I wish you well on the life long journey ahead of you. I like to think that in the very, very basic sense of sobriety, all I have to do is choose not to drink or use TODAY. I’ll worry about tomorrow when it gets here.
Something else that helps me is to remember my last drunk. For people who didn’t have a very bad last drunk, I suggest to remember the end of their drinking, when it got BAD. This is the gift of deperation. For me, it’s difficult to pick up that drink when I remember the bits and pieces of my last drunk: I was chased into a police station by someone who found me on the side of the highway, partially clothed, in a snowbank, at 2am. This wasn’t after a bender, I had picked up after being sober for aout 3 months. I drank for 2 hours before I was infront of police. Yikes.
Oh, and the whole AA thing. I feel that people that haven’t been in AA, or haven’t been in long, don’t understand what “Higher Power” means. The 12 steps refer to God/Higher Power “as you understand it”. For me, AA was my higher power in the beginning, because the people of AA could do something I couldn’t: not drink for a day. Then, my Higher Power was just the knowledge that I wasn’t God. A Higher Power just means “Power greater than youself”. The purpose of a Higher Power in AA, at least for my understanding for myself, it to give up your will/control/power over things you just can’t control. shrug or at least thats what I’ve come to belive. I’m not trying to talk anyone into anything, I just think AA gets misrepresented.
Keep trugding that path to happy destiny my friend
I woke up half an hour lat for work today. I’ve really got to watch my caffeine intake. I bought a twelve pack of Mt Dew, something I would normally have every other day or something like that and I drank 6 or 7 of them from about 2:00pm until 11:00 at night, some mixed with lemonade. I missed my alarm, which is something I’d never done when I was drinking!
Perhaps caffeine isn’t best for me. It isn’t like it takes the edge off, and I smoke more cigarettes as a result. I need to find a better drink to substitute for beer. Maybe fruit juice?
Heh. I’ve been a fiend for Diet Coke since I quit drinking. I go out twice a day and get a Super Big Gulp, and on top of that I drink a few cans of the caffeine-free variety later at night. It may not be good for me, but it’s certainly better than an equal amount of beer.
Anyway, I’d give it a couple of weeks to “get into your groove” before assigning blame to the caffeine. Also, while you didn’t say it kept you awake, I’m assuming that was the case? One thing to remember is that cigarettes are just as bad at keeping you awake. I always have my last one about an hour before I plan to try to sleep, then get in bed and read until sleep takes me.
I also read last night, after all the caffeine and cigarettes, and then of course I proceeded to raid my sons’ Halloween chocolate stash.
And before someone mentions the whole “lots of alcoholics become hypoglycemic” or whatever it is, all my bloodwork, including sugars, is fine. I just never intake that level of caffeine. Not ever. I was (and am now) bouncing off the walls. Coffee!
I’ve never really drank it. An old (literally, figuratively) customer of mine that used to bring me a twelve pack of beer a week brought be this huge frapafaggamochachocavanillachino thingie about an hour ago and whoosh! Off the walls! Unfortunately, there isn’t enough nicotine in the world to contain me right now. I have a chaw of snuff in my mouth and a cigarette in the other (I meant hand, not “other mouth”!).
I do need to watch the caffeine, though. I’ve noticed that while I can certainly be bright and chipper throughout the day, I’ve already experienced caffeine hangover by being lat to work today, and too much of it just generally isn’t good.
Plus, it can increase my cravings. They come and go, but when I’m drinking coffee, they can hit me a little hard.
I need suggestions for a drink that I can swill at will that isn’t caffeinated, isn’t water, and isn’t fruit juice. I need something nearby that I can just chug at will without any ill effects. And I also hate diet soda. Maybe if that’s my only choice, I’ll learn to love it, but for now…any thoughts?
I also promise to continue the saga. Lots of interesting stuff in a detox ward.
I used to hate diet soda too, and I couldn’t imagine acquiring a taste for it. And my weight kept creeping up those first couple of years sober. The funny thing is, I hate sweets, but there’s something about Coke… mmmmm.
Finally, about two years ago, I was up to 180 pounds (at 5’7") and decided enough was enough. I made the switch, and after a couple of weeks, once I’d gotten past that metallic taste, I found Diet Coke tastes pretty much just like regular. Lost about 30 pounds over the next couple of months, too. I don’t miss the regular stuff at all.
Yeah, me too. Just about every non-alcoholic drink in a can is loaded with either sugar or caffeine or both. I buy cases of big bottles of San Pellegrino (it has nice fine bubbles), and drink it on crushed ice with generous wedges of lime squeezed in. I like the bite and the citrusy-ness.
I did the caffeine thing as well! I was stopping at Starbucks two or three times a day. It was getting so expensive my husband just bought me a fancy coffee/espresso/steamer contraption so I could make it at home.
Me three. Although more often, I go with store-brand club soda with a squirt of lime juice because it’s so much cheaper.
FGiE, I just fled the Game Room in search of something that would make me smile and damned if I didn’t stumble onto this thread. Mad props and best wishes to you.
In the early years of my recover I avoided non-alcoholic drinks that were too close to my favorite alcoholic drinks. No alcohol-free beer (I still don’t touch that), no tonic with lime, no sparking grape juice. Too many reminders of my drinking days.
Fortunately I never got into bloody Marys, so spicy V8 was a nice option.
It also still has a teeny bit of alcohol in it, maybe 0.5% versus around 4-5% for a standard regular beer. So that plus the flavor could feed a craving.
There’s also that. Man, this isn’t easy. I am having weird cravings for alcohol at work, which I’ve never had before. Must be the fact that my addicted brain is screaming for it and it knows that there’s nothing for it at home like there used to be.
Green tea as we speak, although the high fructose variety. Anyone recommend a slightly sweetened, slightly caffeinated, relatively undadulterated and brewed form of gree tea that doesn’t cost a fortune and I can make in pitchers?
That damn box of Lipton envelopes yields a measy 8oz per packet!
