Thanks for being here

Good evening everyone,

Not going to be a longwinded message, just wanted to get my foot in the door of this app.

Alcoholic and married mother of 3 here. 33 years old. I have pretty much had an issue and lack of any control over alcohol since I took my first drink about 17 years ago. Started with occasional binge drinking, then special occasions, then weekends. It progressively got worse and more out of control over recent years. To be honest, for the better part of 4 years, if I wasn’t drinking, there was a specific reason as to why I - wasn’t- allowing myself to drink that single day. Those days became rare.

November 21 of this week, I took a look around and came to the harsh realization that my life, my family, everyone and thing around me has taken a back seat to my addiction. It has been a difficult week. Going through the stages of grief of the time I’ve lost. I spent tonight looking at photos on my phone and realizing that even the happy looking photos were taken with a drink beside me. I have missed so much. I have caused so much hurt. And I have been feeling very hurt for a long time. Time to be proactive. I am stopping excuses. I am seeking therapy. I am doing an am going to do whatever I have to to take my life back.

I guess the message was a little longwinded. But that is definitely the “in a nutshell” version. Thanks for sharing your stories, I have read a few and they helped. Thanks for allowing me to post a bit of mine. Hope to share more soon.

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Welcome, Emilie! Glad you have joined us and shared a bit of your story - not longwinded at all. I can certainly relate to feeling hurt, hurt by my own actions and self-neglect when drinking. I’m grateful there’s an alterative to the life I lived too.
Read around and stick around, the lights are always on and usually so is the coffee :wink: :orange_heart:

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Welcome! You are not alone in this brave decision. There are so many here, including me, who have made the same choice and who reach out for help all the time. Your post was brave and inspiring to me.

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Relate wholeheartedly to your post. No need to keep digging. You still have lots of time with kids. Push off from here!

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Welcome Emilie.
This is a great app for support. I’m glad you shared. Getting support and sharing here, along with my daily gratitude practice help keep me sober.
Keep reading and join in when your comfortable.
:pray:t2::heart:

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Welcome Emilie :wave:t2: :innocent: You are definitely not alone; many of us have been through exactly the same feelings. It definitely is a grief process :confused:

But you opened your eyes and now you’re here. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve had your eyes closed. What matters is what you do once you open them. The past is the past. Your power and your promise, is in the present. You always have power in the present. You always can choose. Always.

Take care and don’t give up. You have lots of people who understand what you’re going through and can help. There’s online meetings like this 24-hour one for example Meeting please - #3 by Ewa or these Online meeting resources; there’s in-person meetings too, just search up “alcohol recovery meeting in my area” & you should find some.

There’s a good list of podcasts and other resources (including different meeting groups) here:

Resources for our recovery

Stick around here on TS too. Lots of wisdom and lots of fun here, including the pets thread, the foodies thread, the nature thread, and dozens of others. It’s a great community.

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Welcome and glad you are here. It takes such courage to look around and see the mess we live in and to move forward on a new course. I think you will find a lot of people around here who will tell you that making these changes in our lives is 100% worth it…YOU are worth it!!!

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Thank you so much for the support, responses and suggestions. :heart:

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Welcome! You are in good company in this community.

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Welcome!!! Your story is so similar to mines and I hope you continue this journey. I’m on Day 16 and already feeling better mentally. I do admit there are very hard days of withdrawals. Just push through and you’ll feel so proud the next day. One thing I’ve learned here is take it day by day. Focus on today. And always check in, especially at your hardest moments. Everyone here has so much great advice and tips. You got this! So happy to have you here.

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At the one week mark. Feeling a little vacant today, if I’m being honest. Just kind of going through the motions. I will say in the last 5 years, I have had two 6 month stints of sobriety. Things were worse with each relapse. Looking for a therapist today. Trying to focus on ways I can care for myself everyday, even if it feels selfish. I looked at drinking as self care to avoid the big picture. No time I take for myself to get healthy and stay sober is going to be more damaging to myself or my family than drinking.

Hope you all are getting by today. :heart::coffee:

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my drug of choice was herion,fetnayol,well basically any kinda opioid smh it all started by marrying my best friend who i did anything for and it led me dwn a dark path but i woke up one day and told myself it wasn’t worth it!! It wasn’t worth all the heart break and pain i caused on my children, family,& others.i got clean 3 tyms already and relasped this is my 4th tym but i juss keep on pushing bc i kno my children and i deserve more than the misery I’ve caused us!!
That’s my story in short version!!

    ~TIPPI 🙂🙃
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