Day 61.

Day 61. It has become 100% apparent to me that one of the biggest reasons I drank was to dull physical pain. I have dealt with autoimmune stuff for years, and I had a bad fall on ice about 3 weeks ago, which is still causing me a lot of pain. Plus, I’m 100 lbs. overweight, and I work on my feet as a chef, so that in itself is hard just because of my weight.

My knee is almost better, but my shoulder and neck and arm on my left side are really fucked up. It’s almost impossible to raise my left arm above my head due to pain. I have to lift very heavy pots with boiling soup daily, so this is a problem.  My left hip area/lower back area is hurting a lot too. Being on my feet all day long really makes that worse.

I caved and took Aleve yesterday; two in the morning and one at night. This really fucks with my stomach, so I have to weigh the lesser of two evils.  Well, it didn’t completely kill the pain, but it lessened it so much that I realized how horrible the pain is.

I have to figure something out. I’m going to make an appointment with my doctor and see if I can get a referral to physical therapy.  I also need to get serious about my weight, which is hard in early sobriety, but it is a quality of life and sobriety issue if it causes me pain. I’m also going to get a referral so I can go back to a Rheumatologist.

I love my job too much to consider something else. I need to be in the kitchen, cooking. It’s what feeds my soul and makes me happy, but if I can’t get my pain under control, I will start drinking for relief, and then I’ll lose my job and my life will snowball into pure hell.

I look back at my past, when I was fully self –employed, and would work super early in the morning so I’d be done by noon or 1. Then I’d buy alcohol and drink myself numb. Both PHYSICALLY and mentally.

For a long time, I have pushed my physical pain aside, and made myself believe it was because of drinking. It’s not. There’s another reason, and if I’m totally honest with myself, I’ve had it since childhood.

Day 35: Willingness

It has been pointed out to me that urges to drink are just feelings and feelings come and go.

The last two days, I've had urges to drink. I realize I need to up the ante and attend face to face meetings. AA, SMART Recovery... anything is better than nothing.

So much of the first month was just getting used to breathing in this world without alcohol. Literally.

I can tell that my sobriety is in danger if I don't create a real life support system.

Willingness in my word of the year.

Willing to go to any lengths to get sober.

Am I? I sure hope so.

I don't know why I'm so reluctant. I went to several meetings before I moved. I am not longer totally overwhelmed by people or overstimulated like I was in the beginning. That's why I had a rough time going then.

I moved Jan. 1st into an apartment. I'm starting a new job in a couple weeks. Things are looking up for sure!

I guess I feel just blah.

..but blah is OK. Sober is always better. Blah sober is awesome actually. So much better than drunk/hungover and so anxious I can barely leave the house.

Day 34.

Day 34. First, thanks for all the birthday wishes!  

Birthdays have been hard for me. Hell, all holidays are hard due to trauma and ptsd from growing up with a psychopathic father.

Yesterday wasn't hard. In fact, I had an amazing experience last night. First, I stayed home and was really happy about that. This is the first birthday where I haven't locked myself in my office and drank until I passed out, plagued with major suicidal thoughts.

I realized last night I felt sad. I was watching This is Us, which is an emotional show, and I just felt this overwhelming sadness. Normally when I feel sad, it immediately turns into intense self loathing and thought of "just kill yourself you stupid fucking bitch."

Last night I realized I just felt sad, with NO self loathing or kill yourself thoughts. And I remembered a couple months ago someone here posting about feeling sad and crying and how that was OK and she just gave herself permission to feel.

I felt sad for a while, but it was a beautiful sad because I wasn't fighting it or hating myself for it or beating myself up for my past mistakes. I laid there in bed, wrapped up in my electric blanket and inhaled my lavender oil and just felt stress start to leave my body.

I am 46 years old and for the first time in my life. I had a glimpse of what real acceptance feels like.

Maybe next year, I will even celebrate my birthday, but if I don't, that's OK too.

Day 27.

Long time no see. I have been sober for 27 days. This is the longest since 2014 when I was sober for 30 days.

Things are different this time. I am taking Naltrexone and it helps so much with my cravings. Sober at 53 introduced to to a very supportive online support group that has been a lifesaver.

I am moving into a new apartment on Monday. I'm looking for a job in the new area I live in.

My mental health is much better and my physical health is starting to come back.

I'm very slowly losing some weight, sleeping better, eating well, and getting some exercise.

I am joining a gym with a salt water pool and hot tub.

I am going to create a simple life in 2018. My goal is to learn how to be content in my own skin and to become a woman of honor and integrity. I want to create balance and peace in my life.

I'm sick of hiding from the world and hating myself.

Day 6

Yep, I went back.

I'm glad I did, because it has led me to a new path of recovery.

I think getting the liver panel results and then being told that it's not a big deal or serious by the doctor gave me permission to drink.

So much has happened in the past month in some ways, but so little has happened in other way.

I won't bore you with the details of the drinking. Same old shit, different day, although my tolerance increased even more. I'm glad I had the sense not to buy full bottles of vodka, because there's a good chance I would have drank myself to death. Those little nips probably saved my life.

I stopped going to my outpatient program. I'm probably going to go back, but I'm not quite sure. I may be starting a job and I need to see if I can do half days at the program.

I had found an amazing counselor. I have also found a new primary care doctor in a community health center that really really understands addiction.

.. and I have starting taking Naltrexone. It's a game changer. I can't believe how different I feel. My obsessive thoughts, cravings, and anxiety is almost completely gone and today is day 4 of the drug.

Sober at 53 reached out to me and told me about this amazing recovery group on Facebook, and I have joined, and it's the fucking bomb. The people are so supportive and I feel like I have a safe place to go at all time.

Day 9 : Liver panel results.

I finally faced my fear of getting the liver panel done.

My enzymes are elevated, but not very much. Most are normal, but my AST was 70 (high end should be 56).

I have an appointment with a new primary care doctor a week from today for a full physical and to discuss the liver results.

The test was done at the hospital where I'm attending OP and Nurse Practitioner was the one to go over the results with me.

I can't tell  you how relieved I am. I have literally spent the past TWO YEARS in fear that I had given myself cirrhosis... and you'd think that fear would be enough to make someone now drink, but it just didn't work that way.

I am learning a lot more about HOW alcoholism is a brain disease. Not a moral failing.

The NP suggested Clonidine for anxiety and PTSD symptoms, so I started taking it yesterday and OMG..  IT WORKS! It reduces adrenaline in your body. I am so grateful that I said yes to it.

The drinking has been my medicine for anxiety and it backfired big time. I even slept a little better last night (I think I got a whole 5 1/2 hours!)

Day 7

Quick check in. I made it a week! My OP is going well.

I'm starting to feel less overwhelmed and more at peace. It is very helpful to be around people who understand.

Day 6

I went to AA before the outpatient program yesterday. I hid in the back. A woman came over and introduced herself to me and gave me her phone number.

I was very overwhelmed and wanted to leave the entire time. 

Then I went to the outpatient program (OP). 

It did not go well. I hate almost every minute of it. I felt so overwhelmed and so overstimulated being around so many people and having to sit there in a chair all day. 

I wanted to leave at lunch and just go get a hotel and drink myself to death.

But I stayed. And then I had my one on one with the therapist and everything was just one big, fat, triggered mess. 

But...  no one said this is easy. 

When I got home around 3:15, I literally felt like I had been run over by a truck. I could barely hold my head up. I felt a level of exhaustion that I rarely feel. 

I had a nightmare last night and then I couldn't fall back asleep for three hours. 

I did not go to AA this morning. I just can't deal with it. I'm supposed to go to a meeting a day in addition to the OP, but I have a feeling there will be on AA today, because based on how I'm feeling now, I can't even imagine being around anyone. 

I am going to my OP program though I am committed to that, and hopefully, tomorrow, I can make the 7 am AA meeting. 

I told my counselor some very deep, dark secrets yesterday. Things I have never told ANYONE. 

I've been shaking ever since. 

The anxiety is so incredibly overwhelming.

I know that this is normal, because at the meeting yesterday, people talked about feeling like this and it will pass.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to go on Naltrexone to help with the cravings and to block my opioid receptors (so that I will not get drunk even if I drink.) 

Day 5

Today is my first day of outpatient treatment. I'm going to hit a 7 am AA meeting before I go. One requirement for IOP (intensive outpatient program) is to attend meetings.

I am not sleeping well, but that's nothing new. I'm hoping sobriety will help with the sleeping issues.

I am feeling better psychologically today. And physically so far, I think.

Yesterday, I literally did nothing expect sit in front of my computer, read, and watch TV. I drank a lot of tea and ate three meals.

I've decided that it's OK. As long as I don't drink, Not drinking is pretty much my only focus right now. If I can get that down, then everything else will fall in place, or I'll have the mental and physical energy to figure things out.

Day 4

I HATE BEING SOBER.

The compulsion to drink is so strong. I just have to get through today, and tomorrow I will be in my first day of outpatient.

I know this feeling is normal.

Today is day 4. Fuck day 4.

I should eat some breakfast. Eating 3 meals a day is key.

I'm going to a women's meeting today at 2 pm.

I didn't go to a meeting yesterday. I laid around all day escaping into my book.

The day is victorious if I stay sober. That's all I have to do.

What a self indulgent fucking pathetic asshole I am.

Day 3 - home.

I stayed at the hospital until around 7 last night. They gave me some medication to calm me down and lower my blood pressure. They gave food and water. I was in the hallway of the ER most of the time. The people were really nice though.

The system is so broken. They finally found me a bed 90 minutes away from where I was. I could not drive myself because I was on the ativan. I spoke with the intake person on the phone and she was totally confused why I was coming when I had been sober for 48 hours. I told her I didn't quite understand myself why.

I asked the ER doctor if he thought I was medically stable enough to go home and he said yes, and that he would give me medical clearance. There needs to be better communication between the outpatient team, because I KNOW FOR  FACT they never said I had to be alcohol free for 4 days. Only that I had to be "sober" and not in withdrawal.

Yesterday, the doctor agreed that I was most likely experiencing panic instead of withdrawal, because even though I was nervous when I walked into the outpatient room, my hands weren't shaking, my heart wasn't pounding, and I was sweating. I became almost instantly hysterical when he told me I couldn't be in the program.

I begged him. I told him I needed this.. that I was scared I would drink if I didn't have this structure today. That I had planned from 3:30 pm that day all through the weekend with structure. He told me to go to detox then, "or just go home this weekend and not drink. - If you can't pull that off you need detox".

My old self would have been like FUCK YOU ASSHOLE... see what happens when I ask for help? ... but I was in such a terrorized place mentally that I really was not sure what I would be capable of if I left and started drinking. My suicidal ideation has been constant over the last month. I think I maybe have drank so much and then went out into dangerous neighborhoods to get someone to beat me up. That's how self destructive I am. Either that or just bypassed the beer all together and chug vodka until I die.

So, I chose life. I chose the ER. I came back to where I'm staying (I'm out of the hotel) and had a kind of decent night sleep (probably due to the ativan). Now I have to take an uber to get my car at the hospital.

I'm going to go to an AA meeting today.

Monday morning at 9, I start the outpatient program. I'll bet the guy thinks he will never see me again. I wasn't rude to him or anything, I was just out of my mind hysterical.