Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

[Dottie Belle]

nar I like "Dancing Dottie"!!!!
I am once again a beautiful redhead and the doggies all smell so much better. I do think we will stay in tonight. I am just beat and we need to get up early tomorrow....plenty of time to dance the night away....

[Pavati]

Hi, All:

I'm late to the party, but CONGRATULATIONS on 10 months, Nar. Sober is my superpower, but you can keep the WW boobs - I've been trying to contain my 38 longs for my whole life and would choose a flatter costume, since we're picking.

SL - this thread comes and goes. We're missing more posts from some people, but we get busy. I will get back to writing more when I am not as busy at work. I do love having a place to come and work all of this out with people who understand.

Ava - That sounds awful! I'm sure I'm going to be doing that soon enough as my chest has seen way too much sun.

LB - Hope your Mardi Gras week has been wonderful.

J-Vo, I see I missed your birthday - hope you had a GREAT one.

NS, Patrice, Jane, Pepper, Frances, Dot, Cowboy and everyone else - HAPPY FRIDAY. Whoot!

Good night,
Pav

[Pavati]

PS - Has anyone heard from J-Vo lately??

[abcowboy]

Pav, I was wondering the same about J, system says she was last here on the 9th... she'll be back I'm sure, she's one tough Loamer!

And speaking of Loamers...

[NoSugar]

Thanks, Cowboy. Glad we have a Sober Boyfriend around here :smile:.
J-Vo is taking a different path right now but I think she knows we love her and will always welcome her back.
Happy Valentine's Day to all of you :heart:!

[scottish lass]

Thanks ABC - thanks my one and only valentine! Off to enjoy the sun, hope I don't get Ava's lurgy!!!
Have a lovely day - will see you later.
I 'see' j-vo in another world ....

[Guitarista]

Hello Gloamers near and not so far.

Now where else on the world wide web would a bloke be on Valentines day but here on one of his fave threads.

Happy Valentines day to you all. Lot's of love, G man. :heartbeat::heartbeat::heartbeat:

[Dottie Belle]

Thanks GMan back at ya!!
Hubbs got me a nice card and we went out to lunch. Want to to go Olive Garden but tonight it will be crazy busy so the gift card will keep and we will go another day.
Got lots done today and I am tired. Wedding is tomorrow night and I hope the crazy weather goes elsewhere. It is 20 or so miles away so any bad weather is not good.
I am in for the evening.

[narilly]

Look at all the romance on this thread! Thanks for stopping by G and the flowers are beautiful Cowboy.
I think our thread is doing ok SL, as long as some of us show up everyday or as often as we can it's good. I am having a nice day today. Went to the Farmers market and now am reading The Big Fat Surprise.
I'm going to have a cheese fondue with veggies and a bit of sasuage for supper with my hubby and son. What a nice day.
:heartbeat:
Love you Gloamers

[Pavati]

Hi, all:

Just posted about it in the Nest, but I recommend the Bubble Hour episode I listened to on my walk today: Feeling Our Feelings: A Brave New World.

Thanks for the Valentine's, G and Cowboy. My husband and I don't really do anything, and this year we went to have dinner with his family because his uncle is in town. Too many expectations on this day for me. As my friend's husband said, the best we can hope for is to break even. Maybe too cynical?

Anyway - said uncle is a bad alcoholic. He has beers and then at the end of the night begins downing vodka, all the while puffing away on cigarettes. He is a nice guy, but I realize there is no rhyme or reason to the circle of life - his sister (my wonderful mother in law) died early of cancer. SO glad I don't have to do that any more...

Good night, everyone. I am so grateful to you all for helping me stay sober and sane.

xo
Pav

[NoSugar]

Glad to see another Valentine Sweetie around here :smile:! You're sounding good, Mr. G. I love that you're stepping back from the emotional fallout that comes from an addiction and dealing with the chemical parts in a rational, systematic way. That gets the brain healthy enough to be able to deal with any underlying contributing factors in a healthy, productive way.

I spent so long trying to identify something in my past (environmental or genetic) that would explain why I became addicted to alcohol. I wanted to find something in part as an "excuse" for my behavior and also because I thought that if I could identify the insult, I could "fix" the problem. I read all the books about buried memories, perfectionism, co-dependency, addictive personality, and on and on but didn't find The Answer.

The thing is, there is no single "type" of personality or traumatic experience common to all addicts. I am from a tee-totalling family that includes some perfectionists and some really laid back individuals. Some of them have the classic signs of "addictive" personalities but not do not express addictive behaviors. Some are gregarious optimists and others the opposite. When I first read about co-dependency, I thought that must be "it" but frankly, most people who successfully interact with other people exhibit many of those traits at one level or another.

I tried to figure out what the people here posting on MWO had in common, thinking that would be the "thing" that would explain what had happened. Well, we're as diverse as any group you'd meet - introverts, extroverts, optimists, pessimists, type A overachievers and mellow fellows, those with concurrent mental or physical issues, those healthy as can be other than this addiction...

Someone started a thread recently postulating that all addiction is simply a brain chemical disorder. I'm to the point of thinking that at the core, that is probably the mechanism. That doesn't get us off the hook from needing to address other things but it is a route to getting free. Fix the brain insult via the tools we talk about on MWO all the time (abstinence, gratitude, exercise, nutrition, etc.) and you can start to deal with external and internal pressures that may have contributed to the problem.

Sorry about rambling on and on here but I've noticed posts lately on MWO by people who are standing in their own ways -- seems like they are trying to fix everything all at once or fix the peripheral stuff first, as if fixing all of that will make them not want to drink anymore. I've also been reading posts by people who have physically stopped drinking but haven't then made the effort to gain the perceived "benefits" of drinking in healthier ways - which I think is essential if we are to live contented lives. We need to make our brains "happy" one way or the other, without the short and powerful shortcut that we discovered alcohol offered.

Bottom line is, I think getting over an addiction can be easier and more straightforward than most of us make it. How to communicate that is the big question.

xx, NS

[NoSugar]

Thanks, Molly. I was thinking maybe I was making things too complicated in my quest for simplicity!

Taking the ego out of play is so hard, isn't it? I was convinced that I was too smart and in control to have "let" this happen (and so extremely hard on myself for having done so) and further convinced that I was smart and self-controlled enough to "fix it" on my own. All I had to do was figure out the cause (as explained above), design a solution, and I would be good as new!

Joining MWO was critical for me - given that I don't know addicts who acknowledge it in my real life, I held all the common prejudices about the type of person that is an alcoholic - and that certainly was not ME! I needed to meet the wide range of people here and realize (also as discussed above) that this problem truly does not discriminate. I was no better or worse than anyone here and yes, it could happen to someone who "should" know better, and no, most people can't "fix it" themselves. And most important of all, I learned that I (for once in my bull-headed life!) needed to put my ego aside, listen to people who knew more about this than I did because they had gone through it, and do what they said to do.

Everyday I am grateful I found this site and trusted the people here. xx

[Dottie Belle]

molly that was a great post!!!!
I tried outpatient treatment decades ago and thought it was a waste of time. Sure I was sober but they didn't give me any tools to help me move forward. This was all before internet so maybe if I had this kind of practical support I might have made it or maybe not who knows. I just know that this place and the other places I post give me better advice and real life help than the pricey, and I had insurance back then, treatment...oops I will get off my soapbox now...

[scottish lass]

Morning all - good posts here, on my way out running kids around as usual, will check back in to read with more care and absorb the words of wisdom! Have a fabulous Sunday all!

[NoSugar]

an aside here --- how many times have we seen pompous sounding people coming and going from mwo --- regaling us with tales of their wealthy lives and their super intelligent occupations --- and they CANNOT grasp that simple fact???

I think I was one of these people at the beginning, Molly osteroops: .

One thing I am proud of was it didn't take me long to realize that in general, things that seemed to be assets in 3-D life were huge liabilities in getting free of addiction. Clearly, all those years of education hadn't "protected" me from developing an addiction. And what I had learned in school wasn't going to get me free. The only other thing before this that I had trouble accomplishing on my time schedule was getting pregnant. And - I had the same disbelieving reaction to that. I couldn't accept that working hard and "following the rules" wasn't getting me what I wanted. That problem sorted itself out in time, thankfully, but I didn't learn the lessons of resiliency and surrendering to circumstances I couldn't control that maybe would have helped me out with this sooner. One thing that has come from this Big Adventure is that I now do have better coping skills in the face of frustrations about things I can't control. Life is really so much simpler and sweeter when you relax and let it happen. Thanks for chatting with me about this. xx