Sobriety.....day xx

Intro..this too shall pass.

I know I get freaked out and agitated when I can't sleep.
Not sleeping also changes the mindset to the f-it stage for me.

I hope that you sleep better in the near future.
Do you take anything that helps you sleep?

Melatonin works...as does anxiety medication but I think you were talking previously about anxiety medication and not having it? I'm not sure...but also those teas that you drink - sleepy time tea....etc.

I struggle with drinking the teas because I already get up frequently during the night to use the bathroom so why do I want to drink 8 ounces of water before bed....but I have used them before actually in a rehab facility and they do work.

I almost replied with "welcome to my world" around 3; I had a fitful night. But it was racing thoughts, not withdrawal related. Actually, it might be slightly related; my nightcaps did help with that. But that was/is the wrong medicine. I am going to ask the pdoc about upping latuda next week and see if that helps.

Keep it up. The alternative you well know, so changing direction is your best choice. Sleep will happen in time. Try taking B vitamins and calcium/magnesium. 5 HTP (tryptophan is a safe amino acid found in health or drug stores), melatonin, camomile or other sleep herbals. The sleeplessness will pass with increasing time sober.
For me, booze made me hyper, not at all slurry and shakey. At least that was the impression the drinking me had. Booze distorts everything, including our self-impression.
Listen to Jimi. He knows all about it. Keep posting! Good luck to all.

Be careful about herbal stuff if you take other meds. Run it by your doc or pdoc. BTW, I think you should consider this a medical problem if you aren't already doing that. I would involve my primary at the very least.

OK, tonight (this morning?) I will say it - welcome to my world. It's hypomania, not a withdrawal symptom, keeping me up. So I am bouncing off the walls and grinning like an idiot. At least I won't have a hangover.

and again...

But on topic (not my string suit), I think I am at the 3 week mark.

sigh

Why the sigh?

can't seem to get this right

I kind of assumed and just hoped maybe I was wrong and you were only tempted and/or wistful. If you are back and still trying then you still have it right. You can have it right without having it perfect.

intro..omg..I just wrote this big long heartfelt message to you and its gone.

I said...this happens...and it happened alot to me over the past 3 years..I would get many days together and usually around 3-3.5 weeks I would want to drink again...or feel like i HAD to drink again. Sometimes it was closer..it could be 2 weeks....

We are alcoholics..and it is a known fact that it is very hard to stop drinking alcohol when we have gotten into the progression of the disease as we age...its talked about in medical books...it progresses..and there is nothing we can do about it...and we are in so much danger the older we get the more we drink.

I can't tell you how many times I was hospitalized these last 3 years because i was so sick from alcohol abuse and almost died 1 of the times (for real) and what did I do...stopped for about 20 days and then drank again....I have gone 2 months and it is the longest time I have had in 3 years....and I know that is the last thing someone who just drank wants to hear..."Gee I have 2 months"....

What you need to hear...is you know what sober feels like now...you know the sleep will get better, you know the anxiety will get better....we obviously look and feel better when we stop drinking...and then WHAM...that uncontrollable urge comes..and we drink thinking...just this one more time...and it either goes that way or it goes back to being out of control .

I know exactly why i haven't drank in 2 months...I was at the 2 week point and I had a drunk dream..woke up...thought I had drank...was SO ****ING GRATEFUL I did not drink that i literally jumped out of bed...sang to the refrigerator to get my coffee..and I have held on to that joy since that day....BUT...if I did not have that dream..I probably would have at some point in the last 2 months drank.

They talk that a Psychic change needs to occur and I'm not sure we can MAKE that happen..the last time it happened to me was in 2005...i just was really sick of being sick...I was hallucinating (seeing dead people)...and I didn't want to live like that anymore...I QUIT FOR 8 years...after that 2005-2014.

Then i drank in 2014...until May of this year...just keep quitting and hopefully something will "get" to you and get you that gift that you need so desperately.

I wake up sometimes with a headache and/or upset stomach and my brain immediately goes to thinking I have a slight hangover (which is usually about all I got since I was good at controlling the amount I drank) and I get that same good feeling when I realize it is just from sleeping too little (which happens a lot; my "center" seems to be slightly hypomanic these days) or poorly timed medicine/eating from the night before. So I stop mentally flipping through the cures that never really worked anyway, pop up and get after it...

I am at the 25 day mark. I haven't had a strong urge since week 1. I usually either slip right away (in the first few days it is easy to tell myself that was just a false start) or make it months before I rationalize that I can handle making an exception.

updownaround....my center also seems to be hypomania....its not so bad...to me it is better than the alternative of being knocked down, dragged out depressed from drinking alcohol.

Congatulations on 25 days....

Thanks. But you know my secret now. It's a lot easier to quit when you are high all the time on your brain's own chemicals...

ya...its a struggle...

I went to a SMART meeting last night. I think I need a two pronged approach. For me, quitting prescribed medication is as bad as, and almost inevitably leads to, drinking or taking non prescribed drugs. So in order to abstain from bad habits, I need to abstain from quitting the good habit, if that makes any sense.
The facilitator was explaining their method of retraining the brain to make more logical/rational decisions (I am over simplifying). I told him that the focus on rationale and logic seems to presuppose that I am a reasonable person and sometimes I am not. I don't think he quite understood what I meant because he seems convinced that deep down you always have the ability to be in control (the key difference between SMART and AA). I thought about telling him that sometimes I am equally convinced that I am immortal and was placed here for a great purpose that is yet to be revealed. But it was right at the end of the meeting so I just let it drop.
Thinking it over later, what I can do as a reasonable and rational person is apply the thought processes to not allow myself to decide I am cured and stop taking meds, thereby reducing the chances that I will become an unreasonable person who can't apply the thought processes to keep from drinking and drugging.