We all know the feeling of the HALT acronym, but sometimes there are periods of time that stand out from mere bad afternoons or days. During this week:
On Monday I got reprimanded at work for trying to run a spreadsheet without first reading the spec. I lost sleep over being stressed about it and showed up to work 4 hours early.
On Tuesday I got a programming assignment, and, being a little too enthusiastic about it, drank about 10 diet cokes. Having fallen behind on music, I canceled my guitar lesson for the week. Soaring from caffeine, I went to the bar and got slammed on 2 margaritas to calm down. Needless to say, sleep was not good that night.
On Wednesday, my pipes froze and my toilet overflowed, leaving me unable to bathe and my room smelling like sewage. I had to cancel my gym appointment to deal with it and prevent my roommates from killing me. Sleep in my smelly, freezing room was not good.
On Thursday, in addition to feeling (and smelling) like total shit, my coworkers and I started pondering layoffs since we had not gotten responses to emails all week. Stressed from that, and unwilling to go back into my room, I hit the bar again for 2 margaritas. Sleep in the freezing, shitty smelling room was again nonexistent.
On Friday I'd had enough and called off work to get the pipes thawed out. I was seriously hung over and on the verge of snapping. I studied for my programming exam on Saturday, which I had failed and rescheduled. The pipes thawed that evening, leaving a ring of crusty sewage in the tub.
On Saturday, I took the exam and passed with an exact passing score. But this was not a time to reflect and re strategize. I got trashed on two margaritas again.
Today, I barely woke up in time for my rescheduled gym appointment and had the dawning realization that I may have lost my switch after going down to 75 mg two weeks ago.
I'm going to hang tight and abstain, but that was a serious test of my endurance which would have been completely unmanageable two years ago. Let's just hope that my switch straightens back out. I have no idea how AA'ers handle weeks like this, and I would venture to guess a lot of them don't.
On Monday I got reprimanded at work for trying to run a spreadsheet without first reading the spec. I lost sleep over being stressed about it and showed up to work 4 hours early.
On Tuesday I got a programming assignment, and, being a little too enthusiastic about it, drank about 10 diet cokes. Having fallen behind on music, I canceled my guitar lesson for the week. Soaring from caffeine, I went to the bar and got slammed on 2 margaritas to calm down. Needless to say, sleep was not good that night.
On Wednesday, my pipes froze and my toilet overflowed, leaving me unable to bathe and my room smelling like sewage. I had to cancel my gym appointment to deal with it and prevent my roommates from killing me. Sleep in my smelly, freezing room was not good.
On Thursday, in addition to feeling (and smelling) like total shit, my coworkers and I started pondering layoffs since we had not gotten responses to emails all week. Stressed from that, and unwilling to go back into my room, I hit the bar again for 2 margaritas. Sleep in the freezing, shitty smelling room was again nonexistent.
On Friday I'd had enough and called off work to get the pipes thawed out. I was seriously hung over and on the verge of snapping. I studied for my programming exam on Saturday, which I had failed and rescheduled. The pipes thawed that evening, leaving a ring of crusty sewage in the tub.
On Saturday, I took the exam and passed with an exact passing score. But this was not a time to reflect and re strategize. I got trashed on two margaritas again.
Today, I barely woke up in time for my rescheduled gym appointment and had the dawning realization that I may have lost my switch after going down to 75 mg two weeks ago.
I'm going to hang tight and abstain, but that was a serious test of my endurance which would have been completely unmanageable two years ago. Let's just hope that my switch straightens back out. I have no idea how AA'ers handle weeks like this, and I would venture to guess a lot of them don't.
I forgot what anxiety felt like until this last week. Sheeesh.
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