That’s a great realisation! For me knowing when to take a step back, set it down and just give myself a break has been hard. Not tipping into straight up avoidance.
I try and remind myself of a bit of advice I give regularly: it’s ok not to have all the answers all the time. Just got to make the best call we can with the information we have available. We keep on 
Ah yes! Lighter days ahead 
Checking in on day 27. I was awake naturally at 4a.m. as usual. I like my routine now and I like that it is becoming second nature. I’m going to work a little bit this morning and then finish up my shopping for my girls. I’m never done this many days before Christmas. I usually have to go out on Christmas Eve. Not this year!! I’m not blowing money on pills so I don’t have the financial stress on me the way I have before. My extra money went to gifts for the ones I love instead of pills that were slowly killing me. Getting sober for the holidays was the best decision I could have made. I hope everyone had a restful weekend. I’m ready for another sober week filled with Christmas festivities. Have a great day TS peeps! 
That is a real earworm. But no sleep sucks. I hope ur meds settle down soon.
Amazing great job
Late today slept great could of stayed in bed all day so exhausted. Well almost double digits. Have a great day everyone off to work. Not feeling it.
good morning friends - day 37! Stressed all weekend about some work task that I’ve been putting off… I guess I can’t run from it any more. Have a great day!
Happy Winter Solstice, everyone! Once today is over, the shortest day (and longest night) is over as well and we can look forward to increasing daylight each day. Thinking about this reminds me of my early days in recovery where the days seemed short and dark. But every day as I worked my program and my self I saw that things got brighter and better. So Happy Winter Solstice, everyone. The future will be brighter if you work for it!!
True that. Getting sober and feeling “cozy” doesn’t rime much. Getting sober isn’t effortless. But addiction, like a lot of other diseases, maybe if we can’t cure it, we can adapt to it. Like you say, it takes willpower, I wouldn’t say the contrary!! But I think though we often disvaluate a lot of ways to feel comfortable into the unpleasant situation. Like you say, we see that we have to get into those unpleasant situations for long. But we often forget to ask the other-way around question: what would be a pleasant situation? What would be a comfortable way to just be? The thing is, we used so much substances to cope with life that we forgot what ways life has given to us to be just fine. Literally, our brain is used to receive massive dose of hormones and being mixed up almost effortless. So of course everything, compare to lifting our elbow, seems like a mountain to get a tiny piece of a boost. Still, I believe we all have our safe zones, maybe yet to discover (especially in early sobriety and, I might add at younger age), of things that makes us feel better, or at least just fine or O.K…
We are not living either feeling good or bad; it is a continuum. We used to alternate between the two opposite with alcool. Alcool became the only way to grind up to the “happy” side of the continuum, to the point that it wasn’t a happy place anymore. So now that the way we used (effortlessly) to be happier is removed from the equation, we can’t find any way that strong to get up to the euphoric/blackout state of using. A regular day is a regular day, it can no more be “humped up” with some day-drinking. A stressful meeting is a stressful meeting, it can no more be turned into a funny thing we half remember because we drank before. A lonely night is a lonely night… So also the “happy” things feels just… “regular-happy” because there is no more booze add-on. So what I found myself asking people to think about or of course myself, is maybe not to find that way to feel happy, better, or whatever end of that continuum I think I’d find or had found with alcohol; but rather look for things that makes you comfortable. Because we often have the idea of what we should do to feel better overall, but aren’t really clear about what makes us feel comfortable right now. But this takes time of course…
We often say “This shall pass”, because I think we forget how our feelings and states of mind used to be relief so quickly by a fix of booze: Things takes time. If I could give one advice to someone it would be it: take the time you need to find what makes you feel fine. Everything is relative to a certain point of view… I may think I have to drink my day because I can’t get through it, too many things to do; but if I was to die from a sickness in a couple of weeks or months, would I even be so stressed about those things that I have to do and would need to drink them out? I could probably cancel all of them and I’d be thinking about who I want to see and what are the things I would like to do before death happens. It is only an example, but I think of some relative points of views like this one often to remind me that the urgency to drink is most of the time not urgent at all. I can take my time to find a better way to cope with what I am into.
And yet I think when we have some of those “mindfulness” time we should take time to think and search for things to rewards ourselves, for “temptations” or “loosening” things that would make us compensate the lack of self love… differently. Like I said: the what we “do not” want is often clearly defined, but we do not take alot of time to define what we would want, from where we are. If there is a tendency to actively “slack-off” the rules and drink on the couch the week-end, what then would be another kind of slack-off? What would I not permitted myself usually that does not include drinking? I personally read alot, eat too much, Netflix, overthink some unhelpful things, get anxious over the world hunger, oversleep, don’t sleep, decorates, talk too much…
Anyways, Thanks for asking @Tomek I think I am overall feeling good these days. I have had a busy end of semester in the last 2 weeks, lots of deadlines. I has come to an end so that’s why I haven’t been on here much, even if I come and read everyday. I haven’t come to a “decision” either I need more or less of this app. I try to go with my needs, when I feel them. I’ve been very tired since last week. Like the stress of all the work came off at the same time and my body just crashed. So reducing my screen time (as I work hours on computer every day) was needed too. I would like to split myself sometime, but that’s still not possible 
Hope you’d be well, it’s a pleasure to discuss with you.
@Charlie_C you are doing an amazing job
Day 11 sober here. A little bit tempted. I am going to take a quick nap. I need clarity of mind
30 DAYS /// ONE MONTH 
Positives: No more hangovers, relationships improving, getting healthier, looking better, working harder, present in each moment, better sleep, mental clarity, peace in my heart, joy, growing confidence that each day will be another sober day.
Negatives/Things to work through: Due to drastically improved sleep, I’m dreaming every single night. Most dreams are very unsettling and often involve things I never want to think about and people from very negative parts of my past. I don’t like it.
Congrats on 30 days. Just keep plucking away and finding yourself. Trust the process, and easy does it. Have a good day
Day 192 clean and sober today. Happy Winter Solstice! Don’t forget the great conjunction is tonight with Saturn and Jupiter aligning it will be beautiful!!! Did some morning meditations this morning and am envisioning a healthy and happy new phase of life. Downloaded an app called Busuu which is a language app and started learning Italian yesterday and I love it. Also was able to do a 200 push up set and will be working my way back up to 550 like I was doing every other day before I had surgery. I also got a temporary sponsor and am starting the work. Hope everyone has a great day today, love you guys!!! 
One months is a huge milestone! Here’s to many more 
@WCan Thank you for your insight! I haven’t really thought about how deep we should change our perception of everyday life now that we’re sober.
Actually by “temptation” I meant these slack-offs and not specificly our DOC or addictions, but anything tempting. I find these slack-offs pretty destructive and I think until I don’t learn to love and value myself, I will use them as a “reward” which is a very unfortunate term, because it doesn’t really cause joy, it just gives me the feeling that I don’t have to be responsible or act responsibly. Responsibility and moderation is mindfullness and I can’t take a break from that without feeling myself being destructive.
good morning friends - double check-in… and just like that, this thing I had been stressing over all weekend (this big work task I had been putting off that is due 12/31), I discovered this morning that it had already been completed and I was stressing about nothing.
Have an awesome day!
Day 150
Did some journaling this morning… wrote out an encouraging message to myself. It says:
YOU ARE A BADASS SARAH!
Good things are coming your way. Dont give up. NEVER GIVE UP!
Im glad I can be my own cheerleader. I highly recommend it.
My relationship and the one person I am supposed to be closest to… we just dont connect. That makes me question myself and sometimes I feel like a bad person. Its very discouraging. But I will just leave this here:
Keep up the great work!!