30 Days

By Karin Burke

Help for addicts and alcoholics in early recovery. Recovery is a life altering, deeply important experience. It changes us. The beginning, though, may be the most important part. It is hard to get sober. This was written out of the knowledge that it's hard, on the premise that it's worth it. Tips on everything from diet and sleep, addiction psychology to finding the right help for you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Karin Burke
• Release date: May 16, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458140142

Karin Burke

Karin has been a barmaid, a journalist, a social worker, and an anthropologist. Alcoholism made those all very interesting endeavors. Recovery has made them real.Currently working her way toward certification as an International Yoga Therapist, she's mostly trying to find her way in life and writing it all down as she goes.

Book preview

30 Days

Life in Early Sobriety

Karin L Burke

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2011 Karin L Burke All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system -- except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine, newspaper, or on the web -- without permission in writing from Karin L Burke

Cover design by Karin L Burke

License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

a preface

my alcoholic life

alcoholic?

alcohol and drug screening tools

addict or alcoholic?

three stories

the chemistry of addiction

the behaviors of addiction

not an alcoholic?

help

treatment

counseling or therapy

religion

cold turkey, or doing it alone

finding your way

Alcoholics Anonymous

detox

inpatient detox

what's happening in detox?

what to expect

the first stage

the second stage

dealing with detox

30 days

the long awakening: physical changes over time

sleep

eating

bathing

metamorphosis: the person changes

fear and hope

more on fear

urge to give up

desire to hide or isolate

urge to tell everyone

moodswings

guilt and shame

remembering more

surprise at how addicted you are

more on hope

connection. relationships, recovery, and meaning.

rebuilding personal relationships

relationships with your kids

relationships and dating

my alcoholic life, done sober

A PREFACE

I used to drink. I don’t drink, any longer. If you are struggling with alcoholism or addiction I want to offer hope. Recovery is a beautiful thing. Those who recover routinely say it is the most profound aspect of their lives. Don’t take that lightly: ‘the most powerful’ events of a life are usually things like parenthood or a severe trauma. Alcoholism is exactly that powerful. And recovery is that profound. It changes everything. While the beginning of sobriety can be terrifying and very uncomfortable, the changes are worth it. As an active alcoholic or addict, we have buried ourselves. It’s as though you’ve cut off a limb, or cut out your own tongue. We are not capable of doing, feeling, or hoping for many things. We live a half life. The difference between active addiction and recovery is that serious: it’s as different as life and death.

When you are new to recovery, you can’t very well imagine a different life. Give yourself patience and compassion. Be willing to suspend judgment for a little while, and your world will be transformed. You have strengths you didn’t know about. You have skills you wouldn’t expect. If you manage to get sober, the relationships, love, laughter, simple joy, and depth of commitment to meaningful values will be more profound than anything you’ve felt for years. It is worth it. It is worth it.

But it isn’t easy.

This book is written because I know it isn’t easy.

You’d think it’d just be about alcohol. You’d think you could just ‘stop’. You’d think your life will still be your life, with the booze taken out. This isn’t true.

Alcoholism has changed you. Addiction has affected parts of your life you don’t even think about (your grandmother’s funeral? Yep, your alcoholism means something there. Your choice of career? The person you married? The girl you lost? Your cat? Yes. Yes. Everything.). Alcoholism affects your skin and the whites of your eyes, even if you aren’t a skid row bum. It affects the parts of your brain connected to love, motivation, life purpose, and spirituality (I’m not saying god or religion. More like ethics, morals, or why you’re alive). Alcoholism has probably affected your daily schedule, your diet, your thought processes, and your housekeeping habits.

It will all change.

Your alcoholism has also changed the people around you. They say that alcoholism is a family disease, but it is more than that. Your alcoholism has affected your friends and your work, even if you aren’t aware of it. Your alcoholism has changed the way your lovers, children, and parents respond to you. It’s changed the way you talk to one another and think of one another. It’s changed what you expect and what you take for granted. All of this, too, will change.

All of it will change for the good. But it isn’t easy.

And it isn’t simply your life, without the booze in it.

Many of these changes will take place over months and years. This book is about the first 30 days. They will be hard, but you won’t get anywhere unless you can get 30 days. To say recovery is about ‘your life, without the booze in it’ over simplifies. Recovery is about life itself.

This book was written to help.

MY ALCOHOLIC LIFE

The day I quit drinking wasn’t, in relation to other escapades, particularly bad. Nothing really happened. I wasn’t nearly as drunk as I sometimes got. No one saw me and I didn’t fall down any stairs or wake up in a stranger’s living room.

I remember two things. First, I was certain I had lost my mind. I thought I’d become insane, and I couldn’t know what I was going to do next. Second, I had a terribly shamed and cornered and exposed feeling, like I had finally been caught. The game was up. I couldn’t hold it together any longer.

The day I quit drinking also wasn’t really the day I quit drinking. It took me weeks to get a string of days together. I’d make it a day, maybe go to an AA meeting, and like lighting tromp to a bar afterward. I was sick. Alcoholics have funny memories. Of course there are blackouts, and those simply are what they are. But alcoholics also tend to ‘forget’ how things happen, or when they happened, or how it felt. As I got sober, I found myself suddenly remembering more and more things that I had done, and was amazed that I’d forgotten. Those couple of weeks before sobriety I remember poorly. I know in a general way what happened, but I forget which day was which. I’ve forgotten, too, which drink was actually my last, because every drink (or drunk) was the last by that point. I wept a lot. I stopped answering my phone. Some of those days were mild; I had three or four drinks and went home. But there was another night I ended up in the middle of a gang fight at six in the morning, holding a bottle of gin in one hand and my high heels in another. Another I came to in a park nearby my house.

And there was the promise of suicide. I knew I couldn’t drink anymore without becoming a person unlivable; and I knew I couldn’t stop. It was a toss up. I’d try to get sober. If it didn’t work, I’d jump in front of the subway. This was a cool and rational decision.

On April 5, 2009, I walked into an AA meeting and had the guts to raise my hand as a newcomer. I was desperate and shameless by now; I didn’t care about embarrassment or fear; I was all in. I was still drunk from the night before. I stubbed my toe stepping across someone to get to my folding chair. I haven’t had a drink, since.

I am a binge drinker. I didn’t drink every day, but certainly did four or five times a week. There were times I didn’t get in trouble, walked home without incident, remembered the whole evening through. But I could never tell.