Staying Stopped - Alcohol Free, permanently.

[Drybird2020]

This thread is a kind and supportive environment for anyone committing to an alcohol free life.

From Day 1 onwards, you are welcome here for support, encouragement, tips and chat. There are many of us, at different points on the journey some have been sober for years, months, or weeks, others are just starting out, but all are
committed to an alcohol free life and the freedoms it brings...

Freedom from the tyranny of booze and the effort of figuring out how much to drink, and how and when to procure and drink it.

Freedom from guilt, self loathing, and 3am wake ups, and the fear of what might have been said and done the night before.

Freedom from the pervasive sense of dread and shame.

Freedom to embrace life with energy, and to face challenges with an uncluttered head, a lighter heart, and a lighter recycling bin.

If you've not yet decided whether total abstinence is for you, do feel free to hang out and ask questions but please be aware that discussion of drinking can be triggering, especially for those in the early stages of sobriety.

If you are still drinking, or planning on moderating (and this includes occasional or once in a blue moon drinking) have a look at the moderation threads, which might be a better fit for you.

I check in here every day as part of my recovery. It has kept me accountable, and the wonderful posters who contribute have helped me more than they could possibly know. This is day 137, and I'll be here for a long time!

I think a hot chocolate sounds like a great idea @Juann00 and you've done so well to get to Day 3 like you say you are nearly over the peak. Are you doing anything else nice tonight?

I can imagine it is hard when you are feeling lonely, but getting to a place where you are no longer dependant on alcohol to subdue it, will give you back the power to take on the world again. It sounds like you have been through the mill so make it to day 4 and keep posting here as well. It's be invaluable to me and everyone else here.

I've also been wallowing in the misery! But I'm feeling a bit better now. Bingo is over (it's thankfully only weekly @GreenMintTeaMug) - I didn't participate! I'm sure no one else noticed anyway. DH is away for a walk, DD9 is playing a game with her cousins on line and other DD is still out. Sometimes I get a bit lonely living in a house with 3 other people, especially when I feel taken for granted. Sometimes my conversations seem to always revolve around sorting everyone else out.

I'm trying to make the best of the rest of the day with a cup of tea and an early night. Sunday's usually my favourite day of the week. I remember a friend saying it was her least favourite cause nothing ever happens and I'm thinking exactly!

Good to see you get the laptop sorted @GreenMintTeaMug. Sounds like you got your boy a nice treat too and that it's hard earned too by you.

Hey all, just checking in. Tomorrow will be 11 weeks🤩🤩🤩 (you all know how I love to count as many milestones as possible😂).

I can feel myself getting so close to 90 days which will be such a big achievement!

I’m really enjoying my sobriety at the moment. Some other bits of my life are quite hard. I used to drink because of them, to make the hard bits feel more manageable. But now often I realise the hard bits are manageable because I don’t drink. Like not drinking is a positive constant force in my life, a small thing that is going right and that I can be proud of.

Thank you everyone, I've got into bed just have a quick look at Facebook. Speak tomorrow xx

Hello! Everyone had a nice sober night?

Morning everyone, day 4 now and have got over those first 3 days of withdrawals . Had a really good sleep, hadn't slept for 2 nights. Woke up feeling really positive. Have a good day and I'll post again later

Morning Juann00!!

Well done! That is fantasitc and you sound great. :)

Morning everyone!

Morning and welcome to @Juann00. Rediscovering proper, uninterrupted, deep sleep has been such a joy for me, too. I'm glad you're feeling the benefits.

@BunniesBunniesBunnies 11 weeks! Wonderful! I like that you include various units of time in your milestones. 😊

But now often I realise the hard bits are manageable because I don’t drink. Like not drinking is a positive constant force in my life, a small thing that is going right and that I can be proud of.

This is spot on. Even whe other things feel difficult and painful, being sober is a baseline of something being very right..

Welcome @Juann00, the early days are tricky so you're doing great.

@SparklingLime I love what you said about boundaries.

@BunniesBunniesBunnies I totally agree. It really is a super power

Day 70 today and I'm so happy. Day 16 of no smoking (except one on Friday - idiot). I've had a turbulent fee days with family stuff going on but being sober throughout has been a huge advantage.

@Teetotallyimperfect Well done on the 70 days and the not smoking!!!!! Even with the slip up that’s amazing. I’m 19 days into not smoking right now with only two slip ups, I’ll take that. No slip ups on the booze front which is the main thing for me!

@Drybird2020 I’m glad you appreciate my many units😂 my thinking is like this: Say, around the 3 month mark I can:

• 12 weeks: Celebrate by buying sweaty betty leggings!
• 90 days: celebrate by buying fancy coffee machine!
• 3 months: celebrate by getting nice hair cut!

😂😂😂😂😂😂

I’ll tell you what the BEST gift to myself has been though (bar the actual being sober obvs which is really the best gift). I got myself some outdoor swimming lessons (one on one) in a nearby lake. Had my first one last week, it was AMAZING! I felt so alive!!!

@BunniesBunniesBunnies - Oh wow...outside swimming lessons sounds amazing. Do you wear a wet suit? I have a craving to do something adventurous like that. I was thinking of trying stand up paddle boarding. Are you already a good swimmer?

@Teetotallyimperfect you should totally get into paddle boarding!!! I’ve not tried it but it looks amazing and so much fun!

I wear a wetsuit sometimes (I did for the lesson) but I much prefer swimming without one and luckily two of my fave wild swimming spots are quite warm at the moment!

Having said that one of my aims is to get used to colder water gradually. I’ve read the benefits of cold water swimming for mental and physical health are incredible!

I’m an okay swimmer. I’ll happily do 1km (40 lengths) breaststroke in the pool but my front crawl is dreadful. One of the aims of the lessons is to learn front crawl properly!

Did you know you can get inflatable paddle boards that are actually amazing quality and feel really solid? Might be a solution if you have storage issues.

Checking in from a sunny campsite on day 30. It's 5.30pm and I feel absolutely fucking wretched. All I can think about is alcohol. I hate this so much. I keep crying and feeling panicky. I feel like I'm going to crack.

Don't crack. Go and take a walk. Take photos of where you are. Remind yourself of how awful you will feel tomorrow if you crack. It will pass. eat something!!!

@Hangingover sorry to hear this is tough. It’s all part of the process. What do you especially miss about drinking? Why do you want to drink now? Maybe you have an answer to these questions, or maybe drinking is just a powerful habit, and camping has triggered that habit.

Hang in there. Just think about how proud you’ll be of yourself if you manage not to drink!!!

Hang on in there @Hangingover - have some food and a cold drink of something AF and maybe a walk to try and spot something new.

I’m day 30 today too so we can nearly celebrate a month AF and feel so proud (in fact we can take inspo from @BunniesBunniesBunnies brilliant way of marking goals and celebrate a month at 30 days and 31 days - a month can be either after all! - so that’s two rewards )

Thanks lads. It really really helps being able to post on here when I'm having a crisis!

It was a challenge a bit out of the blue because we randomly bumped into a girl we know up here and decided to go for dinner. Idiot here suggested pizza at the artisan brewery (yes you read that right!) that serves its own beers and pizza. Had a total wobble on the way there and when it was just me and DP I had a little cry and said I couldn't do it because everyone was happily drinking huge tankard of beer. But eating helped and then she and a friend of hers came and we all had a great chat and I even spoke openly about why I was quitting and they were so nice about it. Feel like I've climbed a mountain today. Thanks so much guys, I love this thread 💕

Me and DP paddle board by the way...of you want to take it up on the sea I'd recommend a hardboard over an inflatable. I've been paddle boarding ages and I still find inflatables really wibbley wibbley 😂

Have a good night everyone

Hi everyone, feeling a bit down as when I was drunk I sent a really nasty message to my mum. Ok course I never meant it but now my brother and sister have banned her from seeing me , we use to go shopping twice a week and from going round hers for coffee, why would they do that when I'm trying very hard to stop. I don't understand why they have done that as I've apologised so many times and told her it's the drink she knows this and is only doing this because of my brother and sister, feel very sad. I'm going to an online AA meeting tonight so that may cheer me up

I hope you get on well with the AA meeting @Juann00. I'm not an expert and hope you are finding support there, but it seems to me you need to deal with your alcohol problem first and keep working on that before addressing the issues with your family (since you being drunk seems to have triggered the fallout).

Let us know how the meeting went

Me and DH have had a further fallout with the bloody Zoom bingo night. It's not just about that but to him it's just an hour out of my week, and to me it's one other thing to do on top of everything else. He's a very neat and tidy person and cleans up but I'm very much the person that carries the mental load of everything else that goes into running the house. The stress of my job is tipping me over the edge with everything. I think we've come to an understanding now and I've spent a big chunk of the day verging out in bed reading and watching Kylie at Glastonbury and Alan Bennett's Talking Heads. It's going to be a mad week at work especially if I take some of the 2 weeks leave I had booked. However, I am doing this all without the crutch of alcohol.

I've brought up the inequality of the house with DH before but it's usually because I've been drunk so I'm glad it's been said without that regret hanging over me the next day.

Hi, my AA meeting went really well and I feel like a new person. Much more positive and happy.
Good night all xx

@Hangingover, well held 😊

@BunniesBunniesBunnies I'm a wild swimmer too!! Let me know your top tips for front crawl, when you've found them out, I've never figured out the breathing technique. Have you read "Waterlog"? Such a wonderful read.

I've been eating cake all weekend, steeling myself for the last few days of term...

Thank you to everyone who gave me ideas for what to do about running after C25K. It seems that this is the clssic time to get cocky, overdo it and sustain an injury (parallels here with sobriety, much?!) so I'm going to take it steady and repeat the final week a few times.

Well done @Juann00!!!

@Drybird2020 oh that’s great that you swim too!!! Funny you mention breathing as my coach said breathing is the most important thing!!! So we started just working on breathing first if all.

Have not heard of Waterlog, will check it out!

With regards to C25K - I didn’t see your previous message, have you finished it?! Of course it’s good not to get too cocky, but if you are not suffering with any injuries there is no reason with you can’t move onto a 10k programme...! I think a few years ago I finished C25K in March, did a 10K race end of May and then a half marathon in September! That was the fittest I had ever been, though now I’ve quit the booze I think I am finally getting back to that level.

Last night I went for a run at 9.30pm! Just imagine! I would have never done that 3 months ago!!!

Happy running @Drybird2020

(As a disclaimer I feel I should say I’m not an expert or fast runner at all, I just sort of plod along for the mental health benefits!)

Morning!

Well done Juann00. :)

It is so good to hear you sounding posiitve. We have all done things we profoundly regret when drinking I know. I am not sure I am even prepared to admit to some of mine even on here

I am a wild swimmer too... although I call what I do 'wild bob-about'. Not alot of swimming, to be honest.

I know how you feel about the mental load Ulysses. Dcs are back at school this week. So yesterday I went and stocked up on packed lunch items. I came back and DH said 'Oh we would have found something to give them'. NO!!!!!!! They need an actual lunch.

I call some of the items of fruit 'stunt fruit' in that they are in the lunchboxes for show and to prove my mummy credentials, but just get brougt home again. We have a full complement of stunt fruit ready to go plus some things the children will actually eat.

We are out tonight. At a neighbours and I don't want to go. They will try their hardest to ply with me drink. I'm just imagining the chat OH will have with me on the walk up the drive. "You know you're not allowed to have a drink". If he says that I've already worked out my reply will be "I'm perfectly aware of your rules"
My other scenario will be we get there and they won't offer me a drink because OH will have said something. Both are horrid because a) I truly believe I didn't have a problem and b) because it amplifies the fact someone else has told me to do something.

Whatever happens I'm not drinking because I don't want to (want to get to 63 consecutive days, I like my app looking neat) and I've got a bloody mountain of work to do when I get back before the month end.

I need to go to, they are tenants and they want a chat.

Grrrrrrrr.........

@myhandsareverycold I’m sorry you are in this situation. Sorry to be blunt but your husband sounds quite controlling. Are you happy in your marriage?

Regardless of whether you have an alcohol problem or not, his behaviour doesn’t sound very nice. If you don’t have a problem, then he is being really unpleasant and controlling.

And if you do have a problem, then in the long term it will be hard to sustain your sobriety if you are doing it “for” him. From my own limited experience, quitting only works if you do it for you...

Good luck with the neighbours!