I’ve joined a Recovery Group (not AA, though) and have been going to multiple Zoom Meetings a day and that has helped immensely. I would be in much worse shape if I wasn’t in active recovery with this Group. I actually shared at tonight’s meeting just now basically what I posted here and I got a lot of “Me too’s” and shared life experiences and how they moved through it. Hopefully I don’t get bombarded with these thoughts, I don’t want to get overwhelmed and falter. There’s honestly only so much I can handle right now, but I guess that’s not in my control, I just have to take one step at a time, practice gentle self love and forgiveness, and stay the course. Nothing is solved or made better by drinking.
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Read up on PAWS today. I’m reading some recovery literature, and I’m not looking forward to the end of this Pink Cloud of beginning sobriety and the end of the Honeymoon stage (which apparently is coming up in a little while). Trying to celebrate and enjoy my progress thus far and not worry too much about the drop (PAWS) that is inevitable, but I am acknowledging that it is a reality and in that acknowledgement accept it and not rush it, deny it, or run from it.
I already have a therapist and a psychiatrist, a Group, a sober buddy with the same start date as me, and a super supportive best friend.
Any experience with these beginning stages and then PAWS preparation?
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Day 18. Watched this keynote today on YouTube about the brain and addiction. Made me feel a lot better. I have a physical condition/disease that has wrecked my coping skills and I need to retrain my brain via Groups, listening to recovery stories, coming here, going to my meetings, reaching out and getting through those cravings. White knuckling does not and will not fix the frontal cortex where your behavior/personality/morals are active.
In a nutshell. The 54 minutes makes a lot more sense than my paragraph.
Yes!!!
I often picture myself as the younger version of me before drinking. I often am making the effort to bring that person to the forefront and let her really shine. She’s been in there all along but was afraid to be herself.
Im 57 years old and am often seeing myself as a young teenager with a lot of life skills and experiences. It seems silly, but it has been very inspiring to look out for her and care for her in ways no one has.
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I’m focusing on these two statements from WFS this week:
“Problems bother me only to the degree I permit. I now better understand my problems. Don’t sweat the small stuff.”
And:
“The past is gone forever. No longer am I victimized by the past. I am a new woman.”
Well my past is in my face again since last week and my problems DO bother me and they ARE big. In my Recovery meeting, someone said, My Past is just a PART OF MY STORY.” And that really helped calm me and accept it just a pinch more than I was. Just a little pinch, but it’s a little pinch in the healthier/better direction.
Big doable to do list today. Tennis will have to wait til later today bc mom and dad are varnishing the floors. Instead I am going to go Big doable to do list today. Tennis will have to wait til later today bc mom and dad are varnishing the floors. Instead I am going to go to the 9am, noon, and 8pm zoom meetings with WFS. Gym and meditation in between while I wait for mom and dad. First time to the gym. Sober. In a long time. Won’t be stopping at the liquor store or bringing shots with me and hiding the empty bottles in the garbage bin. Will actually be on the treadmill not putting off my next shot. I wasn’t always this extreme; it definitely just got worse and worse with time. There was a time I only had two drinks once a week. But that is then and this is now. I’ve had more than my share of alcohol. Sober is the only way now.
Focusing on Enthusiasm & Priorities today. Yesterday (I did get things done), but I kinda took a lazy day.
Gratitude:
I brush my teeth everyday and there is no blood anymore.
My skin glows.
My parents are alive, healthy, and independent.
I get to play tennis with them everyday.
WFS and TS
Still having my friend Kara. I didn’t lose her in my non-sobriety. It was her birthday yesterday and I texted her and we are going to try to FaceTime this week—I won’t have to hide how drunk I am or disguise my active drinking in a mug or metal water bottle.
My partner who supports me 100% and keeps cheering me on!
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We are focusing on emotional and spiritual growth/growing in my afternoon Group today. I think part of this is slowing down/patience, mindfullness, and gratitude. Recognizing your feelings and without judgement become an observer, take a calming breath, and choose how you are going to react/respond to these feelings. I’m looking forward to the 4pm Zoom.
Lately I’m practicing patience, which is manifesting as not rushing the moment or the immediate present, not fretting or living in the future or even just the next step I’m hurrying towards. This has led to a calmness and kept me proactively from getting irritated. I’m not perfect at it, but it is helping.
I’m also practicing compassion. I’m still trying to get my relatively small amount amount of stuff back from a short lived romantic relationship. It’s been three months and I’ve been very very clear and polite about options to get the stuff back to me and a timeline since I was getting ghosted. He got back to me at the last minute and said he can’t how about next weekend. And then he silently blew me off again. I spent a lot of my wandering thoughts that weekend wondering when he was going to text me to meet up, only to get ghosted. So instead of letting my irritation build and sit in the feelings or being disrespected & treated as something less than, I slowed down my thoughts and practiced compassion. He has a LOT on his plate with his elderly mother and his work. He’s burning the candle at both ends and just can’t get his shit together. I’m sure he’s not trying to blow me off, he just can’t handle it all and my stuff is a lower priority. It’s not like he has the time and he’s just intentionally blowing me off and being a jerk. And that helped me change my story from victim. However, I don’t want compassion to become synonymous with making excuses for someone else or always putting someone else’s story higher or more valid than my own or my own emotions. Again, acknowledging how I feel and allowing those emotions to be true (instead of denying them or running from them). And with all that comes that emotional growth journey, how am I going to react to these emotions and this situation.
I’m also grateful that my Mom asked me to drive to Lowe’s this morning and because I didn’t have my morning drink, I wasn’t resentful of her interrupting my quest to get my daytime buzz going. I did it joyfully with enthusiasm. Which touches on another thing I have incorporated into my active recovery and sobriety: stepping up to the plate and being of service joyfully. I notice I feel good about it and it makes for more peaceful living. “All love given returns.” I am creating the life I want to be living and the more I give of myself, the easier it is for others to give a little back to me, and I’m not resentful or bitter anymore about having to be of service or feeling guilty when someone does something for me but instead being grateful.
Ps: just got a text that my niece was just born!!!
Day 23.
Woke up after a cold night with the taste of nightmares in my waking mind. No alcohol, but weed for some reason… Not my DOC. I was debating whether or not having a hit at this get together would mean I had to reset my Alcohol ticker. But there was way more conflict in these nightmares than just that.
Anyways I woke up really blue and my mind (perhaps my AV) just wanted to get out of bed and drink some wine to escape these depressing feelings. I didn’t. I wouldn’t even call it a full craving. Right now, sobriety and recovery is my full time job. (I’m not working, traveling through my Trigger Cities—NYC, or seeing or talking to family except my Mom & Dad bc I live with them—and I haven’t officially come out of the closet about my sobriety to them, though I’m sure they’ve noticed, I just tell them I do zoom meditations a couple of times a day). I’m really protecting myself until I get stronger Sober Muscles.
But what a cold overcast bum-me-out start to my day. I know I’m proud of my sobriety and my active recovery and I’m not giving up. Just feeling a little behind the eight ball with this negative self talk.
So I’m journaling and reading my WFS Recovery Statements, posting on ST, and reading other people’s posts. Planning on the gym & meditation this morning and then a meeting.
I’m sitting in it, and I hope my day smooths out.
Update: Gym & short meditation got me pumping, and the Morning Meeting was cathartic full of support and encouragement. Just self-taped a job interview and I’m proud of how it went and had fun! Extra points for not being hungover, blotchy and puffy faced, hands trembling slightly, or paranoid/distracted they would be able to tell. Yay!
Re-found this from a couple of years ago when I was first treating my Mental Health diagnosis. A good reminder, and I’m adding it to my Trigger/Cravings Toolbox. Hope you can use it, too.
Day 24
Things are happening that wouldn’t if I were drunk and drinking. I’m in communication with Elmira City School District for a substitute teaching position. I’m submitting it Monday. I have a letter of recommendation and my transcript, a resume, and a cover letter. Go me.
I’m on a diet. I’m averaging four sets of tennis every morning and sometimes 35 minutes on the treadmill too.
I’m showering every day. I’m brushing my teeth every day. I’m shaving my legs everyday. Which makes me feel good in the summer time.
I’m journaling. I’m going to a couple daily zoom meetings with WFS and sharing. I’m posting on WFS and on ST. I’m reading and commenting on other people’s posts.
I’m meditating.
I’m reading Brené Brown.
I fixed/updated something that was written about me online. It’s been haunting me for 5 years. It’s not perfect but it’s something. It was daunting and made me sick and led me to choose drinking. Now I’ve taken a little power back.
I’m meeting a good friend who became my ex-boyfriend for lunch to get my stuff back after several months of being ghosted. We never even officially broke up, he just ghosted me worse and worse. I’m texting with him which I initiated, I was clear, compassionate, and honored my boundaries and didn’t let my emotions run wild—I detached and sat with the stimulus and decided how I would chose to react and therefore what emotion would ensue.
I’m patient. I’m setting boundaries with people that set me off and summon those icky (and sometimes victim) feelings. I’m taking my power back. I’m socializing sober. I’m not paranoid, sneaking, lying, making excuses, isolating. I’m following through on opportunities and communications. I’m grateful and express this gratitude. I am calm. I have enthusiasm and joy.
My relationship with my self, my self-image as it were, is blooming. My relationship with my partner and my parents is healthier and easier.
Today I am peaceful, lounging in the late afternoon sunlight while hummingbirds hover at the feeder as I journal and reflect. I’m not buzzed. I’m not jonesing for my next drink and peeing every twenty minutes. I’m not calculating how much I have left and how long it will last tonight before I need more.
Oh yeah, and my credit score and line of credit both increased, so yay responsibility. And yay all the money I’ve already saved instead of spending on alcohol every other day.
Happy sober weekend. My third one. What a change.
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30 Days
I’ve been here before but this time it’s for the long haul—not a cleanse or a break. I’m active in my recovery—meetings, forums, exercise, diet, meditation, self-care, examination of self, and activating belief statements. I have a support system online and one person in real life (my best friend) since Day 1 who supports me and cheerleads me. I also have my therapist, PCP, and my psychiatrist.
I’m not sure if this is PAWS or the end of my Sobriety Honeymoon? I’m not tempted to drink, although I haven’t been tested with my biggest triggers at full force: Family. Work. NYC. The last two days, I’m impatient, cranky, quick to get annoyed/agitated. I’m using my tools: breathing, unclenching, focusing on the absolute present, talking to myself about perspective. I’m not finding much joy or enthusiasm. I’m feeling lethargic. So I ate a lot and napped and binged movies. I’m not hiding out, I just took a day to take a break. A sober break, of course.
I’m not intimidated by Forever, I’m taking it ODAAT. I’m not bored, I’m keeping busy. I’m just blah. I think I might be lonely. I’m doing a lot of activities by myself and self improvement. I’m also participating in Groups. I think I want to go out and have fun. Sober fun of course. Maybe this Saturday will remedy that as I’m going to hike the Gorge at Watkins Glenn, NY with my best friend.
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That’s awesome, congratulations! 
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Good for you! And your continuing stack of days is the harvest of all your hard work. I enjoyed your early entries, they were full of gratitude. Coming straight from the heart, with no varnish and practical details on what it takes for you to get sober, I’m sure those are helpful to others in your orbit.