Rinse Lather Repeat. I know i’ve written a blog with this title before. You’ve been sober for a bit? figure out what you’re doing that works and keep doing that thing. if it’s a mishmash of AA and blogging and reading, then do that. if you start to feel like you’re heading down a slippery slope, then do something soon, early, before you get derailed. i wrote this recently to a team 100 member:
… the slippery slope can escalate quite quickly, don’t take it lightly. in fact, take it heavily … 🙂 blog, call someone, go for a run, go to bed. yell out loud at wolfie. fucking pig anus. no no not this girl, no no no. not me not now.
for me, when i started getting a cold last sunday, i put on my big girl boots and waited. i know that being sick is a gigantic trigger for me. i get woe-is-me-ism and i start to plan to drink. I don’t actually drink, but i start to bargain with myself … “if i feel like this in 7 days i’ll drink then.” Then the time comes and goes and i don’t drink and all is well. But it’s the bargaining that i don’t like, that makes me feel quicksandy.
so this time, i knew what was coming, or i thought i did. taking my own advice, i blogged and emailed and told my husband. i prepared for the day that always arrives in my headcolds where i can’t taste anything, as that seems to be the trigger point.
i didn’t know it, but something had changed. I am in fact on DAY THREE of not being able to taste anything (!). and i’m actually doing fine. Well, fine might be an exaggeration. i’m cranky as hell, i hate my husband, i have a low grade headache, and all i want to do is sleep. So sleep is what i’ve been doing (12 hrs at a time). i’ve been outside, i’ve been on the couch, i’ve been upright and i’ve been downright.
BUT wolfie is quiet. The idea of saying ‘fuck-it let’s drink’ has not surfaced. not once.
i remember reading on someone else’s blog, someone who has much more sober time than me, and she said that something bad had happened (death, catastrophe) and she didn’t even think of drinking. and i remember reading that, and i was like “yeah, I would be thinking about drinking for sure if that happened to me, no matter how sober i was.”
and yet, i didn’t. i haven’t. i’m not. holy shit when did this happen? sometime between my last cold (feb 14) (8 ish months sober) and now (april 21) (almost 10 months). Sometime in the last 2 months i have stopped linking wine as the solution to a dip in energy, a flagging of enthusiasm, a pit of despair.
ha! fuck you wolfie. no really. fuck right off with you.
[on a side note, I’m thinking of having some jewerly made for us, sober jewelry, that says “fuck you wolfie” on it, in very small print, so that only you know it’s there… no, I’m serious.]
so does it get better? the obsessing, the cravings? apparently yes 🙂 does it get easier, thank fucking god, yes. is it possible to get a cold and not think that the world is ending? yes and who knew?
Heidi: I realized that every moment sober is so much better than even the best moments drunk. Because the time I have spent drunk has not been enjoyable. Sure, the first few moments I feel the alcohol run through my veins provides a feeling of calm. I feel relaxed. I feel like I can finally turn my brain off from all the craziness of my life. But those moments quickly disappear. They are followed by shame, guilt, anxiety and fear. Don’t even get me started on the hangover, the headaches, the vomiting and shakes. So yes, the whole “not drinking” thing is going much better than I thought it was going to. [husband] asked me what is different this time and how I have been able to stay sober. Here is my answer: I am able to not drink by doing just that — not drinking. Whatever I need to do to not drink. Every day is different. Sometimes I read. I watch TV. I cruise Facebook on my phone. I call a friend. I play with my kids. I lock myself in the bathroom for a few minutes. I read sober blogs. I email you. I play games on my phone … I take a deep breath. I walk up and down the stairs a few times. I look outside. I close my eyes. I do anything — except for drink. It has worked so far, and I am going to keep doing it.
Team 100 update: 41 members; 2 missing. Welcome to KS, who is on day 1. Sunflower is on day 30 as is Victoria 🙂 Mumscriber is on day 14. Erica is on day 82. Julie is 156. I am 295.
hey, there, i’m finding this to be the exact same for me now. somewhere between 9 and 10 months, my flip switched. like, i just don’t (like you so eloquently wrote) link drinking anymore *automatically* to a flag in energy, a mood swing, a nasty dumb-dumb who cut me off and now i have to swerve to avoid hitting someone in the tailpipe. (well, ok, maybe not that last one yet.) i’ve been thinking about this for a while now, but i can honestly say that it was between 9 and 10 months since last october (i am not including my slip in march, it just didn’t have much impact on my overall arch toward sobriety) that this happened. holy smokes! and, it’s just there now, not going away, not going back to me always always wanting to drink in reaction to everything. it’s not my first reaction anymore (not really in the top ten even). thank you for this post, i had been mulling it over for a long time, and finally came back to it to double-check what you had said about that time between 8 and 10 months and something really amazing/cool happening. xx
and I can say DDG that for me, I haven’t had a ‘real’ craving since. I’ve had moments of ‘this is when I would have had a drink’ but I haven’t had a real desperate ‘holy shit I might drink now’ feeling since that point (for me it was 8.5 months). and thank fucking god for that! it’s hard to believe everyone when they say that wolfie does eventually give up. until you experience it yourself. hugs from me!
“fucking pig anus”? lol.
Put that on a keychain 🙂
Powerful words, powerful energy, powerful stuff indeed here. Whatever works, work it. As long as we are not only sober, but happy too. And yay to the 100 club! I am loving reading all the blogs supporting one another in this. Very cool!
Hope you had a wonderful weekend, Belle!
Paul
Yay for practice makes perfect..take that Wolfie, we’ve been here before and I won!
That is huge progress Belle, so pleased for you. X
Heidi, I just wanted to say good for you and keep on doing it, cause it’s working and that rocks! I am so excited that we have over 40 members. Hello everyone!!
Here’s to a sunny sober week!
Cx
Why the small print? Scribe it in large, all-caps! Or just the initials- FYW, or EFUWLFE (like a car’s vanity tag).
Me, I have a pendant on a very long chain with my sobriety date etched on one side, and the Serenity Prayer on the other. One side reminds me where I was, the other reminds me how not to go back. Often I wear it tucked under my shirt, often I’ll wear it out.
Love the suggestion to do what works. If it’s not working, do something else.
I remember having just that feeling with quitting smoking. I can’t recall how long I’d been quit. Definitely over six months but probably less than a year? Anyway, I had a really, really super, super shitty stressful patch and I only realised in retrospect that I had not once thought about smoking during all this super shitty stuff. That felt like SUCH a turning point. So I totally get it how it would be with drinking. God, I wish that didn’t seem so far removed right now but I get it.
And, again, I LOVE the jewelry idea. Please do it 🙂
yes, and yes. knowing it intellectually is part of the deal. and then bit by bit you can match up your day to day life with what you ‘know’ is true. and then whey match up, it’s like BINGO. vacation all the time. dancing in the streets. and jewelry. yes. yes. yes. I will somehow find a way to do this.
Awesome!! Take that, wolfie!
And I may have been the blogger that you mentioned above (was I?). I wrote about how my father died and I didn’t have the urge to drink – not once. It was bizarre, but a huge relief. Maybe you have reached that point, the one where you can and will deal with things, no matter how shitty, and you’ll do it sober. It may feel like it will kill us, to do hard stuff without a drink. But we don’t die and we go on and we somehow get through.
And it’s fucking awesome. Just like you, lady.
maybe it was you! I remember reading that and thinking “no fucking way” but now I believe you : ) I think before, I was still stuck in thoughts of “it works for other people but not for me” and the further I get along, the more I realize that IF it happens for others it WILL happen for me. that is good news. and it’s fucking awesome. just like you!