Originally Posted by
failedtaper Hi TU,
Awhile back you told me that my "cold duck method" of quitting alcohol was something akin to "shifting".
Here's the way it worked, for those who didn't see what I had said about how I quit. I used to drink a couple of bottles of cold duck every night after work. I'd buy one bottle on the way home with the intent to drink one, then go back out and get the other one with my tail between my legs, when I couldn't stop at the one.
One day, I bought my bottle on the way home, but I'd been trying to quit drinking for years, and I'd especially been thinking about trying to quit again for the prior few days. So when I got home, instead of opening the bottle instantly, I put it in the fridge. I told myself I could have it at any time I pleased. Then I had dinner, and that night I left the bottle alone.
I left the bottle in the fridge where I could see it right away when I opened the door, and every night thereafter I'd look at the bottle and not open it. I'd eat dinner and go back and look at it. Every night, my plan was to drink it after I ate IF I couldn't tolerate not drinking that night, but I promised myself to ask myself if I REALLY wanted it before drinking it. The days wore on, and the bottle stayed put. After a few weeks, the plan to drink after dinner dissolved away. After a few months, I didn't deliberately go look at the bottle continually any more, but I knew it was there.
Sometime after a year of the bottle being in the fridge, it disappeared, but I can't remember who gave it way or threw it away. I couldn't bring myself to pour it out, but I no longer used the excuse of "how can you waste a perfectly good bottle of cold duck" to drink it.
That was over 20 years ago. I've had more recent failings of short duration than the booze (which was 15+ years), and I did not risk this method for my self-recovery from oxycodone. The oxycodone was a bigger hook than alcohol for me, so I set up a 100% no-access situation with it.
I think perhaps now I could put myself in the position of having oxycodone around, but there would be no reason to do that. I am exposed to schedule drugs in my profession, so I suppose I am "practicing" a little in that way, because I never feel the temptation to use in my professional life.
FT
About eleven years ago to this day I had reached 21 days nicotine free. The entire time I had a half a pack of cigarettes there at my disposal. I had decided that I was going to not smoke, or drink for 21 days and I figured that having them there would actually work to my advantage being it would diffuse any argument in my head about whether I had better go pick up a pack before it was too late at night (back then I had no 24 hr store near me).
Of course back then I knew nothing of AVRT but I was simply planning on how to beat the AV. I knew the conversation in my head would go something like:
AV: You know if you dont go to the store now they will be closed and then you will suffer badly if you change your mind and decide you need to smoke.
Me: But then I might give in. I shouldnt go.
This childish insane discussion would go on in my head at times in the past for hours on end when I had tried to quit and it would really tick me off thus resulting in me giving in so as to not hear it every night. And then once I was going through the trouble of going out and buying a pack of cigs I would then complete the break down and smoke them of course. So I cut the AV discussion all off back then and kept an open pack near by. No conversation about buying a pack, no conversation about opening the pack because it was all done already.
It worked for me at the time. My big mistake back then though was that I only planned to quit for 21 days.
That was eleven years ago to the day today. The experience is helping me today. I realize that it is these insane conversations that I must deal with and I already have tools to shut down the AV. Some people are telling me to stay away from smoking circles but I have ignored them up to this point. I am not changing behaviors that I liked. I still go around smokers at work and at meetings because I am not going to play this game of having to punish myself by changing behavior if I do not feel the need to at all. I enjoy going outside at work and I enjoy feeling free to talk with whom I choose and that may require standing near smokers, if I dont like the smell (which I dont now) then I try to stand away a little from it, that is all.