Being DRY

[Bigglesfliesundone]

This is the fourth thread for those of us who want to abstain from alcohol completely.

It's an arduous path at times, but we're still here!

We know how easy it is to slip, and how hard it can be to stay on the road, but we also know that we can't drink 'just one'.

The thread motto is 'Watch the film to the end'

Come and have a coffee!

I didn't lose exactly, but , I made a real point of trying something else to take my mind off it - running was the thing. I have toned up a bit and want to eat better I guess. Still shove family sized galaxies down my neck though...

So now I'm even more pissed off! HAd an email from one of the friends I was supposed to meet up on Saturday. he said it was really good and I was missed and they all got 'wasted'. I laughingly e mailed back that I probably wouldn't have really enjoyed it too much to which he responded 'oh, you would have had one or two surely?' and 'just a few for old times?'

FFS, he is one of my oldest and dearest friends and I have spent months telling him stuff about my 'journey'

Not surprised you are feeling pissed off, Biggies. Bloody obtuse of your friend. I wonder whether it is a case of him not wanting to really take on board the seriousness of how bad things were for you. Could it be painful for him? Could it be that if he does take it seriously he will have to reflect on his own drinking? No idea if any of that could be even vaguely near the trust, but either was just RUBBISH of him in light of what you've told him.

And loved the vom re. use of word 'journey'. Does rather smack of X-Factor, but does convey what you mean so I reckon permissible!!

Hope breathing is helping. You have sympathy from my corner!

CornChips! You dumped it, well done you. Like dumping an abusive boyfriend, it can only mean your life gets better.

Biggles how infuriating. I remember Mrs D (goingwithoutalcohol.blogspot.com) tweeting a few weeks back about a good friend, who knows she's an alcoholic, suggesting that she should try his wine because it was so delicious and she could just 'taste it and spit it out, surely?'. People DON'T GET IT.

Fontella yep, I gained weight as well. But once I was over the worst part, and felt like I could stop self-medicating with sugar, I've been able to lose weight pretty easily; in three weeks I've lost 7lbs, although now it's slowed to 1lb/week. It is, as I said up-thread, WAY easier if you're not scheduling in wine calories. And to exercise. Etc.

Morning Tortoise!

Feeling bright and positive this morning. I have heard people around the blogs talk about The Bubble House podcast and listened to my first one last night. That was really good.

Morning everyone. Biggles your friend would have frustrated me as well.

Hi all! I'm fine about that now, just baffled that he doesn't get it and a bit sad that he thinks it's ok to 'joke' about it.

Good to see lots of positivity. I am going to run tonight!! Have been on the x trainer the last few days and my leg is feeling normal at last. Won't overdo it, but I reckon I will feel loads better when I get back into the rhythm.

Bit of meltdown just now at work. It's like everything has built up and built up and a perfectly innocuous voicemail from one of my trustees flipped me over the edge. Last night dh told me that we have 9 years left on our mortgage and no way it will be paid off unless something amazing happens, which has sent me into a complete spin. In a way it would be good to be forced to do something and where we live is a housing hotspot so hopefully we will never lose out, - also the dc will be left home (hopefully!) so we can do that 'selling the house and buggering off' thing, but in reality, I am scared :(

Think I'm feeling that '50' thing. 'What the hell have I done with my life - I wasn't meant to be here, why didn't anything happen like it should have?'

I really like my job and would rather be working in this sector than anywhere else but the pay is so poor, and DH is in a similar job. Why do good people get all the shit? (not saying I'm good, but you know what I mean).

Sorry, I didn't mean all that to come out, just feeling blegh (again).
Oh, and I have been asked to run the bar at the school fete! That will be interesting... I know I can do it and will be doing it with my friend who knows I can't drink. Only problem is I will be saying 'Are you sure you want that? are you aware that alcohol is an insidious poison that creeps up and can ruin your life??'

Biggles - an article here on "why good people get the shit" - I thought it was really interesting

www.salon.com/2014/06/01/help_us_thomas_piketty_the_1s_sick_and_twisted_new_scheme/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

Are you sure about running the bar at the fete?

You sound strong, so maybe I am just projecting. But I drank a lot on Saturday evening having been out at a boozy event in the day and not touching a drop. I didn't realise it at the time during the day but it was like the pressure to drink was building up and there was only so long I was going to hold out - so many social and visual cues acted on me all day - in the end, at home, with the car parked up, I just said "fuck it" and opened a bottle of prosecco - when I was supposedly in the safe zone, outside all the pressure

I suppose I am saying, do the bar if you really want to, but don't feel you have to just because you have been asked! You can just decline or offer to hang round the cakes or bouncy castle or something

Day 2 here. Lovely dreams last night and feeling a lot clearer and sharper. Great to have this place to go to, to chat!

Have a good day all x

Morning all,

I have been lurking on these threads for a while and I find them unbelievably supportive. I made the decison to stop drinking 3 months ago, after years and years of hating my drinking behaviour and watching my drinking get out of control. I have always been a big drinker and my boozy ways were becoming shameful and unmanageable, I had blackouts nearly all the time. I tried to moderate my drinking but that was just exhausting as I could not understand how and why people would have just 2 glasses of wine, and I became utterly obsessed with trying to be a normal drinker, but every now and then the lid would fly off and I would get plastered and then spend the following days apologising and hating myself. Making the decison to be AF has taken years and I still feel quite vulnerable sometimes and there is no doubt that sometimes I would fancy a nice cold glass of white wine, especially now it is Summer, but I have to check myself and remember that I have never in my life had just one glass of white wine, it has been bottles, coupled with terrible behaviour. I am going to AA meetings for a bit of extra support which reminds me that my drinking was unmanageable especially when I start to romanticise my drinking.

Anyway, I have rambled but I wanted to say I find that reading your threads is a brilliant bit of support for me and I want to thank you all.

Hello all,
Sorry I didn't post yesterday, problems with the computer.
CornChips So pleased to hear the evening went well and well done for pouring that white wine away....it really DOES hurt doesn't it? But I think it can't be anything but helpful to expunge the house, or the situation you are in of all alcohol and therefore temptation.
Tortoise I finished 'Mommy doesn't drink here anymore' which I found enlightening in some ways and very different from my situation in others. I think I yearned after a more 'rock bottom' story (probably coming from that alcoholic's mindset that 'She's worse than I am because....'). It was very honest and I appreciated the exploration into why she drank...perfection, the striving for etc...
I am waiting for 'Drunk Mommy' and have started The Jason Vale book, has anyone read it and found it helpful? I am a little irritated by the constant repetition, but suspect there is an element of 'hypnosis' about the book which relies on frequent repetition.
I chickened out of AA on Sunday. I was such a lovely day and we took a picnic to NT property and I just did not want to cut short the afternoon to drive 40 minutes away. I am going to try and do this myself but have promised myself that if it doesn't work that way...then there is nothing for it, I will have to go.
Re the hijacking or undermining of resolve from other people whom you feel know or understand...I really see that. I have a friend who drinks moderately and is always in control of her drinking who can become formidable at times when I say I will drive/not drink etc...She really knows how I struggle but the last time this happened was when we were hatching plans to celebrate our 10th reading group anniversary with plans to go into town to a nice bar, and get a taxi back. I tentatively suggested driving as we have a people carrier and can get 7 into it and she came down very forcibly telling me 'You ARE not going to drive' Now, maybe I'm doing her a disservice as she might have been just not wanting me to have to be responsible for the driving but I suspect she knows that I may have used driving as an excuse. There is ever such a small touch of the smug about her as she can control what she drinks and I can't. I can't help but feel sad esp as she has a DH who is an alcoholic but who left her 2 years ago, so she should, I essence , understand. She's lovely in many other ways by the way.
Anyway, I've realised I'm taking DD17 and a friend to London to HyperJapan th following day so will have to be up at 6 anyway, enough excuse I feel.
Weight gain....Oh dear...all my life I feel weight and alcohol have been inextricably linked, all your tales of weight gain resonate so much. The horror and disgust I have felt for years about my weight (I'm not enormous but a large size 12) have been debilitating. Drink and numb that feeling of disgust. And you know what? No -one knows....anyone at work would think I was completely functional, straightforward and (hopefully a competent and kind person) when really I am like a screwed up ball of pure emotional complexity.
There sorry it's long, I tend to post long but just once.
Sorcha so hoping you are feeling stronger and more positive today.
Biggles enjoy your run tonight
Merce Love to read your wise words, great comfort

Welcome Kate
I understand all that you have said and you'll find others quite the same on here. How do you find AA?
Just back from the supermarket...There is alcohol everywhere! At the end of each aisle, near the flowers, offers stands, everywhere. No wonder so many of us struggle with what is so widely seen as 'acceptable'. Supermarkets certainly weren't as bad as this 30 years ago.

Thank you. I put off going to AA for a good few years until a friend suggested I go along to a meeting with her. I find it very supportive but I shopped around for a meetings that I felt comfortable with and my home group has a mixture of newcomers and old timers which I find helpful. There are meetings that I will never go back to (one of which was where someone was adamant that I would relapse, but there are tossers everywhere) but the ones I go back to are very helpful.

The undermining friends issue is a nightmare. I have a friend who actually gets annoyed that I am not drinking as 'I drank as much as her' (awkward...) but she is slowly coming round. I was annoyed that she was not immediately on my side but I suppose my role / dynamic has changed and I am not the 'go to' drinker anymore so it is a slow process.

Hi all! Welcome all newbies. Just checking in to say...am enjoying the sunshine, and have been experimenting with iced tea. Best iced tea recipe:

pour boiling water on 2 tea bags in a big heat proof jug with a small spout, or strainer spout.. (I like to use one bag of builders and one bag of white tea.)
A handful of fresh mint
A few chunks of fresh ginger
A squeeze of honey

Take the tea bags out, top up with cold water ice, and put in fridge.

Drink in garden when lovely and cold

OK, I haven't been totally tee total, I drank at the weekend, but it was quite an eye opener.
I was with a group of female friends, all mothers, ranging from 20's to 40's. I drank 3 glasses of wine, which, with my tolerance left me barely tipsy. About half the women drank about a bottle and a half each (I, of course, noticing exactly who drank what, and doing a mental tally all night)
Some of them got proper plastered, and really silly. These were actually the older ones. I felt bored, and had really had enough at least 2 hours before I actually left.
In part, it's because I have always been careful about getting drunk in public. I don't even like going out that much, as I can't really relax. I am an alone drinker, and have never really gone down the drunk in public route, so when I see plastered middle aged women screaming with laughter over nothing it makes me uncomfortable, which is totally unfair, as I am the one who actually has the problem.
Of course, when I got home I finished the wine the babysitter had left (you didn't actually think I was going to stop at 3 measly glasses, did you?)
Felt like shit the next day, but, weirdly, watching other people's drunkeness, and hating the way I don't even enjoy socialising anymore , has given me a renewed resolve. I don't HAVE to do this. I don't HAVE to buy wine I can't afford. I can't drink in moderation, I really, really can't, and I know that now, so fuck it.
There are so many things I want to do, that I have been re-discovering since cutting back, and trying to quite booze, that I think I just want my life to be totally different.
I have dug out my old sewing machine to start dressmaking, and I have decided that I just really hate nights out involving booze, so I am planning to try and start a dance class, as I love dancing, but it always got in the way of my drinking.
I don't even want booze right now. I've got my iced tea in the fridge, some ice cream in the freezer, and the new Donna Tartt to read. Life is good, or it could be, I think.
Biggles I get what you are saying about crap pay, and mid life blues, but if it helps, I am 38 and don't own a house at all, so for me, the idea of having a mortgage paid off in 9 years sounds amazing! Not having a go, honest, but it's all relative!
Ending I am with you there about supermarkets. Just remember, their entire MO is to entice you into spending money on expensive stuff you don't need. They are the enemy, and we shall not be swayed by their dastardly ploys.
x

Charade, for you I prescribe Dry by Augusten Burroughs. Funny, sad, poignant, very detailed about rehab and AA, definitely a worse-than-you story. He drank a litre of scotch a day.

I've just ordered Spilling the Beans, which is Clarissa
Dickson-Wrights autobiography. Don't know how much of it is about alcohol vs her whole life, but apparently she was drinking two bottles of gin a day before she got sober.

I'm hosting my book group tomorrow. They intimidate me. I skipped the last one because I was feeling a bit vulnerable. Not that they will try and talk me into drinking, per se, but I always feel a bit on edge. And I'll have to go buy some wine in, now I think about it, since the hostess always provides. I bought a dozen bottles only two weeks ago, for my housewarming; the bottle shop will start thinking i have a drinking problem. Insert bitter laugh here.

'Dry' is compulsory!

As you were

Sorry sundaymorning, that did sound very self indulgent didn't it :( We didn't start to buy it till we were in our forties so god knows how we thought we could ever pay it!

It was a bit of a twatty thing to put wasn't it? At least we will have a bit of money to rent with or something. Just feeling that 'is that it?' at the moment.

Tortoise Thanks for the reading tip. what is it about reading groups for goodness sake that can be intimidating...I find the same thing. I think there is sometimes a 'stealth boast' mentality/or outright competiveness.Just add alcohol and you have a nascent toxic mix, which sometimes can be deflected and sometimes doesn't, leaving some people feeling undermined and vulnerable. I have chickened out a few times in 10 years (prob about 3-4) and was accused of 'pulling away'. It reminds me a little bit of the school gate scenario, seeing all the people you don't nec want to see but have to, and putting on a show. I remember, sometimes taking the car to school (we live in a village) just so that I didn't have to stand and talk to people, can't really do that in a reading group!

BTW I have realised that I have been posting about my children as DD17, DS 14 and DD12, instead of DD1, ds1 and dd2. That gives me precisely 43 children. Blimey, I have been pissed.

Don't be a dafty biggles, you don't need to apologise! I just meant it in a sort of "count your blessings "way.
I am a bit confused about why you will have to rent though? If I were you, I would never rent again. (Housing issues at the moment, so it's a sore point!) Don't feel blue. You have achieved something marvelous this year.
I will never be rich either,(also in a badly paying sector) but I intend to be fulfilled, which is entirely different.

Endingthecharade that made me proper laugh!
43 kids. Well, you would drink, wouldn't you?

Thank you . Well, we would never ever be able to buy a house in this city again, and dh will be 68 and me 59 in 9 years .

I guess the plan would be to move elsewhere (my ideal would be the Shetland isles..) as we'd never get a mortgage at those ages.

Oh I dunno, sorry just rambling. Been in tears at work all day. I have secured some money for a project but the monitoring they want is ridiculous. We will alienate the clients and completely exhaust the staff with the amount of paperwork. Pissed off that it's so hard to bloody well help people.

Ignore me today.

Don't apologise Biggles. It can be hard to realise how hard you've worked and how little you have gained from it. don't blame yourself. I have a tendency to beat myself up about my very modest circumstances because I have never taken any real risks (other than drinking myself into oblivion at every possible opportunity :D) and never done anything creative or amazing or unique and instead have plodded along in late, slow, mediocrity, getting around eventually to buying a very ordinary house that we can hardly afford to maintain and will be working for ever to pay off. Don’t get me wrong, I love our house and I like my life and I am daily thrilled that somehow, however late and shambolically, I seem to have acquired two amazing daughters, against the odds. But if you think about the people who are travelling the world on the proceeds of their EC2 terrace that they cleverly bought in 1991 then it all seems a bit lame and tragic. Also, the people who cheerfully lived on scrounging off their friends to start bands etc – I was never one of those either.

The thing to do of course is not to compare yourself!

Sorry to hear that things are hard at work.

Sundaymorning - I can't bear sloppy people screeching when they are drunk - such a hypocrite!

I sometimes try to add up all the money I spent on drink and fags...then just get more depressed .

Couple of houses and a villa in Barbados!!

Oh I doubt it.
It's nice to think of the money you are saving - from now on - but really, what difference does it make in terms of property?

Save £10 a day, save £3,650 a year. A tidy sum in a way - but in another way, great, only another 9 years till you have a house deposit!

Hey all,

Just checking in to say that I'm sober and happy and doing ok. Love,love,love this thread and Tortoises' blog. The friends and drinking issue is a tough one to crack but well worth it. One poster upthread used the phrase 'i"m not the go to person for drinking anymore' That is gold dust. It was a very slow process for me and there was a certain quantity of flouncing and harsh words. I spend more time speaking to quieter friends (actually bothering listening because I'm not screaming drunk). Very pissed friends are mega boring so I tend to go home early. I know that some friends have issues with this but getting home at a reasonable hour,into a clean bed,sober with a book is bliss compared with almost pissing myself,screaming and staggering about drunkenly.
I've gone up in the estimation of a few people and really good friends were pleased for me.
The early hours of a party are hard because a cold glass of wine seems so reasonable then but 9 pm is always a weird kind of tipping point. Someone gets argumentative,someone says something they regret,someone knocks things over,people plonk a botttle next to themselves rather than face the long distance to the fridge
I just fancy a cup of tea by then.
One thing I am sad about is that eating out with dh doesn't seem that special anymore. We've just had to think a bit harder about where to go and what to do- it's not a problem.

Bloody hell- I only popped on to say hi! I was just about to twitter on about acceptance of self but think I may stop now and refuel on coffee and biscuits.

Oh, I have taken loads of risks-most of them stupid!
I want to concentrate on taking REAL risks now. Risking finishing the book and having it be rejected. Risking putting myself out there again and dating. Maybe even risking a real relationship. These are the kind of risks my numbed-by-wine state has handily allowed me to avoid the last 8 years.
Scary!
guggenheim I know what you mean about the tipping point. RIGHT NOW is my worst craving time. I never cracked open a bottle until ds was in bed, around 8, but his bedtimes are getting a bit later, so would feel very antsy from around 6.30.
Once 9pm has been and gone, though, I am fine, so I just think, in two hours I will be OK.
Isn't it funny how annoying and boring we all find drunk people
Most of my close friends are drinkers. One of my friends, who is uber competitive, has been a bit disconcerted about my attempts to stop, I think.
Here is a thing I was thinking about, from a diet book I once read which was great but I can't remember the name of it! It was basically about how to change your habits to healthy eating ones, and how to stop binging.
It said that the world is full of cake, and chocolate etc, and there is no shortage. You can have this stuff whenever you want, and as much as you want. So, as it's not in short supply, and easily available, there is no panic. You can choose something different. I guess not was really about conscious eating, and not feeling deprived? Anyway, the same applies with booze. Tesco is stuffed to the rafters with booze. It always will be. No one is telling you you can't have it. It's your choice.
I suppose it's what tortoise was explaining about living with a drinking person; The stuff is always around anyway, and easily gettable.
Just because you can, doesn't mean you have to.

Oooh, I am rambling! Off to wash up. x

Hello all, hope everyone is doing well. Guggenheim - you mention Tortoise's blog - could you possibly remind me of the details? I need all the help I can get and would love to read her words of wisdom!

Many thanks - so glad you are doing and sounding so well. Please can you continue with your lovely 'twitter' about self-acceptance now?!
x

theScarfLady here it is: afteralcohol.wordpress.com/