Newbies Nest

[available]

Afternoon nesters

Been a busy week with work and being sick. Bring on some sunshine i say. Lav send it over please and thank you.

Well 1000 days today and today i woke up and cried. With bloody amazement i think. To realise that for 1000 days i have started to live my life the way i choose to without al as a crutch. There is no more fighting within myself about whether to drink or not, there is no shame or guilt or remorse and wanting/wishing my life was different. I make the choices now, not al. Did i ever ever think i could get to 1000 days, feck no, i never thought i could get to a month or a week for that matter but i did and i have.

1000 is pretty special as Pav and I promised each other we would do it, we would get to 1000 days and as little faith as i had in myself in the beginning we have both gotten there, we have done what others fight their whole lives to achieve. We are not special, this didnt come easy, it was so hard some days, excruciatingly painful some days also and having a drink was an easy option, a cop out, an escape route, an easy fix and an easy way out but both of us came on to MWO and we reached out. No excuses, no bullshit just the realisation that we could not do this alone. I was sick of justifying why i should drink each and every day of why i deserved al.

Today i had brunch with a dear friend to celebrate and had some beautiful flowers delivered by friends who had faith in me and showed that i was loveable and deserved sobriety.

Never ever do i want the life i had 1001 days ago.

To my dear quit buddy Pav, thank you for being my quit buddy, thank you for sharing your highs and lows and giving me the strength to keep going when i wanted to drink. As long as you didnt drink then i certainly was not going too.

Off to the vets shortly with my girls.

Take care x

[KENSHO]

So there is there a great station on Pandora called "Nature Sounds with Music." I went upstairs and laid down and put that in headphones. I imagined being in the river and the water washing over me, washing my stress out. It was nice and calmed me down. Booze free. :happy2:

Ava, huge congrats and 1000 hugs to you. Thank you for sharing your experience with us, it has helped me on many occasions. I like your comment about "deserving" sobriety. What a lovely way up put it.

Good night.

[tonyniceday]

Ava - 1000 days - that's feckin' fantastic!!! Well done - hope the vet's visit goes ok and don't forget to buy some chocolate cake on the way back to celebrate!

[lifechange]

Congratulations on 1000 days, Ava!! I'm really happy for you.. you've worked hard on acceptance, gratitude, learning new ways of living. You're a very important role model for me.. Thank you so much for being such a strong source of support to everyone here in the Nest.. love to you!

[Eloise]

A couple of months of no alcohol will be a miracle cure Kensho.
I remember feeling like you are describing... like it was yesterday. I was mystified and wanted a glass (bottle is more like it) of wine to feel normal again. Hang on tight until you find your new af normal. It is out there waiting for your arrival!!

Happy FRIDAY - Halle-LU-jah! God, I'm glad this week is almost over. I'm SO tired, and so much to do today. My brain has just not been working well lately. I'm not sure if it is diet, stress, hormones or age, but my memory and critical thinking feel poor! I don't feel very sharp. Ugh! I think I've worn myself out the last 15 years of "taking it all on". Is this supposed to happen at age 40?

Anyway, I hope everyone has an easy day.

[Eloise]

oh... good point Cowboy, I remember spending a couple hundred in NYC 20 something years ago and being like 'wow, good I went home when I did!!" Looking back I think what an idiot, it wasn't THAT fun. Our last drunken night in Manhattan we spent 350 for HappyHour at a rooftop bar, some happy hour, and we were only getting started. No fond memories to hold onto there.

I'm not sure how much you used to spend on wine for an evening Kensho, but I've told this to others that are struggling; get online to Amazon and start shopping for anything, no matter how small, spending the money that you thought you'd spend on wine. Take your time, the drinking thoughts will pass, and you'll be reminded that you can do this when your order comes!

[Eloise]

Amazing, well done and I am looking forward to this day.
Bless you.

Afternoon nesters

Been a busy week with work and being sick. Bring on some sunshine i say. Lav send it over please and thank you.

Well 1000 days today and today i woke up and cried. With bloody amazement i think. To realise that for 1000 days i have started to live my life the way i choose to without al as a crutch. There is no more fighting within myself about whether to drink or not, there is no shame or guilt or remorse and wanting/wishing my life was different. I make the choices now, not al. Did i ever ever think i could get to 1000 days, feck no, i never thought i could get to a month or a week for that matter but i did and i have.

1000 is pretty special as Pav and I promised each other we would do it, we would get to 1000 days and as little faith as i had in myself in the beginning we have both gotten there, we have done what others fight their whole lives to achieve. We are not special, this didnt come easy, it was so hard some days, excruciatingly painful some days also and having a drink was an easy option, a cop out, an escape route, an easy fix and an easy way out but both of us came on to MWO and we reached out. No excuses, no bullshit just the realisation that we could not do this alone. I was sick of justifying why i should drink each and every day of why i deserved al.

Today i had brunch with a dear friend to celebrate and had some beautiful flowers delivered by friends who had faith in me and showed that i was loveable and deserved sobriety.

Never ever do i want the life i had 1001 days ago.

To my dear quit buddy Pav, thank you for being my quit buddy, thank you for sharing your highs and lows and giving me the strength to keep going when i wanted to drink. As long as you didnt drink then i certainly was not going too.

Off to the vets shortly with my girls.

Take care x

[Justme Again]

Congratulations on 1000 days Available!!!

You are right. We deserve a sober life. Thank you for being an inspiration.

[daisy45]

Congratulations Ava! You got what you deserved.....go you!

[Lavande]

Good morning Nesters, happy Saturday to all

Ava, CONGRATS to you on 1000 days AF :yay: :welldone:
Living life free of guilt & regret is the best!!!

Wishing everyone a wonderful AF day ahead!!

Lav

[Byrdlady]

Afternoon nesters

Been a busy week with work and being sick. Bring on some sunshine i say. Lav send it over please and thank you.

Well 1000 days today and today i woke up and cried. With bloody amazement i think. To realise that for 1000 days i have started to live my life the way i choose to without al as a crutch. There is no more fighting within myself about whether to drink or not, there is no shame or guilt or remorse and wanting/wishing my life was different. I make the choices now, not al. Did i ever ever think i could get to 1000 days, feck no, i never thought i could get to a month or a week for that matter but i did and i have.

1000 is pretty special as Pav and I promised each other we would do it, we would get to 1000 days and as little faith as i had in myself in the beginning we have both gotten there, we have done what others fight their whole lives to achieve. We are not special, this didnt come easy, it was so hard some days, excruciatingly painful some days also and having a drink was an easy option, a cop out, an escape route, an easy fix and an easy way out but both of us came on to MWO and we reached out. No excuses, no bullshit just the realisation that we could not do this alone. I was sick of justifying why i should drink each and every day of why i deserved al.

Today i had brunch with a dear friend to celebrate and had some beautiful flowers delivered by friends who had faith in me and showed that i was loveable and deserved sobriety.

Never ever do i want the life i had 1001 days ago.

To my dear quit buddy Pav, thank you for being my quit buddy, thank you for sharing your highs and lows and giving me the strength to keep going when i wanted to drink. As long as you didnt drink then i certainly was not going too.

Off to the vets shortly with my girls.

Take care x

Ava, would you be kind enought to tuck this into the Tool Box for safe keeping? I got goosebumps when I read it. What an inspiration you have been, and continue to be! Posts like these make believers out if all of us! Sometimes as newbies, we look at those with long sober times and think that it must have been easy for them. You and Pav are proof that you fought hard to be where you are. No one has an easier time than the next, it is hard for everyone, but it can be done if we set our minds to it! B

[NoSugar]

Hi, Nest

I just read this blog post in which a woman who was 2 years AF was writing to her Newbie Self. I think she nails it!

Day 730: Two Years Today

PUBLISHED ON July 4, 2015
Written on day 730 but not posted till day 740 cause, well, a girl gets busy.
I put aside the classy, glamorous, life-and-ambition-and-joy-sucking white wine two years ago today. Crazy, right? I don’t spend nearly as much time thinking about my drinking days as I used to, but with this date approaching I have been thinking of what those early days of sobriety were like–all that I didn’t, couldn’t know because I’d never been there before. If Today Me could have given Sober Newbie Me a glimpse into the future, here are some of the things I would have told myself:

• You think right now that being sober is a condition you’ll learn to tolerate–that you’ll make your peace with it as a safer but also somehow lesser way to live. But you’re going to end up loving it. Seriously. It will turn out that clarity is your ideal and happiest state of mind.
• You will be a distance runner who has completed two half-marathons. (No, I’m not fucking with you, even though that’s kind of fun.) Unfortunately, you’ll still have a tendency to overdo things and override your own signals, and you’ll run those two half-marathons in the space of, uh, three weeks and get IT band syndrome and have to go to physical therapy. ‘Moderate’ is just not how you’re wired, babe. But at least you can see this now, and you’re getting smarter about working with your own innate qualities rather than against them.
• Your lifelong issues with depression and anxiety will be reduced by, what, 50%? It’s hard to measure. But the difference will be dramatic. You know how they say alcohol is a depressant? Turns out that’s not just a figure of speech. It’s, like, science. Who knew? Well, scientists and doctors knew. And now you do, too.
• You will choose your work carefully and thoughtfully, because you will have learned that the environment you spend your days in needs to be one that works for you as much as you work for it. You’ll spend less time thinking about which boxes you need to check to climb the ladder and more time considering what you actually like to do and are great at. Not exactly rocket science, but still, it’ll be new to you. And it will serve you well.
• You’ll still be hyper-aware of how booze-soaked the world seems to be. People line up to buy cocktails at the fancy movie theater at 2 p.m. Anyone posting on Facebook about a bad day will be advised to drink wine ASAP. Even running events will brag in their marketing materials about ‘wine gardens’ and margaritas, because what better way to end a 13-mile race than with mid-morning tequila? And greeting cards aimed at women–don’t even get yourself started on that topic. You were never someone who personally enjoyed daylight drinking, but it didn’t seem strange to you that others might. Now you will sometimes look around a sunny plane or restaurant and think how much it’s going to suck for people to be dehydrated and sluggish by mid-afternoon.
• Per the above–you’ll still be on the judge-y side. You didn’t want to become one of those people who thinks everyone who drinks alcohol is an alcoholic, and mostly you haven’t become that person, but you will sometimes dwell on how much time and effort people put into absenting themselves from their own lives. Argh, see that? Judge-y again, and smug to boot. Just because you’re sober doesn’t mean you don’t still suck sometimes.
• You’ll also be shocked, shocked to realize that lots and lots of other people don’t drink, or only drink a little. They were there all along, but you never noticed them because you were off being all ring-a-ding-ding with the party people like a total fucking Holly Golightly jackass. Now? At parties, now you will make a beeline for the light drinkers and sober people because they are the only people guaranteed not to ask you the same question three times in a row.
• You’ll be a little lonely sometimes. All your old forms of socializing tended to involve drinks, because that’s how your corner of the world operates. You’ll still be figuring out other ways to see people, to make friends, to feel like part of your old group. It’s not easy, though. You’re an introvert, and on top of that you did some natural isolating when you first got sober. Now you’re slowly digging out. But you may never dig out completely, because being a little dug in is your happy place.
• Sober vacations are AMAZING. They basically contain twice as much time as drinking vacations.
• Your husband will quit drinking too, and given your long and illustrious (and yes, often glamorous, often lots of fun) history of drinking together across decades and countries and continents, sometimes the two of you will be like ‘Who ARE we?’ and laugh. You’ve been lucky to do so much evolving in parallel over the years.
• When you see a police car behind you, you’ll almost wish you’d get pulled over because if the cop is like ‘Ma’am, have you been drinking?’ you’ll be able to respond smugly and self-righteously, which come to think of it probably will not work out well for you at all. Never mind.
• You will have bad days. Some fairly unpleasant things will happen. You know what your reflexive reaction will be? No, not ‘I wish I could drink.’ You’ll find yourself thinking ‘Thank God I’m sober.’ That’s right–when faced with pain, you’ll be glad to be facing it head on. Because being sober means you can be smart and thoughtful about making a bad situation better.
• You’ll know that thoughts aren’t the same thing as reality, and that thoughts change and pass if you give them a chance.
• When you read op-eds about how the internet is making us more isolated and less civil, you’ll smile because you know the internet is also where people who are getting sober, or who just want to get sober, connect in generous and rich and beautiful ways. The internet sort of saved your life.
• None of your fears about sober life will have come true. Not a single one.
• You’ll no longer think of yourself as damaged or broken. Because you’ll know now that you never were damaged or broken. No matter what anyone else told you. And no matter what you told yourself. You just needed to get alcohol out of your life to be able to see that.
• Best for last: you’ll be writing again. A lot. And it’s fun in a way it never was before, back when you were a wunderkind. It’s also really hard, and kind of boring sometimes, and scary in any number of ways. But you keep showing up and doing the work. And you know what else? The work is still good. Really good, actually. This, above all else, will be the miracle of your sobriety. The thing you never expected to have again.

That’s what I would tell my Sober Newbie self. And to you out there, who may be struggling or wondering if it’s worth it: I don’t know exactly what your own list will look like at two years or six months or one month. But I can promise you that you will have one, and that the good stuff on it will far outweigh the bad. Look, you’ve upended a LOT about your life–don’t underestimate that. Don’t forget to give yourself credit for it. In very early sobriety, you’re a badass for just staying sober. Other doors and windows will start to open over time, once you’ve had the time and space to start figuring out what you want to do with this life you’ve reclaimed for yourself. But it takes a while–even at two years I suspect I’m just cracking the surface. So for now, just keep doing whatever you have to do to stay sober, knowing you have such good things ahead of you. And someday, when you write your own list to Sober Newbie You, send me a link. Because I will want to read it.

Day 73: Two Years Today – Off-Dry

[Guitarista]

Great post above SB. Love it. Thanks for sharing it here.

Day 14 here on a sunday morning. The feeling is real good. Have i been here before? Yes, yes and yep. Countless times. Heads may shake and eyes roll haha, but it doesn't matter. What matters is i will keep showing up for life in the knowledge sober living is the way for me. We can do the daily work to be sober, but that mystical switch that is an inside job must somehow be found and turned on. Continuing to forge healthy daily routines, action, and thinking is all i can think to do at this point.

Happy 1 grand Ava and Pavi!

[Byrdlady]

Wow, NS! That would br a great addition to the Tool Box, too! What a great find! I also just stuck it in my own personal Tool Box. B.

[lifechange]

Hi Nesters!!

G-man, super duper on 2 weeks! I am right behind you!

Awesome post, NS, and just what I needed tonight. I had a bit of a rough day, attending my best friend's daughter's Bat Mitzvah.. it was a beautiful (and very long!) ceremony this morning, which was fine..but the party tonight was quite difficult, in the sense that I felt out of place. It wasn't a big deal that I wasn't drinking.. I knew I wouldn't and was even proud, being with my eldest, that I wasn't. But I felt very introverted. I couldn't think of anything to talk about, for the life of me. I was with 2 very good friends who were drinking and socializing and I sort of aimlessly walked around. I don't think anyone else cared or even noticed.. but I felt inept at being able to converse. It was almost as if I couldn't form words. Boring and uninteresting. Tomorrow noon is a birthday party for the same friend.. and I will try to be comfortable in my own skin. To be ok with being quiet. I'm definitely someone who used alcohol to open up in social situations.. If this weren't my best friend I wouldn't even go..
Ok. I know it takes time to find myself.. that's why it was perfect timing with that post. I KNOW in the long run, I will be so much happier sober.. I already am in the very, very short run of 11 days!

Good night!