Newbies Nest

[Byrdlady]

LilBit, look at you with 30 big days!! Around here, that scores you a hat! :guy:
We are so happy and proud for you! Eloise will ask you over on roll call, but it's customary to ask for a speech! How'd you do it? What worked, what didn't?
Thank you for all you do in this nest, your branch is engraved with your own personal plack "Lil Bit". GREAT JOB! XO, B

[available]

morning nest

Lil congratulations on 30 days, a whole month. When i accomplished that amazing feat i had to think of when i ever did 30 days and it was only when pregnant. Proud of you lil, keep it up.

Byrd when i was in my modding, giving up, modding stage i always thought the ones on here who posted daily didnt have a life (oops) but when i was serious in my quit i thought about having that connection daily with other alcoholics and realised i needed the support of others who understood what i was going through and still do. At times i think i can finally stop being on mwo but then i treasure the friendships i have made and i know left to my own devices that even at 16 months the chances of me drinking eventually are high. I am still emotionally maturing and i am still learning to deal with stress sober so i have no plans to leave anytime soon.

Oh dog poo, my shitzu has a case of the runs, any tips on stopping this. She has canine encephalitis so its quality of life for her now and i know if this doesnt stop soon its off to the vets again. She only eats chicken and rice. My rug is unsaveable, sadly.

Ex hubs has left the building. my daughter was supposed to take him to the airport but she apparently got drunk, had a hangover and forgot. Good thing him and i had a plan. I was driving home and thought to myself how grateful i felt that he did visit and how even though our marriage did not work we are still friends. The anger has gone from me and i can close that chapter of my past and move on. I did love this man and we have beautiful children and life moves on, not how we plan though.

Matt, i could never bury you, i like to keep an eye on my treasures and i fully want you to be around to celebrate your year milestone.

Please stay sober this weekend, it is one thing you will not regret.

[Lavande]

Greetings Nesters,

Back from my grave hopping activities & a nice lunch with my girls.

Lil - CONGRATS on your 30 AF days :yay:
I hope you do a little something nice for yourself to celebrate!

No more dog poop stories for me - my dogs behaved quite nicely while I was out nearly 7 hours
Of course they're starving now & staring so I guess I know what I need to do.

Wishing everyone a safe night in the nest. I would love to hear how everyone has planned on protecting their quits this holiday weekend.

Lav

[LavenderBlue]

Ava - I used to work at a pet food store and a bunch of our customers swore by canned pumpkin (or canned sweet potato)! It's natural so you don't have to worry about giving them too much, but I don't remember how much to give. Probably just a couple teaspoons for a lil' pup. Just make sure you either get something that's made for pets or at least plain canned pumpkin - so not the sugary stuff they sell for pie. And of course, I'm not a vet, it's always best to check with the vet, and all that.

I used to get doggy probiotics, too. I think the company was Eagle Pack - they made a powder you could sprinkle over their food that did wonders for my last dog. Good luck, and I hope it gets better soon!

[Dutch1988]

Congratulations Lilbit, way to make it 30 days, I'll be Joining your club soon!

[Overit-still]

I'm having trouble posting (almost said pooping after reading all the stories) today so we'll see if this works.

CONGRATS LILBIT! CATCH ME IF YOU CAN! WOOT! WOOT!

Busy busy busy. :checkin:

So my headache yesterday turned in to a full blown migraine. Much better today, feel like dancing a jig!:black:

Don't know what is causing it but I do know that you have to be careful what you eat on Antabuse, although I've never had any reactions. The only thing I've changed in my diet was getting rid of the junk and adding vegetables. So.....I'm gonna' blame it on the vegges, which I HATE! :eeew:Anyway, so I've stopped my antabuse. I've 40 days of new habits under my wings so here's to making it stick!:thumbsup:

[A new page]

Oh dog poo, my shitzu has a case of the runs, any tips on stopping this. She has canine encephalitis so its quality of life for her now and i know if this doesnt stop soon its off to the vets again. She only eats chicken and rice. My rug is unsaveable, sadly.

As a dog poop expert :happy2:, having just raised 2 puppies, I can field this question!
Pumpkin (no sugar added) is very good for stopping the runs. For a small dog, a heaping teaspoon on each meal will do the trick in a day or 2.
Also Purina makes a product called "Fortiflora" that comes in small envelopes. I would use about 1/4 tsp for small dog.
You can get that at your Vet, or buy it on Amazon for about 1/2 the price....IF you have Amazon in your area????

If you can't get that, human probiotics work too. Just open a capsule and sprinkle like salt!

[LilBit]

Hey, thanks SO much everyone for the good wishes!

LavB, congrats on your weight loss. That's like four big babies! Wow.

Hanna, thanks! You'll catch up in no time. I hope your Passover holiday goes well. Good for you for having a plan.

Jane, what a great award and vid, with no speedos in sight (although I may have missed them because I had one eye closed).

BL, thanks for the 30-day hat. Woot woot.
What worked = Asking God for help and then getting out of His way while He gave it; checking in with THIS forum every day and all the support from you, my nest peeps; bubbly water with lemon; exercise and working toward a goal of competing in Adult National FS Champs. this April 15th

What didn't work when I tried back in 2009 = Planning from the beginning just to take a break from AL and then return to modding (yuh, right), going it alone, keeping a wine bar in my kitchen (I mean, really??)

And, oh heck yes, I rewarded myself by joining a spa. Today, I took a dry sauna that felt like lying in the Arizona sun, followed by a jacuzzi and a cold waterfall. 'Went shopping and walked home with nothing clinking in my bags. A very good day.

Love to All!! Where would I be without you?

[Pavati]

Hi,

Happy Friday, everyone. Sometimes just the smell of dog poop makes me barf - I'm not sure how I would have handled the atomization, TJAF. That did crack me up.

CONGRATULATIONS, Lil! It is wonderful to have you here and making such great strides - as well as keeping me laughing. BTW, Dutch, there is no way you'll catch her - because she'd have to lose days for that to happen, and that's not going to happen! But you'll be able to say, "remember when we got sober together in the spring of 2015..."

Matt - Exactly what I do - just follow the successful sober people around like a puppy (minus the rug incidents). I do as they do, and I know I'll be ok.

I have overbooked this weekend again, but one of the things is a picnic on Sunday, and it looks like rain here. It is potluck, so i'll have a bunch of potato salad and no ham if we cancel - wouldn't you figure that in the midst of terrible drought it will rain the one day I have a big picnic planned...

I still am crazy at work, but I felt very effective in my work today. That feels so great when I know I am just that good! Yay, me.

Friday is an excuse for me to eat ice cream - no longer an excuse for booze. So glad about that!

Stick that butt velcro triple-ply if need be. Hang on to the tailfeathers of Lav and Byrdie, our nest moms. We're all good.

Pav

[LavenderBlue]

LilBit - I didn't even think of it that way, I like that! xD

I'm partly checking in because I was having some drinking thoughts earlier. The place I applied told me at the time that I needed a certain number of references, but I didn't know until today how many of those needed to be from supervisors. Normally that wouldn't be a huge deal, but it's a holiday weekend, I only had 24 hours to respond to the email, AND turns out a couple folks who said "they'd always be there for a reference" either didn't get back to me when I contacted them or turned out they had left the company and I no longer had their contact info. (Lesson for me: When someone says they'll reference me, I should take a moment *then* to get their personal contact info.) And one of the people who didn't respond to me, I really thought she would so it's hard not to take it personally.

I found enough other references by going back to folks I'm still in touch with from older jobs, though; and if they are interested in me enough I'm sure they'll ask if they aren't satisfied with the ref's I gave. They've got to know as well as I do that it's a holiday.

I know that I don't actually want a drink. I was feeling more frustrated than I wanted to admit, so my brain wanted to go back to the habits it knows to block things out. I don't need to block it out, though. It's honestly not a huge deal, and I did the best I could. If I don't get my second interview I'll find something else, and next time I'll have better backup plans for my ref's. If I do, then yay me.

I kept myself busy chatting with some friends online tonight, and I should be plenty busy tomorrow helping mom get ready for dinner on Sunday. I'll also be feeling better tomorrow since once it's out of my hands, I worry less about what I "should" be doing. But I still wanted to post here and remake the commitment that AL is not an option for me. I know if the thoughts come back, I'm going to remember posting here and that I have plenty of support.

Off to bed soon, here; hope everyone else has a great day/night!

[Hanna]

Lab B

Glad you found the references you need. Tough to find them so fast on a holiday weekend. I have a good feeling about this job for you

Made it through the first passover Sader with the in laws. Was very hard to act like all was fine, but did it for their sake. Did not drink. Had a snack before, but we did not eat until around 8, so it was a little tough, but I am feeling very,very, strong in my quit. I never want to do this again.

Up at 6 this morning (ugh) but all is ok. Will be up this time again tomorrow for my hike. Should be interesting. I asked hubby if he wants to go, but he doesn't, so I will enjoy it with the group signed up. New friends, perhaps.

Have a great day! Sader with my parents tonight.

[Guitarista]

Congrat's on 30 days Lilbit! You Raaawk!

Take care nester's.

[Lavande]

Good morning Nesters, happy Saturday to all!

Great on getting thru last evening Hanna! Repeat tonight then enjoy your hike tomorrow
Keep checking in daily to make sure this is your last quit, you'll never be sorry!

LavBlue, I hope you can enjoy this holiday weekend with your Mom & put the job worries aside for the time being. Keep checking in with us, you're doing great!

Pav, Lil & anyone else on the west coast - I hope you get some rain soon even if it messes up your weekend plans a bit. My brother lives out there too so I've heard a lot about the drought & the new mandatory water use restrictions.
Lil, how exciting about the upcoming skating competition

Wishing everyone a wonderful AF Saturday!

Lav

[Byrdlady]

Morning, Nesters!
Hoppy Easter!
Last night I whipped up a few layers of lemon poundcake so today I am going to decorate them. I am trying to be fearless in this new hobby, it has been empowering to tackle some of the projects! In fact, I was posting some of the little cakes I've made on FB and a classmate of mine asked me to spearhead a wedding he is catering....for 1750 guests. (Remember, my cakes are 6 inches round and not much taller). He sent me a picture and this dang cake is 6 big tiers and over 4 feet high! I got stressed just looking at it! Can you imagine? I dont even want to be in the same room! Working with brides???!! Gads! Life is too short! Not sure I want to work with a cake that needs scaffolding!

Hope everyone is having a great Sattidy! Hugs and strength to all! Byrdie

[LavenderBlue]

Checking in and things are looking at least a little better today, so yay there. Mom is trying to quit smoking again this weekend so I don't know about a relaxing weekend there. I don't mean that as a slam on her either; but she doesn't get my depression/anxiety brain on a good day, so right now she has zero patience with my brain wanting to stress out. I'm not taking it personally since of all people I know how hard quitting something is, I was just reminded of it when I started trying to explain why not hearing from one of my ref's bothered me and she said, "Well you're wrong, and your brain is stupid for thinking that." I know what she *means* but yeah, she's not in a good place to listen to what going on in my crazy head.

I've got to go shopping at the store that ref works at today, which feels super awkward to me. It's the other reason I'm fidgety, I hadn't realized that when I messaged her for the ref, but I'm going to try to just not think about it. If she's there, I won't bring it up and I'm sure she won't. I've done really awesome things with my life since I last saw her, and there's a lot of reasons she may not have gotten back to me that have nothing to do with my worth as a person. If this whole mini-mess has done nothing else, it's shown me that I really do want a new, fresh start and I know I can have that if I keep trying.

Take care all and hope you're having a great weekend!