Anna

You were sober for 5 years, you know the tips. You know what to do. You simply need to choose to do it. You need to change your mind. Once you change your mind, you will know what to do.

Plath

This.
I'm glad that you were able to identify a trigger, and I completely agree with what was said above.
You made great progress when you noticed your patterns and your behavior. Now just try to do something else when you notice it starting to happen.

sg1970

Serenidad,

I was thinking about this the other day. I really struggled my first few months in AA. I think one reason was because I still had drinking on the table as an option. I was in AA going to lots of meetings and had a sponsor in name only. I was still very miserable and decided to give it a real go and work the steps. Not long after that the struggle ended. I do think the steps helped me immensely. But upon reflection I also think I finally accepted the fact that I would not and could not drink period. No matter what drinking was not an option. When I accepted that fact it killed any internal struggle I had over whether to drink or not. It also killed the majority of the fear of drinking. Don't get me wrong. The working all the steps and continuing to work them has had a major impact on my life. But that internal struggle has to be squashed. Keep working on it. I have been where you are and know the misery.

ArtFriend

Keep trying Serenidad. Just keep trying.

Nowsthetime

Serenidad: you posted. That's means something. You knew some here were going to give you tough love, and that's ok. Take the good and leave the bad. It's alright to hear it. You will again get tired of drinking and will quit. Keep a piece of paper on you that's says in your writing "not drinking today" or the reason why you quit, or something. When you have the craving look at it. I don't know... Don't drink! No matter what. Don't feel ashamed or anything like that. This isn't about us or our opinions. This is about you. Step away if you need to, but you know everyone here comes from a good place. Don't let your AV win, don't "cut your nose to spite yourself".

You are strong, don't forget it!

Carlotta

When I get very angry (which is thankfully quite rare), I make a conscious decision to pull the breaks and refuse to react and then disengage.
One thing which I have done is give myself time out meaning physically walk away from the situation to a quiet place and spend 10 minutes or so breathing deeply from the belly and focusing solely on the action of taking and exhaling those breaths.
At first, angry thoughts are running through my mind but as I concentrate on my breathing they get to be less and less until I am just here, breathing. If you do that, don't be surprised if you actually feel your brain literally cooling down.
Maybe next time your kids or husband really **** you off, instead of engaging and escalating to the point that your AV gets major ammunition just say as comely as you can:
we will discuss this matter later
then walk away to a quiet place (even a public bathroom will do in a crunch) and do a short mindfulness/breathing exercise.
If it was just something which got overblown let it go but if it something which needs addressing, you will be able to talk about rationally and maybe even come to a solution rather than get caught in the heat of the moment

FreeOwl

yes, that was a good move!! The 'telling on yourself'.... that helps, and getting ideas helps too...

I hope you saw that my response was my attempt to share ideas with you. For me, I had to get over the sense of abstracting my own choices from myself. So... I was trying to reflect that with a little 'tough love' offering.

But also and more importantly, I needed not just ideas but some actual coaching and in-person help to learn new responses. Often our habitual responses to things like you experienced are so ingrained in us that they actually bypass our decision-making 'higher brain' and we are acting on reptilian impulse that we've trained ourselves to. A good therapist can help us with tools like cognitive-behavioral therapy and other techniques to learn how to re-wire our responses and to recognize and respond differently to conditioned triggers.

I'm sure that without working on my own habitual responses to life with a therapist, I would have had a lot more trouble honoring my choice of sobriety.

you can do it!

thomas11

Hey Serenidad, sorry you slipped up and I know its frustrates you. Its clear in your posts. I'm no expert of the mind, but I wonder if subconsciously you are making up for lost time. You had 5 years of sobriety, and now are drinking again, and without even knowing it, you are gonna get those 5 years back. Just a random "out there" thought. If I remember correctly, it seems like your slips are due to external stimulus, something happens and you react to it by drinking. You know much better than myself, that your focus needs to be directed inward for your sobriety, and everything on the outside....just happens. No need to drink over it, maybe?

tomsteve

First things first:
Stop beating yourself up.
what I think is being pointed out is the solutions have been in responses to your past threads.
It would be nice,though to hear if you called your sponsor or others in recovery before you picked up. Did you come on here and ask for advise before picking up?
Did you pray?

SDH73

Well, since you're asking for specific ideas on this topic I've got a couple. May not be much help but I'll throw them out here anyway.

Maybe set a sober goal. A specific period of time during which you absolutely will not drink. Let's say...one month, 30 days. And STICK TO IT! If you've gotten into a cycle of quitting, then drinking, quitting again, drinking again, you NEED to break that cycle. As someone else posted earlier on this thread, if you stop and start enough times that in itself will become an ingrained pattern, a habit. So break the pattern. Believe me, I know it's hard. My first couple of weeks I had nights where I would stand by my front door, keys in hand, almost panicking because the liquor store was closing in 20 minutes. And I would pace between my living room and the front door, back and forth trying to fight back the urge to go pick up.
I had to fight through that a few times and it was difficult but I did it. That was a huge step forward for me and I'm much stronger for having been through it. It didn't mean everything after that was rainbows and lollipops, but it gave me a solid footing to stand on moving past those first few weeks.
So, yeah, break that freakin' cycle!

Something else I started doing was keeping a junk food stash. Some people here swear by ice cream, for me it's anything really delicious and/or sugary and generally bad for me. Not only did it help get me through some early urges but it made me feel kind of lousy, like a less sinister and aggressive version of being hungover. Dehydrated and gross, which was kind of a reminder of how I'd feel if I drank.

I also made exercising a priority. I didn't use it as a deterrent to drinking per se, but it gave me something else to focus on other than "not drinking."

strategery

When I first got sober, I was so used to numbing myself, I made myself fill in this blank: "I want to drink today because________". I would then think about the emotions behind this, what thoughts were going through my mind, and why I was feeling this way. By doing this, it gave me some perspective as to why I was having cravings and it helped me identify triggering thoughts and feelings. I still use this trick when I am having cravings, but am pretty familiar with what triggers me now to where it's not nearly the challenge it was in the beginning.

One thing that also helped me, was I had to stop myself from thinking certain thoughts. I would make gratitude lists and/or not allow myself to continue thinking certain thoughts since it would just fuel my AV. I would sometimes just interrupt myself mentally with, "stop" every time my thoughts went negative.

Lastly, do you have a plan for when you have cravings? I had seltzers, tea, went and worked out, went to a movie, went to bed, did anything I had to do to keep myself sober. If I was at my wits end as to what to do, I posted here and asked for help and always got lots of helpful responses.

You should think more about doing intensive outpatient. It helped you with getting those 5 years.

Debbie329

Your not at peace....why? Swirl that around in your mind. Find out why and then take action.

Dee74

Hi Serinidad.

There's a lot of good advice here and, for what it's worth, I disagree that it's been gratuitous or self serving.
If it's been repetitive it's because you're hearing from people who've made this recovery thing work.

When I was drinking, by the end everything as a trigger. That's not a joke either.

Alcohol was one one stop attempt to cope with all kinds of emotions and situations...even when it didn't work I went to it because I had nothing to take its place.

I had to take drinking off the table as a viable option.

It wasn't viable - it solved nothing, it bought more problems in its wake, and it was destroying me.

I needed to find other tools - and I needed to accept that in the interim things were going to get pretty uncomfortable.

That was very difficult for me because I'd managed to convince myself that I wasn't strong at all. I was weak and fragile and strong emotions could crush me.

Regardless of that self image I had to commit to not drinking again.

It was uncomfortable and it was painful - I remember screaming into my pillow and kicking walls and I'm not that kind of guy at all...

but I didn't drink, and I got through and every time I did, I got a little stronger and a little more confident in my own strength.

I don;t know what support system you need in order for you to resist the next craving and rediscover the real you - it could be AA or some other meeting based group like SMART or Lifering...it could be Rational Recovery or a faith based programme like Celebrate Recovery.

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...formation.html


It could be speaking honestly with your Dr or a Therapist. It might be a rehab programme, inpatient or outpatient.

It might be none of those things, or a combination of a few of them.

All I know is you have to do the footwork.

There's a lot of support here too - you could join the class of July..

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...ml#post5454829

.you could look at the recovery plan sticky post and start making your own tailor made recovery plan. There's also links to a reading list and tips on cravings in there too.

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...at-we-did.html

This is a great list too:
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...-recovery.html

The point of all this verbiage is...you have many many options beside that bottle.

look at using them Serenidad

D

Anna

And, Serenidad, have you looked at our Book List? There are so many helpful and inspirational books on this list:

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...rituality.html

MythOfSisyphus

There's some good advice here, Serenidad. You had five years where it "worked", what changed? Ultimately you need to grab the reins of what you can control. The 2nd, 3rd and 20th drink are out of your control but you can prevent the 1st one. Hang in there; the fact that you're here means a lot. It means you haven't given up.

NickOz21

I find many of those on these forums (and myself personally ) tend to use alcohol as a coping mechanism.

There are other tools and some of the suggestions made in this thread are very good ones.

It's absolutely normal to feel stress from confrontration. Though, as you've learned, alcohol cannot be a healthy coping strategy.

Find what works for you.

lunar

Hello Serenidad,

My two cents:

After years of many false starts and relapses,
I've decided to utilize the "R" of AVRT, as my primary tool.
Too often, I'd let the AV blind me with anger, euphoria, or
______________ (fill in the blank with whatever emotion you'd like).
Now, I simply RECOGNIZE it, rather than engage with it.

I've found that recognition end-runs the sniveling, cowardly AV from
pushing me off of the cliff. After a while, it pops up less frequently,
becoming weaker, as you become stronger and wiser to it's futile
attempts to destroy you.

Dee74

How are you doing today Serenidad ?

D

FreeOwl

Thinking of you, Serenidad!

I saw you tried to message me but my messages are full... But they're not full! Don't know what's wrong with the forum.

Anyway, I hope you're doing OK.

savarna

serenidad i love your honesty when you relapse. honesty will set you free. have you tried antabuse or campral to help you in the early days, counselling can help with anxiety and frustrations. Maybe start a sport or join a gym?