thanks for sharing your thoughts - you're a beautiful writer.

[Tabbers (a.k.a. KTAB)]

Re: Six and a half years later ~ A long time coming

Hi NS, no I didn't watch clips very often on my previous failed attempts so that is a new tool that I have added and a very useful one. There was one documentary however that I watched several times and it really sticks in my mind. It is harrowing to watch the full fall out from alcoholism in this documentary, maybe it is because it is just a little too close to the truth for some of us, but this should be seen by everyone who wants to take their addiction seriously and stop, it is an absolute 'must watch'.

YouTube

P.S. Thank you for your kind words, they are much appreciated.

[NoraC]

Re: Six and a half years later ~ A long time coming

Oh kTab - I love reading your thoughts. Thank you for sharing your journey. :heartbeat:

[Tabbers (a.k.a. KTAB)]

Re: Six and a half years later ~ A long time coming

Week 11.

So my week eleven actually started last Monday but I couldn’t bring myself to post anything positive at all. Its been a bit of a rough week for me really, I started out in a funk for no particular reason on Monday it just got worse through the week and screwed up my thinking a bit. No real danger of my picking up a drink I don't think, but not impossible to rule out, really not nice not to feel 100% in control though. Letting a few little things build up into something bigger, something far bigger than its parts, isn't healthy especially for those of us so used to only one way of dealing with it, diving into a bottle.
Not sure I am back to myself yet but getting this 'stinking thinking', as I like to call it, is horrible. If it was one particular thing that was causing it I could tackle it head on but allowing lots of small things to niggle me is harder I feel. I suppose when I get like this I am more sensitive and obviously allow things bother me that normally I would let slide and so it builds. I went for a long walk on the beach yesterday and that helped. I suppose I just need to cut myself some slack and remember to be kind to myself again. After all it is less than three months since I stopped poisoning myself and these seismic changes, after so many years of abuse, take time. It is easy to underestimate the magnitude of it all and slip into a comfort zone while taking my eye off of the ball. What worries me most is the fact that at one point I actually started to think about a date some time in the future when I could have a drink again and started to justify this to myself. After all I have said and done and how far I feel I have come this was the most worrying and disappointing of all. Anyway I can post my week twelve post in a few days when I expect to be back to where I want to be on this journey, for it is an actual journey of self discovery in so many ways.
Take care and thank you for reading.

[lifechange]

Re: Six and a half years later ~ A long time coming

Thanks for this post, Tabbers..
I've been thinking about the journey a lot the past couple of days, wishing I was further along on the path..sometimes it's so difficult to remember/keep in mind that that is exactly what this is and each and every day is important. The difficult days as much, if perhaps not even more in the long run, than the "easy/hey, I can do it" days. To me, right now, 3 months seems like a long time away.. a great accomplishment. I hope that when I'm there and feeling like you have been (because I know this will happen) I will do differently than I have in the past.. not get caught up in, oh, what's the point, this is never going to get better.. and instead remind myself that this does take time. After so many years of poisoning/abusing ourselves, using this drug for each and every reason in the book, it makes sense that it takes time, and a lot of it, to make deep changes.. You are doing it.! We are all doing it here.. and I'm truly grateful for each person who takes the time and has the strength to share their personal journey. It helps us all so much..

[mario]

Re: Six and a half years later ~ A long time coming

Well done Ktab, Being clean & sober don't make the world a better place in itself, It just makes how we deal with it better.

[Pie]

Re: Six and a half years later ~ A long time coming

Week 11.
What worries me most is the fact that at one point I actually started to think about a date some time in the future when I could have a drink again and started to justify this to myself.

Hey Ktab, Those thoughts are going to come even when you don't want them to. For me, I had to make a conscious choice not to entertain them, not for a second. The moment a drinking thought occurred to me, I shut it down with the reminder to myself, "But, I don't drink." It seemed that keeping that door completely shut against those thoughts, would be easier than trying to get the door closed again if I allowed the drinking thinking to enter and expand.