My second post today. I’d like to be able to write something profound, but all I can write at this moment is AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH.
That, I’m afraid, is how I’m feeling. Only Day 2 and as I head towards the evening I literally feel like a mad person. I have already pulled out some tools: I’m running a bath, I’ve made an alcohol-free mojito which just tastes like lime-y water, I’ve taken the dog for her second walk of the day in the pouring rain while listening to The Bubble Hour. But I’m still struggling. I am fantasising about opening a big bottle of wine and drinking the whole thing in one go, and that is not something I would even do normally.
I feel bad as this blog is becoming so so repetitive and is going round in circles as I go round the same old internal discussions, and the same old pathways.
I am going to try and battle through. I think I’m sounding pathetic, so I’ll stop writing and go and get in that bath.
A Dappled Path 
Good! Blog about it. It helps you and the rest of us. Just take it hour by hour. Each hour not giving in is success. Before you know it, it will be bedtime. Thanking god I am at work today!
Agree with SoberinNY, keep blogging even from the tub! You’re reaching out, that’s great and we’re here to try and help. All in this together!
Mary 💗
you are ok…you really are! think peace and stay strong! johnny 🙂
push through, read my blog on day 2-4. IT SUCKED SUCKED SUCKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Love from Lisa
http://www.thecword-compassion.com
Oh, I think it takes about 5 days for the booze to leave your system so you are going cold turkey and getting withdrawels. hang in there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It does suck, but once you get to the other side, it is great. You CAN do it!!
I have read a lot of your post and since the first day that you wrote I wanted to ask you a question. I have been afraid to bring it up because it is a little controversial and might spark some discussion and dislike. But I am going to put it out here now because I think / hope that insight in this matter might make stuff easier for you.
I am wondering, and this is a question I have asked myself before I quit. To me it was a very important thing:
Do you feel you have had enough wine?
Not ‘think that you should think’ but do you FEEL that you had enough?
I keep having the idea that you have done the part where you know alcohol does not bring anything but missery and fake relaxation, but to me it seems that you have problems internalising the knowlegde. I have waited with stopping till I could, till every cell of my body said; I have had enough. And I am happy to quit now.
Dangerous question because it might assume that there is something as ‘enough wine’ and that implies that there also is a ‘not enough wine’. Not sure. I hope it helps. The thing is, I think, in finding that spot in time where you are feeling happy that you quit.
Hope it helps. ❤
I SO know what you mean. When I stopped drinking (again) 92 days ago, I really felt that I had had enough wine, and I felt it in every cell of my body. How funny – I had never found quite the right words to describe it until I read your comment. X
🙂 Good! Do you think it made quitting easier? I don’t know how it works, but I feel decisions that are made through the whole body are those that are easiest to follow up. The mind is only a small part. And the will, my will is useless when it comes to drinking. Happy that I have not needed it so far. 🙂
Maybe it works like this: my will tells me to drink but my mind recognises that as the addict speaking and my cells know this big NO! IT IS POISON! feeling that I gently brainwashed into them while drinking and reading up on the subject.
Been re-reading some of my earlier posts to remind myself of my own motivations, and found this one written just after 100 days: http://moretomethanthis.wordpress.com/2014/05/21/the-things-that-are-different/
I don’t know if any of it will resonate with you … but I enjoyed reading my list of the things that had changed since I quit drinking. All those things I listed, I still have, and more besides, and I have realised that they are all things I would lose.
Hang in there, Annie. You need to give this thing some real time to see the change. And when you can look back and see what is different, that’s magic. xx
You can get through this night. Tomorrow will be a better day. You are doing great.
Sharing your story is helping others. It is a struggle.
Xo
Anne
I am on another Day 2 as well. Last night sucked monkey nuts and I was so angry and on a short fuse that the kids got sent to bed after a vegemite sandwich and yoghurt for dinner. I even loaded them into the car and then sat there in the driveway for five minutes and re-reading the quotes I had written from various blogs that day. It worked. I got through. Another Day 2. You can do this. We can do this – this time. xx
You do know, don’t you, that this level of struggling doesn’t last very long. It does suck, no-one should deny that because pretending to be okay and happy when we’re not is not helpful. But the sucky bit passes, (rather more gradually than was comfortable for me), and then the feeling of being free starts to grow. It’s something to look forward to, I hope, that will help you keep going.
Keep posting, however many times a day it takes to get you through. You don’t owe anyone what you think is an interesting or profound post – what the blog should be for is to express your feelings so that you can find some outlet for the frustrations of not being able to do something that used to be easy – slosh back alcohol.
Personally, I find the ‘La la la, Everything in the garden is rosy,’ blogs rather dishonest and pointless, and the ‘Slightly grubby around the edges ones’ fascinating. And I mean that in a really positive way. They’re the ones I actually identify with because they’re the ones that help me identify where I’m struggling.
Sara
Hi Sara,
I do both the lalala when I feel happy and the grubby around the edges or worst :-(. I would love to read your blog but somehow your name ‘Sara’ does not connect to it. Can you leave me a your blogname?
Regards, Feeling.
I don’t have a blog, Feeling. I read three blogs daily and comment on two, this one daily at the moment and the other one very occasionally – in other words, only when I have something to say. I’m 100 Days sober entirely thanks to the blogosphere and one particular forum thread.
Sara, congratulations on your 100 days. :-). I was hoping you had a blog because I am starting to see why I like the ‘grubby around the edges’. It shows courage and authenticity and deals with the secrecy, silence and judgement that empower shame. And shame, in my life, leads to drinking. As I just learned from Brené Brown on Ted talks. 🙂
Path: sorry for the hijacking of your comment line.
Hi Path,
Wondering how you are. Wanna come out and play? (or blog?)
Hugs, Feeling.
Hello me dear
I hope today the sun is shining on you and somehow, anyhow you found some peace and calm.
I’m uber grumpy, I nearly drank last night but somehow I got through it even after buying wine.
Hugs and more hugs.
Be nice to yourself today.
I haven’t been able to reach a day two . . . you are so much further on this journey than I am. I am amazed by you. I will keep reading and keep trying. You are making the pain of this journey real. Keep on keeping it real.
And if anyone out there wants a pen pal. I could really use one.
I don’t know if this will be helpful to you, but it was helpful to me, so I’m sharing it.
If you had an overweight friend who was working on losing weight and getting healthy, and they indulged over the Halloween weekend with a junk food binge, would you tell them they had now lost all their “healthy time” and had to start over from square one? I hope not.
A slip doesn’t destroy the learning and growth you achieved during your accumulated sober days. You do not have to continue drinking just because you had a slip, any more than your overweight friend has to continue eating the Halloween candy.
You are NOT a personal failure; you just got blindsided by a situational trigger. Add it to your list and learn from it, but DO THE NEXT RIGHT THING and get back on track.
http://blog.smartrecovery.org/2012/09/18/stopping-a-slip-from-becoming-a-relapse/