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 found/find that if I eat something sugary, I don't want to drink. I think one of the reasons why the five pm craving is what it is, is because it's a long time since lunch but not close enough to dinner. I recommend sugar with your film, and I'll see if it's on quickflix yet, thanks for the Rec.

Hi everyone. I have been really down and insular the last week, lots of things that are irritating me and didn't want to come and write whingy wittery stuff!

Had a hiccuping sobbing isnotfairrrr conversation with dh on Friday night about why didn't he stop drinking (stamp foot); why can't I have a bloody drink (stamp foot again); just go away and drink then, no don't do that, its NOT FAIR!!! real mature stuff I know it's not uncommon and we all get these bloody hell days. This is how I've relapsed before - being fed up with not being 'allowed' to drink, and having 'one or two' (gallons obviously in the end)

Have been able to have two short runs and been going mad on my cross trainer so that's helping. Tortoise, I think I may be being a bit thick, but why did your husband say you had to take some blog posts off????

Jason vale didn't do it too much for me either I have to admit - bit of a poor mans Allen Carr, who I don't particularly rate either! anyway, dd is having an 'I am exhausted but won't admit it, so will blame everything else, especially school' mega meltdown so I must go and appease her .

Big squee to everyone xx

Hey everyone I'm on Day 7 and struggling a bit. Hope it's ok to post here, I need the extra accountability.

I made it to 100 days starting in November last year (but not really as I cheated). I think I posted on the first dry thread. I want to do it for real this time.

So checking in and waving and not drinking today :)

Well done for coming back ! if you've done a hundred you can do 2 hundred

What are you doing to help with the struggling today??
It's so hard to get the vision out your mind I know. Think of something cool to do (run?? ;) ) Go for a walk or just have a lovely cup of whatever you like.

Stay with us xx

Dudes, I am fucking up big time

I drank a whole world of booze this weekend

It's killing me.

So happy to be sober right now even though with a hangover. So happy to be still in with a chip and a chair. So scared at seeing how this could go, but so relieved that right now I am not drinking and I will not drink today.

So many things in my head.

Such strange dreams: dreaming of driving a big van for work, not being able to see over the bonnet, terrible visibility and the brakes not working no matter how hard I pressed; panicking at the windy road and the great speed and barely staying on the road

Another driving dream, also last night but complete separate, where I "woke up" at the wheel of my car, recognised the road as being on the way to an airport, realising I had been driving asleep or half asleep to the airport and assuming it was for work, not having a clear sense of where or why I was going and scared that I was at the wheel of a car but not in control

I don't think you have to be Dr Freud to work out what these dreams are about

Please can I come back and witter a lot today?

So impressed with you all. I want to be like you.

Thanks Biggles! Actually I did go for a run it's something that really helps me.

Mab, this can be your Day 1. I'm only a few days ahead of you.

I wrote this list out earlier when my brain was giving me the usual "you don't have a problem, you're blowing this all out of proportion" speech. I'm keeping this in my phone to read when I need to:

Because I'm pretty sick of myself right now and I know from previous sober times that I like myself a LOT better when I'm not drinking.
Because my kids deserve to have a mummy who snuggles with them in the evenings and reads to them, and is not grumpy and hungover in the mornings.
Because the business I want to start needs a clear head and healthy body.
Because I want to have more energy and not feel so tired and depressed all the time.
Because even though I'm not at any kind of rock bottom right now, I have been in the past and I never, EVER want to go there again.
Because when I drink one evening, I always want to drink again the next evening and then the next, and the wolf is constantly thirsty.
Because I want the kind of serenity that long-term non-drinkers seem to exude.
Because I want to wake early in the mornings and write.
Because I want to run this marathon and not give up when things get hard.
Because I want to have a choice about what I put into my body, and not be ruled by alcohol, or by what other people think of me.
Because I want to go on holiday and not be obsessing every evening about when/where/how I can drink.
Because I want to eat out with my family without always trying to get another drink in, when everyone else just wants to go home.
Because I never again want to drink in secret on my way home or before I go out, or to hide empties in my bag to throw away elsewhere.
Because I want to fix my marriage and first I have to take responsibility for my part.
Because I owe it to my son, because I couldn't do it when I was pregnant.
Because I want a different kind of life to this.

Oh mab you can do it. Focus on today and how good you will feel when the hangover has gone! Look ahead a week and remember how fab waking up feeling ok is! (although I am sleeping rubblishly lately :( )

Anxiety dreams are the pits for sure. I used to dream about being in an aeroplane that never took off but just drove randomly around street and towns. Bonkers .

muminboots great idea to write it all down. I met up with a friend I haven't seen for many years today. Our eldest children are the same age, and we both went through addiction issues when they were growing up so we were talking about that. I know I was a poor mother to dd1 and that I could have been better and I look at ds and dd2 and think how different their childhoods have been to poor dd1 but then I also know that 'what ifs' are no good. She is proud of me now and understands how I was was not 'me.

The thought of ever letting her down again is a lot to do with what keeps me going this time. Also the other two are now so much calmer and happier that I don't drink.

Going to bed sober with a cup of hot chocolate and some rubbish novel on my kindle is my new 'out on the piss until I black out'.

I still miss it (see above) because those first few sips are (seemed to be) so wonderful, but really, were they? they didn't end, sips become glasses become bottles become a nightmare :(.

Rambling on a bit now, but what I meant to say was always remember why you want to be sober !

Thanks, Biggles.
I am feeling so shaky and anxious today. Haven't heard from DP I am sure he is really annoyed with me and I just really want to hear from him.

work is a big problem for me in some ways, and in other ways so important and healthy. I should be working now and the very thought of looking at my emails makes me feel sicik. I just feel so awful.

Sorry to whinge on like this.

The level of anger I felt yesterday was terrifying. dd1 (5) was really making me furious. Every single thing was a cause for her to whine. Everything I gave her was a reason for her to ask for something else or something different in a really horrible voice. I just suddenly spiralled into this thing of seeing my whole life as being subject to people constantly giving me earache about things I can do nothing about. I slipped into this horrible headspace where in my own home, my supposed headspace, I am going to have people whining interminably about the same things, forever.

I said some horrible things; I was awful when she fell off a chair and howled (because she was dicking about on the chair and driving me nuts before she fell off); I said in a really low grating voice "Are you going to ask me for x again? I have said no three times. if you ask again I am leaving the room and not talking to you again. That conversation is over."
Every time we go anywhere it just becomes a thing where she gets obsessed with wanting to be bought things and I say no and then she behaves horribly, nagging and mithering and whining in this horrible voice, and then I just can't say yes because it is rewarding the most horrible behaviour.

I worry that she is not a nice little girl because I haven't spent enough time with her and work too much. I worry that she is being like this because she doesn't get enough of me and if we popped to the shops every day it would be an ingrained thing that you don't get bought things except as treats and she would know that sometimes you can get rewarded for good behaviour and it would all be settle.d

Anyway sorry to go off on that long tangent but basically at about 2pm I decided I was going to start drinking as early as possible and as hard as possible because I was absolutely wound up beyond being able to stand anything. So at 5.45 we were having "fathers' day prosecco". At 845 when they were finally in bed I was going to the shop for the third bottle and deciding I was not working today.

I am just so so so so sick of everything. I have a good life, my parents are alive and well, my children are well, there is nothing wrong. I just feel.... on the brink of screaming so much of the time

It doesn't matter that all is well in your life, you have a problem with drink. It's like mental illness. In fact, I may reach out and actually say it IS a mental illness. Why do so many rich, famous, 'nothing to worry about' people have drink issues? because they can't help it!

Children can drive you to distraction at the best of times, let alone when you're battling something and it's totally understandable (to us I think anyway) that drinking is the response you made. It's something that has always been the 'answer', so that's what you reached for.

You are having classic guilt feelings that all parents get really, I have always been the one who worked in this marriage (not the first one, I was too pissed and a single parent !) and dh pretty much brought ds up until he was 5. This pisses me off a lot at times and I feel really bad. Similarly, dd2 was in childcare from 2 months old. There is always going to be something that makes you feel shit - life does!

Just don't torture yourself. You can do it x

Just to send a hug to Mab. What you say re your daughter made me sad not least as it is so familiar; I have that dynamic so often and it makes me so unhappy too. Love to you - you are so thoughtful, clear-sighted and reflective and I have no doubt you are a great mum. Try not to beat yourself up too much and give yourself a treat (though maybe not prosecco ;-))

x

Mab What you said could have been me on so many occasions with my daughter too.
Biggles I have those 'it's not fair' foot stamping moments about booze too
Muminboots pleased to meet you, I'm new around here :)

My heart goes out to you Queenmab, it is SO hard to be a parent. So many of us are not cut out out for the mind-numbing boredom of it, no matter how much you adore your children, it is terribly, terribly hard. And alcohol is an escape. But for some us, only in the short term. What is that saying, 'one glass is too many and ten is not enough'....the downward trajectory is destruction, literally, that is what you felt over the weekend, 'Sod it, this is bad enough, I might as well make it worse'...I've been there so often. Then you can't stop and the only way you can think of to make yourself feel better is to carry on drinking, rationality has gone.
Never Mind....start again....chuck out the booze. Do something extra lovely with DD to ameliorate your conscience, cook a nice supper, get a good book, buy some new makeup and seize resolve.

Muminboots
I'm so impressed you did 100 days and I feel like cutting out and keeping your list above, so like mine. Remember you from the 1st thread.
Biggles You post about resenting, sobbing about how unfair it is why you should not be able to drink....oooh, how it resonated with me. I was a sulky, withdrawn cow on Friday, and Saturday because I felt I was 'entitled' to a drink and I was doing this for 'everyone else. Blimey...Who was I kidding?

Thanks so much TheScarfLady. I have a nice cup of tea here and maybe I will watch One Born Every Minute to have a good cry. Crying a bit anyway.

My own mother is so odd. I had a strange email exchange with her a few weeks ago that has left me feeling terrible in some ways. I feel like I need to re-read the emails and see if there were really as insouciant as they seemed. I thought I had really opened up to her about some stuff that I had never wanted to because... I didn't want her to feel bad. the response implies that she really doesn't feel bad, will never feel bad, and it just doesn't really matter. this slightly blew my mind at the time but I found myself laughing at it all.... now I think I am actually quite hurt that I spell it all out and she still doesn't give a shit.

what the hell, I'm 42, I need to get on with my life and stop worrying about it. Life was different then.
when I had babies I used to sneak away to bf them in secret when they were cluster feeding, she didn't believe they needed to feed that much. when she same once when just she and I and dd1 were in the house, dd1 was weeks old, I just wanted dd1 on me all the time when she was fussy and hungry and I felt I needed to put her down to be quiet so we could have dinner sitting properly at the table. It was all so tense and I was trying to be so perfect. I look back on that now and I can't understand visiting a woman with a tiny baby, someone I am supposedly close to, and making them feel they have to "control" the baby in order to perform a formal dinner ritual. I am sure she didn't see it that way at all, I am sure she thought that I should have a break from the baby and have a nice dinner.

I am sorry all this weird stuff is coming out now I had a point in there but I don't know what it was.

I am weirdly really missing my babies' baby-hood. I have never felt this before, I have always delighted in the stages of their growing up, but suddenly it feels absolutely tragic that I will never breastfeed again and I want to go back and live those days again and enjoy them. I want to lie in bed with a tiny baby and tell everyone else to feck off and hang the goddamn washing out. I told myself when I was expecting dd2 that I would do it differently and I didn't, I got overwhelmed by all the other demands again. I remember a moment of absolute perfection when dd2 was minutes old and I was drinking tea and eating toast and she was bfing and nobody wanted me to do anything else. she was naked and unbelievably beautiful and I was thrilled with her and I could see already how different she was from dd1 and it was wonderful to see the her-ness of her. My mum came a few hours later to take us home, she had dd1 with her and I was so thrilled to see her and introduce the two sisters. Then I felt bad at the car - my car, which I had insured my mum to drive - when she said "do you want me to drive?" and I said "yes please" and imagined a sort of quizzical look like I should be doing it and wondered if I was annoying her. Surely I was imagining that, right? You don't collect a woman who had a baby 6 hours ago and think she is lazy for not feeling like driving the car?

x-posts, thanks Lucy and Ending. I really do appreciate it
I wish I could talk to dp

mab it was no different with my mother when she came to visit - the whole 'get the damn baby to behave so it doesn't interrupt our dinner' approach and her tutting when I went to see if they were okay. Generational thing I think - or that's what I tell myself!

Oh definitely a generational thing. I think babies habitually cried in prams in gardens for hours when we were babies. I am sure my mother was not that brutal but I think she might have been a bit soft for her day!

Yep I know that my baby sister was put in the kitchen to cry overnight because then she wouldn't be heard! :(

Hi there. Can I join the group? I have been a lurker for quite a while - and had a brief period of moderation when I went on the Battle Bus thread. Didn't work out and have slowly got my head around the fact that I need to do abstention. Trying to stick to the idea of 100 days (indeed just right now and tomorrow) and see where it leads. I have signed up with Belle to do the 100 Day challenge and got a lot of inspiration from Tortoise's blog in general - and her 100 day post today. I think that is whose blog it is. I have read so many in the past while!

I am on Day 2 I guess - last drink on saturday. I think I am finally ready. For so long my brain could not conceive of a life worth living or a meal worth having without alcohol. I minimised and dismissed and deluded myself that I just enjoyed booze and was living a glamorous fun life. As if!

Endingthecharade I too have a child with Asperger's (recently dx) and I find that dealing with him when I am permanently hungover or irritably awaiting my next drink has not helped at all. I want to be a better parent than I am now to all three of my kids and not have this constant guilt. I am under no illusions about how hard it will be. I am scared I will not be able to manage social events without being hacked off and bored - I have a very boozy group of friends and remember finding being out with them when I was pregnant was never that much fun.

Anyway, I wish everyone who is struggling at the moment good luck. I am SO new to this that I have no wisdom to offer obviously. But I hope that being on this thread along with reading the great blogs out there will help me.

Welcome haggis. You sound like you are really prepared and ready for this - well done! You are a day ahead of me so I shall follow your lead..I like the fact it sounds like you have been working up to this, thinking it through and waiting til you are ready. All good wishes to you as you go forward with it - let's hope that between us all we can kick this thing into touch (feeling bullish today..) xx

Hi everyone. mab.
Welcome newbies. :) Am reading, not posting because things are a bit crazy my part of the world , but am here with you all,thinking of you all.

newbies and lurkers I should say, just in case I inadvertently offend.

I am with Belle too- she has some great techniques. :)

Thanks for the welcome everyone. Scarflady hopefully we can encourage each other! I feel very clueless but am pretty sure that online support will be very very useful. Cornchips I am glad you are liking Belle. I just listened to an audio today where she mentioned getting sober and doing Weight Watchers together as a pretty tough gig. Someone down thread mentioned doing that, and the consensus of you wise ladies seemed to be that that would be very hard on oneself! I am just going to put any concerns about weight loss to one side and get on with the most important stuff.

Lucy do you have a blog too? I am very eager to read any, if people are happy linking their MN stuff to their blog. I am considering blogging myself - but in many ways I feel that so many people out there are saying it so much better than I ever would. Would have anything to add? But I guess its all about exploring all about how I find the path to sobriety. At the very least I guess I should wait til I have at least 7 days under my belt before getting over excited.

Physical symptoms. Anyone a lot further along - does everyone have these? I am not sure when to expect them to kick in.

Hi Haggis welcome from me too. Belle is fab and I am also a member of Team 365. I do indeed have a blog which I write daily posts on including a couple on physical symptoms ahangoverfreelife.com/?s=physical+symptoms :) Hope that helps

Hello Haggis and TheScarfLady
Hi to everyone else!

thanks to you all for all the pep talking above. Day 1 has been knocked on the head in the sense that I am now in bed in PJs. With yet more tea.

I really appreciate you lot. thanks.

Nanight Mab have a good sleep.

Lucy - I had just found your blog anyway - fantastic! You really are prolific. I am starting at the beginning. Is there any way of flipping a blog like a thread so you can do that. Or do you just have to keep clicking "older posts" and scrolling down? I'm on an ipad.
I will click that specific link. I got to one about PAWS which sounds pretty awful. Thanks though for taking the time to post the link.

Thinking of bed fairly soon myself.