Day 7

After getting our vital signs checked at 5:15am, I slowly pull myself out of bed and get ready for the morning meeting.

The 6:30am meeting today is about the 4th agreement of the 4 agreements:

1. Be impeccable with your word;
2. Don't take anything personally;
3. Don't make assumptions;
4. Do your best.

It is a very good discussion and one that really hits home for me.  I tend to be hard on myself at times, which tends to lead to stress and frustration  Both of which have been triggers for me to start drinking.   This agreement tells us that once we are sober: if we go through a day and we do our best, then we need to to bed at night satisfied, because we did the best we can.  If you didn't hit the mark you were after or if you didn't quite get everything done you were supposed to, thanks OK.  You did your best.   Go to sleep satisfied and happy that you did your best.

After the morning classes, I make my way back to my room to get ready for my sleepy.  I'm on the schedule for a sleepy around 10am.   I'd want to go over my affirmations and also write another question to ask myself while under sedation.  

Around 10:15am, my pager goes off and I make my way down to the nurses station.  I'm met the councilor who will be conducting my interview under sedation.  She leads me back to the interview room and I lay down in the sedation chair and the anesthesiologist hooks up the IV and gives the nurse the thumbs up.  I try as hard as I can to maintain consciousness as long as possible, but in a blink of an eye I wake up to find myself in the recovery room.  Man those are some strong drugs.  When you wake up from the sleepys you almost always have this great feeling.  Today, I feel content and happy with myself (I'm sure it is the positive affirmations they plant in your head while you are under sedation).

After I wake up for a few minutes the nurse transfers me over to a wheelchair and takes me back to my room, where a tray of breakfast is waiting for me.  FOOD, finally.  I am starving after fasting all 

I eat my breakfast and a cup of joe, which really helps the fog clear from the sedation.

I have a few hours on my hands with not much to do, so I break out my Treatment Binder and start working on some homework.  They really give you alot of tools here to help in recovery and I want to take full advantage of them.

Around 2pm, I'm called down for my counselling meeting to go over my sedation questions and talk about my recovery.   Today, I'm meeting with the councilor Sam.  I've heard so many good things about Sam, so I'm excited for my appointment.

At my appointment, Sam tells me he is a graduate of Schick Shadel and has been working here for over 14 years.  In the first few years, he worked with the patients in Detox and he said he used to feel nauseous working with them at time from the smell of alcohol on them.  This really goes to show you how well the alcohol aversion works here.

During my appointment, we go over the questions asked me under sedation.  I'm happy to hear that I report my aversion level to alcohol as "Strong."  This is how I feel about it when I think of alcohol now, so the confirmation that my sub-conscious mind thinks the same way is re-assuring.

The remaining questions are somewhat personal, so I won't detail them here.  However, I will say that the questions asked me are starting to really get to the core of my addiction, which is really good.  I need to find out what is really driving my addictive behavior, so that I can work on address the root of the problem.

Sam gives me few additional homework assignments to work on before our next session.  One of which is setting up my short term schedule and goals for when I leave the Schick Shadel program.

Other than the nightly meeting, this pretty much wrapped up