Daily Check In #3

2 years 11months today!!!

Fantastic!

Way to go Greentires4me. That's awesome.

I had IOP today and it was really good. I'm learning a lot about myself. I really got lucky when I found this program.

Then I went to acupuncture and had a relaxing hour just sitting meditating listening to calming music.

splitimage

I am glad that you are able to have acupuncture.
((((HUGS))))
bizi

I'm feeling better than when I wrote my last post.

Then I drank one glass of jack daniels and coke. I shouldn't have because it makes me feel like I took a benzo and it ruins my cognition.

I forget what meth feels like but I know cognition is better than sober.

I notice PAWS for me happens after 3 months sober. I used to take a psychedelic every 2-3 months because that's when I would forget what the psychedelic feels like.

I'm extremely sure that the 2-3 month time setting of psychedelics and PAWS are related.

I'm on day 27 sober. My last attempt last September ended at day 30 but there were numerous other factors that doomed me before I even started. Back then, I was only going to stop drinking for 6 months so I could get my control back. Blah, blah, blah....the same old crap we tell ourselves before we stop the ********. I was even smoking weed still and, uh hm, some other things. That's all the past now. No booze, no weed, no coke, no nothing.


All that is gone now. I feel better than I ever remember feeling. The Lamictal is working great for me so that's a big part of it sure. But I never realized how bad the alcohol was messing me up. I was high and drunk for so many, many years that sobriety is like a new drug, if you know what I mean. I have taken those chemicals of the table for the rest of my life. They are no longer an option at all. I've also vowed to not miss that crap at all as well but to appreciate not being in a chemical fog from now on. It's made the biggest difference. The cravings are almost non-existent now.

Lamictal is a big part of my recovery also. I am on day 353. It is a lot easier without so much depression that I wanted to escape from. kind of miss the hypomania sometimes; I tended to get the happy puppy kind, though sometimes I was an arrogant jackass and I would argue with people on the internet all night about subjects I had just become an expert on days earlier.

Been having a real hard time lately. Been abusing pills and hallucinating again :/ So I called mobile mental health and they told me to go to the hospital, who sent me away.

Is there a different hospital you could go to?

There is in the next city over, but I can't drive right now and nobody cares enough to take me.

Went to a double recovery meeting yesterday, and it was really good. I think I'm going to make that meeting, part of my weekly routine.

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Are you being as clear to your family and friends about what you are feeling as you are here?

I try so hard to be but most times lately I get flustered and upset.

It is very clear to me that you should be getting help. I think close friends and family care but that you aren't getting through to them about how you feel.

I'm on my day 30 completely clean and sober. May 18 was my 44th birthday. After too many years of denial, I finally had that honest conversation with myself on the 15th. I gave myself a few more days to drink to get it out of my system for good, then quit on the 18th. It was the best birthday present I could have given myself.

Being away from booze for this long has cleared my mind and my emotions incredibly. Alcohol is evil. Once it gets its claws into you, it makes you believe you need it to help deal with all of the anxiety and sadness in your life. What you can't understand though, is that the alcohol is causing 90% or more of all of that negativity. It makes believe that everything is infinitely more difficult and practically insurmountable without it. It saps all of your confidence and removes any chance of maturing emotionally. Yet you will never be able to see this for youreself until you get away from alcohol for at least a few weeks, maybe longer. And you have to stop telling yourself that you need that poison in your life. If you miss it at all, if you feel like you're missing out on something by not drinking, you're never going to move past it and it will always have its claws in you. That's the way it works. Pure evil. Like a devil in liquid form.

I'm the poster-child for anxiety. It has defined most of my life until now. Without alcohol the last few weeks, after the first week or so of detoxing of course, I've been less anxious than I can ever remember. I've experienced pure happiness the past few weeks that I had forgotten was even possible. Sobriety is severely underrated.

Congratulations Distorted Me. 30 days is awesome. Glad you're seeing the benefits of sobriety.

I have to say acupuncture has been something of a miracle cure for me. My cravings for alcohol are almost completely gone. Now when I think about having a drink, I have a just kind of "Meh, why bother?" feeling. Definitely going to keep going.

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Single digit days until 1 year...

3 weeks clean and sober! Feeling great, like there's nothing to be afraid of and no one to get worked up about. Breezing...yep

Keep up the good work!!

Nice work!

Way to go zijax. 3 weeks is awesome. Keep up the good work.

splitimage

Still trucking along... 1 year and 11 days... pretty miserable mood tho.

I have to keep reminding myself that alcohol and drugs really didn't fix that; it was more like a snooze button for your life.

That is exactly what is was like for me! After a bit, sometime even just a couple days, the drugs and alcohol started to make all of the mental issues so much worse.

I am officially under alcohol services. While I know this is necessary I might have to make some changes. My keyworker seems absolutely useless. I had an initial assessment with him, and he is just so slow and seems clueless, and spent more time just writing in his diary than actually talking to me. I saw him again on Tuesday, this time I brought my partner with me. And while I had warned her what he was like, I could tell she was not impressed by him. We were meant to be doing a risk assessment, he was answering questions for me and not accepting or believing my answers, and was clearly clueless about mental health. As we were leaving my partner said “I think we should say something, and get your keyworker changed” but I let it slide.

I have to attend a group on Monday, which he did not even check was going to be a problem. Nevermind I’m planning to return to work this week, and Monday is one of my set days. Nevermind I struggle in groups, again he didn’t ask how I felt about that, just said that’s what I had to do. So now I have to try and change my sets shifts. I’m feeling disheartened already, but I think when I go in on Monday I will try and get my keyworker changed because I just know he is not a good match, and it’s not going to help having one to one sessions with him.