Problem at almost 12 weeks

I'm just checking in with what I feel is a startling discovery, well for me at least and I feel pretty foolish about it. I may be wrong but I was concerned this week after hitting yet another bout of severe tiredness. Although I'm enjoying sobriety these spells of fatigue / lethargy really bug me. Although I am getting a reasonable 6-7ish hours of sleep per night, I'm waking up feeling far from rested and really tired throughout the day. To the point this week that I've been considering going to my GP.

Well, I've been Googling, thinking I could be hitting some protracted withdrawal wall, but the alcohol related tiredness doesnt seem to last this long?? And I reckon its all down to caffeine. I've always been a big diet coke and tea fan (especially to counter a hangover) but I realised today that since I stopped drinking alcohol my intake has insreased .... a lot. Lo and behold, I found the symptoms of caffeine withdrawal include fatigue / tiredness. I've just been reading a forum where folk are talking about getting off caffeine in the same way we do about alcohol. Do we taper off? Go cold turkey etc. What the hell have I got into now??? I suppose ontop of my regular tea / coffee intake, I have replaced the recreational aspect of my alcohol drinking with diet coke and Red Bull.

Does this mean I am gettin nowhere with addiction in general? Any thoughts? Experience?

Thoughts at ten weeks

My first thought at ten weeks is I missed posting my thoughts at weeks eight and nine! Shame on me, I've been really busy and blogging has suffered again :-(

In some ways that may be good, sober days are floating by and turning into weeks without my noticing. However, I also know that at around this time on my last longest spell of sobriety, I stopped counting and reflecting on my progress and quite quickly started drinking again. So, hmm, I'm not going there again!

All in all its going well though. Weekends have always been my most difficult times and I've had 2 very strong craving experiences, both at weekends, but 2 out of 10 isnt half bad. One very useful tool I used at those times was described by someone as 'looking past the first drink', and that feels like an extremely poweful tool. When the first thoughts / cravings descended, I immediately forced myself to think of the consequences. The fact that the 'warm glow' doesnt last, the depression sets in, the headaches and sick feeling, the dry retching, the self disgust, days off work, the guilt and the futility. Forcing myself to reach that end point mentally before I had even drank a drop helped me stop. I've been round that cycle of thinking it would be different too many times and I know the next time would be the same. I need to develop that tool. I also feel more removed from the emotional attachment to drink, ie. it doesnt feel like a crutch that would offre any support anymore. Not that it did provide any real support, but the addictive voice sure convinced me at times.

I have also had one or two tough family issues to deal with, sober. Thats felt very strange and scary, but I have learned that it is manageable and the absence of those usual guilt (ie. 'this wouldnt have happened if I didnt drink') type of thoughts, hs helped enormously. It taught me that shit still happens though, so not drinking isnt the end of the problems, but I feel stronger dealing with them sober. I was even complimented on handling a tough situation well yesterday and that felt good to know I had managed that sober.

Life is slowly starting to feel 'normal', normal ups and downs and problems, but not extremes. It feels like its levelling out, or at least I am! Of course theres a boring element to that, but maybe I'm just old enough to appreciate boredom and leave the crazy stuff behind. Sleep is one thing that isnt returning to normal as quickly. I still stay up too late and feel tired in the morning and dont feel comfortable going off to bed. I've heard it can vary how long that takes though and am willing to see that through.

So from here on in its new territory and that feels exciting. But I know I need to keep my eye on the ball to keep going. Last time I got to this point thinking I was a normal non drinker, and somewhere from there the idea emerged that I could be a normal drinker developed. I know now that is not possible and just the addictive voice finding a way in.

So I have to end with a summary of milestones!! Today marks from 26th March:

• 70 days
• 10 full weeks
• 10 weekends
• Two calendar months by date (26th)
• Two calendar months by month (April and May)
• One season (Spring - March - May) Sort of, not the whole of March!!!

The last milestone might be odd, but it feels very significant that the last time I drank it was before the Spring was really here, it felt cold, Wintery and most importantly - a pretty long time ago!! Anything that serves to mark distance between me and my last drink helps!

Response to 'Close Call' - Forum reply

Some of my posts are copied from a forum I belong to and often input from others is very helpful, as the comments are here. So I am going to post (with permission) some of the responses so I can look back at how I learned from them. One such reponse to my previous post:

love to hear of the boost to confidence overall. find myself wondering if the confidence that got shaken is the same kind of confidence that got boosted. that sounds weird, and i'll try to explain what i might mean. i'm thinking that maybe the one that got shaken is based more on a belief of the experience of the last few weeks that it hasn't been THAT hard and therefore WON't be that hard, rather than the boosted confidence which comes from the experiences of surmounting difficulties, and is a more satisfying, hardwon one. and maybe that's nonsense, and maybe it doesn't matter at all. just a thought. overall boost is great! your list of possible triggers...yeah, i can see that. not only was alcohol around, but it was presented as only a positive, something to be won, prized and enjoyed. Slipping back into the 'I can moderate' routine was the most likely and I just kept repeating to myself that I'd tried it sooo many times and it didnt work that way, it always went downhill overnight. no idea if this might be helpful to you at all: i think what's stopped me from having any thoughts of attempting to moderate is that i've looked at that and myself and know that i have no wish to moderate. i know that i would not WANT to have one...i'd want to get drunk. (that sounds sooo disgusting to me as i write it).so i don't think of moderation as something i can't do, but as something totally unappealing and pointless.

My counter reponse:

"so i don't think of moderation as something i can't do, but as something totally unappealing and pointless.".... This comment is pure gold and when I think about it I was thinking in terms of getting drunk rather than 'having a couple'. I knew I was alone that night, I knew I didnt have to get up, I even thought 'one bottle' isnt bad in 7 weeks, ie. I was going to drink the whole lot and not just have a glass, and that was a given before it even touched my lips. So even my addictive voice wasnt trying to fool me, it was thinking in terms of bottles of wine all along! I think keeping that 'one drink is pointless' in my head will help next time!!

Close call

Just wanted to check in as tonight I had the strongest craving I've had so far. After doing so seemingly effortlessly well, I was just suddenly overcome with a really strong urge to buy wine. There was no trigger to speak of, no associated thoughts, nothing. It really took a lot of persuasion, trying to relive the bad bits, remember the headaches, wretching other hangovers nightmares, reminding myself how many days counting I would lose, not to mention, two cans of red bull, a diet coke and large bar of chocolate in quick succession to dull it.

Whats that all about? If I were in some situation which presented temptation I could understand it but I wasnt. If it were last week when I had the sunny afternoon in the garden BBQing associations, I could understand it. There were those 'you've done so well, one bottle of wine in 7 weeks isnt bad' type of LB thoughts. LB was really trying its hardest. Is that a physical thing?

Thankfully I got through it but it was a close thing and I had that horrible feeling that at some point I would crack and I had no control over it. I just had to keep telling mysef I was a grown up and could chose not to drink. I think this was the situation that got me last time, totally unexpected and therefore totally unprepared for. But its bloody frightened me!

Just wanted to get this down while it was fresh. Oh, and also, its after mdnight here and I cant sleep ... too much red bull!! Time to give some thought to what might have been going on there.

Minor victories

I feel as if I chalked up some minor victories this weekend. It was the first really hot weekend of the year, here in the damp dismal UK and I got caught up in the two most popular activities of such a weekend. 1) Gardening 2) BBQs. Both activites are long associated with drinking for me.

The BBQ was quite an impromptu and low key affair, just me and the kids cooking tea outside, but on a hot summer Saturday evening after a productive day gardening, sitting with a glass or few of wine to admire the fruits of my labour was almost compulsory in summers gone by. Most of those evenings would end up with me well into the second bottle of wine long after the sun had set, however.

I was aware as we sat down to eat that something was missing, but it was just a fleeting thought, no strong cravings. I could hear the neighbours getting louder and louder as they enjoyed their drinks in the garden and just kept concentrating on the fact that I did not need alcohol to enjoy the evening and whats more, I would not enjoy the following day if I did drink.

All in all I was pretty pleased with my success and it managed to reinforce the thought in me that I DO NOT NEED TO DRINK. There is no situation I could be in, good or bad, that requires alcohol. I even stayed up late last night, after all the neighbourhood lights were out and reveled in the fact I would wake up feeling good. I intended to sleep late today, but since I've stopped drinking I seem to wake early anyway. As a result of not drinking I was also able to give my son a lift last night.

Consequently Day 47 arrived today intact! Woo hoo for me!!!

Lessons learned??

I am trying to learn lessons from previous failed attempts at long term sobriety. Last time I had any length of time to speak of was 3 years ago when I stopped drinking for 3 months. I have been wracking my brains to figure out what went wrong, I think it was something very subtle.

I remember is my son was going to a party on bonfire night (Guy Fawkes is celebrated here!) and its something I used to go to with him but decided not to as it might be tempting to drink. Attending social events around drink was something I had not tackled yet. I had a fleeting feeling of 'missing out' but nothing major. I went to a fireworks display with my younger son, where there was no drink at all so no temptation, but bought wine on the way home and just thought I'd have a glass. Of course I had it all.

One of the only things I can think of is that since I had managed almost 3 months, there was something in me that thought 'if I've managed this I can easliy stop again'. And that was 3 years ago so this time round I have proved that isnt the case. Just before stopping this time I was really afraid that I had passed some point of no return. I think that experience has helped reinforce in me the fact that I cant ever drink normally, so hopefully that will help and I just do not want to risk repeating the last 3 years, or worse. But it is frightening that it just seems to creep up from no where.

The other thing I am bearing in mind is that several people seem to have reported drinking again, seemingly suddenly at the 3 monthish mark and theres an article (posted here somewhere) about that being a particular danger time in protracted physical withdrawal. So this time round I intend to be very wary at that point. Related article posted on LifeRing forum