Do you have plans for after?

We are taking a trip back to my husband's family in Canada for a week -- also going to go hiking around Lake Louise. End of this month.

We are also doing two weeks in Morocco in October with a private tour guide.

I mostly ate a big salad with poppy seed dressing to celebrate getting out.

It's been over a month and I still occasionally wake up with a start at night, wondering if I remembered to check.

This will probably sound really horrible and get me totally flamed for even saying it, but i will might go out for a nice dinner and order a glass of wine. The caveat is that it is extremely unlikely that i would even drink it because i don't even like the stuff and have never been a drinker to begin with. The dinner out (at least for any reason related to this garbage probably won't happen either, it's just a way for me to mentally think about addressing this experience with a rude hand gesture and that amuses me....just a little.

What i can say that I will do for sure is as follows:

1: never darken the door of any 12-step meeting ever again. While i respect the fact that those have been a life saving tool for many people and that is wonderful, for me it has been nothing but a source of stress, annoyance and repeated picking of the scab of a wound that i have made so much progress in trying to heal, no thanks to this program and it's associated sewage.

2: take the reams of paper that the last 3 1/2 years have and the next 2 will (nothing about this is trustworthy so like the day in nursing school that we were taught "if it isn't documented, it didn't happen") I've kept every scrap of paper from pee test receipts to reports to tax records) generate and burn it like a mortgage. My life will no longer be mortgaged to these people.

And finally 3: i will move on and never look back, except in the offices of my therapists which is where my issues should have been handled all along and where i did not need some uneducated, narrow-minded "program" that has sold itself out to the god of money to tell me to do.

How's all that for a Sunday manifesto?.....from one day counter to another..... 764 left out of 1825

First off I'm moving out of this godawful state. I'll move to a bigger trauma ER and eventually do flight nursing, maybe go get my CRNA, idk. I'm sure this will offend someone but I'll be getting ******* wasted, I'm talking black out drunk. I've never been much of a drinker but I've spent time with friends this last year where they all drank and I always felt left out. Alcohol was never the problem. I also plan to write an anonymous letter telling the committee and program coordinator what I really think of them and their ideals.

Nathan and catsmeow, I want to drink too!! I never drank heavily before but I've really missed it since it's been off limits! I want to try the red wines in Italy, the beer in Ireland, have a glass of champagne at the wedding I'm attending this fall, have some brandy and honey with my tea in the winter. I can do without it, but like Nathan said, I also feel left out when I attend social functions and everyone else has a glass of wine or a beer. I don't think that makes me an alcoholic, I just enjoy it. If I wasn't in monitoring, I'd probably skip the wine at dinner 90% of the time, but knowing I CAN'T have it is what makes me want it!

I even feel left out when I can't dip the host in the wine at church. I seriously doubt that something that small would make a P test positive for alcohol but this stuff has us so paranoid that such a thing could happen. Honestly, when practicing my faith, shouldn't i be thinking of things OTHER than IPN? I look forward to the day when I can do that and not have to worry about it.

And you can bet your sweet ass you will never hear me utter the words, "Our Lord, who art in Heaven..." while holding hands with a sweaty fellow who hasn't had a bath since the Sermon on the Mount. 416 left of 1065.

Excellent! Congratulations! Very pleased to hear this.

We are taking a trip back to my husband's family in Canada for a week -- also going to go hiking around Lake Louise. End of this month.

We are also doing two weeks in Morocco in October with a private tour guide.

I mostly ate a big salad with poppy seed dressing to celebrate getting out.

It's been over a month and I still occasionally wake up with a start at night, wondering if I remembered to check.

The little things matter. For me, I had to fight the program to find out what really happened with the allegedly positive urine alcohol and allegedly positive EtG (which suddenly turned out to be negative when I pushed the issue with the program director, over the caseworker's head), which was the hold up to my completing the program satisfactorily. It felt so weird when it was suddenly over, and took me a while to really relax.

By "relax" I mean not have to think of every potential exposure to this or that every day. Not having to read the ingredients on everything and wonder if it would cause a positive. Not having to justify everything I do to somebody. Not having to check in every day, not having to come up with money for the test.

Not having to constantly worry.

Alcohol wasn't my problem either.

I have had poppy seed muffins, Bullit Rye brownies, and used skin care products with things in them I'd never used while in monitoring. I can also use supplements with things in them that I was afraid to use in monitoring. My husband can cook with wine marinade again.

The first thing I had when I had the Successful Completion letter in hand? Original Sin Apple Cider.

It wasn't even the drinking for me. It was the constant worry about the ingredients in everything. The second guessing. And, at the end, it was the stalling, the bs, and having to wait and wait. In the end I won, but I didn't like someone assuming that I broke the contract when I didn't, and to find out that the caseworker didn't even know how to read the darned results.

I am grateful, every day, that I don't have to do this.

I am not back at a nursing job. I'm turned off to returning completely. I run a home aromatherapy oil business.

You should definitely be able to practice your faith without thoughts of IPN! File for early release. *hug*

I even feel left out when I can't dip the host in the wine at church. I seriously doubt that something that small would make a P test positive for alcohol but this stuff has us so paranoid that such a thing could happen. Honestly, when practicing my faith, shouldn't i be thinking of things OTHER than IPN? I look forward to the day when I can do that and not have to worry about it.

I'm just ready for a cold beer. LOL . (Never had issues with alcohol).