Newbies Nest

[Byrdlady]

Re: Newbies Nest

Evening, Nesters.
Man, what a week. I am just beat and work is going awful. Sometimes I just hate sales.

Moon, I was struck by your post, as NS was. You mentioned the time when you CAN drink again. If you think about it, all of us here CAN drink, but none of us SHOULD drink. It wouldnt take long to do a little research right here, alcholism is a progressive disease. Where you were 4 years ago with it is not where you are today. Everyone that stops and starts again knows that levels quickly return to previous levels and soon beyond that. I wish I could lead you to the posts that speak to this. You have described your drinking as anything but normal. If that is your past, then how can we think that a return to drinking will be anything other than what its always been? It does not improve over time.
I was hoping that once you got it out of your system for a while, you would see the benefits of living sober and want to continue it, slamming the door on AL for good. But Im not getting that impression from you. I have a question for you..... Would you say that you are an alcoholic?

Hope everyone has an easy evening. Byrdie

[Choices]

Re: Newbies Nest

Hello! I just read through. I checked out both utube clips from NS and Gman- I love it! hilarious!

I’m glad you got your book LC. When I was finished I was SO bummed. I cant wait to hear what you think. Im following the author on instagram and a bunch of her sober friends. Its really great. What I like about it is I have a back up support for myself and it’s kinda nice to see real faces.

Moon, I loved hearing about your self care routine. I know what you mean. Ive been taking much better care of myself these, almost 3weeks AF for me. It is so nice to be out of that holding pattern of drinking, zoning, feeling like crap, falling into bed (not caring if I flossed let alone brushed my teeth sometimes) EXAUSTED picking myself up, forcing a smile, and dragging myself around.

When I was about 2yrs sober I got pregnant on my honeymoon and I remember thinking. Ah, this is great. Now I dont have to worry about working at sobriety anymore because I really cant drink now. It was a relief. I didnt drink for a year after my daughter was born because I identified as a sober person and could not conceive of drinking in my life ever again. But I also did not work on my sobriety anymore. I thought I was in the clear. Anyhoo! I think if you get your head around that you really can’t drink for you, because you and your body, mind, organs are very important too, I think it will be easier for you. Im seriously impressed that you are pregnant doing sober work when you “cant drink anyway” I wish I would have done that. I mean anyone can drink, your choice not to while pregnant is still your choice. It’s of course the right choice... for obvious reasons.

There is all this promotion for moms to drink. It is really gross. Even a Facebook group called moms who love wine, or something like that. It’s a shame there isn’t more support for mothers to be sober. Even picking my daughter up from preschool today mums were talking about drinking to cope with the kids rolling eyes, and it’s all a joke as easy to talk about as the weather. What if we were talking about heroine? Meth? alcohol is just not seen as a drug. I remember meeting up with some new mums for a girls night out when our babies were 4months old. They all had pumped so they could have a glass of wine with dinner. I remember being really glad I didn’t drink because I didn’t have to worry about that. Oddly enough though I did feel self conscious that I didn’t drink. How weird is that?

I told another mum friend today that I am totally dry and feeling really great, she took it the same way when I told her I was going to try being vegan, no big deal at all. We never drank together anyway. So she probably could give a rats... but it feels really good for me to be identifying as a sober person. It’s helping me to really keep that door shut.

[K1wiBro]

Re: Newbies Nest

Evening nest...

glad it's the weekend - looking forward to a nice sober relaxing few days. I had a bit of a surprise this evening: I was working out a budget to try and manage my money better, I was looking through my online transactions and saw the list of purchases from the liquor store over that last couple of weeks. When I was drinking daily I gave no second thought to what I was spending, but seeing it all laid out is shocking. It's embarrassing seeing day after day of liquor store receipts, but what I couldn't believe was the amount I was spending - $18-25 daily which adds up to $126-175 a week!! No wonder I don't have any money! Add to that the number of times I bought take-out pizza as well....
Tonight I'm treating myself to a bottle of cola, some home-made pizza and feeling better for it. :happy2:

[Jude58]

Re: Newbies Nest

Evening nest...

glad it's the weekend - looking forward to a nice sober relaxing few days. I had a bit of a surprise this evening: I was working out a budget to try and manage my money better, I was looking through my online transactions and saw the list of purchases from the liquor store over that last couple of weeks. When I was drinking daily I gave no second thought to what I was spending, but seeing it all laid out is shocking. It's embarrassing seeing day after day of liquor store receipts, but what I couldn't believe was the amount I was spending - $18-25 daily which adds up to $126-175 a week!! No wonder I don't have any money! Add to that the number of times I bought take-out pizza as well....Tonight I'm treating myself to a bottle of cola, some home-made pizza and feeling better for it. :happy2:

I too was surprised at how much I was spending on booze! Hard to deny it when you have all the liquor store receipts sitting in front of you.....hard evidence.

You're doing great Kiwi!

[jvo]

Re: Newbies Nest

I have to piggyback on what [MENTION=11704]Byrdlady[/MENTION] said, [MENTION=23999]moonking[/MENTION]. I started my journey on MWO in 2008, 10 years ago. The most sobriety time I had was 6 months when I was doing a stint in AA and longest here on MWO about four months. Not too impressive. What I know is that not only did it get worse every time I went back to drinking, my health has gone downhill in many ways. So not only my mental health deteriorated, but physically I gained a lot of weight and there were a lot of signs of liver disease. So it does get worse in every way if your addicted to alcohol. Like they say, once you cross that line, moderation is dead. I hope you continue to work on your sobriety now and after baby is born. Don't waste a decade of going back and forth, believing the lies that our al brain tells us. It's all BS.

Jvo

[moonking]

Re: Newbies Nest

Yes, that’s what flows through my mind - that I’ll be able to only have one or two like I did at first with my daughter. I know logically that it will eventually spiral out of control, but I also know that if I start to look ahead I will get overwhelmed. That’s why I must think about one day at a time. Remind myself that one will never be enough, so what’s the point in even starting, anyway? There is interesting (for lack of a better term) information out there on breastfeeding and alcohol consumption. Of course it gets into the breastmilk…but many lactation consultants tell you that dark beer actually helps with milk production! And to drink while breastfeeding, as it won’t reach the breastmilk until after you are done and if you have just one or two, you’ll still be fine for the next go round. There is also a culture around moms these days of “pump and dump.” When I was newly pregnant with my daughter and no one knew, I went to my friend’s bachelorette party and offered to be DD as a good excuse to stay sober. Several of the other women there were breastfeeding and they all brought manual pumps to “pump and dump” while they drank. I only made it 8 weeks exclusively pumping with my daughter and never in that time pumped and dumped as I hadn’t reached maximum consumption yet. I’m really hoping that with a toddler and a newborn it’ll be easier to convince myself not to drink (even one) because I’m going to be so damn tired anyway. And will have lots of weight to lose. :-/ I know those aren’t ideal long term goals to get me there, but maybe will at least get me over the hump.

I think my words were confusing, sorry about that. When I said ‘can’, I was equating it to right now when I absolutely CANNOT. Alcohol is not even an option, not on the table at all. What I guess I was trying to get at was quitting right now is relatively easy. It’s easy to push away thoughts of having wine because it’s not acceptable to drink while pregnant. There’s no real internal struggle of saying ‘no’ because it’s just not an option. Yes, I often still think about drinking (as is evident in my past posts) and am working on shutting those thoughts down…but that’s all future right now. When those thoughts pop in my head, I can say: “No, you don’t drink. One is not worth it.” But it’s a lot easier to say: “You can’t drink when pregnant.” But after baby is born, I it WILL be an option. The consequences will be different, yes, but in my still messed up neural pathways, aren’t as great. I know I’m not making much sense…it makes sense in my head, I guess. I know I need to continue to work on getting my brain to understand that even after the baby is here, it’s still NOT an option. Because I might be able to do 1-2 a night for awhile, but it will escalate.

Logically I KNOW all of this. But there are still parts of my brain that want to believe that I’d be OK. What I am equating it to now is when I struggle with an eating disorder. As I went through therapy and hospitalizations, I had to rewire my brain. In my head, in my own distorted thinking, food was the enemy. Food would make me fat. If I ate like a normal person I would lose control. I could control my feelings and thoughts when I was in starvation mode. I liked how I looked. I loved myself more. Reality was it was all bullshit. Through getting better I was able to KNOW logically that I was actually out of control, I hated myself and that eating normally would not make me fat. But I starved myself and worked myself into that mindset for nearly 10 years…and it’s took daily mental processing to push away those thoughts and get healthy. And now when those thoughts come I can easily push them out of the way, but I also stay very diligent in knowing that if I were to entertain them - even one time - it could send me down a very slippery slope. I think the same process has to happen with drinking. The thoughts are going to be there and be strong for awhile. I didn’t get to this thinking overnight and it won’t go away over night. Retraining my brain will take time.

My posts probably seem contradictory at times and I think I’m just in weird places. My body and hormones are not my own right now. I have good days and bad days. Some days I feel like I’ve got it and some days I feel like I don’t.

I do see the benefits. I love waking up not hungover. I love how I feel more present when playing with my daughter now. I love the little things like accomplishing projects. I’m seeing the good things.

And no, I’m not ready to call myself an alcoholic out loud. I’m 152 days in. I’ll get there. I’ve got you all to keep me on track and ask me to do some serious self reflection.

[lifechange]

Re: Newbies Nest

Hi Nesters,

TGIF! as you said, Kiwi, I am also looking forward to a relaxing weekend. Yums to the coke and homemade pizza. I don't know if you mentioned long ago the photo idea? I also began at the beginning of the year to take a photo a day.. I have an old film camera and was reluctant to use it 'cause it's expensive to develop, but I thought a roll a month is ok and I never print digital pics.. so it's really been fun! It's so grey here at the moment that I'm focussing on light this month. Envious of your gorgeous sunsets and driving with the windows rolled down!

Yes, Choices, I'm enjoying the book a lot. You meant you were bummed because it came to an end? Or does something happen you should forewarn me about? You're sounding resolved and strong with your 3 weeks.

J-vo, I meant to send you big hugs with regards to your Son..I'm very glad you can be there for him, understand what he's dealing with.:hug:

So I had a pretty good day. I pulled out a book called. May cause miracles, which I bought ages ago on recommendation from Hip Sobriety.. I found it quite cheesy at the time and put it away. But yesterday I thought it might be a good start to a daily discipline.. it's 40 days and couldn't be easier. Today's message was, Love over Fear, and the task was to try and step back from myself throughout the day, recognizing when I'm acting/thinking on fear rather than love. I knew before hand that it would come up today in the form of jealousy when I had to talk to a co-worker. I wasn't feeling as open and helpful as I would have liked to be, as I normally would have been with her because I've been a bit threatened by her lately, by the work she's doing. It's ridiculous! And it actually only has to do with my LACK of good work, that I haven't been giving my best. We don't have a competition going.. it was all in my head. So I was happy to be able to turn it around and positively reinforce what she's doing, encourage her to keep it up.. it felt good.
Love over fear.

No plans here this weekend. Maybe Ikea if I have strong nerves..
Hope everyone is doing well.. xx

[wagmor]

Re: Newbies Nest

LC - glad the spiral idea resonated with you. The way I picture it, there are stairs going up (reflecting the work we do to add new days and stay sober), but a slide going down (reflecting how quickly things can deteriorate if we don't stop the downward movement fairly quickly). You slipped and landed on your rear end, but you also grabbed the rail and got yourself off the slide right away. It hurts to fall (or choose to sit down) but all is not lost in an instant.

For me, one key element of the spiral is that it circles back around to similar topics or needs somewhat regularly. In other words, I don't just think about how to pull myself out of a feckit moment just once - they inevitably occur again, but as the spiral goes upward it also widens, which means i don't circle back to the same issues quite so quickly the higher I climb.

You'll get this, and you're doing great things right now that will strengthen you for the next bunch of stairs!


Lav - yep, one of the best benefits of quitting is being able to take care of unexpected situations on the fly. I've had several of those myself and have always been extremely grateful that I was clear-headed at the time.


I love all the recent recommendations for books, podcasts etc. I'm quickly putting together a list of things to check out. Very helpful!


Hope everyone has great fridays and weekends!

[KENSHO]

Re: Newbies Nest

Hi Everyone!

Moon, you are not drinking for your unborn baby at this point. Things will change when you shift your thinking to not drinking for YOU. This may come before the baby, or after. But if you had an alcohol problem before pregnancy, it will be there after pregnancy. And the mumbo jumbo about beer helping milk production may have a very small seed of truth, but I think this is alcohol talking its way back into your life. People like us should not consume alcohol at all, and we tend to search for every possible reason we "could" keep it in our lives. Don't let alcohol convince you that you should drink it!

LC, way to recognize your thought pattern and face it! Hope your day goes smoothly!

I opened up to a friend today. There have been other friends who didn't want to hear it - and I've talked about how my husband definitely doesn't want to hear it. Up until this morning, my mom (and dad) were the most supportive people regarding my decisions around alcohol. But I opened up with her and spilled some dirty secrets - like hiding bottles, and drinking on the way home in the car, and sneaking around, and shots before and after my therapy session to quit drinking. She was amazed. She said she supported me previously when I said it was a problem so I stopped - but she never knew the extent. It felt good to tell her that I was very secretive about it and that NO ONE knew the extent. She praised me, cried and thanked me for sharing. She said she was very proud of me for making the decision to stop, especially without the support of my husband. I've never really had super close girl friends - and I've learned (since quitting drinking) that sharing myself - good and bad - are what creates trust and closeness and support.

I'm also headache-free for the first time in about a month - so enjoying this morning.

I love when the good comes after the bad passes. I really, really appreciate it! Hope everyone has something positive to celebrate today as well.

[Guitarista]

Re: Newbies Nest

Good onya Kensho! Keep up the great work buddy.

Kingy! My apologies for forgetting your 150 AF day achievement! I was engrossed in myself which is not unusual. Congratulations on 5 whole freakin months and 152 today! You're a star my friend. 150 days here this saturday morning for me. Right on say Mr Issac Hayes.

Now nesters, friday ain't no freakin whacky ass ticket to no boozeville you savvy? Big waves to all. Take it easy out there.

[Guitarista]

Re: Newbies Nest

I have to piggyback on what [MENTION=11704]Byrdlady[/MENTION] said, [MENTION=23999]moonking[/MENTION]. I started my journey on MWO in 2008, 10 years ago. The most sobriety time I had was 6 months when I was doing a stint in AA and longest here on MWO about four months. Not too impressive.

Very impressive actually

What I know is that not only did it get worse every time I went back to drinking, my health has gone downhill in many ways. So not only my mental health deteriorated, but physically I gained a lot of weight and there were a lot of signs of liver disease. So it does get worse in every way if your addicted to alcohol. Like they say, once you cross that line, moderation is dead. I hope you continue to work on your sobriety now and after baby is born. Don't waste a decade of going back and forth, believing the lies that our al brain tells us. It's all BS.

Jvo

Well said Jvo. It has taken me a long time to catch on and actually DO SOMETHING for myself i.e. change! But i reckon it's never too late. Our bodies may've sustained some damage, but we can really turn our health around too. It starts with me, and it always starts today. Keep on truckin my friend. You're worth it! :happy2:

[NoSugar]

Re: Newbies Nest

LC - glad the spiral idea resonated with you. The way I picture it, there are stairs going up (reflecting the work we do to add new days and stay sober), but a slide going down (reflecting how quickly things can deteriorate if we don't stop the downward movement fairly quickly. You slipped and landed on your rear end, but you also grabbed the rail and got yourself off the slide right away. It hurts to fall (or choose to sit down) but all is not lost in an instant.
For me, one key element of the spiral is that it circles back around to similar topics or needs somewhat regularly. In other words, I don't just think about how to pull myself out of a feckit moment just once - they inevitably occur again, but as the spiral goes upward it also widens, which means i don't circle back to the same issues quite so quickly the higher I climb.

I love your visuals here, Wags, but for a moment thought of that most-awful children's game, Chutes and Ladders :egad:. But the difference is - Chutes and Ladders depends only on luck.

I saw this video last evening that encapsulates about 10 years of my life - desperately wanting and knowing I needed to make a change, mistakenly thinking that it was the biggest, scariest thing imaginable, and then feeling so liberated when I finally just took the (not really as big as I thought) plunge and didn't look back.

[jvo]

Re: Newbies Nest

Thanks G. And I loved the YouTube meditation video. Sent along to my son.

NS, love the analogy.

[Lavande]

Re: Newbies Nest

Good evening Nesters,

NS, that video was me too for way too long!
I am so eternally grateful that I (we) made that leap
Sometimes we just need to trust ourselves & trust that everything will work out just fine!

Moon, I was going to say something about your post last night but I didn't primarily because I was tired.
I am so grateful every single day that I don't HAVE to drink anymore. It's been a very long time since I have wanted to or needed to drink. I never want to have to face that decision again. The decision was made nearly 9 years ago & I'm not changing a thing! There is no romance between me & AL, that's long over & I couldn't be happier.
If you make that same decision now then you will never have to worry about hurting yourself or your family. You'll never have to put yourself thru the first 152 days again. Don't fear making the decision to remain AF now, it will be a done deal & something you won't have to battle in the future

LC, I like a trip to Ikea from time to time but not on a weekend - crazy there, ha ha!!!

Byrdie, I was about to go looking for you, glad to see you!

Wishing everyone a safe night in the nest!

Lav

[KENSHO]

Re: Newbies Nest

Happy Friday night here. SO excited to sleep in! Got most of my accounting done, so feeling good.

Moon, I hope I didn't overstep or assume. It's wonderful that you are not drinking now, and 152 days is amazing! The life you are growing is so worth it! You are worth it too

Have a happy one - I'm couch bound.