Support thread for those trying to lead an alcohol free life - Autumn 25

[Lavrander]

Hello and welcome!

This thread is for anyone who is genuinely trying to live an alcohol-free life. It was first set up by @drybird and has grown into a safe, supportive space to share thoughts, ask advice, swap experiences, or simply check in as we give up and keep off the booze.

There’s no judgment here – just kindness and encouragement. Whether you post every day, once in a while, or just read along quietly, you’re part of the group. Many of us have found this thread invaluable, whether brand new to abstaining or years into AF life.

Wherever you are on the journey, someone here will have been there too. Don’t be shy about posting – we love celebrating successes of all shapes and sizes, and we’ll support you through the tougher times as well.

The only thing we ask is that your aim is complete abstinence. If your goal is moderation, there’s an a long-running thread for that in this board that will be a better fit for you. That doesn't mean that slips don't happen, and we'll support you in picking yourself back up and carrying on, cheering you on as you do.

Living alcohol-free isn’t always easy in today’s world, but it is absolutely worth it. And you don’t have to do it alone – we’re here to help each other realise just how good AF life can be.

Evening all.
I'm back in the boudoir having done one online meeting today and one big call.

The boys have been stripping the house of extra furniture and putting it in the garage.
I'm getting pictures up tomorrow, yey.

Well done to all on the milestones.

I've even put my quit lit in the charity bags!

Hello, I’m prescribed 3 x 100mg thiamine and 2 x vitamin B complex forte daily, if this helps. It was started by my psychiatrist at the Priory (rehab) about 7 years ago, and my GPs have just carried on. I can’t say if they make a difference, but am unwilling to risk my cognitive faculties any further than I have done!

I was discussing neural pathways/cognition on Sunday - someone said it takes about 14-16 months of abstinence for it all to be restored as fully as it’s going to be, irreparable damage notwithstanding*. I’m a bit relieved my brain can be improved - definitely not as sharp as I used to be!

*I cannot vouch for the veracity of this, might be an urban myth. But it sounds reasonable enough.

I've had a good day today - no cravings to speak of. Went out and saw people. A new lunchtime book group has just started at my work, and it met today. I was a little nervous because I don't know any of the other members really, but it was enjoyable and I think I'll go back. It will be more difficult to go once term begins and I'm running around like a headless chook, but I want to give it a go.

Tomorrow I work on tidying the house - tomorrow!

Congratulations @Womanshour and I know what you mean about feeling embarrassed to post after having had a series of relapses in quick succession. It's good to post though and people here are always supportive. It's brilliant that you've hit the 35 day mark.

@thepurplepenguin thanks for the inspiring post about how good it is to be further along in sobriety. I'm desperate to get to the stage when I'm not thinking about alcohol so much. I know that only time will do that really.

@Swimfreak the putting pyjamas on early idea is a good one. I do love getting into my pyjamas.

Sympathy about the fatigue, @taylorean, I hope you can get some proper sleep soon. 250 dry days this year is fantastic.

That's interesting @FaithHopeCarnage about the prospect of improved cognitive faculties. My mind is definitely not as sharp as it used to be, and at the moment it's hard for me to distinguish how much of this is down to menopause/aging and how much of it is down to alcohol misuse.

I do notice though that when I make stupid mistakes when I'm sober (lose my glasses, get the time of a meeting wrong) I'm much more forgiving of myself. So that's good. When I'm drinking I just feel guilty all the time and every mistake I make is additional proof of my failings. I was brought up religious so I'm exceptionally good at the guilt thing 🙄

Sending peaceful thoughts to all.

@LillyPJ it is bizarre to be considered selfish for not pouring a carcinogens down my neck!

@elusivehope thank you x love your name by the way... forever searching for that!

All going ok, I have some stress in the background, and a big personal celebration on the horizon (I hope). The cravings and bargaining is happening in the back of my brain.... keeping it at bay x

@LillyPJ it is bizarre to be considered selfish for not pouring a carcinogens down my neck!

@elusivehope thank you x love your name by the way... forever searching for that!

All going ok, I have some stress in the background, and a big personal celebration on the horizon (I hope). The cravings and bargaining is happening in the back of my brain.... keeping it at bay x

Morning all.
I have cottage fever.
Not seeing it until Friday but I'm finding lovely things in our endless boxes.

The DH has just ordered my bedroom chandelier. My mother would have been in hysterics, she was such a snob.

I currently have the ugliest man light with grey velvet shades. Nasty.

I made up my face yesterday and thought bloody hell girl you look fab. No booze face. If I was looking for a new man I'd get one! 😄

Still here. Still white knuckling and holding strong. IWNDWYT 💪💜

@Womanshour the cravings and bargaining sounds so familiar! @Becky37 hang on in there! @WendyWagon its good to hear you are seeing the positives in the mirror - hope I can make it far enough to do likewise. Had a really poor night's sleep last night, I know that's showing in my looks! It'll take time for the body to readjust to switching off without alcohol so I'm just accepting it - will be on PJ's early again tonight!

Hello shipmates,

Sending love to you all from me and Sid.

Quite agree with @Womanshour and @LillyPJ "selfish for not drinking" FFS - whoever said that has got a heavy-scale problem that they're not admitting to themselves. I remember reading (in one of Catherine Gray's books I think) that she was told she'd "ruined" a birthday party by not drinking - it was a child's 3rd birthday party. I mean, if we rocked up to the local BP garage and poured Bacardi into our fuel tanks instead of petrol, we'd rightly be dismissed as nutters who richly deserved the expensive vehicle repairs and hassles that b~gg~ering up the engine would ensue. So why do we look differently at pouring these same toxins into ourselves?! Madness. But we have been carefully and skilfully conditioned by drinks manufacturers and retailers. And our own insecurities I suppose.

I love a chandelier @WendyWagon - will you get one of those feathery dusters for keeping it sparkly like off the beginning of Downton Abbey?

Here's our Sid, from last evening - "Can you put 'Police Interceptors' on my streaming channel for me please? Quite quickly now, thankyouplease now..." He's obsessed with bl~~dy 'Police Interceptors' at the moment.

Anyway - he joins me in sending strength and courage. Keep going. You can do it, WE can do it. It's going to be alright. xx

Hi all, it’s day 17 for me today and thought I was doing so well but have had massive cravings it’s almost overwhelming today. Just hit me out of nowhere! I’m pre menstrual and trying to divorce a narcissistic abusive ex husband so I was really drinking to numb that away but I started to think I would never get any better and my mental health was in the bin so I decided to do sober September. I’m still waiting to feel amazing?! When will it get better!!!

I'm sorry to hear you're going through this @malazzie. I listened to this today, i found it really helpful could be useful for you as well.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5L3RwSHV8hJBdxCwlygefB?si=z8HQQZhTS-i6guBm7WggkA

Basically it talks about how we've used alcohol to cope, so now we need to learn new coping. The podcasts says it far better than me. Hope you can have a relaxing evening x

Oh @malazzie - 17 days is huge, but it’s also really early days. How long have you been using alcohol as a coping mechanism? For me, it was about 30 years. You can’t unlearn that in 2 weeks. It will get better, but you just need to trust the process, one day or one hour at a time.

For now, can you distract yourself? Loud music? PJs? Ice cream? Cravings are a wave and if you can ride them you will come out stronger

With the early PJ thing - is that to stop yourself going out to buy drinks or is it also to get yourself to bed earlier and avoid tormenting yourself late at night. Which also brings me to… do you think there's a certain cut-off time where you wouldn't normally pour yourself a drink because its too late now, so you're out of the danger-zone for that night now? Or is that quite unrealistic, naive thinking?!

Still sober , just really struggling this week. Going to sleep now. So scared I will drink tomorrow, I dont want to but I am so scared I am going to bloody cave. Going to do an in person SMART at 12 so hoping that will give my head a wobble. Strength to all those struggling too 💜

@JustAnotherDilemma I think a lot depends on your patterns before you stopped drinking. If I hadn't gone out 'to eat', I used to open a bottle when I sat down for the evening, which could be any time between after dinner and bed, so there was an open-ended danger zone for me 🙄. I then kept going until bedtime, which was again a moveable feast.

Getting into PJs was, for me, part of a new routine to replace the old one. I made the bedroom nice, bought new PJs and bath oil, and some matching room scent. I got one of those heated stone things, but now you can get waterless diffusers which are probably better - anyway, the thinking was that I would associate the smell with going to sleep. I would go to bed at a reasonable hour, put some oil on the stone, switch on the electric blanket and run a bath with the matching oil. I knew I wouldn't sleep without a bottle or more of wine inside me, so I watched TV until I couldn't stay awake, then fell asleep listening to hypnosis through sleep headphones. I set the alarm and got up at the same time so gradually I felt tired earlier. It took a long time, but after a while I could go to bed sober and not worry about lying awake for hours. I quite looked forward to it, as the room looked and smelled nice, I was warm and cosy, and I knew I wouldn't get bored if I couldn't sleep. If hypnosis isn't for you, I can recommend a free app called Rain Rain, which gives dozens of rain sounds that you can mix if you want, or just listen to them as singles. They make you feel very cozy as you feel as though it is raining outside whilst you are in a nice dry bed, and they block out any sounds and stop the mind racing.

I will never know if the oils, the routine or the hypnosis worked, or if I just need to break the habit of falling into an unmade bed and passing out, but here I am, eight years later, quite happy to lie in bed awake, and not feel the need to anaesthetise myself first. It's not been as easy as it may sound, but changing my mindset was the best thing I've ever done. I have liver damage because of drinking, so it has saved my life. I'll never be 'well', but I haven't felt better since before I can remember, so it's been worth it.

If I can do it, so can you, or any of us.

Keep on keeping on, @Becky37. You can do it too. Are you working tomorrow?

@ShyMaryEllen

Not working yet, applied for some new graduate nursing positions but interviews wont be for a good 3 weeks or so. Scared of working to be honest too! Scared of not working as well!

Basically in fear of everything at the moment but I will push on as best I can and go through the motions of being a 'human adult woman'.... even though i feel like a fearful and haunted victorian child

One that stares at the wall a lot and jumps whenever there is sudden noise 😖

If your day will have no structure you might find it helpful to have something lined up to fill your time. Anything that will need enough concentration to keep your mind off drink, but not so much that you can't do it.

I read tarot cards and kept a tarot diary that related to health and healing (as I was recently diagnosed and scared), wrote poems, did adult colouring and systematically sorted out the house. Feel free to steal any of those ideas, or reject at will and pick your own. Since Covid there are lots of classes online in various subjects, so you don't even have to leave the house. Look on Eventbrite to see what is available in your areas of interest? Or volunteer somewhere? I don't know what your 'thing' is, but if you aren't working this is a perfect time for a deep dive into it. Or just watch every series of Spooks/Poirot/The Wire 😎. Anything that takes your mind off drinking will do. Batch cooking? Photography? Duolingo?

Morning, another bad night and awake at silly o'clock but it's such early days for me, I'm hoping my sleep pattern will settle eventually.
@JustAnotherDilemma I borrowed the idea of early pyjamas, because for me it is a tactic to stop the last minute decision to dash up to the shop for a bottle of wine if my resolve cracks. Also going to bed to read to fill an empty evening instead of TV and endlessly topping up my glass!

Anybody abit further along can offer encouragement? I’m 18 days today after drinking about 5/6 bottles of wine a week. Im
also getting divorced. I feel so anxious. Cravings feel strong because I’m bored and anxious. Does it get better?

@Onewildandpreciouslifethanks for reply I am 41 and probably been a problem drinker since 20 I reckon. But in the last year drinking loads of wine alone to cope with divorce. Last night I walked the dogs for miles and brought a vape from the shop and went and had an alcohol free beer in the pub alone! Then I came home and watched tv with a cuppa and the dog. I felt better. But then I had a nightmare about my husband seeing a new woman and woke up at 5am! I feel really stressed and anxious. He was horrible to me so I don’t know why I care. I just feel so shit

Morning
@malazzieI'm 70 days and honestly those first few weeks are the hardest. It's such an ingrained habit along with everything else. Every day has to change along with having a fight with ourselves multiple times a day. I promise you it does get easier with every day and every bit of practice we have at winning the fight.
The dreams will be vivid at the moment also. Double whammy.
On an positive note I bet the dogs were happy!

Some really good advice from @ShyMaryEllenre routines and finding new experiences. My dog had some very long evening walks! I also went out for dinner a lot (eating out was never a trigger for me as I was a home gal!). I also bought some fancy AF drinks which I'd be really purposeful about when I wasn't doing either of the above things.
I still find it challenging, not least now the weather is changing and work is stressful - dark evenings are definitely a trigger. But it doesn't consume my thoughts like it did at the beginning.
Have you tried The Alcohol Experiment? It's on the Naked Mind app. I really feel it was one of the main reasons I made it through the first month.
@Becky37hope the meeting is helpful today.

Outraged at the 'selfish for not drinking' comment although I have to say I have internalised it a bit. Think have said before - especially when it comes to celebratory events. Think that one is going to take a while to become unstuck.

Actually just checked the Try Dry app - 80 days!

Ahoy shipmates.
I would say I'm feeling a bit better.

I've been buying bits for the house. Lampshades, bay trees, baskets. And a sneaky raspberry jumper.
We've all done a massive charity shop sort out and the lads have done shoes too. Very therapeutic.

@malazzie I've not been divorced but lots around me have. I'm not too fond of the modern man. However I meet lots of toxic men in the workplace. It was one of the reasons I gave up drinking.
I wouldn't give my old boss the pleasure of calling me an old lush. If we'd ended up in a tribunal I know he would have pulled that one out. Don't give your ex husband the satisfaction. Dogs are better anyway. Bit early but fuck um I say.

@Becky37 keep going. You're stronger than you think.

Pictures up today.