Newbies Nest

[Byrdlady]

LavBlue,
I do not tempt the AL-Gods at all. I use something else in recipes, I didnt really cook with wine before but I really dont do it now. I dont want to give my brain any excuse to say 'AL is ok'. I know how my mind works. There is always another option. You may be fine, but I personally, dont go there. B

[actiongirl46]

Hi all - I am well, still here, I've been reading every day and continuing to learn about myself. I am struggling with the concept of "acceptance" despite my signature line. It seems like I can think about it intellectually and rationally, but not put things into full action (no pun intended, hmm, I need to change my name on here). I just can't seem to totally, full-heartedly embrace the concept of acceptance. Why is this? As I just hit a personal low in December, it is still too relatively new? (I'd never considered giving up AL before then.) Is it just part of the process for some people? Do I really need to hit the ultimate low before I'll change behavior (oh, I hope not. . . bad bad bad). I'm just reflecting tonight and if anyone has any thoughts, please share. Thanks.

[Lavande]

Good evening Nesters,

I'm still freezing & hoping for Spring despite the winter weather advisories in effect - oh well.

Hanna, I am sorry you chose to drink. Habitual behavior was a big thing for me too. You know that it takes about a month to form a new habit - hence the recommendation for an initial 30 days of abstinence. Just keep trying, never give up! Revise your plan so you know exactly how you are going to handle those feelings if/when they pop up again.

Londoner, you are doing well, good for you!
Shortly before I found this website & joined I worked on a self-improvement program designed to eliminate negative thinking. I learned that negative thinking, fear & anxiety can be learned behaviors. If we can learn behaviors then we can 'unlearn' them as well. Facing some of my worst fears did not kill me but made me stronger. In the words of FDR (the 32nd president of the US) 'We have nothing to fear but fear itself'. Perhaps you will feel better if you face whatever it is that you have been avoiding - just a thought.

LavBlue, I have chosen to stay away from cooking wines - why tempt the gods?

Byrdie, I like your baking challenges

Wishing everyone a safe & peaceful night in the nest!

Lav

[NoSugar]

Hey, ActionGirl,
For me, acceptance is like forgiveness - it doesn't magically happen but is a conscious choice that has to be supported by how you think about the situation and what you do.

Waiting for a rock bottom isn't necessary, is risky, and doesn't make sense, in my opinion. If you're here, you know you have a problem. To not deal with it now would be like feeling chest pains but not going to the hospital (or worse) until you'd actually had a heart attack. I had no "typical" rock bottom, I was just sick of what felt like a meaningless life. And really, that is about as low as you can go.

I hope you can figure out a way to choose not to drink again. It will make your life so much simpler and peaceful. Almost every one who has quit will tell you that it isn't as hard or scary as you think it will be and in retrospect, it is hard to believe that it ever seemed like such a big deal. The main (only!) regret you'll hear about quitting is not having done it sooner.

All the best, NS

[available]

Hanna keep a snack in your bag or car, be prepared is all you can do. Do you have al in the house if you drank before going out? Get rid of it, why put temptation at arms length. I can have al in the house now and its not a problem to me but in the early days i didnt.

Action, accepting that you can never drink is hard. It took me some months before i accepted that i cant drink again. I try not to say never as it is such a long time and then we feel deprived of something that can kill us. I always said to myself each day "today i will not drink" and i didnt. We dont stop drinking and have positive feelings constantly. We are alcoholics and we are addicted to alcohol, we will withdraw, we will have good days and we will have awful days but in time we accept what is. Sure i would love a drink occasionally but for me occasionally and drinking do not go hand in hand. I didnt hit my rock bottom per se but i was well on the way and i realised that at 50 i did not want to live the rest of my life the way i was, hell i didnt have much of a life. Now i wake up daily and appreciate what i have given myself and my family and that is the real me. Sure i get angry, stressed sad but so do non drinkers and they cope without al.

For 5 weeks i have had a very sick dog that has a neurological problem, at no time did i think that al would solve what she is going through. When i was at 60 days sober my other dog nearly died. Now i would have given anything to drink, to dull the pain and stress but I knew i had to be there fully for her. It took every ounce of willpower and grit and determination in the early days to not drink, it was what i was programmed to do in situations like that. Today i dont rely on al for anything in my life, i rely just on me and as i will keep on saying, time, time and more time is what we all need to give ourselves. I decided to just stop hitting the repeat button and see where it would lead and thankfully i listened to the wise ones on here.

[Fin]

Still hanging in. After Day 88, there can't be any looking back. Time to push to 100 and beyond.

[Overit-still]

Still hanging in. After Day 88, there can't be any looking back. Time to push to 100 and beyond.

Hi Fin! Been looking for you all day! Thumbs up my friend!

[BeachGirly]

Ya Fin - glad you made it through that rough spot.
You had such amzing support from your friends here, it was really something to witness.

I am not far behind you - so we can have a 100 day party together when we get there!!

[Turnagain]

That's the way to light up those new neurons, Finny friend! Can't wait to see what Byrdie finds in the prize closet for that 100 day soiree for you and BeachGirly!:welldone:

[ADP]

Wow, so much happening here today that it has taken ages for me to read.......but thanks guys, some great advice and support going on and after today I needed to hear it!!
Met today with usual weekend triggers in full flow which sucked!!! But made it!!! Yeah!! The garden looks amazing and weeds next to the pool are a thing of the past.......hopefully like AL! Told my partner that on a day out on Monday I will not be drinking since I wish to stay off it for a while.....(well I have tried not to worry him by saying forever......as I was a secret drinker he is unaware of just how much I consumed.......boy could I hold it though).....he was really supportive so now I also have support at home too!!!
What started out to day as tough ended a lot better! Now, where's day 3? Bring it on!
ADP


A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step..........let me hope I can really learn to walk again without AL.

[Dutch1988]

Hi, Dutch. I think you're stronger if you use the experience to evaluate what went wrong and make any necessary changes. Simply repeating the experiment over and over doesn't work and the fact is, there is a very real risk of an epic fail, which is how scientists describe the experimental outcome when too many animals or participants in the study die.

There have been a couple heroin overdose deaths in my fairly small community this week. My tendency is to think of "them" as being much different from me. But the fact is, being legal doesn't make alcohol less of a drug and in fact, it is responsible for many more deaths each year than so-called illicit drugs.

Sorry to put a damper on the nest on this fine weekend morning but the fact is, this is serious business and anyone who makes it to this website needs to take it very seriously.

Take care of yourselves, NS

You have a damn good point nosugar, I guess I was thinking too positive haha, but still, I'd like to think I am taking my experiences with me and using them to reinforce my decision to not drink. For instance, the last month I was abstinent I smoked weed almost everyday, although this helped me not drink, I think it didn't force me to find a way to deal with my emotions and stress without a crutch. Although I know the Hams book talks about marijuana maintenance, I think it definitely made it too easy to go back to drinking, once I started drinking again I went right back to drinking like I never left. So I'm with ya, have to look at the reasons why you failed and create a better plan, or plan do check adjust right?

On the flip side i made it through a different get together without drinking. I didn't go to the ufc party but was invited to another get together for my whole family and realized I would normally decline to go home and drink to relax. Since I didn't have that excuse, I brought my family and had a good time, although decided to leave since every adult was drinking but my wife and I and I was starting to get too tempted. Time to enjoy a movie with the wife and relax, take care everyone!

[Pavati]

Hi, Everyone:

Sweet Byrdie - 1,500 days is amazing. Thanks for all you do - you're a rock star!

G - Glad the date went well!

Hanna - glad you came back. If you look at the stages of relapse, there are is a huge amount of emotional stuff that comes before the actual drinking. I found it useful to think about those and if I got agitated or started seeing some of the signs, I knew to double up my efforts, reach out for help, and settle in here. I'm glad you came back so quickly.

Action - For me, I made two lists - the positives I got from drinking alcohol, and the positives I got from not drinking alcohol. Not EVER, but in the last couple of months. I couldn't list one positive, but many negatives. I could list my health, relationships with husband and kids, job, confidence, engagement in life - all of those things would go away if I drank alcohol. Because I had read enough here and elsewhere about the disease of alcoholism, and because I KNEW intellectually, that even if I could drink moderately for a while, I would eventually (and probably pretty quickly), end up with the same patterns I left behind. There is no scenario where drinking alcohol is worth sacrificing all of those things, even my AL brain couldn't convince me of that. Enough revisiting that list and voila - acceptance. Really - if you could moderate that would mean one drink a day at the most. One drink a day. Is that what you want when you think of drinking again? That's not what I EVER wanted. So - if only one, why not NONE. The math is simple...

LavBlue - I think that cooking with wine tastes better, but I have stayed AWAY from that. I don't trust myself. I think some people mentioned some kind of sour non-alcoholic wine? Someone mentioned cooking in Tea (Little Beagle), and I used a bit of vinegar with chicken broth for mine. Why tempt fate...

Hi, Everyone else. Hope you're having fabulous, sober weekends.

I had a long and active day - I am exhausted and so happy to be heading to bed tired from a physical challenge and a good meal, not from drinking booze.

xo
Pav

[Lavande]

Good Sunday morning Nesters,

Cloudy in my portion of the nest, waiting for the start of another winter storm on this first day of March!
I seriously hope this is the end of this winter season!

Dutch, sounds like you made some good decisions yesterday - good for you

HBE, how are you doing today?

Wishing everyone a good AF Sunday!

Lav

[banana44]

Hi everyone,
Woke up early this morning with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach after one of those super-realistic drinking dreams. Dreamt I consumed nearly a whole bottle of cab and my sister was visiting, she had bought it, and I was frantically trying to get to the store to replace the bottle so that she wouldn't know I'd been drinking...SO nice to wake up to the reality of another AF day and night! I hate those dreams, but I know them for what they are...my subconscious guilt and shame coming through, so I choose to use it as a positive reinforcement for my waking hours.

Going to have a nice relaxing day starting off with yoga in about an hour! Take care everyone,
Banana

[banana44]

Actiongirl, I struggle with acceptance too. For now, I'm just making it a day-by-day thing, and waiting for an ah-ha! moment. I don't think it can be forced. Many old timers on here will tell you that when it happens, you can feel it is the real deal, especially those who have used the notion of "the beast" as outlined in Rational Recovery as part of their tools. It is the simple declaration that "I" will never drink again, no loopholes, no what-ifs. I'm not there yet either, but I aspire to it. Also, personally, I don't believe one needs to hit "rock bottom" before this acceptance kicks in, though many perhaps do. It's too physically dangerous for me to contemplate. I've been to some dark places with AL; imagine going deeper? I don't even want to think of it.

Best to you!
Banana