Ladies on a Mission Week 3

[narilly]

Ladies on a Mission Week 3

Sorry, I have to say, stay strong SL!! Read some posts. Remember, you/we don't drink!

[Pavati]

Ladies on a Mission Week 3

No Sugar – You ask the very questions I was thinking about myself. Could I have gotten to where I am (a very delicate yet dedicated day 7) without having had an “incident?” Somehow you did, and I know many others do – I wonder what is different. Mindfulness and meditation are good for all things, but what makes some alcoholics able to use those tools while others end up homeless? I have my work party next Friday - I normally wouldn't drink to much at a work party, either, but I certainly would follow up with plenty when I got home. I am actually looking forward to being sober at some of the upcoming holiday parties and to being healthy and well rested through December, unlike most times. Maybe it will change my perspective on the season.

Patrice – I quit smoking the way you are describing quitting drinking. Slowly, over time, less and less, until I just didn’t any more. I wonder what makes that possible for some and not for others. As miserable as it was, in a way I am glad for last weekend as it really did shut off the chatter. I am slightly afraid that the craving will come back, one of the reasons I am posting so much about my misery. I want to be sure to remember it should the need arise. I like your elevator analogy – it was key that I got on the express!

Available – you ARE sounding strong. Your children sound so sweet and supportive. You’ll get that yellow jersey (I guess you and J-Vo will have to share it!) It sounds wonderful to take a day off, stay in bed and not be hung over or sick. Once I watched the whole second season of Downton Abbey on such a day. Sigh.

Humble – Once you mentioned that you found help with the supplements you take and I am wondering what you take? I have been really trying to eat well this time with the occasional treat of ice cream since I rarely had it when drinking as I was saving all of my calories for alcohol.

J-Vo – I wonder all the time if I would be sober without my kids and husband. Part of what was so hard about last weekend was the possibility that my kids might have seen me in such a state. Thank goodness they didn’t, but the need to take care of them is one thing that kept me focused on getting to work every day, staying sober enough until their bed time, etc.

Narilly – What? BBQ in -17? I think habits played a big part in my drinking. What do I do when I come home from work and cook dinner? Drink! What do I do to celebrate? Drink! What do I do at a big family get-together? Drink! Well, you get the picture. I went out with some good drinking buddies and DH the night before I started my last week of drinking and I was sober. We laughed just as hard as we always do, and I remember everything, and I woke up the next day with no hangover. Go figure.

SL – I don’t know enough about the recovery process to figure out how to help you, but yesterday when I was feeling sorry for myself I did remember No Sugar’s questions (she, lucky for us, asks them a lot) – what would have been better if you were drinking? How? Also, I remember K-9’s saying – you never wake up wishing you drank the night before.

And last but not least, Dottie! I hope you are reading this having awakened on your 100th day sober. I do believe that we need a speech to mark the occasion. Congratulations, and thanks for all of your wisdom and support here (not to mention good cooking).

We’ve been missing some folks around here. AoM? R4L? Rosie? Come back! We miss you.

If anyone is looking for some good reading, I do recommend Drinking, A Love Story, as well as a blog called “Unpickled.” It is by someone who had a high bottom (I feel funny when I say that, like I’m talking about J-Lo’s tush), but worked her way out of it, blogging the whole way. She’s pretty funny and smart – it is a good read.

Good Night, Ladies on a Mission. We’re done with another weekend and on our ways!

[patrice]

Ladies on a Mission Week 3

Hi Girls.. well I will be back later but a quick check in
Af today again, not feeling good though, tired and a bit depressed.. Realised that on Saturday I hardly ate as I drank that wine. That is one of the huge reasons (among others) that I needed to stop the wine. I have never been able eat and drink. If I drank more than one glass I never ate.. the body could cope with that in my 20's and 30's but not now..
Fantastic on you girls who are turning 50 over the next year... To not be drinking on your 50th would be really cool.. I turned 50 in March and it was a turning point for me in terms of this addiction because despite drinking so so much less than when I first arrived at MWO and having much healthier food etc I was still looking rough.. I couldn't quite understand it?? But I guess my body was telling me...
mmmm... I will be back later!! Son came home from swimming trip with one of his school shoes missing.. Great, just before Xmas another expense.. Grrr

x
Pat

[available]

Ladies on a Mission Week 3

yepPat my only intake of food was grapes in the form of wine, its a wonder my body did not shut down. Now i think it is thinking wtf is she doing, putting food in me instead of wine. I was a bit depressed last week too, not because I cant drink and dont want too, I dont really know why but the days get better. I went to make a coffee before and thought to myself that I dont even crave wine anymore, that is a good feeling. I am not pacing or constantly thinking about AL. Pat you could cut off one of his legs that would solve the one shoe problem lol.

Nar my birthday is the 20th April, i celebrate with Hitler, my children say there is a reason for that lol. It will be Easter so a nice long break for me. It is a goal for me to get to April AF and by that stage I wont want to drink as we know that one drink is an alcoholics downfall.

Jvo what did you think of Smash. I loved it, a real eye opener on what she gave up to become AF in the end. Thank god I never did what she did in the bottle shop is all i can say but I did wake up not knowing where I was many a time.

Pav I am feeling that this is my strongest quit for some reason but i am not taking it for granted, i cant. The last time, 40 days i thought i could have that one drink, well i had two to celebrate I dont know what and then it went downhill from there but not to where i was thank god. My children are my world we are best friends and i appreciate that i have bought up 4 children who i love and am proud of. We have had our ups and downs but we get through them.

Humble did you mention the Magnesium on a different thread, I think I will try that supplement. I dont really do vitamins etc as i seem to buy them and then they end up in the bathroom cupboard until I check and the "use by date" is expired.

Now here is one for the books as my mother used to say. A guy asked me out on Wednesday night for a drink and my reply was "yes for a lemon lime and bitters or a coffee would be nice". I thought I would throw it out there now so that i have no reason to drink when asked what i would like to drink.

[patrice]

Ladies on a Mission Week 3

Hi Ava, I downloaded that at the weekend... going to watch it tonight. The one I got is called Smashed.. it's the same right?
Yes, I felt like cutting the other leg off!! Had to drive in all traffic to get more shoes.. just home, it's nearly 6pm and feeling so tired and depressed.. not at all how I felt last week!! Not sure what's going on.. not craving any booze though and not having any..Do you think it was the after effects of that wine on Saturday??
Back later
x
Pat

[available]

Ladies on a Mission Week 3

Yes Pat it is and it is a real eye opener and not only that a very very good movie and totally relateable to my younger years, the older ones i was just a drunk.

I think its the high of giving up and now its the reality that f*** i've really given up! If that makes sense. AL is like losing a best friend really, been with us forever and now gone, with best friends like that who needs enemies.

I did not go to work today as after last week and the stress I felt fragile and it is now time to look after me and since stress is a major factor then I did not want to face that. Will I have tomorrow off, mmmm i will see how the guilt factor goes. Guilt does not make me drink.

I am sooooooo glad my kids have grown up and buy their own shoes but still ask me where they are.

[patrice]

Ladies on a Mission Week 3

I think you should take another day off!!
I feel so wretched and anxious, I've had to take half a zanax.. I only use those for emergencies but guess this is one.. I'm not a pill person and can manage to keep them for months at a time without touching them so at least that's an addiction I don't have to worry about..
Yes, I do feel like I have given up Al this time so you are right.. could be the reality setting in.. Maybe I need to go back to Ad's although maybe I just need exercise.. I do none!!!
Either way I just cannot wait till I've fed my boy and get into that movie.. yay!!

[available]

Ladies on a Mission Week 3

So do I but i will see tomorrow. I have taken one xanax since i stopped drinking, like you i was just so all over the place I just needed to settle. I hate taking them as they are so addictive and for some reason i am not a pill person either. I started back on my ad's and feel so much better for it, could feel the depression hitting me and that was before giving up al. it has made me more stable, well i think so but still lacking motivation but i am not pushing myself as yet. Just eating myself to obesity at the moment. Cant believe the different cravings I have, like being pregnant again lol.

My bedtime now. going to watch Once Upon a Time and hopefully sleep. When i sleep it is like the sleep of the dead but when i wake that is it and i really would like more than 5 hours. No hangovers though so that is a good thing right?

Enjoy the movie Pat and let me know what you think. Have a great day.

[HumbleRider]

Ladies on a Mission Week 3

Hi all, available said:

"If someone invited me out after 7pm the answer was always no as i was way on my way to being pissed."

Same here. The other day at the memorial event, my friend asked if I would like to attend a lecture with her next Thursday evening. As the topic fascinated me, I agreed immediately. Then she casually mentioned that if I was going to bail on her, to let her know enough in advance so that she could find someone else to go with. She was rightly concerned since I would do that all the time when in the throes of drinking wine like water. I'd glibly accept invitations when loaded, then know full well in my next-morning sober state that I wouldn't attend due to my alcohol regimen. How embarrassing. I told her my word was worth a heck of a lot more these days and left it at that.

Happy day 26 SL. You wondered if anyone would recognize your sober handwriting, lol. Once (well okay more than once but this was particularly bad) I corrected a whole batch of papers pie-eyed. Scrawling sloppy handwriting with bold sentiments and emotional content that I would never normally write. And I HAD to return them of course. Let's hope they couldn't decipher it. How embarrassing again.

Pav and available, I take Kudzu, Primrose oil capsules, a good liver cleanse supplement in capsule form, vitamins B, C, D, calcium/magnesium, for now a daily multi-vitamin.

Dottie, 100 days, yay! What a milestone.

Patrice, I need to exercise too. Maybe we can start together?

J-vo, you mentioned the sermon at church. Well, pride came up a couple of times during the service, and it got me thinking about all the time I wasted drinking because of irrational pride. I figured if I quit, I would be saying to the world that my former self wasn't worthy of respect, hence my pride creeping in. To change meant to admit wrong-doing and in so doing to lose dignity...how bizarre! To stop drinking means to GAIN dignity.

Have a good AF MAE everyone. Day 36 here.

[NoSugar]

Ladies on a Mission Week 3

patrice;1596283 wrote: ... we innately know when we are done and it's up to us to follow up on that.. just as I believe we are born with our end date firmly established. When we are done, we are done. We can fight it as much as we want.
This has been with me since I read it yesterday, Patrice. I don't believe in predetermination but the timing of my quit turned out to be unbelievably fortunate because I had 4 solid months in before my life situation changed in a way that would have been really, really difficult to handle if I were still drinking. Since there was nothing much different about last January compared to other Januaries or that day compared to so many others, I really don't know why that is when I quit but in light of how my life has evolved over the last year, I'd like to think that a benevolent power was at work.

If any of you feel drawn to that very faint and flickering AF flame, please go for it! There might be a reason it is beckoning you right now.

Pavati;1596501 wrote: No Sugar ? You ask the very questions I was thinking about myself. Could I have gotten to where I am (a very delicate yet dedicated day 7) without having had an ?incident?? Somehow you did, and I know many others do ? I wonder what is different. Mindfulness and meditation are good for all things, but what makes some alcoholics able to use those tools while others end up homeless?

Since addictions get progressively worse in a well-documented pattern, I think that deep down, we are essentially the same and it is just a matter of our tolerance for the pain AL causes us - the point at which we raise the white flag and use whatever tools we can find to get free. Sadly, some people have no access to any resources and don't even have the chance we have.

I tried to convince myself I was different from "real alcoholics" for a long, long time. Nothing terrible ever happened because of my drinking (aside from isolation and diminished self-worth...) in terms of harming myself or someone else. I had plenty of bad mornings but clearly none that were sufficiently awful, like your experience, Pavati, for me to be 100% ready to quit like you are.

I think, though, that if I had continued to drink and if the problem had escalated, which I think it would have, I ultimately would have had an experience such as yours or worse yet, harmed myself or someone else. I think we all run that risk if we keep drinking and it is an unacceptably high risk to ourselves and our society.

I think the reason I was able to quit when I did was because as I "met" various people on MWO and saw that we were more alike than different, I realized that there was absolutely no reason I should think I was more in control ("better" ) than all of these educated, intelligent, interesting people. They had had these experiences and made these mistakes and were willing to share them on a public forum! Why not learn from them and spare myself and others further pain? Why not learn hard lessons the easier way?

Until I joined MWO, I did not know anyone who is an acknowledged recovering alcoholic so I had no role models. The image of alcoholics I had in my mind certainly was nothing I wanted to aspire to. Now I know there is no reason to think that I can control AL - that doesn't make me less intelligent or reliable or funny or worthy or anything else. It is something about me that I have to accept just as I do other "flaws" which I cannot change. I don't think I'm a terrible person because of those and I'm learning to believe that I'm not terrible because of this addiction.

If we're in Patrice's building and the first floor is the AF floor, just take the express elevator there and GET OFF!. Don't worry about whether you're ready or that you can't imagine not drinking again. Over-intellectualizing this does not work. I tried to do that for way too long. I didn't "feel it" when I started - I just acted the way AF people acted day by day by day and after awhile, I wasn't playing a role anymore.

:h NS

[Dottie Belle]

Ladies on a Mission Week 3

NS I can so relate to your post...made me think....
Thanks humble for the congrats..I feel good....onward to 200....woohoo!!!

[scottish lass]

Ladies on a Mission Week 3

Well, witching hour on another day - my 30 will be friday 13th - Ha!! Might be the key???
There has been a lot of thoughts put out here, that have definiatley given me cause to ponder. I do not wish to die young (and that was main reason I chose to stop) - I have seen the effects of liver failure and know what that entails - no thank you!!
J-vo - you summed it all up "For me, I believe the switch from resentment to gratitude is what it ultimately takes to continue. Can you look back and see what pain AL has caused you? Can you get angry that it's stolen some of your precious moments in life? Can you appreciate waking up with that clear head? No headache, not parched, able to function at a high level of efficiency from day to day without AL? My bottoms were bad, lots of them. But some people do have "high" bottoms, and this does let our minds stray to the resentments. Peace to you, dear. Hoping that chatter gets a little quieter." - I seriously wish that I could bottle the morning feeling and spray it on me in the evening when the other voices check in.
For a long time I have struggled with the gratitude vs resentment angle and totally believe in this as one of the keys to success - what I can't work out is how to make the switch for myself.
As others have said, I have not hit a "bad bottom" - nor do I want to, I need to take the small successes and make them my reality....
Well - good to see those checking in - quite a few are missing, hopefully you are all lurking....
Have a good evening/night all....
Will work at getting my head into gear by Friday....this will be my third month since joining MWO - the first lasted two months, the second just a month - got to work out what this one will be....