The Wisdom of the Crowd

Yesterday I had a massive wobble. ALL I wanted to do was drink, and for a second, I resented this amazing network I have around me who I knew would tell me it was a bad idea. They don’t know me- shouldn’t I listen to myself?! I wanted a drink!

But I reached out, and a wonderful torrent of encouragement and support came back, wise words that told me exactly what I needed to hear. Words which I knew deep down were 100% correct, despite what my inner petulant child who was siding with wolfie would have me believe. 

Here are some of the brilliantly helpful things people said:

Sober Malarky:

It gets easier, I promise it really won’t always feel like this. I have reached a place now where the thought of being inebriated is horrible. Why would I want to be disorientated, unclear, not myself? I know that probably sounds crazy, but you can get here too. All it takes is time plus not picking up the first drink. Really, you can be free. Not just of the bad effects but free of the actual desire to drink! It is an amazing feeling and I want you to have it! You can do this!!

Primrose P:

I do frequently read that having a tough patch often precedes a much easier happier time – hang in there, hopefully good times are just around the corner!

Lisa: 

Silly you … you don’t want to drink. You want to feel different. People that want to drink don’t post about it on the blog and have these brilliant solutions. They just go get the booze (hide it or not) and come tell us all later how it didn’t work. You are so in the thick of recovery. It’s awesome. You’re awesome. This is IT. You are doing IT. We all wanted a drink (so we thought) at day 23. We didn’t. We just didn’t. And it looks like you aren’t either. You have too much going for you. Stay strong. You’ve inspired me to stay strong in my day (with my current challenges) as well. 

Carrie: 

You are learning anD he’s panicking big time!! That’s why you’ve had a couple of big close together cravings. Rinse, lather, repeat…what you’ve done works. He’ll pipe down and give you a break now, I promise.

Lily:

You are doing great and you need to just KEEP GOING. If you were to drink right now you would actually only end up upset and angry with yourself and then bargaining about how now you’ve drank maybe you should just drink through the silly season and all that heavy boozing and onwards through to a miserable hungover Jan 1st… fast forwarding through the drink as they say. What would the end result really be here?

You know, even at (almost) 7 months I actually feel a bit of what Sober Malarky is talking about and I also once would have never thought that possible. Doesn’t mean I never crave a drink but I have got to the point where in many ways the idea of drinking is more unappealing than it is appealing. I think this happens in stages. It can and will happen for you too but you have to dig your heels in sometimes during the earlier stages.

You know, when I was stuck in my 18 months of on-off cycle (in which I was really unhappy) I kept caving in around 3 weeks. I think that what happens is that you start to feel better from not drinking, so you forget why you weren’t drinking, but you haven’t gone long enough to really be in the swing of being sober and feel all those benefits and the cravings are still there.

Not once did I ever drink again after a break and think “Wow, I’m so glad I drank. That just made me feel so good and so happy.” Not. Once.

I cannot thank everyone enough for their words- it helped me realise that I’ve come too far to throw it all away.

My longest ever sober stretch was 25 days in August this year, which I threw away in spectacular style and have been struggling to strong more than a few days at a time together ever since. 

I’m on Day 24, and I’ve promised myself I’ll just get to 30, for now. I need small goals, to take baby steps, and then I’m sure the path will seem clearer. 

I’ll just keep on keepin’ on…