DRY 7!!!

[mollyonthemove]

The new thread for the alcohol free and the wanna be free . come and join us

evening all
day 13 here for me

have been struggling a bit this evening though. Feeling generally quite fed up and the thoughts of wine in the garden on a sunny Friday evening have been trying to lure me in, but I'm staying strong!
having tried to cut back on extra overtime work I have ended up doing tomorrow as they couldn't find anyone else to cover it. Very fed up about that tbh and I should have put my foot down and said definitely no...I am however definitely not doing the next 2 Saturdays so that is somehting I suppose...
sigma you are not a crap Mum. Hang in there.

how is everyone else doing in the sun?

No sun here, it's grey and miserable.

No sun here either. The two days previous, may in fact, have been our summer

tsonlyme I'll be finding that weekend hard too so will most probably be on here. 11/12th is a big deal here in Norn Ireland and it's traditional to get completely bladdered before going to watch big piles beings set alight

Love the TSP explanation! Yep that was definitely me.

Are you ok Sigma?

Ah no the sun had gone here now as well ,and its raining !

Sigma - you're NOT a shit Mum. You're a Mum with an illness.

It is an illness which is unfortunately considered to be different from any other MH problem by society because the individual is CHOOSING to do it right?. Same as those with anxiety disorders/OCD could just opt out of it if they really wanted to?.

That's bollocks and I'm a MH professional ashamed to be on this thread because all my knowledge, education and experience (and the advice I give to others) means I couldn't possibly not be in control of my drinking. Same as my friends who are Dr's, social workers/scientists.

We KNOW what addiction means and it doesn't apply to us (bollocks) . I know Dr's in psychopharmacology research in active cocaine addiction (every weekend but not every day). But they don't know they're addicts.

But they don't have kids. And I am not in any way getting at you or trying to make you feel shit but at some point your parenting will be affected by your addiction.

Doesn't mean you don't love your child/children but it means recognising the impact your addiction may have.

And if you feel strong enough to seek help - you should be prioritised over single people as a parent.

Thanks everyone. Trying again today.

I don't usually drink in the morning - though I do sometimes start at lunchtime.

I know it affects my parenting :(

Not sure where to go for help - I don't live in the UK.

Go to whoever is your health care provider as a first step?.

Good morning everyone. Been catch ing up and so good to see such positivity. Sigma, you are so not a bad mum. You are struggling with a horrible condition but you know that which means you can do it!!
Relapsing is horrible but happens! I did 8 months, 2 months, 2 weeks etc, but always buggered it up and feLt like a complete failure each time . I honestly don't know what clicked this time but it did and it does for so many people. It can be done.

I wasn't sure whether to mention this as it outs me totally, but hey! I am going to be in Bella magazine next week - the whole shameful horrible story of my alcoholism. It was a difficult decision whether to do it or not (I was approached by a journalist as have had contact with a lady who wrote a book about her drinking) anyway, I decided to go for it. Talk about a bloody awful mother! I was appalling. The article is, by it's very nature, a bit over the top - women's magazines eh?! but I hope it shows some hope to some people.

Wow Molly Hats off to you :) And well done! I guess that means I will have to buy Bella, then? :)

I don't think I've read bella in about 20:years! just hope they used some of the decent photos I sent

Oh wow Molly, I'll have to buy Bella as well then.

Day 3 for me and feeling really good. Wishing I hadn't embarked on stripping my shed door back to the original wood (thanks to all the EU regulations and elf and safety ... paint strippers are not what they once were.). The days when it was so powerful you could whack it on and scrape it off in sheets is long gone. Three coats and I'm still scraping it off millimetre by millimetre. I've already used one whole container and am going to have to buy another - for one bloody door! Wish I'd just sanded it down and painted over now!).

Anyway (DIY rant over )

One thing I notice is that when I'm not drinking is how sleepy I am. When I gave up last year (for nearly nine months ... sigh) the first few months I was like Rip Van Winkle. I only had to sit in an armchair and I'd be nodding off.

So here we are, only three days in and I've only just woken up at 10am! Usually I'm up at the crack of dawn.

I've written about it before, and I know it's something others experience, but it seems so odd that giving up drinking makes you sleep more ... when one of the reasons people give for drinking is to help them sleep?

Well ... have a wonderful alcohol free weekend everyone and think of me scraping paint off that bloody door. I'll be here till Christmas at this rate. I honestly wish I'd never started.

Sleep is the first thing to come back I found. Sometimes takes a few days but it's not long until you realise what proper sleep is! Miserable sodding weather here not sure quite what to do with the day.... dh will be off to cricket this pm and DS has one of his enormous 15 year old friends round later, so it will be a matter of entertaining the 9 year old daughter!

How exciting molly. Bella are going to get some new readers next week :)

Good for you for trying again Sigma, today is a new day. Yes to however provides your healthcare. Is there an expat community around you? Just thinking that if there were English speaking alcohol support groups they could point you in the right direction perhaps to accessing services.

Poor you Fontella. I hate starting DIY jobs that end up being bigger than expected and you feel like you'll never get finished. Took me months to get back to proper sleep but had other things going on including a non sleeping toddler and stopping smoking too. Now I still sit up to all hours being the night owl I am but my sleep is much more refreshing.

Off out soon for a Marriage Equality march (ashamedly we are waaayyy behind the times when it comes to same sex marriage) and taking ds to see Jurassic World later. He's watched all the others and has been looking forward to this for months so hoping it won't be too gory or scary for him. That's pretty much my day planned out. Happy sober Saturday everyone!

hello all
molly that is exciting and very brave
sigma how is your day going?
fontella I have a bad habit of starting jobs like that that then end up much, much bigger than expected!

regarding sleep.... Alcohol works well to INDUCE sleep more quickly than usual but it disrupts the natural sleep cycle. It reduces the amount of Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep that you get through the night. This is the part of sleep in which you dream, and is the most important for you waking up feeling refreshed. When you stop drinking your body is able to have REM sleep again, and tries to catch up as much as possible by having more periods of REM sleep during the night than usual (known as rebound REM sleep)- so you may notice you are having more dreams or more vivid dreams than usual and also by trying to get you to sleep more than usual.It is all good though as the body is healing itself!
I too am still at the absolutely shattered stage, I feel as if I could possibly sleep for about a week solidly if allowed to, and have definitely been having more dreams lately.

Day 14 here, am on call so no risk of drinking....

Fontella why don't you ge the door dipped? It wasn't massively expensive when I did several internal doors, admittedly 15 odd years ago. Nice man came, took doors away, left them in a bath of nasty chemicals for a bit and returned them a few days later all lovely and woody. They had several thick layers of gloss on them.

The sleep thing - it's very hard to get a drinker to believe that their sleep will improve massively if they stopped but it's very true. Many times I have woken hungover after 10ish hours sleep feeling like I haven't slept a wink and then yawned my way through the day.

Interesting article in the guardian mag today 'Slurred Lines' it's an excerpt from a book Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget by Sarah Hepola. Looks interesting, anyway.

I have started exercising two days of Davina (only exercise dvd I have lol). Plan is to do it every day for the next two weeks so by the time the big family party comes round I will be a size 8 goddess that looks twenty years younger than my 46yrs with buns of steel. Well one can dream huh?!

I read that online today tsonly. Found myself really relating as I had loads of blackouts and done really stupid things during some of them. Well so I've heard after anyway. I lost a lot because of them and the way I acted :(

Blackout became my normal in the end days of my drinking because I drank fast to get drunk. Most of the time nothing happened especially because I drank at home but I did occasionally wake up to find a note for myself from myself saying 'nothing happened, don't panic'

Before I stopped going out drinking I would kid myself that nothing of note had happened but I think my drinking buddies were just too polite to say. Water under the bridge now but another good reminder why it's not a good idea. Pissed up to blackout stage is never a good look at any age but when you get to your mid forties it's especially undignified I think. I am a feminist and lived my younger days with no reservations about behaving laddish (sex, drinking) but society really doesn't seem to have caught up so women do seem to be judged more harshly still. If anything judgements against women seem to have gone backwards if things my dd says are true, thank goodness for the new wave of feminist activists.

Anyway, I'm rambling . I'm quite achey from the exercising but determined to do it again today. I will be a goddess in two weeks time or die trying

Morning! Break in rain meant I could get out for run :)
Molly what day is Bella out this week?
tsonlyme and Last me too to the blackouts. I read the piece and had a shudder of recognition. Like you tsonlyme had developed strategy of putting myself to bed before anything dire happened but it didn't always work!
How are you sigma and Badwool how are you doing?

It's out on Tuesday. Stressed and worried (as you know )

Thanks - will seek out and read :) {Big hug}

So will I! I don't think I have ever bought Bella?

Still Dry :) Day 14 :) Have sunk same quantities of Torres AF wine as I would have had real wine though

BUT weight loss continues even though I am drinking a lot of carbs from the Torres, but then I was when I was drinking real wine and I still lost weight steadily on LCHF eating.

yesterday was a bit harder ... I managed to get through Dry, even though I was at a school fete yesterday afternoon and the booze tent was packed (!) so lots of people wandering around with beer and cider glasses. And I was on a stall letting people have a go at Archery. A bit stressful and I would have sunk a bottle or two in the past when I got home.

I couldn't drink at the fete obviously! (probably would not have gone if I had not been on duty as too triggery)

so then when I got home and was tempted I decided I would see how I feel in 30 mins time about a glass of wine, after I had done some colouring in and a bit of mindfulness meditiation. And then the urge went away so I had a glass of chilled AF Rose instead and read a book :) I also had no worries about DH having a glass of real wine next to me :)

But am SO tired and am going to bed very early for me - normally am an owl but last week have been in bed by 11 pm. That would be me catching up on REM sleep I expect :)

I am finding this thread so helpful :) Thank you all for the support, you are all lovely, you are :)

Well done Glad keep it up

I find that meditation is helpful for urges because it slows my brain down and it's the racing whirly non-stop head that leads me to drinking. SMART has a tool of when you're having an urge you imagine a massive stop sign which although it can stop you in your tracks only pauses things temporarily for me until the racing brain thing starts again but the meditation has a much longer term thought slowing effect. We are so bombarded with information these days from all the tech in our lives that it's no wonder there's an explosion in anxiety and stress. I don't even use email any more (except at work) because it feels to me yet another way of being harassed with info. And no, I don't want to extend my penis length anyway thankyouverymuch.

Hello! I'm not in the UK. Is Bella online?

Tsonly I used to leave notes to myself too. If I stuck at one bottle and a bit, I always remembered. If I drank both bottles of wine, I would forget the last hour or so. It's weird now, 5 weeks dry, that I never considered that particularly odd.

I've lost 2 stone in the last 5 weeks without even trying. It turns out wine makes you fat! Who knew?!! If nothing else, vanity is most definitely keeping me sober!

Ooh sober I'm very jealous of your weight loss! I thought the weight would drop off me when I stopped, but I just craved sweet, sugary rubbish instead!

Well done on the Bella thing molly. Very brave.

Back to day 1 for me today, and I feel so fed up about it - it should have been day 18. DP and I got booze last night, and as usual we both drank too much. He ended up asleep on the couch, and I woke this morning feeling dreadful. I really am determined to make AF a permanent thing.