Reprogramming habits, patterns, complacency?
After 8 months of sobriety I took the holidays off, and I am back with a renewed commitment to make it work this time. Initially I blamed old thinking and coping skills to deal with the chaos and stress in my life. But I think there is a bigger issue to deal with.
Throughout my drinking career I unconsciously arranged my life around my drinking. Work schedules, migrating to less demanding jobs, activities with the family, everything. Nothing was going to interfere with drinking. So big surprise I suppose, I quit drinking and find I can do my job with ½ my brain, I have no outside life to speak of, I have few activities that I do regularly with family, I don't have any friends outside of work. My life is unmanageable with or without alcohol in its current form, but it seemed to make sense drinking.
In my case my life didn't auto-magically rearrange itself after I removed alcohol. If I want to be the ambitious, productive, fit, active, social, etc. person I used to be before alcohol, I have to develop totally different habits, and a totally different outlook on life.. The longer I stayed sober the more obvious this became.
I have tried step work, and therapy, various self help programs. My immediate reaction to any attempt to change it is anxiety, resistance. I have made some progress with attempts to get back in shape.
It seems like step work, therapy, etc. is focused on reasons for our depression, anxiety, why we drank. Poor upbringing, people that wronged us, traumatic events, etc. But I don't have anything like that to remove from the equation. There is some remorse about wasting part of my life in such a manner, but I can move beyond that. I drank for many years and it gradually blossomed into a habit that took control, literally. I can remove alcohol, I did it for 8 months. Now I need to figure out how to develop a life style that works without it, and not by replacing one obsession with another.
I guess I am just looking for some feedback on how to redevelop some of the attributes that alcohol stole.
LC