(This post was adapted from a entry I just posted on my blog. It fits the format of many posts I see regarding people's progress with TSM. If there is a problem with reposting blog posts here please let me know and I will not do it again.)

My drinking ticked up to 22 drinks this week because of Memorial Day and a party I went to on Saturday. I definitely drank more than I should have that night. I did not do anything regretful or embarrassing but I woke up in the middle of the night with a terrible headache and nausea. I have not thrown up from drinking in many years but that night I felt like it was a distinct possibility. Luckily (?) it did not happen. I took an ibuprofen, drank a seltzer and was able to get back to sleep eventually. When I woke up I felt better but in no way refreshed.

I really hate the feeling of being hung over. I am sure nobody likes it but for me it just sucks on all levels. Physically it is painful and I have no energy to do anything. Intellectually I know I have done something to injure myself and my thinking is muddled. Emotionally, I feel depressed and ashamed. And spiritually, when I am hung over I am drained of all sense of higher purpose.

But in another sense, that night I also felt relieved. When I was not focused on the immediacy of the headache and nausea I experienced relief that I am 12 weeks into TSM and I am reasonably confident that my days of being hung over will become less and less frequent as time goes on.

To experience a hang over without the hope of a cure is a completely different experience. There is a hopelessness to it. There is the sense that I will keep experiencing this self-inflicted painful experience over and over again forever and that I have no control over it. However, to experience a hang over with the hope of a cure that comes with TSM is a little bit liberating. It reaffirms my decision to put this life behind me and it reassures me that I have made the right decision.

I smiled when I read this Deuce! Not at your having a bad hangover - but from your thinking it all through - sounds really hopeful to me!

Hugs, Maggie

Yes, excellent headspace, Deuce!

Sounds like you are on the right track there Deuce!

The state of hangover was my normal condition for many many years. My hangover was really withdrawal is what it was. It was that constant punishment, the sickness, that drives one to the cure. Of course if I weent over the top from a night of partying then it would also come with physical punishment of head ache and all that .

Yuck!

I can hardly believe when I look back on it now that I tolerated 9 to 10 hours a day of hangover only to then get that first drink, the best one, the cure, and start the whole cycle over again.

I think you will find that you experience it less and less. Honestly I have not had one hangover since I started TSM over a year ago. Well, perhaps a slight slight one on only few occasions. But these post TSM hangovers are different. They are not withdrawal. They don't nag me to drink and when I finally start to feel better I'm left free.

Thank you very much for the words of support. I have found that support from others is a key component to this process. I tend to want to define, quantify and conceptualize how this all fits into the process. Yet at the same time I realize that this process is not so formulaic (although it is partly). Anyway thank you!

putting hangovers in their proper place is a huge part of TSM. sounds like you're on your way. good luck!

Hang overs are such a waste of time and life really. The fact that they are self inflicted makes them doubly bad. The fact that an addiction makes the self infliction uncontrollable (to a certain extent) makes them even worse. It's like a bully taking your own arm and hitting you with it and saying, "Stop hitting yourself!"