Day 31
Work was busy, but now logged off and watching shameless on Netflix. Tired but all good
Set up direct debits for most of my bills , not v exciting but sensible:)
I think youāre right on the shmoney I couldnāt imagine going on vacation sober now I canāt imagine going back to the grind and work. My weighted blanket should be there though! Was thinking of getting a cat? Too much lol
Checking in, day 1038.
Lots of struggle, hopelessness, and being passive for the past year. A wonderfully tearful past evening/morning joining this community, feeling buried emotions, hope, and gratitude again. Remembering sobriety for me is also more than existing and barely shoving off the temptations again but a lifestyle of acceptance, freedom!, hope, love, and change that I had worked hard for. I do not have to let myself suffer the what-ifs and be closed off from anxiety, one day at a time I can walk in acceptance and love and be the artist of my life.
64 days checking in.
Very happy with that. I feel like a better mom and wife. So far, all is good and I am not having any cravings that I cannot handle. I have also lost some weight.
Itās good and I should feel so very happy. But I just feel so so tired and noticed a big loss of appetite in the last two weeks. I was hoping to burst with energy and that is just not the case (yet). But hey, I know this is a million times better than being where I was. Have a great day/evening!
Thank you Jasmine you guys are helping beyond belief. I just got done with intake and will have my first substance abuse counseling session on Friday. Not sure what to expect but hopefully get to the root of all this fear Iāve carried for all these years
Itl be as ok as u make it, dont be daunted just try and have a positive mindsetā¦this is your new life Roxanne!! Embrace itā¦do those listsā¦one of all the things that make u happy, stick it on ya fridge and aim to do them as much as you can, when you dont feel ok them come on here! I love catsā¦why not?
As soon as I get home, I will stick it on my fridge and okay a lil Kitten it is. Iām gonna name him gnarly because this is absolutely gnarly lol
Or something positive like hope!xx
Day
Working hours again being prolonged. Now going to work around 6:40 and going back home around 18:30.
AA meetings starting at 18:00 here. I am not able to reach them on time. I go on Sundays now, but overal I canāt imagine myself drinking again after all that Higher Power thingā¦ It just fundamentally changed my perspective. Itās like uninstalling old operating system on computer and having installed new one. I donāt like it at some points <> I need to get used to it. I donāt know how certain things works. I do not understand a lot of things. Now THAT indeed is where I find meetings being very helpful here. I do not feel alone. Many peoples shares similar experiences and that helps a lot! I also have Online meetings as an option. But I like IRL more.
Anyway /// quite long hours at work. Well it is not permanent of course and we will get paid a lot more for āoverhoursā.
Hitting Gym now is a mission. I think I will get used to more tempo in my life / as / when I was drinking I mostly underperformed.
Not much free time left lately. As soon as I prepare for tomorrow and want some spare time on YouTube or something - I just fall asleep mostly
Had to download thisā¦
This short sweet silent moment of holding on.
Thatās what it needs.
Checking in on Day 21. Busy day, work and then trying to keep the kids entertained after as felt guilty about the work. We went to the library and my daughter who isnāt a big reader chose 13 books so hope her enthusiasm continues. I wanted to look around myself but may have to save that for another day. Hard to browse with a little face looking at everything you pick up I have the free library app though, and an enormous āto readā pile so probably a good thing.
It has taken me ages to write that with all the distractions here so will end there. I hope everyone has a good day.
Welcome to Talking Sober and welcome to this thread Josh! Huge congrats on moving past 1000 days friend. Thatās a huge achievement, however you got there. Iām glad you found us and I hope this place can be as helpful to you as it has been to me over the last 4+ years.
Two things have made this sober journey possible for me. Being an active member of this community is one. This is my sober tribe. I need my peers to feel support, to give support to, to learn from, to be together with. To know that Iām not alone. I found and find that right here.
The other thing is working on myself. Working on the stuff in me that made me an addict in the first place. At 13 y/o I found refuge in drugs and booze and I stayed hidden from myself and the world for 40 years, hiding myself under the influence for four decades.
After I freed myself from the shackles of active addiction I knew I had to face life in a totally new way. I did. I went into therapy and I have been for three years now, facing my demons from the past and slowly working through them. Work I never could have done under the influence.
Itās a lot of work and Iāll have to keep working to deal with life. Thatās OK. Not saying I need to stay in therapy for the rest of my life, not sure how Iāll deal in the future, ODAAT indeed. But work on a better life I must. Just like you. Just like us all, addict or not. A good life takes work. Well I guess I made my point. Glad you are here brother. Together weāre strong.
Day 4
Evening checkin, back home sober!
Celebrating day 291
Hello beautiful people,
Wanting to check in today as I have a little moment here before going to get the kids. I am truly taking one day at a time right now, and I can actually see when my brain starts going away from that. Its interesting to me how the trauma of losing my sister and in some ways also the helplessness I suppose that we feel trying to find supports for my nephew/make sure justice is served both for my sister and her son, has created a big perspective shift in me that is trauma-reactive. Its hard to see when they are the lenses you are looking through, but having a bit of time as my nephew is visiting between grandparents I am able to see how my faith is very challenged. I knew it was, but it can be hard to tease through how this effects your daily life.
Working on shame/guilt work. I know for me that I have to do the work on myself to be the best parent for my children. When we bury our things, even if we think we are hiding them from them we cannot. Things come out of us and we parent in ways that are reactove to trauma, our shame and past. I realize the big guilt trigger for me is: (1) not seeing signs more clearly that my brother in law would be someone who would ever do something so violent, and not being able to save my sister. Even though it is not my fault, i think it is also pretty normal for family to feel very responsible in domestic homicide. (2) Guilt around it not working for my nephew to remain witb us permanently. Again, there is a part of me that knows this is not my fault per se, and that we threw everything we had into it. Big guilt and shame triggers here.
This is also the 1st time since my daughter was born I am actually going back to examine my life as a child, what happened when I was a teenager (family issues) in a new way. Through AA i had come to understand that my issues with others were mine to resolve, it was about me resolving my resentments, my harms and to find acceptance for others. In a way, without meaning to I responsibilized myself for my side and tried to live in acceptance of others - but this fell short when my daughter was born. I felt my alcoholism as a teenager was the issue, but I am not having to explore things that were not necessarily my fault, things that have been uncomfortable to accept and actually looking at things outside of just me being an alcoholic. Its very difficult for me to talk about my family, as I am very defensive of them and I never want to disparage them. I believe that they did their best, with the tools and pain they had. But I am starting to understand now, 7 years after my daughter was born WHY I didnt want to have a girl, WHY I had PPA And why my drinking was triggered again. The 4ths and trauma work that I had done prior to becoming a mom were as honest as I could be at the timr, but it was not from the perspective as a mother. Becoming a mother I gained new found respect and love for my own parents, but there was a flip side I did not want to acknowledge becauseā¦maybe I just wanted to keep the responsibility on me, I did not want to blame and I have known and accepted that wr cannot and should not try to change people. I just have these mom glasses now, and I have to re examine my childhood and experiences through that lens to help me understand why the fear of repeating what my parents did has loomed so large. I just want to share all of this wacky perspectove shifting thats like a switch i went through when becoming a parent, becayse when I returned to AA I was seeking other moms and there were so few [1, I found 1] and it was hard to explain this to anyone - YET it is apparently SO COMMON! Anyway I felt like an outlier, and just incase anyone is going through or went through that you arent alone.
Grateful today for the sun. Grateful for my life, kids, hubby & home. Scared of not staying sober, but relieved also that maybe I can keep just putting these 24hrs together. I will do whatever it takes, whatever it takes today to not drink. Stay strong everyone. Xo.
Fineā¦ lol change the perspective
I like Gnarly (npt that you needed my 2 cents but there it is )
I meant no offence by that i hope you know this
Of course!!!
A cute lil kitty with a name like gnarly is just so good lol