Tag: addiction

Leisure, Mental Health

What topics I like talking about…

beingmesober

What topics do you like to discuss?

My husband always says I talk a lot. I would say I’m a deep conversationalist and have to tell myself to hush at times. I analyze, hold eye contact and I listen but also like to have my say.

I enjoy talking about things I am confident and knowledgeable about. I also like talking or topics about things I’m curious about.

Sobriety is a topic I could talk about all day. There are so many other topics that lay in discussions involving addiction.

Astrology is fascinating to me. I’m always curious about all the crystals and the magic they can do.

Spirituality is another topic I could sit and chat about.

Topics get people talking which in turn gets people sharing and coming together. The more we talk the more we learn.

Knowledge is Power, Power is Knowledge. KP

##togetherwewin

Leisure

A risk I took that I don’t regret.

beingmesober

Describe a risk you took that you do not regret.

Would a blind date be a risk? I guess it was for me. What happens if it totally goes wrong, what if I really like him but he doesn’t like me?

My stepfather started talking about this gentleman shortly after I was separated from my ex. My stepfather kept asking if this person had called me yet. He was telling me how he would be perfect for me. Makes decent money and is raising his 2 daughter’s on his own.  I told him the last thing I need is a man in my life. I wanted to and had to concentrate on what I was doing, where I was going. I was emotionally unavailable, I wasn’t myself then. I was drinking and raising 2 young children.

2 years has gone by and my stepfather is still talking to me about this guy! He’s also talking too the gentleman about me, and asking if he’s called yet. My stepfather was determined for us to meet.

May 23 2006 my future husband called. He asked if I wanted to meet up for coffee. Of course we both felt obligated to go on the date so I said sure!

I was skeptical about him because he is in the financial industry and he is not someone that I typically go for. He is 10 years older than me which was a plus. More secure and knew what he wanted. But I had this image in my mind that he was a “Banker” I had an image of Mr. Cleaver in my mind. I thought he probably doesn’t even drink. Little did I know. Little did he know.

We went for a walk around the lake and to my surprise he asked if I wanted to go for a beer somewhere. Ohhhh wow! Okay, he does drink. Well ya! I responded. Luckily we had to drive home so we couldn’t stay long. He asked me if I wanted to go for dinner the following evening. I accepted. He was/is super nice, good looking and wants so many things that I want. What was really attractive was the fact he was raising 2 teenaged daughters on his own. He is an amazing father.

May 25 2026 will be 20 years we’ve been together! 13 years married and ironically it is also 17 years of sobriety for me. That determination my stepfather had I am extremely thankful and grateful for. He did more than set us up, he saved me in a way he never knew, I never knew. When we met for coffee that day it was the beginning of something so magical and heaven sent.

I took a risk that day by meeting someone totally out of character for me and it changed not only my life but my kids too. We had a lot of work ahead of us but we made it through. We have an amazing blended family with 7 grandchildren.

I will never regret saying yes to the “Banker”. Nor will I ever forget what these 2 men brought to my life 🙏❤️

Mental Health

The Break-Up

beingmesober

Hello fellow warrior’s! I hope you are all striving to be your best selves.

Breaking up, ugh the pain is horrible. Its never ending. The crippling anxiety and heartache. You question everything about yourself. Was it me? 🤔 You don’t think you’re ever going to have anything good in life.

Doesn’t that sound familiar? It’s the same as removing alcohol from your life. Having to be forced to be without something is going to make you grieve. It will be the same cycle as grief.

Your going to be accepting it at first, you’ll cry, or feel sad that you can no longer have this be a part of your life anymore. Then the anger sets in, and your pissed that you can’t drink! Everyone drinks! But not everyone drinks like us warrior’s do…not good! Then you feel little sputter flutters of happiness and literal excitement. You’re starting to feel proud of yourself and physically notice a difference. Your complexion is glowing, your eyes are sparkling and that smile is back and boy, do you look good!

These emotions were what I went through very early on in my first year of removing alcohol from my life. Breaking up is an example that I can use to explain to others when they are experiencing these outbursts of emotions and have no clue why.

These emotions we go through in recovery don’t last forever. You have to know it absolutely gets better. You’ve got to push through, surrounding yourself with good support groups. Take your time with yourself and most importantly, LOVE yourself.

This is, Being Me Sober

Mental Health, Stages

Turning Seventeen….again

beingmesober

I remember turning 17, 1987! I loved being 17. I’m not sure why but it just sounded older.  What a time to be growing up. When things were more simple, fun and felt so free. Generations before us use to say how simple life used to be. It truly was back in the “olden days.”

I’m coming up on my Seventeenth year of my sobriety journey. What an accomplishment I’ve made, together, with the ones who stayed.

So much has come from me letting go and  refusing to let alcohol run and ruin my life and those around me. I’ve developed really great relationships, I’ve been creating art for the last 7 years and selling a few pieces. I’ve learned how to set boundaries and deal with my emotions much better than I have even upto 2 years ago. I’m maturing lol. I’m valuing myself and my worth. If I don’t get the respect I deserve than they will have no place in my life. That, that was and is extremely difficult to do. Letting go of people you love to save yourself. Letting go of old patterns and old acceptances. Its just as difficult as getting clean or sober. But, one fact always remains, to better yourself you need to let go of things or people that no longer serve you.

Over the last 17 years really exciting things have happened in my life, I have 7, yes 7 grandchildren now, I’ve discovered Art, a creative skill I never knew I had, I am chasing my passions and attending college in May.

I have accepted things the way they are and the way they were. I don’t expect more from people than they can give. No more blame. I can take responsibility of the choices I made and can put them behind me. I am able to let go of the past.

I am at peace 🙏 and growing every year.

Happy Birthday to me and all my fellow warrior’s.

#togetherwewin

Mental Health

One positive change I’ve made in my life…

beingmesober

Describe one positive change you have made in your life.

There’s so many positive changes I’ve made since the biggest change which was, giving up alcohol.

In doing that I’m becoming who I am born to be. My priorities changed, my view of life changed and my healing began.

Other changes I’ve made have been to analyze my relationships. I had to let go of certain relationships to continue healing. So that I could be a better person, mother, daughter and friend. That was a very difficult change. Letting go is never easy, especially when it’s family. But, in doing that we grow.

I finally needed and demanded to be treated with respect as a person, as a mother, as a daughter and as a friend. If I want to live a full life and be truly happy inside and out, its up to me to make the necessary changes.

If you don’t like something, change it. The outcome is almost always a positive one ✨️

Be good to yourself and those around you.

Mental Health

Relationships in early recovery…..

beingmesober

Hello fellow warrior’s! I hope you’re all striving everyday and making good progress ✨️

I wanted to talk about relationships in early recovery and the set backs it can have on your very own recovery.

You’ve heard it all the time, you can’t do it alone. No matter what you’re facing in life, it doesn’t have to be about addiction, its tough at times, really tough, and we all need support.  Someone who understands what your going through and has walked through the darkness.

During early recovery, we are so fragile. Our emotions are raw and we don’t know how to deal with everything that is coming up. The high alert, the endless voices in our heads that we fight daily, the not knowing how to fill our time, the anger, the sorrow. The total lifestyle changes, the letting go of some friends and family.  Not out of spite but for our own healing.

We are vulnerable and are the first ones to offer help to others on their journey when we’ve come a little father than the person asking for help. We think we can do it together. What a great idea, we think.  Intentions are well put but the outcome can be very dangerous.

I’m referring to a friend who has reached out and is asking you to help them. They ask how you did it for the last several months and admire your ability. They ask for help and slowly start spending time together and sharing stories, going to meetings and holding each other accountable.  You’re both doing the steps to stay sober.

It is wonderful to be able to offer help to someone you care about, but you’re also taking on their sobriety. You end up worrying more about them and putting yourself and your own recovery to the side and you don’t quite understand just how fragile you are. Its not your fault you’re just trying to help and, not do it alone…

Things go really good and you’re spending maybe a little too much time together but, it seems to be working, until something triggers  one of you. Something happens that a person in early recovery can’t control and they lash out possibly at you, because you’re there. Something was said and you leave in a maddened state and take a break from each other. Now fast forward and you’re reaching out to your friend but can’t reach him for 2 days. Now, your full of anxiety, anger, quilt and worry. Your focus is now on him and not you. Its a set back for your friendship and putting your recovery at high risk. The warning bells are going off. Negative thoughts and blame to yourself comes in. Your replaying everything that has happened. You believe its your fault for his relapse, but you don’t even know if he has because you can’t reach him.

Now you have to step back and refocus back to where you were in your recovery. Detach from the friendship and concentrate on your own sobriety.

Even with your hand and heart out to help, you must help yourself first. You must set boundaries with everyone in your life. You can not overextend or give more to someone else than you give yourself. Allow yourself to heal. Be alone with yourself and be comfortable. If you’re single, especially, start dating yourself! Put something on that makes you feel good and go for coffee, go shopping, go to a meeting!

Helping is never wrong or a mistake. It is what we are here to do. Help one another but like the saying says “Until you help yourself, you can not help anyone”.

Master your own path so others can follow.

This is, Being Me Sober

Mental Health

Jesus take the wheel…

beingmesober

This song by Carrie Underwood, Jesus take the wheel, I feel that song any time I hear it come on the radio. It brings me back, as a lot of songs resinante with us, takes me back to that day on the highway going to pick up my kids from their fathers. I was so hungover and desperate to get sober. Stop drinking and stop the chaos, stop the madness and shame and overwhelming feeling of anxiety and feeling so alone.

I was crying, ugly crying, and singing and begging all at the same time. Holding the steering wheel, white knuckle, shaking, hoping Jesus would step in and take me or help me.  Begging to be forgiven for the mess I made the night before. I couldn’t keep doing this to myself or the people around me. I was destroying everything good that came into my life and my childrens lives at 36.

It’s like being in an abusive relationship, but it’s only you against the voices, the fight to not drink, the fight to get better, the fight to save the road we are on.

As I write this I pause and think of the turmoil I was in. That awful feeling of dispair and hopelessness. The hate I had for the people that got me where I was in my life. The divorce, the abuse from my ex husband, my mother, my father, my so called friends that were no where to be found, living their own lives and struggles. The one question we always ask ourselves, “How did I get here?”

I do know how I got to that point in my life. It started when I was an infant. It started when I was old enough to see what abuse was, to fear the people that are suppose to love you the most and protect you. It started when I was with my friends as a teenager drinking and not realizing the consequences of what could be. It started by not having any understanding of who I was becoming, what I was trying to sort out in my life and head. It started because I was never out of chaos, never away from the abuse, physical and  mental. Starting from my mother abandoning me for years on and off. The verbal abuse and physical abuse from her. My fathers abusive ways with women in his life and him leaving us for another family.  My stepmother had enough of his abuse and cheating, he begged me to come with him but I could not go with a man that hurt woman, who found someone new and just thought I could leave everything behind. NO! I knew at 15 I couldn’t live that way. I was angry at him. I was hurt my family was splitting again.  To then be kicked out by my stepmother for no reason at 18. To then marrying an abusive man to me and our son. A cheater, a liar and an abuser. Just like the life I escaped from. Just like the father I had, the mother I had, the stepmother I had. Where was the love, the support, the way out.

The escape was in the wine, the rum, whatever I could drink to get out of my head. The drunk haze to be able to cope and get through the days, to forget the bad not knowing that the bad always surfaced because I was in a state of fight or flight my entire life up to the day I got sober. 39 years. 39 years of chaos, some points were of course amazing. My kids, buying our beautiful new home, making memories and trying to be normal and hide away the pain that wanted to be free from me.

Jesus take the wheel. Jesus took the wheel when I allowed him to take the wheel and succomb to the one thing that was keeping me in this state of flight or fight. He took the wheel and steered me to freedom, to let go, to live. With work on myself, AA, therapy and proper support, but most of all love. I was with people that truly loved me in a way that allowed me to feel safe. I know my parents love me and they did the best they could with what they were dealing with from their past traumas. I forgive them but I’m also grateful for the chaos because it showed me strength and showed me what I am capable of and who I really am. I’m not what people say I am because of their own demons. I am a good mom a good wife and a good person. I love the life I have alcohol free and living the life I choose to live with the people I choose to have in my life, but most of all I love what I have learned and accepted so that I can love unconditionally with understanding, patience and support, for myself, my husband, and children and grandchildren.

This is, Being me sober

Mental Health

When do we let go?

beingmesober

Hello fellow warrior’s!

I hope you’re all striving everyday to be your best selves and helping and caring for others during these unfamiliar days in the world around us.

As some of my followers know, I have a daughter who is struggling to break free from this awful disease of addiction. Its been an issue with our family for the last 15 years and I am at my end.

She is now 30 and has been back at home for the last 3 years because my husband and I have been helping her through her journey of sobriety.  Helping her build her life again.

Times are tough right now, rent is through the roof, food is barely affordable let alone supporting children if you have them. So we have allowed her to stay with us.

Its not working. She hasn’t yet been able to get to one year without relapses, she has been hiding it from us. Although she goes to work and is responsible, she just can’t seem to get it. She constantly keeps surrounding herself with what feels familiar. Not the sober ones. Not the ones that bring something to the table, just the ones that want to party.

I can see that she is trying and I do understand the disease because I’ve been through it and have 17 years under my belt. I know the urge and the voices that come and convince us we will be different this time, we won’t drive, we won’t go to jail, we won’t drink to blackout, I got this. NO! No we don’t got this if we are not willing to change our entire lifestyle and stop drinking or drugging.

Shes been through so much trauma but the trauma was caused by drinking and putting herself in these environments and consequences of her choices.

It feels like I’m a mouse on a spinner, going in circles again and again. I know I’m also allowing this to happen because we are always rescuing her, we keep trying.

The truth is I’m terrified to let her go. I’m terrified of what will happen but I know I, we have too before she takes us all down. We have to live our lives in peace and calmness. I need my life back.

I’ve asked her to start saving for a place and gave her a date of October that she needs to have a place of her own. She needs to know that there’s no safety net anymore. We are holding her back by allowing her to continue to relapse and have absolutely no repercussions.

Fear is horrible when it comes to your children. The what ifs. Fear also holds us hostage. It holds us back. Letting her go is what we have to do for us as well as her. She will never grow being under our control, as she puts it, she won’t go further because we’ve always saved her.

Its time I save myself, time I give her the room to do as she pleases without having to explain herself to us or feeling as if she will be on the street. Maybe she will do better having her own space, having to pay for a roof over her head, be more accountable. Maybe she will finally see the right way.

No matter when your children move out for whatever reason its torture. Our hearts cry and want too hold and keep them forever but we have to let go, we have to let them be free to be responsible and accountable for the choices they make. My heart aches as I write this because I have made a tough decision, one I must stick too. Not just for my daughter but for me and those around me.

I’ve done my work, its up to her to do hers.

Making this decision is so hard for parents, spouses, friends, but its one that needs to be made when your dealing with someone close to you that is struggling with addiction. If you’re in this situation, sit down with them and make a plan, set boundaries and stick to them. If you’re caught up in the chaos no one can help anyone. You’re all in this circle that has no exit until you make the hard decision to stop letting their addiction run your life.

This is, Being Me Sober

Mental Health

When was the first time you had a taste of alcohol?

beingmesober

In Italy their first taste of alcohol is at the dining room table with the family having wine, a sip or a gulp. Or giving your baby boy a beer for a photo or just to see him sip like a big boy. It’s very hard for some families, people, to understand what could be the consequences of that first sip. It is also very hard for some to see the effects of alcohol when it doesn’t affect them directly. It’s a complicated disease that many do not fully understand.

My first taste of alcohol was at the age of 9. My grandparents, mom and dad and I were at a lake having so much fun. Dad was chasing my stepmom around the picnic table trying to capture her to throw her in the lake. My grandfather was enjoying his beer laughing as they ran around, yelling, get er Bob, get er! My Nan and I were also laughing and encouraging my mom to run away! As we sat and watched, my Nana turned to me and asked if I wanted to taste a little cherry brandy. Of course I said yes, If she was drinking it it must be good, but I also knew that there was alcohol in it, Something kids can’t have. An adult drink. I tried it but I can’t remember if I liked it or not, I just knew it was wrong. I never had another drink until grade 9. It was wine of course. White wine. I felt exhilarated, free, and so much more alive.

As I got older and more comfortable with it, with the feeling, I loved it. I was having so much fun! I wasn’t shy anymore, I could engage in conversations and meet new people. Blah blah blah right.

So my question is, did that one drink set the stage? Did it leave a taste for more at that age? I liked it then but I was a child so when I was older and knew I liked it did that make me indulge more?

I don’t think so, but I know it is not wise for my grandmother to offer me alcohol at age 9.

What are your thoughts.

This is Being Me Sober

Mental Health

My 3 Genie wishes

beingmesober

You have three magic genie wishes, what are you asking for?

My 1st wish would be, one that I always pray for is winning the lottery so, we could give our kids a home to raise their families in. My children have surpassed my age when I became a homeowner. It’s so difficult for young people to own their own home.

My 2nd wish would  be to take away all the drugs, hard drugs that are killing our youth.

My 3rd wish would be for my other 2 wishes to come true.