Tyler, Supercrew, LaFemme, Recycle; I think you guys hit the nail on the head when you spoke of changing thoughts and actions. I believe both our thought processes and our actions must change into our sober way of thinking. Sometimes the “beast” is within our own minds that keeps us continually thinking along the alcoholic mindset. Other times the things we do and the places we hang out destroy our will to continue our sobriety.
In my humble opinion, the thought processes that we allow to enter our “alcoholic” minds is the most damaging to our complete recovery. It keeps dragging us back to a place in time that we don’t want to be. It convinces us that all is well in that area because we are numb to feelings of responsibility, our family our jobs: the most important things in our lives. Breaking that thought process and destroying the “beast” that leads us to think that way is one of the greatest victories that we will encounter.
Changing things – habits, places we go – that lead us to a life of drunkenness can only be harmful. We all know this, so removing those habits are just a matter of our will. If you hit yourself in the head with a hammer, it hurts. The sensible scenario would be “stop hitting yourself in the head with the hammer”. That does not take a great deal of common sense or even will power. It’s just what we do to lessen the pain. The same thing is true with drinking. How many times do you drink that a good result occurs? In my experience – not very many. So it would seem to me, that the physical changes that need to be made are just a matter of common sense If you do something that hurts you – QUIT IT!
In 1972, I was a 2 to 3 pack smoker + marijuana. I woke up gagging and coughing every morning, I smoked all day and the last thing I did before I went to bed was smoke, and although when anybody told me I could not see the end result of all the smoking – In 1992, something very traumatic happened in my life and in order to remember and mark that incident I swore I would never smoke another cigarette. In 29 years, I have never again smoked a cigarette, although tempted on several occasions. As of now, smoking cigarettes does not even enter my conscious mind. I swore that day that I would never smoke another and have been successful in that endeavor for over 15 years.
If you think you can, or if you think you want to, there is nothing that stands between you and your addiction except your addictive mind set and realize please that that can be changed by training your mind not to think that way anymore, Sorry this has been a long post, but I seldom reveal my true feelings to people in general. If you are in my same situation, please understand that there is help for you in many of the programs that are mentioned on this site. SMART Recovery, AA are some that have been helpful to me, although I use many other programs to help keep me sober. If you don’t have a plan, you will fail. Please put something in place to help you. Love Lucke “Feel free to pm me anytime that I can be of any help to you.”