Newbies Nest
Hi to everyone - my fellow Aussies should all be fast asleep as it's 2.30 in the morning. Why am I awake? Someone else on here was saying they found it hard to sleep - my sleep is still disturbed, been taking a herbal remedy which helps a bit but doesn't stop those middle of the night wide-awake episodes. Ah well. I'm just thankful it's not one of those awful guilt ridden, drunken wake ups that I used to get, before falling back into some unrestful alcohol fuelled sleep like I used to have.
DD - you asked whether what I wrote when I was under the influence of alcohol (most of my work in other words) looked peculiar when I read it again whilst I was sober. I'd like to say that it did, but the fact of the matter is that it didn't - either to me or to the various people who proofread it before publication. The thing I found so weird though is that some of it I could not recall having written. I don't normally go back to what I wrote - once it's gone, it's gone - but with one particular thing I had call to revisit it and there are chunks of it, whole paragraphs proposing some theory or other, that I have no recollection whatsoever of having written. That scares me, frankly. I don't understand why some alcoholics can function on a fairly high level whilst clearly being seriously under the influence - however I could only do so whilst I was writing - I would have been instantly exposed had I had to speak to someone or meet someone face to face because I could sometimes barely stand by the time I had finished that day's writing. I would often wake in the chair at stupid o'clock and discover I'd finished the piece I was working on though I couldn't recall having done so. During the worst few years I broke three laptop computers by spilling wine over the keyboard after falling asleep, or letting the laptop fall to the floor. I spent hundreds of dollars frantically getting my computers fixed, getting hard drives unscrambled or whatever. Thankfully I used a separate disc drive for what I was writing, always protected by a meter long cable from the spilt wine or I'd have lost thousands of hours of work on a regular basis. It's a mystery how I could ever write coherently, but somehow clearly I did.
Dream - glad you are fond of your garden too - we'll have to share photos! Mine has been my salvation these last few weeks - planning, as well as actually working on it.
To the newbies on here - welcome, you will find it a wonderful help to be among us, people who really understand what you are going through. Some of us are only really a few days in front of you, some others, like Lavande, have been successfully AF for several years, but we've all been where you are. It's very true (was it Byrdie that said it? Apologies if I'm wrong) that we have to have a plan, because you will have to walk past the bottle shop, you will be pressed to accept a drink, you will have a bad day, be angry or upset, and I have found that it's vital to have some kind of coping mechanism in place to allow you to refuse the drink, and to find something else to take your mind off those issues that would previously have seen you reaching for the bottle. Don't underestimate the power of alcohol addiction - it terrifies me that it's always lurking there, ready to take advantage of me. Right now I'm on a high, six whole weeks AF is truly a gift from God to me, but I'm unavoidably living surrounded by alcohol and regardless of my feelings right now, I am still in the very earliest stages of sobriety and subconsciously I'm very anxious of the power it may suddenly exert over me if something really difficult happens in my life that might knock my intentions out of the window. All I can do is to have my strategies in place to get through this, one day at a time, and part of that is to keep reading this amazing forum, and posting when I can.
Hi to everyone - my fellow Aussies should all be fast asleep as it's 2.30 in the morning. Why am I awake? Someone else on here was saying they found it hard to sleep - my sleep is still disturbed, been taking a herbal remedy which helps a bit but doesn't stop those middle of the night wide-awake episodes. Ah well. I'm just thankful it's not one of those awful guilt ridden, drunken wake ups that I used to get, before falling back into some unrestful alcohol fuelled sleep like I used to have.
DD - you asked whether what I wrote when I was under the influence of alcohol (most of my work in other words) looked peculiar when I read it again whilst I was sober. I'd like to say that it did, but the fact of the matter is that it didn't - either to me or to the various people who proofread it before publication. The thing I found so weird though is that some of it I could not recall having written. I don't normally go back to what I wrote - once it's gone, it's gone - but with one particular thing I had call to revisit it and there are chunks of it, whole paragraphs proposing some theory or other, that I have no recollection whatsoever of having written. That scares me, frankly. I don't understand why some alcoholics can function on a fairly high level whilst clearly being seriously under the influence - however I could only do so whilst I was writing - I would have been instantly exposed had I had to speak to someone or meet someone face to face because I could sometimes barely stand by the time I had finished that day's writing. I would often wake in the chair at stupid o'clock and discover I'd finished the piece I was working on though I couldn't recall having done so. During the worst few years I broke three laptop computers by spilling wine over the keyboard after falling asleep, or letting the laptop fall to the floor. I spent hundreds of dollars frantically getting my computers fixed, getting hard drives unscrambled or whatever. Thankfully I used a separate disc drive for what I was writing, always protected by a meter long cable from the spilt wine or I'd have lost thousands of hours of work on a regular basis. It's a mystery how I could ever write coherently, but somehow clearly I did.
Dream - glad you are fond of your garden too - we'll have to share photos! Mine has been my salvation these last few weeks - planning, as well as actually working on it.
To the newbies on here - welcome, you will find it a wonderful help to be among us, people who really understand what you are going through. Some of us are only really a few days in front of you, some others, like Lavande, have been successfully AF for several years, but we've all been where you are. It's very true (was it Byrdie that said it? Apologies if I'm wrong) that we have to have a plan, because you will have to walk past the bottle shop, you will be pressed to accept a drink, you will have a bad day, be angry or upset, and I have found that it's vital to have some kind of coping mechanism in place to allow you to refuse the drink, and to find something else to take your mind off those issues that would previously have seen you reaching for the bottle. Don't underestimate the power of alcohol addiction - it terrifies me that it's always lurking there, ready to take advantage of me. Right now I'm on a high, six whole weeks AF is truly a gift from God to me, but I'm unavoidably living surrounded by alcohol and regardless of my feelings right now, I am still in the very earliest stages of sobriety and subconsciously I'm very anxious of the power it may suddenly exert over me if something really difficult happens in my life that might knock my intentions out of the window. All I can do is to have my strategies in place to get through this, one day at a time, and part of that is to keep reading this amazing forum, and posting when I can.
I'm sorry - you'll be relieved to know that I've finally run out of steam and I'm going to head back to bed, hopefully to sleep! 
)
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