Icehouse, your comment is most welcome, I will try and have that conversation tonight when he gets home from work. Nothing seems to motivate him right now, he is well and truly down in the dumps and his depression seems at an all time low. I'm going to suggest he try yoga classes over in the next suburb run by a lady who has overcome much adversity.

It may also help to tell him it won't always be this way. After you build some sober muscle, those urges become less and less frequent, and less and less profound. It does get easier. A lot easier.

Also, those urges don't last as long as one might think. Even though it feels like they last ages, they actually last minutes, and if you can either ride them out (and be amazed at how short lived they actually are) or keep your mind busy with something totally different, you can successfully tackle them.

Good luck, the season is not a great time for the newly sober, but it can be done. Also, maybe you can find some inspiration in this article: http://www.soberrecovery.com/recover...-the-holidays/

Sober muscle....lol....that's a good one. Stealing that.

Not been a good week at all. Alcohol not on DB mind at all, if anything he is angry. He has had the week from hell with extensive dental work done in the chair without sedation and still needs more in early January. Has got 20 stitches and his face is swollen like 2 golf balls shoved in his cheeks. And, we got the results of his blood tests. LF is high and he has elevated lipase indicative of something going on with the pancreas. Ultrasound booked for Wednesday. These are the symptoms he has and they are increasingly getting worse since he stopped drinking, they were present in the last months of drinking but masked by the consumption. Extreme fatigue, belching, pain radiates through just above solar plexus, reflux and terrible taste, fever, night sweats, irritable, dark urine, his eyes are not jaundiced but nor are they clear, his skin isn't yellow but greyish colour and big panda black rings under his eyes and nausea. Very fearful of what the results will be.

Sorry to hear that PJ. Let's hope the medical results will bring some good news or at least no bad news. For what it is worth, the year after I stopped drinking was the most painful ever on a physical level. Alcohol is many things but sadly also a great pain killer. So once you get sober for a while you start to feel the pain of the ailments with a vengeance - one of the stumbling blocks of sobriety. For me it took 9 months to even be able to walk again, and things like gout - something I never had when still drinking - popped up when I was newly sober. Energy levels were zero. I went to a great number of tests and scans (could it be hemachromatosis? Lyme? etc. etc.) to find out what was wrong with me, all to no avail.

Things cleared up after about 9 months of sobriety, at the same time as I started to follow a healthy diet (in my case Zone - as documented in the PN forum), but even that may have been a coincidence.

All this just to say that it's possible things may still turn for the better, and that it takes time to heal the damage the years (or decades) of drinking has done. You were right to remark that drinking masked the symptoms.

Pam,
I can't imagine having all that dental work without meds during or after. There are SO many nerves in the mouth area, the pain, on top of what he is already dealing with. I'd be angry too. My pain doc always said to me, whenever I am in high pain or a high anxiety situation that I cannot control at the moment, to keep repeating the Lords Prayer, over and over and over. (if you are Christian, and the Lord's Prayer is second nature and means something to you). It has always worked for me. When I do MRI's, I am terrified, and I say the LP the entire time.

If not that, anything he knows by rote that is soothing or distracting.

Pam, can he take any herbs that are soothing like valerian root? Or chamomile tea? I know it is a nit compared to before but at least it is something.

Is he allowed to take anti depressants?
If not, I find S-ame works quite well.

Did the rehab place give him any direction for what to do when the cravings come, or did he get a buddy? If not, maybe can you ask at your Alanon group how your hubby could get a buddy going through the same thing?

Thinking of you both. What a difficult time with all the festivities around Christmas.

Prayers and hugs, D.

Stopped the Antabuse a week ago, has not yet had the scan results from his GP but told by the radiologist no growths but very fatty liver and the liver is a wonderful thing it can repair itself. No mention from her on the pancreas. I always thought they were not allowed to say anything at All? Anyway it was enough for DB to try the old chestnut, held up with work will be a little late. Home and a hug and an old familiar smell. I check the car and find a water bottle filled instead with straight vodka. I ask have you been drinking, NO. So I emptied the water bottle and replaced it with water. Will see the GP next week, hope he hears enough to get back to building sober muscle again.

Oh no....

That scene is all too familiar to me.

I can't say for sure how many days he has but I do know DB is conscious of the need to find and build his sober muscle again. It could be day 5, day 3 or even be day 1. And tomorrow NYE it could be day 0. The facial hair growth has put in an appearance again, same as last time he contemplated and began his sober journey. It came off last time after 10 days or so, maybe it helps when he looks in the mirror, maybe the itch becomes so unbearable its stronger than the urge and it gives him courage, I just don't know. But for now, he is home, unkempt yes, but clean and home from work each night around the usual expected home time and he is safe. I can be and am grateful for that. I'm sure this won't be the first lapse and I was warned repeatedly to expect it, so no surprises there, and no real devastating disappointment. It happened, time to move forward with tried and tested approach with the resources and support already in place. No need to reinvent the wheel. Sincere gratitude to those who read and comment on these posts. You all face these times and more but still reach out. Thank you.

What's the harm blah blah blah says the very physically ill alcoholic.

Even though stopped Antabuse well over 3 weeks ago he had a terrible flushing reaction to 2 beers (that I know of, I suspect more earlier before I got home from work as he "popped into the pub to place a bet" and says he didn't have 1 (lol probably true he more likely had 3 but truthfully said he didn't have 1)

TBH I was /am too tired to care. Next thing he suggests we go out for Mexican dinner which we did and on arrival States I'm having a beer, then orders a 2nd and then wanted a margarita and I at that stage I said No, we are finished eating lets go home, on the way the usual dribble... I'm the party spoiler, I'm the one who says no. I said it shouldn't be me at all to say no, say no yourself, you are the alcoholic, don't ask me, but deep down you ask me as you want me to say no, that then justifies you being rebellious and having one to spite me.

Anyway by then he looked very ill, it clearly was time to leave so the margarita went by the wayside. I find it hard to believe it's remnants of Antabuse, he stopped it 3 weeks ago, skulled the vodka last week and drank wine Christmas night, no flushing then. I think it's his liver or pancreas screaming out whoa dude, you're hurting us.... Sober today though only through me accompanying him to the gym, scuppered his plans for gym and then the bar. Work tomorrow, maybe he can start building his 1 day at a time again.