Thread: Begin Again
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Old 05-15-2013, 08:36 AM
  # 20 (permalink)  
Louise82
Faith and reason
 
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Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: London
Posts: 941
(Sorry about posting in this forum with this avatar, lol. Don't worry, I'm not going to say anything religious.)

Nonsensical, man, I can totally emphasize with feeling ambivalent towards sobriety. I think I read a thread in Newcomers' that termed it "addiction ambivalence" so I guess it's a thing. When I shared with a recovery friend that I didn't know if I wanted to stay sober, I thought she was shocked at first but then she admitted she felt the same, so I guess it's pretty common, in early recovery at least.

When I started thinking about why I felt so ambivalent, my AV jumped straight in and started telling me, "It's because you don't care what happens to you". I know now that that was my AV talking nonsense. I do care what happens to me and I know you care about what happens to you, Nons. Play the tape through to the end and think about what will happen to you if you don't regain the motivation to be sober.

I know "getting motivated" is easier said than done. It's not something you can just do, otherwise everyone in the world would have high motivation, all the time. I've come to accept that there will be times when I have addiction ambivalence and I know the most important thing to do is to stay away from that first drink, by any means necessary.

I find that simply reading and posting on SR helps me a lot of the time, so well done for posting here on your new day 1. If you just stay away from that first drink and keep using your recovery tools, I find the ambivalence passes in time. You have to get used to being more patient than your AV.
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