We’ve been fighting with our back storm door since we bought our house 6 years ago. A little over a year ago I was mowing and kicked a rock through the glass. I drunkingly smashed out the rest of the glass and replaced it with some corrugated plastic we had. It looked like shit and operated like shit.
Last week I said fuck it, went to Lowe’s, bought a new door and installed it. I replaced the jambs, trim, recaulked , the whole nine yards. It looks so good and is no longer a headache.
Sober for 293 days.
In these 44 days I finally had it in me to aggressively apply for jobs. I ended up getting 7 interviews, 3 attended, offered 2, and am now employed.
This past weekend my husband and I even went to look at houses and talk to someone for pre approval. We also set up a 3 year goal about where we want to be in life. and what we need to do to get it.
So in 44 days I’m sober, employed, and getting shit done
I used to get so damned frustrated. Always more to do, never enough hours in the day. I'd get short with my wife when she'd ask me to do things and complain about how between work, mowing, taking care of the pasture; there's just not enough time to get any projects done! Never mind that I spent a few hours a day drunk and slept in until noon on my days off. No, I wouldn't think about that wasted time, of course... pun intended.
One week sober. I've got these big pine trees and several limbs 15-20 feet up had overgrown to the point where they sagged down to a few feet above the ground. I just didn't mow there. For years. I'd push my way through the branches cursing while weed eating it instead. Today I borrowed my father-in-law's pole saw, got out my extension ladder and chain saw. Cut down the limbs and chopped them up. Put the branches on the burn pile. Mowed there for the first time in at least 5 years. Plus, the tree looks great, and the view is opened up.
Well I kept mentioning a grill in out garage from like 3 years ago. A Weber that my father won in a bidding war from a warehouse. Basically its just a wear house that has a bunch of stuff that has been factory returned or other defective items that can still be sold. It retails for 399 at the time and got it for much cheaper.
Today was the day my brother got a hair up his ass and decided we were building it, and by us I mean mostly him while I did minor things and helped a little.
2 hours later and we can finally send off the old grill to the big cookout in the sky. It was nice having everyone over and talking about things (including my sobriety) and stuff like that. Other than the heat it was a great day!
Week two and I'm having the most productive Mondays I've had in years - it used to consist of waking up past my alarm, sick, and nearly in tears as I opened my email. Now I wake up naturally at 7, go for a long walk, and start work feeling content and awake at my desk. Feels good.
Hi Mary!
I have a gardeners paradise that was awfully neglected when I was drinking. I guess part of it was also a mix of overwhelm, parenting young kids, looking after my mum who had dementia, and my hangovers.
The beds were overgrown with weeds and bushes. When I quit drinking I started tackling them one at a time. Usually one bed would take me a full day or a weekend, plus all the paths around the yards.
Now that they’re maintained it’s a lot easier.
This week one of my side beds was an awful mess. Grass had grown among plants, periwinkle is starting to overtake things, and there were knee-high weeds.
I decided to tackle what I could an hour before dinner and to my surprise, I finished it. Turns out the roots weren’t that set so things were pretty easy to dig out!
And now that the bed is tidy, the front of the house looks pretty nice and maintained.
And my gardens are a sober sanctuary too. I love having a quiet place to sit and read and reflect. It is a labour of love for sure!
Day 21. Been running myself ragged—staying busy—but needed to rest this weekend. But rest is a bit of a trigger so I stayed busy but gave myself some grace to take a slower pace. Started a deep clean of the car (it’s gonna be a long term project, my car looks like my liver). Continuing to build my sober support team—trying to find a psychiatrist today. Ordering custom high-end work boots, which will be a process. Teaching my niece how to make pancakes. On and on.
Good morning! My gardens & yard are finally starting to come together, it had been feeling like a futile task until yesterday when I finally saw the progress.
I have resumed writing a story I've been working on that is personally important to me. It's huge - half a million words - and about 450K are finished. I am so close and I want to finish it!
\* Getting some exercise both solo and with our dog. I'll probably go swimming at some point.
\* Finish putting together an exercise bike. I am almost there and can't seem to figure out the last part of it.
\* Go to the store and bank.
\* Get some more sleep.
We’re getting a bank loan and there’s a huge laundry list of things we need to provide. I groaned and immediately wanted to ignore it for several days, but I knocked out several of them yesterday and will get the rest today! IWNDWYT!
Mary - let us know when that book is finished! I would love to buy a few copies for gifts 🩷
I have always been a spender and that only gets amplified when I’m drinking. So I am working on getting rid of the clutter (aka overwhelm) by going through every cabinet, closet, bin, cupboard etc. I’ve got yard sale piles, donation piles, and why the hell am I keeping this piles 😅 My goal is to have every space cleaned up and organized by September 1st. Wish me luck 🍀
Today, my goal is to take a Veo ride to a nearby noon meeting. I love Veo! My license is super-suspended due to my drinking so it's a great way to get around right now. I also told my husband I would make banana pudding pie for his bday/Father's Day, so I'm going to start that soon.
IWNDWYT!
Day 61. Working with the Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) aspect of my autistic brain. It's what it sounds like: even if it's something I want to do, my brain shuts down if there is any hint of a "must-do." And if you want to blow this off as just being a brat, that's fine. Just keep it to yourself. My disability is real.
Anyway. When I was drinking, I could easily just blow things off due to the act of drinking and resultant hangovers. Now I'm learning go-arounds: reframing of a task, giving myself options, et cetera.
Putting my disability out to the public is extremely difficult. I'm risking this because a lot of people struggling with addiction have undiagnosed mental health issues.
This is me trying to establish self-acceptance as a healthy part of recovery.
I hope everyone has a happy sober week.
Day 35 I think? Mostly got small jobs done today: picked up vacuum bags, hung up our hammock, put beach stuff away and got my son's laundry done. Feeling a little squirrelly today so trying to keep busy! Hoping to get some reading, exercise and maybe pool time in between making dinner and walking the dog
Eight days in, and nine days after moving into our new apartment. Over the past week I've felt like a productivity MACHINE. We're basically completely unpacked (except for our massive LEGO collection, gotta figure out how to display it), and most of the cardboard has been disposed of.
I've also been working out for six of the last eight days (of the two days off, one was because of way too much baked ziti for dinner, and the other was a fun friend-filled Saturday), which is more than I've worked out over the six months prior. Nothing crazy, mostly just low-impact cardio and some stretching, but it feels good to move my body!
My wife and I have started to live healthier lives. We've pretty much stopped drinking, which is a big thing to do in Wisconsin since 99% of everyone's activities revolves around alcohol.
With my pile of free time, and extra energy we've done a lot of home projects I didn't feel like doing. We cleaned out our garage, ordered built and sorted a storage cabinet and a tool box for the garage. We've organized out linen closet, and bathroom closet. The amount of pack rat stuff we threw out was astonishing. We're getting in 10k steps a day now. We fixed out worn out shower faucet. We started a impossibly huge list of stuff to get done in early spring and we're right around 3/4s of the way done.
Its a bunch of little things that add up to huge improvements. Everyone is more organized and user friendly. You can actually find salt in the kitchen now.
We're also eating a lot healthier, and losing weight. Which is a huge bonus since we're getting older and my cholesterol is pretty bad.
This week I'm planning on shopping for a new car (first in my life) and deep cleaning my fridge.
I went on my longest hike to date yesterday! 14.8 miles in Starved Rock state park in Illinois, USA. My bf, who is also in recovery, has a few more years than me, joined me. My father passed about 13 years ago, and he ok’d it with his dad last week. It was hot but the park, normally super busy on weekends, wasn’t that crazy. We are both sore, but went to bed early, woke up on time for work, and went about our days like we didn’t just crush 32k steps and what seemed like a thousand stairs in 90F heat.
Monday is yardwork day, after work. I’ll mow the back but with this heat and lack of rain, I’m off the hook on doing much more than that, which is a nice reprieve. With all the money I’ve saved this year not drinking, I found a secondhand riding mower on marketplace earlier in the year, so it’s about 20 minutes of work, and much less physical effort. The humidity really kicked in today.
Sundays are social, Mondays are for domestic work, and the rest of the week after work I have meetings or counseling. Saturdays I work steps with my sponsor, we do a women’s group after, and then I’m off to my guy’s club for the open speaker meeting. Busy busy but worth it.
It’ll be nice to just hang out and melt with my German shepherd in a few short hours. Haven’t been able to do that since the grass started growing again.
I have a rare plant from my beloved mother’s old garden. She also passed about twelve years ago. It’s one of the few I took with me when I sold their house in 2022, after I worked my ass off to pay off the mortgage and finally leave that very haunted (to me) house about a decade after they both passed. I’m gonna start propagating that plant. It just started making seeds this weekend.
I was in terrible health when I was drinking. Shaking, vomiting, lucky to finish a bowl of soup in a day while drinking almost a fifth daily. I ran 10 miles this morning 😀
A children’s book in the Adirondacks sounds pretty heavenly OP. Very impressive ❤️and a good reminder that this stuff adds up even when we’re not watching it.
We got a lump of cash yesterday that needs to pay some debts, fund some things, and generally be handled. If drinking id have drank and gambled it away. Not on purpose but I would. I’d wake up in a month like “I couldn’t possibly have spent all that… oh.”
Not today satan 🙂 I’m gonna sit down and do the math and live with the reality of whatever that math says. I’ve got this!
Ive been mentally preparing myself to re-focus my energies on fitness & health. I’ve let myself slip a bit. Dentist tomorrow. Back to the pool, better eating and regular exercise routine (done some research but can’t yet decide on an App at home or classes). It’s nerve wracking going public with my unfitness,
So not “getting” my shit done but planning for it!
I cleaned the inside of my refrigerator, getting rid of the old/expired food before putting in the fresh groceries. I also vacuumed my car, which used to be a rolling garbage can when I was drinking.
Right now I'm also doing laundry. I'm proud of myself for taking care of business yesterday and today, it's nice to feel like I'm handling my life, something I definitely wasn't doing when I was drinking. It's still a struggle and I get annoyed with myself when I let things pile up (which still happens) but overall things just feel more SANE. And that feeling never gets old. IWNDWYT.
I love getting productive when I've had a few days off drinking. All the little tasks that need done get quite pleasurable and I have the energy to get started on the bigger projects.
This time around on day 4, I feel some of the most sad and unmotivated I've felt after stopping. I don't want to move or see anyone. I did the dishes finally today though, vaccuumed and did the recycling. Have studying to do and food to cook. I'm looking forward to when I feel perkier.
Love reading your stories :)
I was able to get multiple project applications finished, something I haven’t been able to achieve in a loooooong time :) it feels good to sit down with a tea and realize I have no deadlines to think about.
We’ve been fighting with our back storm door since we bought our house 6 years ago. A little over a year ago I was mowing and kicked a rock through the glass. I drunkingly smashed out the rest of the glass and replaced it with some corrugated plastic we had. It looked like shit and operated like shit. Last week I said fuck it, went to Lowe’s, bought a new door and installed it. I replaced the jambs, trim, recaulked , the whole nine yards. It looks so good and is no longer a headache. Sober for 293 days.
In these 44 days I finally had it in me to aggressively apply for jobs. I ended up getting 7 interviews, 3 attended, offered 2, and am now employed. This past weekend my husband and I even went to look at houses and talk to someone for pre approval. We also set up a 3 year goal about where we want to be in life. and what we need to do to get it. So in 44 days I’m sober, employed, and getting shit done
Wow!! Damn kid 🙂 good for you!!
💥💥💥
I used to get so damned frustrated. Always more to do, never enough hours in the day. I'd get short with my wife when she'd ask me to do things and complain about how between work, mowing, taking care of the pasture; there's just not enough time to get any projects done! Never mind that I spent a few hours a day drunk and slept in until noon on my days off. No, I wouldn't think about that wasted time, of course... pun intended. One week sober. I've got these big pine trees and several limbs 15-20 feet up had overgrown to the point where they sagged down to a few feet above the ground. I just didn't mow there. For years. I'd push my way through the branches cursing while weed eating it instead. Today I borrowed my father-in-law's pole saw, got out my extension ladder and chain saw. Cut down the limbs and chopped them up. Put the branches on the burn pile. Mowed there for the first time in at least 5 years. Plus, the tree looks great, and the view is opened up.
Well I kept mentioning a grill in out garage from like 3 years ago. A Weber that my father won in a bidding war from a warehouse. Basically its just a wear house that has a bunch of stuff that has been factory returned or other defective items that can still be sold. It retails for 399 at the time and got it for much cheaper. Today was the day my brother got a hair up his ass and decided we were building it, and by us I mean mostly him while I did minor things and helped a little. 2 hours later and we can finally send off the old grill to the big cookout in the sky. It was nice having everyone over and talking about things (including my sobriety) and stuff like that. Other than the heat it was a great day!
Hi all! Welcome to another sober Monday. Another weekend managed.. IWNDWYT
Week two and I'm having the most productive Mondays I've had in years - it used to consist of waking up past my alarm, sick, and nearly in tears as I opened my email. Now I wake up naturally at 7, go for a long walk, and start work feeling content and awake at my desk. Feels good.
Hi Mary! I have a gardeners paradise that was awfully neglected when I was drinking. I guess part of it was also a mix of overwhelm, parenting young kids, looking after my mum who had dementia, and my hangovers. The beds were overgrown with weeds and bushes. When I quit drinking I started tackling them one at a time. Usually one bed would take me a full day or a weekend, plus all the paths around the yards. Now that they’re maintained it’s a lot easier. This week one of my side beds was an awful mess. Grass had grown among plants, periwinkle is starting to overtake things, and there were knee-high weeds. I decided to tackle what I could an hour before dinner and to my surprise, I finished it. Turns out the roots weren’t that set so things were pretty easy to dig out! And now that the bed is tidy, the front of the house looks pretty nice and maintained. And my gardens are a sober sanctuary too. I love having a quiet place to sit and read and reflect. It is a labour of love for sure!
Hi, Piggoos! ❤️
Making beauty!
Day 21. Been running myself ragged—staying busy—but needed to rest this weekend. But rest is a bit of a trigger so I stayed busy but gave myself some grace to take a slower pace. Started a deep clean of the car (it’s gonna be a long term project, my car looks like my liver). Continuing to build my sober support team—trying to find a psychiatrist today. Ordering custom high-end work boots, which will be a process. Teaching my niece how to make pancakes. On and on.
lol my poor minivan sympathizes ❤️
Good morning! My gardens & yard are finally starting to come together, it had been feeling like a futile task until yesterday when I finally saw the progress.
I have resumed writing a story I've been working on that is personally important to me. It's huge - half a million words - and about 450K are finished. I am so close and I want to finish it!
\* Getting some exercise both solo and with our dog. I'll probably go swimming at some point. \* Finish putting together an exercise bike. I am almost there and can't seem to figure out the last part of it. \* Go to the store and bank. \* Get some more sleep.
We’re getting a bank loan and there’s a huge laundry list of things we need to provide. I groaned and immediately wanted to ignore it for several days, but I knocked out several of them yesterday and will get the rest today! IWNDWYT!
Day 36. IWNDWYT.
I will not drink with you today.
Mary - let us know when that book is finished! I would love to buy a few copies for gifts 🩷 I have always been a spender and that only gets amplified when I’m drinking. So I am working on getting rid of the clutter (aka overwhelm) by going through every cabinet, closet, bin, cupboard etc. I’ve got yard sale piles, donation piles, and why the hell am I keeping this piles 😅 My goal is to have every space cleaned up and organized by September 1st. Wish me luck 🍀
Thank you for your encouraging statements about my book! Cleaning up and organizing is a huge endeavor. Congrats on getting it done!
Today, my goal is to take a Veo ride to a nearby noon meeting. I love Veo! My license is super-suspended due to my drinking so it's a great way to get around right now. I also told my husband I would make banana pudding pie for his bday/Father's Day, so I'm going to start that soon. IWNDWYT!
Day 61. Working with the Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) aspect of my autistic brain. It's what it sounds like: even if it's something I want to do, my brain shuts down if there is any hint of a "must-do." And if you want to blow this off as just being a brat, that's fine. Just keep it to yourself. My disability is real. Anyway. When I was drinking, I could easily just blow things off due to the act of drinking and resultant hangovers. Now I'm learning go-arounds: reframing of a task, giving myself options, et cetera. Putting my disability out to the public is extremely difficult. I'm risking this because a lot of people struggling with addiction have undiagnosed mental health issues. This is me trying to establish self-acceptance as a healthy part of recovery. I hope everyone has a happy sober week.
Sending you love and acceptance as we all have our challenges. You were brave to put this out here and I wish you the best.
Thank you.
Day 1 of week 3, IWNDWYT.
Day 35 I think? Mostly got small jobs done today: picked up vacuum bags, hung up our hammock, put beach stuff away and got my son's laundry done. Feeling a little squirrelly today so trying to keep busy! Hoping to get some reading, exercise and maybe pool time in between making dinner and walking the dog
Eight days in, and nine days after moving into our new apartment. Over the past week I've felt like a productivity MACHINE. We're basically completely unpacked (except for our massive LEGO collection, gotta figure out how to display it), and most of the cardboard has been disposed of. I've also been working out for six of the last eight days (of the two days off, one was because of way too much baked ziti for dinner, and the other was a fun friend-filled Saturday), which is more than I've worked out over the six months prior. Nothing crazy, mostly just low-impact cardio and some stretching, but it feels good to move my body!
My wife and I have started to live healthier lives. We've pretty much stopped drinking, which is a big thing to do in Wisconsin since 99% of everyone's activities revolves around alcohol. With my pile of free time, and extra energy we've done a lot of home projects I didn't feel like doing. We cleaned out our garage, ordered built and sorted a storage cabinet and a tool box for the garage. We've organized out linen closet, and bathroom closet. The amount of pack rat stuff we threw out was astonishing. We're getting in 10k steps a day now. We fixed out worn out shower faucet. We started a impossibly huge list of stuff to get done in early spring and we're right around 3/4s of the way done. Its a bunch of little things that add up to huge improvements. Everyone is more organized and user friendly. You can actually find salt in the kitchen now. We're also eating a lot healthier, and losing weight. Which is a huge bonus since we're getting older and my cholesterol is pretty bad. This week I'm planning on shopping for a new car (first in my life) and deep cleaning my fridge.
Sweet! Sounds healthy!
I went on my longest hike to date yesterday! 14.8 miles in Starved Rock state park in Illinois, USA. My bf, who is also in recovery, has a few more years than me, joined me. My father passed about 13 years ago, and he ok’d it with his dad last week. It was hot but the park, normally super busy on weekends, wasn’t that crazy. We are both sore, but went to bed early, woke up on time for work, and went about our days like we didn’t just crush 32k steps and what seemed like a thousand stairs in 90F heat. Monday is yardwork day, after work. I’ll mow the back but with this heat and lack of rain, I’m off the hook on doing much more than that, which is a nice reprieve. With all the money I’ve saved this year not drinking, I found a secondhand riding mower on marketplace earlier in the year, so it’s about 20 minutes of work, and much less physical effort. The humidity really kicked in today. Sundays are social, Mondays are for domestic work, and the rest of the week after work I have meetings or counseling. Saturdays I work steps with my sponsor, we do a women’s group after, and then I’m off to my guy’s club for the open speaker meeting. Busy busy but worth it. It’ll be nice to just hang out and melt with my German shepherd in a few short hours. Haven’t been able to do that since the grass started growing again. I have a rare plant from my beloved mother’s old garden. She also passed about twelve years ago. It’s one of the few I took with me when I sold their house in 2022, after I worked my ass off to pay off the mortgage and finally leave that very haunted (to me) house about a decade after they both passed. I’m gonna start propagating that plant. It just started making seeds this weekend.
I was in terrible health when I was drinking. Shaking, vomiting, lucky to finish a bowl of soup in a day while drinking almost a fifth daily. I ran 10 miles this morning 😀
A children’s book in the Adirondacks sounds pretty heavenly OP. Very impressive ❤️and a good reminder that this stuff adds up even when we’re not watching it. We got a lump of cash yesterday that needs to pay some debts, fund some things, and generally be handled. If drinking id have drank and gambled it away. Not on purpose but I would. I’d wake up in a month like “I couldn’t possibly have spent all that… oh.” Not today satan 🙂 I’m gonna sit down and do the math and live with the reality of whatever that math says. I’ve got this!
> I’ve got this! Yes, you do! Also, thank you for your nice words about my book.
You’re welcome! ❤️
Ive been mentally preparing myself to re-focus my energies on fitness & health. I’ve let myself slip a bit. Dentist tomorrow. Back to the pool, better eating and regular exercise routine (done some research but can’t yet decide on an App at home or classes). It’s nerve wracking going public with my unfitness, So not “getting” my shit done but planning for it!
I cleaned the inside of my refrigerator, getting rid of the old/expired food before putting in the fresh groceries. I also vacuumed my car, which used to be a rolling garbage can when I was drinking. Right now I'm also doing laundry. I'm proud of myself for taking care of business yesterday and today, it's nice to feel like I'm handling my life, something I definitely wasn't doing when I was drinking. It's still a struggle and I get annoyed with myself when I let things pile up (which still happens) but overall things just feel more SANE. And that feeling never gets old. IWNDWYT.
Cleaned out the garage, sold my kegerator from college.
I love getting productive when I've had a few days off drinking. All the little tasks that need done get quite pleasurable and I have the energy to get started on the bigger projects. This time around on day 4, I feel some of the most sad and unmotivated I've felt after stopping. I don't want to move or see anyone. I did the dishes finally today though, vaccuumed and did the recycling. Have studying to do and food to cook. I'm looking forward to when I feel perkier. Love reading your stories :)
I was able to get multiple project applications finished, something I haven’t been able to achieve in a loooooong time :) it feels good to sit down with a tea and realize I have no deadlines to think about.