it’s worth the fight

I’ve been doing a lot of reading of wonderful sober soilders and those who are at the cusp. Each time I go to write an insight I get another nugget of inspiration to ponder on. What a wonderful place to be, virtually surrounded by wisdom of all sorts.

So here is a quickie note.

I am very thankful to have made it this far. I have 87 days under my little belt, and have been on the roller coaster ride of my life. No theme parks super triple dip and dive ride has anything on a newly sober persons thoughts and feelings. I’m up so high floating around telling the whole world they are sick in spirit and drunk. Next thing I am low-low wondering is it worth it to go on fighting.
So is it worth fighting for your life? Damn right it is!!! 

It’s not easy, and being this new can suck at times. But on a good day, like the ones I’m thankfully able to string together now you can feel how awesome being sober is. So I had to write how thankful I am for one of many things. Today’s choice is sleep.

Sleep is not something I had for 10 years. I had snooze, nap, or pass out. But now I am tired at night. I climb into bed without being pulled out for one more drink. I sleep soundly through the night. I’ve gone from needing 10 hours to a good solid 7.5. I wake up without feeling remorseful, ashamed, or physically ill. 

Not everyday I have woken with boundless energy, actually most days up until three days ago I woke up exhausted. But I made it through to three days ago where I woke up feeling good, rested and ready for the day. I wouldn’t have had these peaks if I had succumb to my valleys of a few days or weeks ago.

So to end my quick/ not so quick note. Keep fighting through the low-low places, the peaks are worth the fight. You are worth the fight! No one waits 2 hours in the sweltering hot sun in a line designed to calm cattle to ride a roller coaster that just goes down and scrapes the ground for 60 seconds. We do it for the thrill of the big ups and crashing downs, the spins and spirals. -The thrill of life!

Have a great day and if it’s not so great hold on for the promise of tomorrow being better- and repeat.

A new

I have read recently a lot of the shared struggles of early sobriety. Each moment without alcohol is a loss. There is really no question about that. For far to long it played or still plays a pivotal role in our lives. 

When we stop we have a hole that has to be filled. How we fill it is up to each individual and can range from joy and peace all the way back to sadness and more alcohol. 

I am living each day working on new positive ways to live. The old way had me way low with defeat. And I was broken, disgusted, and tired. But for the past few weeks I can claim a victory as I emerge from the devastation of my life a little stronger each day. 

Wishing you the best today.

From A.A. Daily Reflections

19
June
“A.A. REGENERATION”
Such is the paradox of A.A. regeneration: strength arising out of complete defeat and weakness, the loss of one’s old life as a condition for finding a new one.
— A.A. COMES OF AGE, p. 46

30 days

I realize I never posted my 30 day thoughts so here it is.

Over 30 days ago I made a decision to change. This was at the time just another exclamation of my souls exhaustion and the need for deliverance. I had been willing to really change and a little push was necessary to make me do the work, so thank you! And now I have found a community, that really works for me. 

I don’t really know the ladies in the seats beside me at the meetings yet but immediately have a sense of being safe. I don’t want to hide, instead I want to listen, learn and share with each one of them. 

It has been the need to isolate, to protect myself and keep myself separate that has encouraged quiet suffering. What a breath of fresh air and a revival of my spirit to see a different way. Now I am starting to sample the peace that gets so many of the authors I follow excited about living sober.

I am too excited and I say Yes to this process and Yes to the future. I’m entering into the next 60 days filled with a different type of resolve than the previous time. In rereading a post in August of last year I found that I was more focused on what I loss instead of what I was gaining. And the craziest thing is that I knew then, that the isolation and secrecy was going to be my downfall. 

Connecting- that’s where the magic happens. 

60 days of learning

The past 60 days have been full of reflection. I have reflected on myself as well as those who I have come in contact with. What I have found is that everyone has some component of their being that may need to be challenged. I have found so many who are suffering in mind and spirit just like myself. 

The beauty in my addiction is that I have an opportunity that not everyone may have or take. Through recovery I get to identify the broken places and do something positive about what I have found. Oh what an amazing gift. I have begun taking the steps to embrace and love myself. 

I have cried while making tea for what reason I don’t know. I have laughed and been angry and bratty. But in each of these moments I can dig deeper seeking the root. For the first time like I stated before I am getting to the root of things. So here is what I’ve found in these last 60days.

1. I need sleep and have to make that a priority. 
2. Too much stimulation is exhausting. TV off, stop surfing the net, and find some quiet time. Even in the car, radio off and just be in the moment.
3. When I get angry it is about the emotion fear. Fear of how it makes me look, feel and act. Identifying that has helped me to change my reaction.
4. Sharing with others is not a weakness and they won’t always use it against me. I can not survive in a bubble. 
5. I need a community. I have found it face to face in the meeting rooms of AA.
6. Just like others in the meetings and in the online community the quantity does not equal quality. I can have 60 miserable days like the first time. Or I can see these 60days as a gift of extension. I have deferred a slow spiritual and physical death for 60 days.

I can’t say this is forever because I can’t see that far ahead and stay sane. What I can say is that I want to grow again tomorrow, and I can only do that sober and working step by step. 

I did not drink today and I will not drink tomorrow. And I will write the next day’s story as I get there.

Everything’s okay

Nothing to share but my post decided otherwise and put up something random. So I’ll use this moment to say I am in a good place and hope you are too!

Moving into truth

To regret one’s own experiences is to arrest one’s own development. To deny one’s own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one’s own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul.
Oscar Wilde

Denial for me has been as natural as breathing. It’s how I shield my mind from the most uncomfortable thoughts , feelings and situations.

My denial muscle is now “crossfit” strong. The kind of strong that defies logic and can bench press a tractor trailer. I’ve made it that way with daily doses of pride, selfishness, lies, fear and self recriminations. 

Now I’m encouraged by daily doses of truth, that help to weaken denial. I remind myself that it is true that I am an alcoholic, I am going to be better, I can ask for help, and It will be rewarding as I take this journey to a life of sobriety. My acknowledgement gives this problem or disease less and less power over me each day. It’s taking away the power to destroy me. 

I’ve always known on the surface, but the peace happens when I accept it as truth. I’m not as scared because the fear comes from not knowing what comes next. Now I know I will feel sad and angry. And I will continue to go through stages of grief and regret. But once past denial I can now truly go through,  I can take that honest look at the destruction drinking did to my spirit and be grateful that I hadn’t had to go through anymore that what I already have to let it go. 

I’m getting help!

Today I attended my first AA meeting. I’ve been thinking about it for quite sometime and finally walked through the doors and took my seat in the circle. 

I found a meeting 45 minutes from my home. I probably passed 20 meetings just to get to that one. I have not resolved some of my fears of being “found out,” but I refused to let that stop me from what will help me survive and thrive. -One day and one issue at a time. 

I sat down and immediately wanted to burst out of my skin an into tears simultaneously. I was for the first time physically surrounded by people who understood exactly what I was going through. The faces before me were of different races and ages, ranging from my 25 days to 20 years. It’s one thing to know conceptually that I was not alone dealing with this disease. I read blogs and listen to podcast and know active and recovering alcoholics. This however added another level of realness and truth to this thing called my recovery. I believe that I was so overcome because for the first time (other than talking it out with my husband) I didn’t and could not hide. Someone saw me, I was found out, and it helped to be surrounded by others telling their story. While I stayed silent and listened one of the weights hanging from my yoke was laid down.  My spirit let out a big sigh of relief.

 I was welcomed, inspired and then asked to return. Which I will do… I will definitely  return. 

Oh and I accepted my first chip. 

Lost…

My One Day at A Time App say 14 days.

So what have I accomplished in 14 days? I’ve given up drinking and been close to drinking again. In writing that you may think that I may not be committed to sobriety. But I am. I am committed to sobriety because the alternative would be death. I can see it an it may not be the immediate physical death but my soul was suffering. I maybe had a few more years before it was going to crumble around me.

Knowing better, I get that I can not change 10 years of my destructive behavior over night. Yet each new day I am blessed with I walk around like I have lead-boots on instead of my functional flats. How many of these days will I be able to squander while I get it right? How much should I push myself ? I am so lost…

Getting to the root of things

Since this is my second time giving up alcohol I am trying to do it slightly different. I’m still unsure what that is. While I was diligent or so I thought for over 100 days before I allowed misery to take hold like a vice grip until I willingly crumbled and drank again. So in the first week I am faced with familiar feelings. Those of boredom and lethargy. I’m sullen after the day 2 and 3 high of making the decision to be sober. 

I’ve always thought I enjoyed my solitude, a professed introvert that just wanted time alone. Before my time alone was shared with my drink of choice, so in 10 years I’ve spent little time truly alone. So here I am by myself for a few hours and all the TV in the world brings little interest. I don’t feel like reading, I don’t feel like working out, going out, cleaning the house, doing laundry. I just don’t feel like, And this feels all too familiar. 

Living on feelings, ah ha. That I suppose, will be one of the things I need to work on. 

Fresh air and good times. After my previous day’s bought of despair I woke after a long deep and fitful night of sleep determined to get out of the funk. 

I woke rather late, 11:00am, and jumped into action. A few errands and I was off to the Renaissance festival with some family and friends. 

A turkey leg later and I am having a ball and completely present. It was all the walking, ax throwing, talking and people watching that made me happy to be sober and enjoying life. Quick glimpse in the rear view and it shows a different day. One in which I left my bed for food and bathroom only. Nursed a hangover. Felt guilty for drinking and ashamed for being so “useless” and unproductive. 

Came home and immediately wanted to be out again. But my home is where I live and I can’t escape it. (Another ah ha moment) So I snuggled up with my husband, jumping up now and then to complete homemade cinnamon rolls. The cinnamon rolls never got completed and I began feeling flat all over again. Using a term I heard from a bubble hour podcast, I was unsatisfied. 

So my thought now is how do I get satisfied or how do I learn to deal with just not being that way? Got to get to the root of things! 

Day 1 again?

It is 10:30am and I am writing from bed. The bed in which I would spend my entire day if I could. Which would be the second day in a row. I have obligations so I won’t stay wrapped up like a burrito watching hours of TV today. I will venture out into the land of the living.

 I want to get to the point were going outside of my house isn’t a work only event. So I know what I must do. It’s time…it’s past time.

Hello Day 1! Time to dust off those tools and march forward. 

This time I want to be happy about the choice to be sober and not dreading every evening. I have to embrace this change and not stay in mourning for alcohol every day. Let’s do it differently this time. 

Okay here we go!