Sunday January 21st

[Java]

Morning All, Beginning day 9 Here, I hope all of you are having a great weekend. I wasnt really sure if the weekend was going to be any harder that during the week and it wasnt, i used to drink everyday so everyday is just as hard, to be honest the easiest day for me to stay sober is sundays, mainly because They only sell beer here on Sundays so I cleaned out my house when i got sober, if i wanted to drink i would have to buy beer which i am not a fan of, so today is gonna be a piece of cake to be honest. it is the other six days of the week, but even if today were a weekday i dont think i would drink, because tommorow is double digits for me. I have never in years with the exception of now voluntaritly not drank, and i have made it nine days now, so thats kinda cool.

All The posts here on LTA are most helpful and i really do appreciate that those of you who have found ways around this thing share your experience and methods. I hope to do the same, and hopefully i can help someone the way you have helped me, I don mean to single anyone out, you all have been very much helpful but I must say that MikeUpNorths posts are quite popular among us new guys for inspiration. Everyone is inspirational here, I am rambling aren't I?? Okay now, see you guys later....


Victoria

[Popeye]

Sunday January 21st

Hi Victoria,
You're doing great. Well done.

[Java]

Sunday January 21st

Thanks Paul, everytime i see your avatar I have a strange craving for canned spinach...

[mikeupnorth]

Sunday January 21st

Good Sunday to you all,

I'm enjoying a lazy, dark morning here with my coffee... the sun comes up very late (10-ish) here this close to the Arctic Circle in mid-winter. Sort of makes one want to just go back to bed!

Anyway, I am glad to know that my posts are helpful to you, Newgrl, and to anyone else out there. I'm inspired by others on this board myself, and learn something useful most days when I come here to read. I learn from those with longer sobriety than mine as well as from those just starting out.

And I write my posts here for two reasons. One is that I hope others can be helped by my experience, so I want to share it in a public forum. The other is that I need to write some of these things down and give the feelings shape for my own recovery process. It's kind of like online journaling... I'm working out my thoughts about my own disease andd recovery. I'm doing it because I never want to fall for the alcohol trap again. I want to get these messages firmly planted in my mind, so that if/when I start trying to fool myself that it's ok to "just have one" I will have alternative messages to offer myself.

Alcohol kept me miserable for almost my entire adult life. I finally got fed up with the misery and said "Enough is enough." So I've withdrawn alcohol, and I'm in the process of learning to live a different way. It's now my job to fix whatever it was that made me use alcohol in that way, as well as the damage alcohol caused to my psyche over the years. It's going to take a long time, but that's why they call it "recovery." You can quit drinking in a day. Recovery takes a very long time, perhaps the rest of your life.

I guess what I'm saying is that this topic is something that has been rattling around in my brain for a very long time. And I have a lot of emotions built up around it. There is anger -- because alcohol took so many years of my life and made them so miserable. There is joy at having found a way that works for me to stay sober. There is gratitude that I don't have to drink, after so many years of being a slave to that bottle. There is hope for the future, with a little fear too, as I know how slippery it can be. There used to be regret and shame, but those have been replaced now by other feelings: the anger at alcohol itself and the industry behind it, and gratitude for lessons learned to get me where I am today.

I wonder sometimes what I would do if I just stopped thinking about the fact that I don't drink. You know -- like a "normal" non-drinker. Would that (could that) work? I guess that's a question I'll throw out there for the rest of you. I mean, look at people who stop smoking. They quit smoking and they don't spend years attending meetings about it or going online or to other support groups. They just stop and even if they have an occasional craving, they don't obsess about the fact that they are "recovering" nicotine addicts. What is it about alcohol that makes it so different for us? Why, when we quit, do we need to tend to the addiction and recovery in some way (seemingly) for years afterward?

(Things that make you go "hmmm....")

Mike

[Java]

Sunday January 21st

I quit smoking as well Mike and I can tell you EXACTLY why we obsess and must continue to try to maintain our recovery while quiting smoking is easier, it is simply this, smoking has become a disgusting habit in the eyes of society, everyone i know has begged be to quit, it smells bad, tastes bad, makes you weeze, pisses people off at the table next to you while they are trying to eat dinner, it is not like it was 50 year ago, unlike alcohol which is completely socially acceptable and thrown in our faces through TV, Movies, everyday life, and ever other facet, Smoking has become completely socially unacceptable in todays society, that is why I am 9 days smoke free and barely think about it, and i am 9 day AF and think about that fact all day long and belong to MWO. I smell a cigarrette after being smoke free for only two or three days and it makes my stomach turn, if I could have that reaction with alcohol I would be home free three times over. Granted I have quit smoking before for months and started again, but when i am determined i can lay them down without a second thought, something I could never do with alcohol, It is just viewed differently. I Wish with all my heart I could feel the way about alcohol the way i feel about smoking.


Anyways wonderful Point Mike, sorry for going off on a tangent, thanks again for a wonderful post!!! Happy Sunday to everyone...GO COLTS!