Newbies Nest

[Lavande]

Newbies Nest

Morning here in my part of the Nest, partly sunny.....I'll take it

vg - good for you surfing that urge yesterday! Keep doing that no matter what & you will emerge a winner!!!! Logging on to MWO always helped me too!

DSLR, glad to see you doing well & enjoying the benefits of a sober life!

I hope everyone has a wonderful day ahead, enjoy!
Lav

[kelli]

Newbies Nest

Good Morning! It is a beautiful sunny day here and I feel great! Hope no one minds this question. I seem to be waking up around 4 or 5 and have to pee a LOT. I'm taking the supplements but not rx meds. Am I just losing excess fluid?

[mylife]

Newbies Nest

Good morning all.

It's a gorgeous day here so I'm popping in before heading out into the sunshine. Kelli, I normally wake up in the middle of the night too, but then fall back asleep pretty quickly if I don't have any AL in my system. I also noticed the more days I am AF the fewer times I wake up. Everyone here seems to be a little different that way.

Lav, Vintage, DSLR, good morning and great to hear from you guys. Hope you and all to come have a wonderful AF Sunday!

[Mema]

Newbies Nest

Good morning everyone!
VG good for you for not giving into that urge. Next time I get an urge I will try the same thing!
It is overcast and cold here..another blah day. But I will make it happy , I am going to make oatmeal raisin cookies with my daughter and take her to a speech meet and afterwards I will not drink I will come back here and visit all of my newbie friends!
Inchains you do have a great question. For me looking too far into the future scares me. Even though i had many years wonderful (ordinary)years.. without AL and was happy, content, productive etc etc etc I still get scared giving it up again. I have to constantly remind myself how happy I was without the monkey AL on my back. It helps me NOT look too many days ahead. I just try to stay in the moment and realize how good I feel, how happy I am and how nice it is to not have to "plan" to be home by 5/6:00 so I can have my couple of hours to drink. Hopefully the days will continue to add up and eventually I won't be thinking so hard about staying sober. Eventually life flows seamlessly and there are whole days and weeks where you don't even think about not drinking.
I became complacent and bored and allowed my thoughts to go places I should not have gone. Instead of taking ACTION to keep my life on track I picked up a drink. I took the "easy" way out and now I have to do the work to get back to an AF life again.
Happy Sunday everyone. I hope you have a GREAT AF day!!!

[Lavande]

Newbies Nest

kelli,
I remeber doing that a lot in the beginning too. But if it means losing an extra pound or two that's OK with me :H
It didn't last too long & could just be due to the fact that AL is no longer dehydrating you

[kelli]

Newbies Nest

Hi Mylife. I'm sleeping fine really. Having to go to the bathroom is what is waking me up and I never had to do that before. Lav ~ Losing a few pounds would be just fine with me!

[Byrdlady]

Newbies Nest

Kelli, I wee alot too!!! I am getting up 2 or 3 times a night to go. I didn't do that with the wine and volumewise..I'm drinking less!!! So I'm in that same boat and I am 67 days today!!
Lav...question. Do you have cravings now?? After this long?? Thank you, for everything. t

[Lavande]

Newbies Nest

Byrdie,
I have not had any real cravings, physically or emotionally since I hit about 3 months AF.
If you have done the work to really change your thinking about AL you will find your cravings turn into nothing more than occasional thoughts. The 'mind chatter' is annoying but it quiets down as well. I think the key is patience! Just wait it out ~ usually after 10 or 15 min the thoughts go away. I purposely redirect my thoughts to something better than a bottle of wine

[InChains]

Newbies Nest

hey all, had a lovely day of artwork and spending time with my family. Also the first day in a long time I actually do not actually want to drink, the thought of it is not appealing to me. That is of course not to say that I haven't had a drink or won't have more - right now I'm not ready to make the AF leap, way too much on my plate and the risk of a sleepless night is just too great right now. But still, psychological progress at least right?

[vintage girl]

Newbies Nest

Hi all! Had a lovely day today, really enjoyed my gardening and later, went for a coffee and shopping with my lovely daughter. I love her so much, and I resent the fact that I drank when she was growing up, even if I did wait until she was in bed. It pains me to think that I was not 100% the mother I could have been due to being hungover etc.

She is a fabulous girl and I an very proud of her, I wish...oh well.

IC, the very fact that you are here, posting and thinking about what you're doing is a step in the right direction. We are here for you, you should be proud of every little achievement. We all should.

Girls, I wee a lot too, but I drink lots of water and tea, not the dehydrating poison that I used to guzzle!

Mema, when you come back can you bring some of those cookies? They sound fab!!

Lav, after last night it is comforting to know that the cravings do eventually go!

I am tired tonight, but in a good way. Will stay on here and watch TV for a bit. Husband is back tomorrow so things should get back to normal. Hope you all have a fabulous Sunday afternoon/evening!

[Georgie]

Newbies Nest

Hi all! What is the name of this book by Allen Carr? Hope everyone is having a decent day!

[wine is not divine]

Newbies Nest

Wow so much activity in the next over the last couple of days. Taking me a while to catch up! Delighted to read everyone doing so well and overcoming their struggles so positively.

Stashia - Thinking of you as you come up to the BIG 30! You are right behind me like you said so I'll be looking out for you especially My BIG 30 is tomorrow - very pleased about that.

DSLR - I was interested to read your plan about approaching giving up Al the same way you did the cigarettes. I think my approach was similar also to the way I gave up cigarettes. Only different to your plan. I didn't "plan" as such to give up cigarettes, in fact I always said I wouldn't as I "liked" them, however eventually I began to get sick of them, mostly they tasted horrible, I changed brands, smoked two different ones alternating back and forth, and one day a friend of mine decided to go to a six week Cancer Society Quitters group and asked me to come. He wanted company, I had no intention of quitting, he kept at me so I said Ok I'll go but I'm not promising anything. Well guess what happened, I gave it a whirl and ended up quitting!

So to the drink ... I didn't plan to give up AL on 27th Feb. However I was sick and tired of it, although I "liked" it (a lot lol) and had noticed I was switching types of drinks, never satisfied with the same drink, getting bored with it, not enjoying it as much - only enjoying the first two glasses, the rest was a chore but I kept drinking .. what was the point in that I wonder now .. and that day (27th feb) I went out for a late lunch with 2 girlfriends, there was no AL involved and I came home and just didn't pour myself a glass of wine that evening as I would normally have done .. so that was day 1 .. and it kinda spiralled from there until now .... Sorry for rambling but I just realised it felt very similar to the way I did it when I gave up cigarettes - cold turkey, and nearly by accident? Not that I am complaining at all

Lav - thank you so much for some of your latest pearls of wisdom which I'm making a mental note of:

"There is absolutely nothing to fear living a sober life, I promise!!!
The 'mind chatter' is annoying but it quiets down as well. I think the key is patience! Just wait it out ~ usually after 10 or 15 min the thoughts go away. I purposely redirect my thoughts to something better than a bottle of wine " This really helps.

Jolie, Vintage Girl - I'm so impressed by your progress and the way you convey your struggles and achievements in your posts.

Everyone else, so many to mention, so much to catch up on. Wishing you all the best in your journeys.

[Hippy Chick]

Newbies Nest

Good morning everyone.

The end of my first sober week for 6 months.... YAY! Hope you all had good weekends and achieved your goals whatever they may have been.

DSLR - I am glad I could help you. That is the wonder of this site - everyone helps everyone else and in return we get so much back. That is why posting anything you may feel or asking anything you may want to know is so important as someone else may have wanted to ask the same but didnt know if they should. Although our lives were/are dominated with so much shame due to the AL this is a "shame-free" site.

Wine - well done on your 30 days. That is one twelth of a year.... so you are doing it, one step at a time.

I enjoyed my weekend without feeling like death purely because there was no AL involved for me. I am starting to think there maybe a chance of me getting it this time. Hope I am not just on a sober high.

Thank you all for your support and stories. They really do help me get to where I want to be.
Take care.
hippy chick

[Lavande]

Newbies Nest

Hey Nesters!

Dropping in to say good night! Sounds like everyone had a positive weekend

Georgie, the Allen Carr book is 'The easy way to Stop Drinking'. I haven't read it but many others say it was helpful. I personally got a lot from the MWO Hypno CDs. They help to change your thinking about AL.

Congrats on your 30 AF days Wine - great work!

Hippy, you're getting there too - keep going

Time to settle in for the night, I can't believe how cold it is!!!

Lav

[Mema]

Newbies Nest

Ahhh we are a great bunch aren't we?!!! So much positive thinking and helpfulness on this forum.
The speech meet went very well, and I must say that while the cookies my daughter and I made were yummy someone else brought the most fabulous ginger snaps!! I ate at least four of them, tooo good!
I am off to bed. A friend lent me the movie Secretariat so I must watch tonight so I can return it tomorrow.
Have a wonderful AF evening..See you tomorrow.
oxox Mema