One Week

[Guest Jennifer T]

And nothing to drink.

Am battling a bad case of colitis. Going through tests... Yuck.

But since last Thursday, I've not touched a drop. Hadn't eaten much either. Today, my appetite returned and I thought seriously about having a drink. But didn't.

This tells me that I drink because I want to, not because I have to.

[StephanieVikingGirl]

Hi Jennifer,

Self control is a very good thing. Congrats. Alcohol is potentially dangerous, trust me I know. I am usually in control as well, and I work as a bicycle wine tour guide in California wine country (Napa, and Sonoma). Despite my usual moderation, the closest I have ever come to suicide involved guzzling almost an entire liter of tequila. Not smart on my part. So yeah, I applaud your control, and hope you can keep it in check (I need to watch it as well). We seem to share some interests by the way. I wish you well, and that you have continued strength and self control. I still drink (moderately), though I certainly recognise the inherent dangers of it. Good luck.

Hugs,

Stephanie

[Charlize]

One week can be an accomplishment. What has amazed me now is that after many years of drinking to oblivion every day is that i rarely think about a drink. For me i've been blessed and the thought has gone today. I also know that with one drink i'll be back in the pit again.

Congratulations! I only wish i could have a social drink but i gave away my ticket to that life.

Hugs,

Charlize

[Michelle 2010]

Your post makes it appear you had questions whether there were issues involving alcohol use. A pinned topic in the alcohol forum is a test, or self assessment, for alcoholism. It may be worth a glance. It's been viewed over 700 times.

Hope you feel better soon!

Michelle

[Guest Jan Jane]

Congratulations! I've put together quite a few one weeks, but the truth is we each have only 1/7th of that, each day calls for new surrender and the decision to not drink just for that day. it's the only thing that's worked for me. Hugs.

[Guest Jennifer T]

Went to the beach this weekend. I hate going. Nowhere else do I feel so out of place. But it was for my family and so I sucked it up, put on my game face and went. After spending Saturday on the beach all day, it was just too much. So I promptly drank too much Saturday night. Something has to dull the pain; the desire. Right now, I'd just like to end it.

[Charlize]

Jennifer first please don't feel bad because you may have slipped. I swore to myself that i would quit every morning for years and failed miserably. The fact is i was actually powerless. A miracle happened when i somehow said enough and went into the rooms of AA. Little by little the obsession and need has disappeared. The biggest fringe benefit was a major change in how i saw the world and my role in it. In sobriety i found the strength to accept myself as i am today not as i wish to be or how i was. Please do know that not only do you have a support system here at Laura's but in almost every town in the world AA has meetings and is open to anyone. My home group has straight construction workers, gay hair dressers, housewives, lawyers and even me. We are there to share what we have in common not our differences. Please PM me and we can go to chat if i can help.

For a meeting just google AA and a list of meetings in your area will appear.

Hugs and a shoulder,

Charlize

[Guest Jennifer T]

Thank you for your caring and your kind offer, Charlize.

Peace.

[Guest Brenda Hailey]

Went to the beach this weekend. I hate going. Nowhere else do I feel so out of place. But it was for my family and so I sucked it up, put on my game face and went. After spending Saturday on the beach all day, it was just too much. So I promptly drank too much Saturday night. Something has to dull the pain; the desire. Right now, I'd just like to end it.

I know the feeling all to well my friend,all to well. The "one" thing I do know about in all this transgender business is that alcohol does not and will not EVER dull the pain to the degree in which you think it will help. I have a completely destroyed,screwed up and wasted my life as living proof. Alcohol is a straight up lie when used as a coping mechanism.

The desire to be who you are is never going away,nor will the desire to kill it with booze ever go away. I cant tell you what you need to do to cope ,but I can tell you what NOT to do to cope and drinking is at the very top of my list. I spent most of my life saying to myself I'd just like to end it. Alcohol has an insidious way of pretending its helping all the while it is making things worse for you in ways you cant even see until it is often to late to do anything about. Desperation is the fuel that alcohol depends on and it will do anything to keep the train rolling towards more desperation at any cost,all the while making everything seem like its somewhat ok...Its all B.S.

Telling ourselves we can control alcohol is probably the single biggest mistake one can make. It will incrementally eat away at your control offering subtle forms of relief that lead to not so subtle forms later on. bit by bit it makes its gains relentless and ever present in its offers of relief,again I stress this is a well obscured lie that ultimately leads to destruction. Generally speaking this destruction does not come in a way you imagined but in some even more destructive way than you imagined it could. Most of us simply cant see it because we are so immersed in the feelings we are trying to numb while everything is slowly lining up behind our backs to eventually spin out of control. Of course this next disaster is going to happen without ever really addressing the intial problems or desires that started us drinking in the first place. All we have managed to do is pile up more problems on top of what we already had.

Granted the situations and stories will all vary greatly from person to person but the one unchanging constant is that alcohol always wins no matter what.

The only way for YOU to win against alcohol is to not use alcohol...period.

There may be no cure for being transgender but there is somewhat of a cure from alcohol,which is as easy/hard as at not using it. That is the place where you will find peace and hope again,trust me it is not, and never will be found in the dull buzz masked as pleasure and escape. This is something I do know about and the scholars of the world have nothing on me I know about this one thing better than anything else I have ever done in life. Granted I still suck at life in general and dont really have anything else figured out and I still struggle greatly and make mistakes,but I am at least "free" to make my own mistakes and feel the pain of those mistakes as they were intended to be felt. Which is truly the only way we are ever going to learn and grow into the person we were meant to be. It took me many years after stopping drinking to get to the point I am at today because I still did not know how to deal with my feelings and emotions but I can honesty say that had I not been sober all those years I would have been dead before ever getting a chance to realize my reality and live it even with all its pain and struggle now its still better than what I left behind when I drank and thought I was feeling good.

I think I may understand a little bit your feelings on the beach that day I go through those kind of feelings myself it doesnt matter where in "nature" we are weather its the beach or the desolate wilderness we cannot escape who we feel we are in that moment.Sometimes everything we dont want to be is ever present and everything around us reminds us of what we want to be and seemingly arent. For me at times the pain is excruciating when I am surrounded by scantily clad girls wearing what they want without effort in stark contrast to how I would normally be dressed.

The yearning to be that and the shame of not being that is seemingly unbearable. "Anything" is better than drinking those feelings away,sitting in the pain with the same resolve it took to build those muscles would be a better choice than to run away from those feelings even if the pain continues at some point something will come and a change will be made,but you will have made it, not the alcohol. Sobriety is marginally easier than using alcohol there is no easy fix to this BUT things can be much worse if we deny our feelings and stash them away in a bottle for another day. They will be back and with a greater vengeance for being ignored the first time. Thats all the justification alcohol needs to flourish and thrive. It slowly builds and feeds off of YOU at your expense when and how you pay is never in your control either.

I dont judge you or anyone for using alcohol, if I had not already taken the fast track to destruction myself I would be there right with you cheerfully numbing the pain away into oblivion....but I have already been there and done that it doesnt work. It may seem like a rational trade in the beginning and everything goes as planned and you are in control,I can assure you at that very moment alcohol has already stolen something from you and you dont even know what it is yet,until of course you find yourself in a place where it is so obvious you want to drink more just to make "that" realization go away...The end result of alcohol is far and away worse than being transgender and the feelings of dysphoria that come from that. Take it from an idiot who knows.

What would make the beach a nice place to be, where nature doesn care who you are? People ? Then it seems to me an introspection about how we allow those people to make us feel is more in order than asking the bottle to hide us from the answer.

I am no better than you,but I do have the experience of walking down that path already it aint pretty.

My door is always open to you if you ever need a friend to talk to.

Peace

[Guest trickster]

Relapsing sucks But yeah, don't beat yourself up about it.... it happens to the best of us.... AA can definitely be helpful, and there's an alternative called SMARTRecovery which helped me out a lot.... I think they do meetings like AA, only online. Good luck ^^ Alcohol is tough to quit, but you did go one week and that's impressive to me!

[Michelle 2010]

I drank for at least 15 years knowing I was an alcoholic Jennifer. Like others here have said, my grip on life tightened trying to hold on; yet, what I wanted and held dear seemed to slip al little more out of reach as time went on.... It took a lot of pain for me to swallow my pride and walk into an AA meeting. What I thought was the lowest point of my life was actually a new beginning and the first step into self acceptance and a way of life I did not know existed; a better way.

Imagine... All it took was a little willingness to consider that maybe I didn't have all the answers.... For me, fear and pain were the motivators. Other reasons motivate other people to join. Prior to joining AA I never considered the possibility that my thinking and feelings could be the problem. Today I constantly remind myself that my biggest issue is how I handle what Life dishes out rather than what Life is doing to me. Indeed, how I respond to life is one of the few things in this world I really can control. But I needed Aa to learn how to do it :-)

Best wishes

Michelle

[Guest Jennifer T]

Brenda, you said:

"Anything" is better than drinking those feelings away..."

I cannot agree with this. Sometimes, the drink is what keeps me alive. Sometimes, if I do not numb the desire or the pain just a little then there is no relief. And it gets really tiring dealing with the pain. Sometimes, it's the only thing that gets me through the night.

For a big portion of my life, I've been strong. I've been able to hold up under this weight. But I am simply getting tired. Maybe it's age. Maybe it's the desire getting stronger. Hell, maybe I'm simply deluded. But whatever the reason (probably a combination of all the above), to keep going I need to rest. And a drink often allows me a little rest from the constant drumming; the repetitious assault of the thing I cannot have pounding in my heart.

I have to get up every day. I have to go to work and make a living. And I do. I get up every day. The world around punches me harder than I have the ability to punch back. But I take the punches and I get back up. Over and over. And I both fear and anticipate the day when I do not get back up; the inevitability of when I no longer possess the strength in my legs or in my heart to stand one more time. Age and illness is taking that from me. And regret; that awful mixture of desire for the unobtainable, the ennui of existing and the longing to have somehow changed things long long ago.

I do not extol the use of alcohol. That misuse has destroyed countless lives and propogated horrible atrocities throughout the history of our world. But the alcohol in itself is nothing. It's what people do. I drink at home. I laugh when I drink. And I fall asleep. And I welcome both the laughter and the rest.

God, I sound so confused. Sorry. I thought about not posting this. I never want to trip anyone up with my words. But this is where I am. I've lived my entire life outside of groups.

Thank you all for your kind words, your heartfelt caring and your ear for a few moments.

Peace.

[Charlize]

When i was working construction and running a design build business i retired home and rewarded myself for my hard work and pain by drinking preferably alone in my barn office. As years progressed my days became shorter (it was my business after all) and the reward came earlier. I longed for the rest but real laughter vanished. In the end i was blessed by having folks who cared and were a pain. I did go to a meeting 7+ years ago and now i rest and laugh without the growing desire for death that was my only

companion at the end. It is your choice, but please know you can choose.

Hugs,

Charlize

[JenniferB]

Went to the beach this weekend. I hate going. Nowhere else do I feel so out of place. But it was for my family and so I sucked it up, put on my game face and went. After spending Saturday on the beach all day, it was just too much. So I promptly drank too much Saturday night. Something has to dull the pain; the desire. Right now, I'd just like to end it.

I can really relate to this. I drank because it helped east the mind. I loved the feeling. And after the first drink I wanted more of that feeling. I didn't drink every day though. But what I found is when the urge came to drink I had to drink. A lot of the time I didn't have a desire to drink Mon-Thur, but a couple hours before I got off work on Friday that desire was strong. Even if I had other plans the desire to drink trumped them. Never drank at work either. It took me awhile to realize that I couldn't control my drinking and that I was indeed an alcoholic. It was the obsession to drink that seemed to come out of nowhere, and after drinking one drink I couldn't stop and had to drink more.

Yes there were occasions I didn't drink for awhile if my mind was totally focused on something else. When I first knew I was going to transition I didn't drink for over 3 months. But the desire would inevitably return. I've been sober for over 8 months now, which is the longest I've been sober in over 25 years. Hard to believe when I rarely drank every day of the week. It took me over 3 months in AA to realize I couldn't stop on my own and that I would drink again if left to myself.

Sobriety is wonderful now and I haven't thought about buying alcohol in some time. And I don't miss it and found I am much better at coping with life as it comes. But I had to first do the work and want to quit and get help. I found I couldn't quit on my own.

Jenny

[Guest Jennifer T]

My wife is away for a girl's beach weekend with her sisters. So last night I was alone at home. I was so depressed; hurting with all this stuff on my mind. And I really wanted to get hammered. There was only one beer in the fridge and no liquor. I was going to go buy some. But instead, I took out the one beer and guzzled it. I will not get behind the wheel when I drink. So, I ensured myself that I'd not get hammered last night.

So see, I do have some will power. Tonight, going to have dinner with my son.

[Guest Brenda Hailey]

My wife is away for a girl's beach weekend with her sisters. So last night I was alone at home. I was so depressed; hurting with all this stuff on my mind. And I really wanted to get hammered. There was only one beer in the fridge and no liquor. I was going to go buy some. But instead, I took out the one beer and guzzled it. I will not get behind the wheel when I drink. So, I ensured myself that I'd not get hammered last night.

So see, I do have some will power. Tonight, going to have dinner with my son.

A girls beach weekend could also be a girls desert weekend :-)

[Guest Jennifer T]

You've a good heart, Brenda.

Peace.