No booze for me......

I drank on christmas eve and on the day itself but have remained dry since then. I will do my very best to stay off the demon too. Considering that I was off the drink for thirteen months when I first gave it up, I reckon that I can do it and more, again. This time around I have every intention to stay off it for life because it does you no favours at all. Lets face it, you get nothing other than an empty wallet and a hangover.

So, I'm in my second week of no alcohol, all the way through the New Year and it's working out quite well. No great difficulty, no sweats or shakes and the best one - no hangovers either, so it's hopefully going to be continued for a long, long time. I haven't been to the pub and let's face it, tea and coffee work out cheaper, both physically and mentally, not to mention financially.

I do intend to stay away from the demon drink for a long time. I do not see any point in going back to it, the main reason being that I'm an alcoholic. I can never get away from that, I always will be an alki but I can die a sober one and I can spend more money on food in the run up to that, if I stay off the demon.

So it's cheers to no alcoholic drink and cheers to as much tea and coffee, orange juice and lemonade that I can pour down my throat.

Sobriety rules for me now :))

I wish I'd been a bit more sensible

I wish that I'd been a bit more sensible as I grew through my mid-teens and on. It wouldn't have done any harm for me to have taken a little more care of myself, would it.

I doubt very much if I was the only one that misbehaved and acted the fool, pretended to be a big man who enjoyed a good drink every day, who could drink half a dozen more than you could before breakfast. Kind of silly, isn't it. If I hadn't behaved like that then I wouldn't be the alki that I am now.

The one thing that really gets to me though, is the amount of "Recovering" alcoholics that I meet. You know, the alcoholics that you bump into that believe they are going to get "better." I wish!!!

There are quite a good number of these people around who think that a fortnight off the booze and that's them ready to take on the world again. Then, a couple of months down the line and they have another couple of weeks off - to "cure" themselves again and they're off, no problem, cured again, no chance that they're an alcoholic. Just because they sweat a bit more than is comfortable or that they shake a little in the morning, a week or two and they'll be brand new.

I can't mock. I was one of these people. I would hate to think just how long it took me to find out that I had got it wrong - for thirty-odd years.

Ignorance is pretty stupendous, isn't it :(

Middle of the week

It's the middle of the week now and there has been no problem over the last few day. No drink-related ones anyway. I do occasionally have pretty stupid thought like "I could do with a half and a half at the hotel!" but they don't last long. I don't get upset or worked up by thoughts like that either. They will not go away but they will become less regular, further apart - if I stay on track. Otherwise, well you can probably guess, you can see in your mind, pictures of me spinning downhill towards the cheap booze that I don't like but will possibly drink in desperation anyway.

I don't want to do that. I can't afford to do that, either financially, physically or mentally. I've managed to get through it all so far. I know that I cannot take these risks anymore.

If you have similar problems, have a look at Bright Eye, I hang around there a lot and it does me a lot of good.

Go on, give it a try!!!

It's a new day today

It's a new day today and I feel good. A little strange as there's no sunshine, it has poured and poured with rain since I got out of bed three or four hours ago and, in effect, I'm trapped in the house.

This does not mean that as an alcoholic I have to go out though. I don't have to go to the pub and supposedly socialise while getting pissed through my addiction. I don't have to go to the shop to buy enough drink to get me through the weekend without the shakes and the sweats taking over.

No, I like to think that I'm past that stage. I may well be wrong (I've been there before...... once or twice!!!) and if I am then I'll find out the hard way and cope with it the hard way, shakes and sweats as mentioned, no, I'll cope.

I like to think that I'm past the stage where I fall by the wayside so easily now. I may be wrong but I hope not.

I no longer drink alcohol.

I do understand what it has done to me. Looking back is an effective manner to keep me off the demon drink.

It'll be a bugger of a night!!!

I won't drink tonight - well, I won't drink anything other than coffee or tea, perhaps some juice if there is any left in the fridge. I won't go to the pub, regardless of how I feel about the sweating and the shaking that is coming on now. If I were to go to the pub then a wee dramn would take the edge of off it tonight and then I would have another large one, just in case, of course, that I hadn't had enough. Or I could consider a carry-out perhaps and then turn to shite in the comfort of my own home.

I would enjoy it of course, spending all that I possibly could until I ran out of cash - and then - well someone might offer me one or perhaps I would have whatever I had bought at home and I'd be, as usual, half-pissed, perhaps not just half-pissed, waking up tomorrow feeling like shit, incapable of facing the day.

No, tonight I think (hopefully) that I shall hang on to the little bit of sense that I'm doing my best to put up with and remain at home, sober and wake up tomorrow in a condition that is at least good enough to cope with the world - and not look like a complete twit, stoating up the road to get something more that's alcoholic, to maintain the belief that I don't have a hangover like hell.

No, tea, coffee, whatever - wish me luck!!!