LESS Alcohol ~ JANUARY 2025 ~ One Day at A Time

Totally love your share, @globalhiker! Isn’t it crazy to quantify our drinking hours in writing…..so happy for you to find freedom from that. I can relate and am much happier now that I’m flipping it around with mostly NA days.
You have some great new things happening in your AF life!

Another alcohol free day. Too tired to say much else!

Alcohol goals

-no drinking/use for 3 weeks (until after I have a medical procedure on Jan 17).
- only 2 days after that where I can drink, less than 3 drinks each day.
- max drinks for the month 6

Woops had a glass of wine with dinner yesterday. lol

I am able to moderate now and drink occasionally if I want to without any fears of daily drinking again.

AF = 3
A = 1

cheers!

@Michieb125 thanks for your supportive words and it's cool folks like you and all the others that keep me going. You are so right time is precious. Looking back, I see lost time, wasted time. I could have gone snowboarding, rollerskating, learned to ski, traveled to Australia, hiked in Scotland, gotten a home with a bigger shiny kitchen, developed my next occupation, dressed myself better, run a nonprofit to do something meaningful, literally there are one million other things I could have done with all that drinking time and money wasted.

Back to work today. This week working on my cycling and zumba skills with my free time. I need to be chocolate-free today too.

Happy Monday day LA friends…..already January 6th - wow did that week fly by or what.

I considered having some wine while watching the Golden Globes but I didn’t have any here! Had the rest of a decent N.A. wine - had all 12 ounces for 120 calories. Chateau Diana Chardonnay- a little sweeter than I like but the color, and nose are nice. The taste is more like a Sav Blanc. I will pick up another one tomorrow at Bev Mo.

Logging early before my annual mammogram tomorrow,

Current:
AF days - 5
A days - 1

Love the terminology! "Woke up earlier than I usually would and didn't have hangxiety, YAY!" Hangxiety blows, Good work Stepawayfromthetable!

Setting up for success!!!
Goals for January - 85% Dry (AF = 26 A=5)
Monthly Stats - On Target
AF = 6 ~ 100 %
A = 0 ~ 0 %
Current Streak - AF = 6
Longest Streak - AF = 6

DH is killing me. He knows that I'm working on dry January and I’m easily tempted. He mentioned something the other day about having a spare lemon. Which means he wanted to make drinks. I just ignored him. Now he just reminded me that we have a bottle of egg nog in the refrigerator that we need to drink. I just looked at him.

His birthday is Wednesday and I said I'd have a drink on his birthday. Yikes...

On a brighter note, the scale is being very nice to me...

@chicbuc ~ you're still doing fine. Just set new goals and keep going... I will admit, football was hard yesterday!

Month Recap by Day
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2023 - 2024 Stats
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

xbowhunter wrote: »

Woops had a glass of wine with dinner yesterday. lol

I am able to moderate now and drink occasionally if I want to without any fears of daily drinking again.

AF = 3
A = 1

cheers!

You’re living the dream!

SunnyDays930 wrote: »

@globalhiker I too, have regrets 'about would have, could have, should have,' but we must remember, "don't look back. You aren't going that way." In other words, we can't change the past. In Matthew Perry's very powerful book, which I highly recommend, he said, "If you spend too much time looking in your rear view mirror, you will crash your car."
We need to move forward and just try to focus on today. That is really all we have, isn't it. I have to try to keep this in mind, though I admit it is hard at times.

Today I am 8 days AF. This evening I had herbal tea and a nice bath and am feeling grateful for many blessings in my life.

@SunnyDays930 I too have regrets. But, you can't change the past...we just need to focus on today and the future. I didn't know Matthew Perry had a book. I will have to check it out. He passed away too soon.

I'm still working on quitting. But this afternoon, I was bored and went to the little establishment across the street. The video (slot) machines are run by the Oregon Lottery, but they are the same types of machines that they have at regular casinos. These places are limited (at this time) to only six machines. And, they have to serve alcohol and food to be eligible to have the machines. So, I drank four Amberbocks (they don't sell hard liquor or wine). But, I came home with an extra $1600 😁 So, I can't complain. Tomorrow is a new day.

I need to find something to occupy my time. I live in a small town (population 7,000). So, there's not much to do in the wintertime. We have mountains (Diamond lake and Crater lake are very close), hiking trails, rivers, lakes and walking paths. But, it's been too rainy and cold for those things. We don't have all of the recreational things that are available in larger cities.

I subscribe digitally to our local newspaper. One day, someone posted in the opinion section that we need more recreation around here. I posted back and said that I agreed. I mentioned that where I used to live that there where roller skating and ice skating rinks, bowling alleys, miniature golf, arcades, batting cages, mini grand prix cars, etc. Another man replied back and said, "If it was so great. Why don't you go back to the Bay area? We have lots of hunting and fishing here. That's all we need" Well, I'm not from the Bay area (and I told him so). I grew up in Southern California. And, I don't find hunting and fishing great recreation. Many people enjoy it. I used to fish from time to time. But, fortunately I wasn't very good at it. So, I didn't have to take the fish off of the hook. I would just like more social, physical and active activities.

The area that I currently live in is...well, I probably shouldn't say. But, they are people that lived in this rural area all their lives and never experienced anything fun. And the old timers don't like Californians.

When I first moved to Southern Oregon (not where I live now...farther south) I started working in plywood mills (through a temp agency). I never mentioned I was from California. One time, we got a young guy from CA that had just moved here and he was up feeding dryer (veneer) with me. And, I was trying to tell him the best way to get to the mill from where he was living. He was going way too far out of his way. Well, one of the supervisors came around and I asked him to tell him the best way to get there. His name was Merle and he said, "Californians...don't know nothin" and bullheaded too!". It's ironic. Because most of the people that live in Oregon now are from CA.

I'm working on moving back to Roseburg which is a bit larger. We're about 12 miles away from the outer edge. It's not majorly large (pop 25,000 or more). But, there's definitely more to do there than here. I have an anxiety disorder and I can't drive there. Hard to explain.

Most people in the small town that we live in think I'm nuts wanting to move back to Roseburg...they seem to like this rural BS. Where I live now, we don't have a movie theater, a bowling alley, not one national chain restaurant (unless you count the one's by the freeway, you know, McDonalds, Burger King, Taco Bell, Dairy Queen and Subway. I'm tired of driving 15 miles just to go to the doctor or shopping. What was I thinking?

Sorry for rambling!

AF - 6
A - 0

Was a little more tempted to drink last night, but I baked bread instead. Nothing better than the smell of fresh baked bread.

Had my interview yesterday, and I believe it went well. I don’t think it matters how well it went because the boss-lady wants me in the position because she knows I will do the job. I should find out today because they had 2 more interviews to do.

@SurferGirl1982, you are so right. Small rural areas are hard to live in if you want socialization. Unless you have school-age children who are active in sports or clubs or go to church regularly, there isn’t much outlet. We live in a small, but unfortunately, growing rural community. My teenagers are in school and actively participate. Our church is a 30-minute drive, but it’s a medium-sized Catholic community and has a great Youth Group my daughter enjoys. My husband and I participate in various events at the church, like trivia night and charity dinners. But, it does take driving distances and real effort to be social in a small town.

Personally, I would love to move to a more rural area. I would love to be surrounded by farm land. I think my husband missed his calling and should be running a farm or extremely large homestead. He enjoys it, and it keeps him out of my hair. LOL As long as I can work from home, I’m good no matter where we live.

If living closer to town works better for you, go for it. You’ll probably be happier, and that might also help with the drinking. If I were you, I would consider moving into an area of town where you can walk to places you want to frequent since you’re not a fan of driving, and that would also help with your fitness. Just points to ponder…

I recently read that willpower does not work. It is literally powering against your will. Your wants. Your desires. You have to want it (or not want it in my case; alcohol). When you no longer want something, you don't need to fight against it and it should fall into place. Now, I have been trying to quit drinking for 20 years and this is the first time I actually am not needing willpower. I want this. I want to be sober. But I am not picking up my gold medal yet....I know all too well about the wolf in the woods, always there tempting me. But right now anyway, I am not interested in going back into the woods. I'm fine out here in the sun.

Day 9 AF

@SunnyDays930 that's very nicely said - out in the sun is a good place to be!

TIP for all of you self-improvers: change is way easier when you replace deprivation (whatever you want to remove from your life) with something else you enjoy. Fill up your life with happy activities and happy things, try to reduce the things that cause stress and you will see you don't need wine or liquor or beer to create false happiness for you.

Today I can't wait to get to my kickboxing class. That's my fun break for the morning.

Making some AF gains!

AF = 4
A = 1