AF daily - Wednesday 28th January

[Accountable for Me]

AF daily - Wednesday 28th January

Oh, and I get to meet my new therapist today. I am kind of excited about that. Although lately, I don't feel like I have much to say. Then of course, if he mentions my mother, I could be there for a while!

[Mohun]

AF daily - Wednesday 28th January

Doggygirl;530926 wrote: Good morning Ab-landers and thank you Marshy for getting us started today! I'm with Mo - I want to live vicariously through YOU today! Thank you for the link, I'm going to check it out after posting! I'm not going to ask what a crampon is nor mention what the word brings to mind.

Mo I love your posts. I need to learn from you how to make a long story short.

Janice - I like all of the Chief's analogies - the one with the beast in the ring is classic. I too view alcohol as a wicked enemy, not just a "thing." Maybe it will be relegated to "thing" status someday, but for now? Evil Enemy.

Sausage - I didn't get a chance to post yesterday but read the thread. I'M SO GLAD YOU CHOSE NOT TO DRINK. Keep chosing that way OK? Great ideas and advice were put forward. The only other suggestion I will add is to maybe try WRITING something like the SMART cost / benefit analysis. What do you think the benefits of drinking would be v. the down sides of drinking. Sometimes looking at those thoughts on paper (and the process of putting them on paper) can be really powerful. At any rate, the important thing is that you continue to chose not to drink!


Blastercup, congratulations on almost a year sober! I hope you will post more about your experience if you feel up to it. But whether you feel like posting much or not, awesome job!!

Welcome sunshine_gg to Daily Abs.

Dill, keep workin' it. There will come a point when you are so sick of what alcohol is doing to your life you will be ready. And you know your support network is already established right here. I finally got to a point where I couldn't stand the thought of wasting away (literally) any more time in my life - our time here is so limited as it is.

AFM - I hope your little one is feeling better!

Deter I can't believe you volunteerd to *test* that non-lethal weapon. :nutso: I hope your skin and hair don't fall off! I'm going to stick to testing garlic.

OMW I hope your work day is better today!

Charlee I hope you enjoyed your day off! Has work slowed down a bit? It seems you were crazy busy around the holidays.

WIP it sounds like you have made massive and quick progress on the house. What a cool project! Did you take lots of pictures while you were there? I bet a before and after comparison will give you lots of good memories of bringing your grandparents home back to life. When do you leave to go back? Flying sounds much simpler than the long drive! Your comment yesterday that WE are the only ones who can control our thoughts really hit home for me. My yoga classes involve short meditation at the end and I am nowhere close to the goal of basically emptying my mind of thoughts - it always seems to be racing in there. I can see why you and Mary and others find so much value in meditation to help in the area of thought management! That is something I hope to work on in conjunction with yoga for inflexible people.

Mary - I had sort of forgotten about drink tracker. It really IS a beautiful thing to see all those zeros lined up towards the end of the month! Maybe I will join you guys in February for a month full of zeros. I'm glad to be with you and others here who are still on track for a sober 2009.

Hello to Kitkat and LVT and Pamina and anyone else I might have missed. And all to come today.

We got some snow last night and I think the world will look beautiful once the sun comes up! I don't have to race to get anywhere this morning, so I may take the camera out there. I hope everyone stays safe who is in the worse parts of this storm system moving through the Midwest to East coast. We just caught the edge of it in the Chicago area it seems. (or LOL maybe it's worse outside than it appears to be in the dark!)

Yesterday was a busy one with some news. We are refinancing our house to get an interest rate below 5% and we found out yesterday that the appraisal came out OK for our deal to work the way we hoped. I was nervous about that given the current market conditions. Our house is not easy to appraise because there are no other homes nearby on 9 acres of land. So the appraisers tend to be conservative anyway and I had no idea what this one would do. But all is good on that front and it will save us a couple hundred bucks a month which helps in these tough times!

I mentioned quite awhile back that I was asked to be on the Board of Directors of a newly forming not for profit organization in our area. At yesterdays meeting we got a lot of mundane stuff out of the way (i.e. passing our bylaws) and some sticky issues out of the way (some definitions of who qualifies for membership that we did not all agree on) and we also elected officers. I am now the Vice President on the board - I will admit I was a bit flattered that I was nominated. I was thinking on the drive home that there is NO WAY I would (or could) have gotten involved in this one short year ago in my daily drunken haze. So Mo is right - life IS good. (I just have a longer way of telling it LOL!) Yesterday was a good day even though business is still in the crapper.

So how about a topic for today. I think quitting AL opened up many doors in my life. It has taken me awhile to be ready to see which doors are unlocked and walk through them. But the doors are there and LIFE is out there for the taking. When I think of my life while in a drunken haze, it seems like my "life" was a very small, dark place. Being sober has felt almost like being blinded in a bright light sometimes, and I felt a little lost trying to find my way to new activities and "meaning." But it's coming. I don't know if this is such a good topic because this reads back to me like babble. :nutso: Oh well. Whatever will be will be!

Have a great AF day in AbLand!

DG
Doggygirl, you're right.:H

[sunshine_gg]

AF daily - Wednesday 28th January

I was gonna say Good morning.. but dang, darn, it's already past noon! The good thing is I have got some work done - I use that as my excuse for not posting earlier

You guys sound in good spirit - Wip I hope you feel better (what a scare!) and AFM - how's the little one? I'm good.. kinda blah today (probably the weather), 3 weeks off the smokes, and 9 days into my AF life. Could be worse, eh?

Right, I'm off again - can't dilly dally here all day! Happy Wednesday to all and to all a good... no.. never mind... not yet.

[Accountable for Me]

AF daily - Wednesday 28th January

S_gg, she is on the mend, thanks. Thank goodness. She was one hurting little girl yesterday.

[Doggygirl]

AF daily - Wednesday 28th January

Dear Mo,

This is my shortest post evah.

[Doggygirl]

AF daily - Wednesday 28th January

Oh crap. I just made a longer post to everyone who posted later this morning and lost the whole thing. Mo has put a Short Post Curse on me!!! WHAAAA!!!!!! If I get up the energy I will try to resurrect it despite the curse.

I especially want to say that I'm glad your DD is better AFM and WIP, I'm sorry to hear you were so sick too and hope you are out of the weeds!

DG

[Guest]

AF daily - Wednesday 28th January

:sun:Good Day everyone!

Just getting going here in North California. I am packing for my surf trip to Costa Rica. Great news! I can bring my mac, the hotel has internet....I was really worried about leaving you all behind. Now I can stay in touch, and encouraged.

I am very afraid, the airplane, the dinner, THE GLASS OF WINE....I do not know how I am going to do this, but I promise I will do my very best and I will be honest with you if I fail. Well, maybe fail is the wrong word, but not sure of the right one.

I am getting totally excited, and need to go pack, I fly out on Friday. It's a little difficult to pack as I have a small plane luggage limit of 30 lbs. I am a very "unlight" traveler. My feather pillows alone (2) weight 6 pounds. Well, not need too much, just sundress, flops, and bathing suit. Yeah! Wish I could take a few of you with me, especially the surf addicts. If you are one, I will catch a wave for you.

I too, admire the people who can take the time to reply by name to each post, that is so thoughtful and generous. I am not there yet, but it certainly is appealing to me in a very kind, loving, supportive and friendly way.
FONT[FONT=Comic Sans MS][SIZE=6]We have so much to share, thank you all once again!:heart::heart::heart:

[retteacher]

AF daily - Wednesday 28th January

Hi All: I just wanted to check in again. I read every single word of this thread. It just keeps me strong & going deeper into sobriety. Mary

[on my way]

AF daily - Wednesday 28th January

Another snowy day, kids are home from school again. I think they will still be in session til mid June :-( with all the time they've missed.

Busy with garden planning and project, no time or want of al. I love it.

Read something very scary about high fructose corn syrup this morning. Posted links on holistic healing....it's worth a read especially if you have kids or are planning on having them in the future. Or if you care about you general health at all.

Wip, hope you P.I. is getting better, mine is not :-(

Hope you ALL have a grand day, Nat

[skootiemom]

AF daily - Wednesday 28th January

Good Morning Abber's!

I really, really wish I could get here earlier in the day... by the time I read thru all the posts, I am confused as to who barfed, who said what- who is going surfing, opening doors, going to art galleries.... but the important thing is that I read with enthusiasm and thank you all for your input and inspiration!!!

Day 26 for me, and starting to panic already about day 31! I have been taking it one day at time... enjoying the doors that I can open at anytime of the day, cause I am not too pissed to get in my car and get there....

Anyhoot- here's to another great AF day!

Skoots

[on my way]

AF daily - Wednesday 28th January

Skoots, I too like the not being pissed, knowing full well I am able to handle legally what ever comes my way. I also am thoroughly confused by the end of the day on the abs thread. :-)
I drank several times a week, late at night, after my kids were in bed. I would drink the whole bottle of wine myself. ALONE. I always fell back on the assumption my husbo would take care of any problems that would arise. I personally like being in the driver’s seat of life and in full control. It's not to say I do not struggle...I do, a lot but I am happy. Stop thinking about the 31 days, look futher to forever.

[A Work in Progress]

AF daily - Wednesday 28th January

Hey OMW, thanks, my poison ivy is getting better on my hand but it somehow spread to the back of my left leg... oh well, the food poisoning took my mind off the itching!

I hope yours is better soon, I know it can be simply horrific. I hate the stuff.

[Marshy]

AF daily - Wednesday 28th January

Ahem, DG & Wip you put me to shame. I'd never heard of Saul Steinberg. Great exhibition, though. Very recognisably "New Yorker" for reasons that became obvious to me... ahem.
DG the VP - congratulations!
Wip, hope you're feeling better soon.
Pamina - very soggy in sarf London! Bit posher than my neck of the woods in the East End though..
Charlee - I like the AA thing about a bottle of liquid having power over us.. or not.
LVT - sorry about the scary bird talk :H. It's funny how many reminders there are all around of those unpleasant alcohol memories - for me anyway.

Right, time for cake I think.

[Doggygirl]

AF daily - Wednesday 28th January

Hi again. Ocean your trip sounds very, very exciting!!! I hope you don't mind if I offer some words of advice assuming you want to stay sober.

DO NOT "HOPE" TO NOT DRINK. I don't know about you, but I "hoped" to quit drinking each and every day for YEARS and it didn't work - not at all. Hoping to not drink didn't even get me to noon there in the end. YOU MUST DECIDE NOT TO DRINK. If you really don't want to drink, make that decision and give your all to sticking with it. Make your plans and strategies in advance for how you will deal with difficult situations. Heck - with big time surfing on the agenda, how much time will you be spending in/near a bar anyway? You CAN do this alcohol free if you DECIDE to. I KNOW YOU CAN. Nobody is going to tie you down and pour flaming ta kill ya down your throat. At least I'm pretty sure of that. Since no one will be forcing you, you can choose not to. YOU have the power. You and only you.

Don't give up before you even get started! Why on earth would you want to surf with a hangover after coming this far? Won't it be more enjoyable to feel awesome when you wake up, and go surf with 100% of your mind right there with you? Don't you want to come home from your vacation with 100% great memories - not with feelings of regret over drinking, and having to start this process over again?

And whatever you do, if you decide to drink then at least DECIDE TO DRINK and don't pretend that it just crept up on you and caught you by surprise. It is always decided in advance. There is no such thing as an accidental slip.

OK. Off :soapbox:

DG

[SAUSAGE]

AF daily - Wednesday 28th January

Evening all

Another AF evening behind me and I'm off to bed - am on a course in the morning and have an early start.

Ocean - I totally agree with what DG has just posted above - I went away last Oct "hoping not to drink" and i'd had my first glass of alcohol within an hour of getting off the plane! Coming back home at the end of the holiday, knowing i'd failed and was back to day 1 again, really took the edge off my holiday.

AFM - glad your daughter is better

WIP - that food poisoning sounds horrific - don't know how I would have coped- just don't do D and V at all!! - all from a pineappleupside down cake!?! (scary stuff ) Hope you are feeling better now.

Hi to everyone else too - have read todays thread carefully although haven't responded to everyone individually who posted. I'm still finding abstinence tricky at the moment ( am kind of bored of it, if that makes sense!! and I've forgotten how bad I felt when I drank, and I can't believe I can't moderate!) Yes I know these are really bad negative thoughts, and I must banish them from my mind and i'm doing my best to focus on other stuff and keep busy. It is this thread and MWO that is keeping me going, you are all very important to my sorbriety. Thanks again everyone, i'll be back later tomorrow.

Take care

Sausage xx