Hoping for a new day

[veritas]

Hoping for a new day

I'm taking the dogs out once it cools down a little more. I do realise that it's not a good idea to think of a cold beer at times like this.

I do realise that my two biggest challenges are anxiety and boredom. I keep being amazed at how many more hours I have in the day now. It's a challenge to keep them filled. I used to be an avid reader, but it's impossible to read when your brain is toxic. I have to get back to reading.

The other thing is, setting goals..finding a challenge that inspires.

In my running days, there was some element of control. If I was running a long race over the weekend, I could nor afford to be hung over. Mind you, I do remember trying to run a marathon after a night out and too much red wine:blush: Non the less, having to be up before sunrise to train, did mean that I had to be disiplined. I think if my fellow runners knew how much I was drinking, even then, they would have been horrified.

[BecomingMeAtLast]

Hoping for a new day

A Birthday Present For Veritas

Happy Birthday!

Dog Having a Blast in the Snow - Video

Be :l

[Doggygirl]

Hoping for a new day

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! I love your determination Veritas. If you keep that spirit going, you will make it and get to the alcohol free life you so richly deserve - as all of us deserve. It's hard work, but it's worth it.

Besides reading here and posting (which is an awesome tool in and of itself) what other weapons are in your war chest?

What convinced me even more that the material here at MWO about the value of supplementation (and many of the exact ones recommended here) was the book The Diet Cure by Julia Ross. While the main purpose of the book, according to the inside jacket cover is to help people get out of the "yo yo dieting syndrome" by understanding nutritional and amino acid deficiencies, the book FREQUENTLY mentions cravings for alcohol in the same sentences as cravings for sugar and other things. I have taken the MWO supplements since day 1, and I believed they made me feel better and helped me. But that book really hit home with me, and I believe now more than ever that deficiencies in amino acides such as L-Glutamine, L-Tryptophan and others contribute to our downward spirals with alcohol. Not sure if you are using the supplements or not. (or how easy or not it is to get them in South Africa)

I haven't used them lately, but I used the hypnosis CD's a LOT to get started AF. The one I used the most was the Sleep Learning CD - it was just so easy to start it up at bed time. And I would wake up smiling so I believe it helped me.

I have been learning to use the Tools available at SMART Recovery? to help me address the psychological aspects of recovery. That's an area the My Way Out really doesn't address, but I have found the SMART web site very complimentary - no conflicting information, really. I have never gotten push back for talking about the SMART tools here, and I have never taken flack for my belief in nutritional support there.

EXERCISE!!! It sounds like you enjoy walking with your dogs and running - that's a great start. Endorphin power!

I believe a sugar free diet helps. Initially it can feel as hard to give up sugar as it does to give up alcohol. THERE IS A REASON FOR THAT. Sugar and alcohol act a lot the same once inside our bodies. Getting rid of sugar too (and also highly processed grains and other high carb foods) is tough at first, but helps eliminate the cravings - at least that has been my experience.

At the end of the day, the secret to success is - of course - choosing NOT to drink each and every time the thought of it comes along. But I like to have lots of weapons in my arsenal to give me an advantage. I want that choice NOT to drink to be as easy as I can possibly make it.

So there are the things that I believe give me an advantage in this battle. Some of them might help you, or maybe not. Maybe there are others that will help YOU that I haven't even tried yet.

The bottom line is WE CAN DO THIS!!!!!

Nothing in life is so bad that drinking alcohol won't make it worse.

DG

[Prest4time]

Hoping for a new day

Veritas,

A huge welcome and Happy Birthday!

I find your posts extremely inspiring. You seem to have your head on clear from the get go, and a solid understanding of your best tools. I think not only will you excel here, but will help so many others as they journey through this first and most difficult phase.

I personally find that being consistent with nutrition and amino acids, and secondly exercise. I "almost" think exercise takes top notch. The trick is... you have to "feel" like exercising! Nothing beats the high of waking up feeling wonderful.... having a great walk/ run... it is therapeutic physically, emotionally, and spiritually for me.

I look forward to your future posts!
P4T

[veritas]

Hoping for a new day

I feel very "humbled" when I read your responses.

It is Christmas eve.. I know, from my own expereince how difficult this can be. I come from an alcoholic family and I have too many painful memories of Christmas, gone sour.

Tonight, my children and I are having a gratitude evening.. I am not even sure myself what it might entail..

[veritas]

Hoping for a new day

Had another slip up.

I was planning to spend New Year's eve alone and wake up early to run.
Received a last minute invitation to a party and did not know how to turn it down. The upshot was that I drank.
I woke up hating myself, but I need to move on.

Today I went with a group of friends, "bird watching". Before I knew it, the day was nearly over and I had not thought of drinking once.

I love being out in nature. I love the sights, sounds, the smell and feel of the air on my skin. It seemed wrong to pollute it with alcohol.

I was looking at the growing pollution as I drove home.

"That's what AL does to your body", I thought "It invades something beautiful and fills it with toxic waste".

[A Work in Progress]

Hoping for a new day

Good imagery, Veritas! Using the "toxic waste" image for yourself is the kind of cognitive work that helps us turn down those invitations that we feel like we don't "know how to... turn down... " Changing our thinking, and practicing new behaviors, take work. But it's worth it...

[veritas]

Hoping for a new day

Thank you for that.

I find that I am constantly having to focus on what I am thinking. That little addiction demon can be so persuasive..
my worst is, "you can start again tomorrow".

We all know where tomorrow leads.

Living a secret life is very soul destroying. Pretenting to have drunk less than you have, topping up before a party. As for cooking, it's one for the pot, two for me.

I still find cooking a big temptation. A glass of wine was as important as any utensil. By the time that dinner was ready, I was cooking more than the food.

I have tried to change the main meal from supper to midday. At supper time, I am sometimes too tired to fight temptation.

[brightlite]

Hoping for a new day

You won't fail if you keep trying. Never give up trying.

[BridgetJones1998]

Hoping for a new day

Veritas, I have read your story and many of your posts. I see so much of myself in you. I read your story and it was as if I was reading my own words and thoughts. You are just more articulate than I am. You are a ver strong person to have done all of the things you have done in life. ULTRA MARATHONS, for God's sake! I admire your resilience. Keep fighting and eventually you WILL WIN! Thanks for sharing your story. YOU ARE HELPING ME! I don't feel alone anymore. Big hug to you.

[veritas]

Hoping for a new day

My father died when i was 15.

By the time he died, his brain had gone. His liver had gone..

My father was very charismatic. He looked like Obama, tall, slim.. handsome..

I hated him for his addiction, for his anger. I knew, at a very early age that he was a basket case.. I was angry.

I spoke to an aunt tonight, an aunt always deemed, "stupid".

She spoke of my father. He always wanted to be a journalist.
My Grandfather was an engineer, and CEO of a very sucessfull multinational company. He dismissed my father's dreams.
My father's mother came from a super rich colliery, she was very fucked. Anyone who met my grandmother, rolls their eyes.
I think that she was the worst kind of mother.

Even though my father grew up with wealth, as a child, he learnt how to beg.
My grandmother, all to often, lay drunk.

I think of this legacy of addiction, and it's connection to creativity.

My daughter, the one I worry about, has just had her first book published. It is something beyond my comprehension. I do worry about her attraction to wine.

I am dyslexic.
Won't even go into that, yet I have been awarded "stuff" for my writing.

I am thinking of my father, and really mourning him.
I am so much like my father. I think that he was more gifted, but I am kinder.

I wish that he could be here right now. I wish that the word, "father", would speak of safety, protection, stability, love..

It did not.

I breathed a sigh of relief when my father died.

[veritas]

Hoping for a new day

Thank you all.

What I realise is that many of us go out into the world emotionaly naked.
I look at the posts and I listen to the usual prejudice around us.

We are not weak, but sometimes, our feeling, just gets too much.

[veritas]

Hoping for a new day

Brid, noticed you too..

We are so, so similar, it is scary.

[veritas]

Hoping for a new day

Something worrying has croped up that is forcing me to see a doctor. I am going to ask her to write up antebuse as well.

I felt a slight itch on my back and without thinking scratched it. It felt strange and I asked my daughter to have alook. She went pale.

"Mom, you have to see a doctor, asap", she said, "there is a very ugly dark mole where there never used to be".

So, I'm off to the doctor today and back onto antebuse. I fel quite relieved at the thought of getting rid of this internal struggle with myself.
There is a bottle store almost next door to my office. It's just too much.

[hulagirl]

Hoping for a new day

Wow Veritas, hope all is OK with the mole. Keep us posted. I always have skin "things" but haven't gone to the Dr. I just don't know if they are "serious" or not and don't want to look like a hypochondriac for every little freckle. This is so stupid of me. I should get them checked out and be reassured that they are not serious or if they are have them taken care of. Take care of yourself.