AF Daily Thursday January 1 2009!!!

[Miss Behaving]

Thought someone might have started this by now!!!

My wishes for very happy 2009 to all my friends here! 2008 was the year I found MWO, and I remain so grateful. I'm very determined to have an AF 2009 and look forward to sharing that journey with everyone else who is aiming for the same!

Hope you all had a good NY eve. We had a quiet one with dinner out and then a movie. we have decided to adopt one of our current foster kittens as a symbol of our hope and optimism about the year ahead.

[MissDoodleBug]

AF Daily Thursday January 1 2009!!!

Happy New Year! Made it through the dinner out! Day 18 AF and feeling great! Hope you all did well!

Stay strong,

Love,

Doodlebug

[greeneyes]

AF Daily Thursday January 1 2009!!!

JACKRABBIT!

Very nice lamb dinner and 2 movies. Quiet and cozy, content and reflective. Letting myself love me.

[kitkatsue]

AF Daily Thursday January 1 2009!!!

Happy 2009 !! to all in those time zones. I have 1hour and 35 min. to go.

I'm hoping for a sober 2009. It will be a challenge, and an adventure.

I wish everyone success !!

kit

[Accountable for Me]

AF Daily Thursday January 1 2009!!!

Happy New Year to all that have crossed over! We still have 47 minutes to go. Then I can go to bed

To a wonderful, peaceful, economically better, healthy, and sober 2009!

[Marshy]

AF Daily Thursday January 1 2009!!!

Happy New Year everyone. Here's to a great 2009 for us all!

We froze watching the fireworks at the river (spectacular though!), and toasted the new year with tea in plastic cups from a burger van. My first AF new year since I was about 15 I think!

:thanks: to everyone for your support last year.

[Arial]

AF Daily Thursday January 1 2009!!!

Good morning everyone, and what a lovely morning it is!

Happy New Year to all, from a sunny (if somewhat icy) northern France. Wishing everyone the health, wealth and happiness we all so deserve in 2009; the ability to meet our goals, the opportunities to fly with our dreams and the appreciation and wonder of life found without alcohol.

Many congratulations to everyone who got through NY's Eve sober - what an achievement after years of groggy heads, slow starts and regrets on NY's day! I too, can't remember the last NYs I didn't drink (and usually way too much). But this is it - this is the new start, this is when I take control of my life and leave AL out in the cold having lost another 'friend'. So I look forward to getting to know everyone here so much better over the coming year as we go step by step along this journey to wonderful sobriety.

Warmest wishes everyone! :l

PS The first thing I'm going to do this year is become a member of MWO - this is my commitment to myself and an indication of the gratitude I feel for this site, the people 'behind the scenes' and most importantly the great people you meet here, without whom I can't imagine how I could get to this point of optimism for the future. :h

[hulagirl]

AF Daily Thursday January 1 2009!!!

Aloha and Happy New Year. There is no such thing as a "quiet" New Year's eve here. Firecrackers, piccolo petes, aerials, anything that makes noise and smoke is going off. New Years Days will be spent watching some of the Rose Parade --or at least having it on. Hard to break tradition (as boring as it is..except when my kids were in it with their high school marching band). Will just enjoy the day feeling groovy.

[Tom 4.0]

AF Daily Thursday January 1 2009!!!

Happy New Year Everyone!

It's fantastic to wake-up New Years Day with a clear head and feeling good. Seems strange that it's considered normal to make bold resolutions for the New Year and then start the year with a bender followed by a head-splitting hangover. No wonder so many resolutions go unfulfilled.

Ditto to Auntie's thoughts about discovering My Way Out in 2008. I will be forever grateful for it's existence and the the sincere, thoughtful contributions of everyone here. I'm about two months Alcohol Free now and darn sure that I will never drink again. I know I am still in "recovery mode", rebuilding a healthy mind and body, but with the help of MWO, I will succeed.

To those who have gone before me; thank you for your gentle guidence and support; you helped me get to where I am today, and inspire me toward a greater tomorrow.

To those just starting; welcome, you are among friends who want nothing but the best for you. Along the way, you will have good days and bad days, just remember...... alcohol only makes it worse.

:h Good Luck to us all!

[Doggygirl]

AF Daily Thursday January 1 2009!!!

Good New Years Day everyone!!!

Mame - Thanks for getting us off to a great start today! I'm so excited to hear that you and Uncle Mame are adopting one of your foster kitties. That truly is a wonderful and hope filled way to start the new year. So what is Kitty's name??

Miss Doodlebug congratulations and welcome to Day 19 of your new sober life!! Your recipe for salmon was AWESOME!!!! I didn't add the roasted veggie part because I already planned to make fried brussel sprouts which we love. The salmon was restaurant quality IMO so thank you!!

Greenie - you are so funny!!! And I can tell you DO love YOU because you took yourself out to TWO movies. You have come so far in 2008. Can't wait to see what 2009 has in store!

kitkatsue, congratulations on AF since 12/11!!! You too are on your way. If you truly make up your mind (firm decision) that you will have an AF 2009, then you WILL. (don't just "hope" for it!!!!)

Happy New Year AFM!

Marshy, I too am amazed (and saddened) that this was probably my first sober New Years since the teen years as well. Oh well - we can't change history. But the future is bright! I'm glad it was YOU out there freezing your a$$ off rather than me. (I'm too much of an Old Geezer for that!)

Arial, it's so good to have you back and I look forward to getting to know YOU better to in 2009!

hulagirl, Wow you guys have noise makers I have never heard of!! What's a piccolo pete? "Feeling Groovy" I love it! Wow - your kids got to march in the Rose Parade. How awesome. I'm a proud Old Geezer who LOVE the Rose Parade!! I'm glad I will not be sleeping through it today, or too hungover to enjoy it. That's a first!

Tom3.0. I'm so happy for you. So what features do you have planned for Tom4.0? Must be pretty exciting since v. 3 is a good one LOL!

New Years Eve was one I loved. In the old days, I would have been trashed long before evening arrived and passed out long before midnight. LOL - I was asleep before midnight last night, but that's different! It was a wonderful productive day with a good workout and good business activities in the morning. Then I puttered in the kitchen during the afternoon making the base "bread" (gluten free of course) for low carb stuffing. (boy I hope that turns out!!) Then I made a gluten and sugar free Red Velvet Cake for dessert today. YUM! I hope the cake/frosting tastes as good as the bowl licking suggests. Another first time try at a recipe. Then I hung out for awhile at the SMART Recovery New Years bash which went on for 24 hours and they celebrated the New Year on every hour all around the world. We had lots of fun just goofing off. A very very good day!!!

I'm excited about 2009 and will spend some time today trying to put all these goals that are rattling around in my head onto paper! And watch the Rose Parade and cook that turkey!

Have a wonderful sober, hangover free New Years Day everyone!

DG

[Marshy]

AF Daily Thursday January 1 2009!!!

Hmm, I'm thinking about making a few "improvements", then I come across this news story that says resolutions can be bad for you! Lets me off the hook! :H (Just kidding).

BBC NEWS | UK | Resolutions 'bad for your health'

DG: that party sounds like a riot! I'm beginning to have a sneaking suspicion that sober people have been having the best parties all along...

[AAthlete]

AF Daily Thursday January 1 2009!!!

Happy New Year to everyone. Can't believe all of my fellow ab'ers that have already posted this morning!! Glad that you are here to inspire and show what is possible when you truly put your mind to something.

I actually made it to midnight last night - but was the only one in the house still up! Grateful to still be sober this morning. So many years my resolution was to not drink and a day or two later I would be right back in the bag, but now am celebrating my second sober New Years in a row. Actually, what I would have done was convince myself that since New Year's was Thursday I might as well drink through the weekend and start on Monday. Course then I would convince myself that I blew it since I drank after New Year's so I might as well have another drink. Amazing....

Actually had a drinking dream last night wherein I woke up after a bender in a different town and didn't know how I got there or where my car was. I used to get upset by those but now I just consider it a reminder of what my life would be like if I was still drinking.

[Doggygirl]

AF Daily Thursday January 1 2009!!!

Marshy;507408 wrote: I'm beginning to have a sneaking suspicion that sober people have been having the best parties all along...

You know Marshy, I think this is an excellent point that I find thought provoking. Maybe a good topic for today - I don't know. (it's a good topic for me to think about in any case LOL!)

You will probably need a sandwich - just fair warning here.

How have your perceptions changed about what is "fun" and what is "boring" (or unfun?) since being alcohol free? How has this changed over your alcohol free time? (i.e. what you thought in the first month or few months and for those with longer sobriety than that, how it changed if at all, with more sober time)

As a drinker, my belief was that NOTHING was fun without alcohol. I started to say "most things weren't fun without alcohol" but honestly? I wanted to drink through absolutely everything. And during those activities where I couldn't drink (Um...everything from being at work to being at an AF event) I spent a WHOLE lot of time thinking about when I WOULD be able to drink, or how to sneak a drink, etc. Definitely not fun.

It seems almost embarassing to admit that more simplistic things that are NOT a hard charging "party" ARE fun. (i.e. a quiet evening of board games, watching the Rose Parade, cooking up a new recipe, etc. etc.) We were joking yesterday about how finding "fun" in these things made us seem "old" but I'm beginning to wonder if that perception doesn't have something to do with AL. Did we justify some of our drinking behavior with mental images of drinking / partying = youthful, and not drinking / (insert activity here) = "old?"

Just food for thought. I hope I found a semi-understandable way of writing that so you are not left going "huh? What the sam hill is she blabbering on about?" This is such an interesting group of people I can't wait to see what everyone has to say!

DG

[AAthlete]

AF Daily Thursday January 1 2009!!!

DG, I think it is more perception then anything else. When you think of New Year's you think of drinking, right? That's what people are expected to do is to go to a party and get juiced...

I was listening to one of my CD's yesterday and the speaker had an interesting analogy. He related a story of him growing up in the great depression with four other brothers and sisters. Every Saturday they would be required to take a bath (whether they needed it or not) and since he was the baby of the family he was always last. So, by the time he would get in the tub there would be a nice coating of scum, and once when attempting to clear away some of the coating he placed his bum against the hot stove right next to the tub. It left a blister as big as his fist on his butt, and to this day he has never had the desire to drop his trousers and stick his butt on a hot stove again!!

The point is, his mind knows what the painful outcome would be if he were to do that again. Now apply that to alcohol, and we can see how truly irrational our thinking can be. Despite knowing what the likely outcome of another drinking episode, we will nonetheless proceed to 'burn' ourselves time and time again, thinking that this time it will be different.

Maybe that is a more general comment on drinking then what you were looking for but true in my case. I always thought I could control and enjoy my drinking, despite my repeated failed attempts (over years) to do so. Would be the same thing on New Year's EVe for me - I might as well get good and lit up because this time my attempt to quit will be different. It truly is a mindset change and wishful thinking just won't get it done.

[retteacher]

AF Daily Thursday January 1 2009!!!

Everyone: I didn't have time to thoroughly read all the posts but will later. We're off to church this AM, as I want to start off the new year on a spiritual note. Last night was the greatest sober fun...dinner & a movie w/my children & g-children..."The Tale of Despereaux" was a lovely children's film w/a message. Be warned though: there are intense parts to it. Our g-sons loved it 3 & 5 years of age. I want to store last night's experience in my memory bank for when I think I "need" a drink to have fun or relax. Mary

HAPPY NEW YEAR ONE & ALL!