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Old 03-15-2014, 06:00 PM
  # 37 (permalink)  
miyako
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Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: Aurora, CO
Posts: 79
This is/was my toolbox:

1) Self-efficacy --belief in MYSELF and my ability to stop drinking and stay stopped. I have several statements of belief in this that I often repeat to myself when in need:

A) I am powerful over alcohol; I have the power to refuse to drink.
B) I have done remarkable things that I did not think I could do (repeat list of remarkable things). If I can do these things then I can quit drinking.
C) My father was a chain smoker. One day he just quit and never ever smoked another cigarette again, no drugs, no help, not even cutting back. He quit. If he could do that with cigarettes, I can do that with alcohol.

2) Beast-Talk: "No, you CANNOT have a glass of wine because you wouldn't have a glass. You would have the whole bottle!" et cetera.

3) Daily heavy breathing, sweating till I'm soaked aerobic exercise.

4) Drinking plenty of water.

5) Vitamin supplements and a reasonably good diet, but permission to eat what I want in lieu of DRINKING.

6) Sleep. Get plenty of it. More, if you want.

7) Say no to stress. When I am already stressed, I take a break. I don't keep pushing.

8) Music. I started and then built from there a huge playlist of songs that inspire me, energize me, speak to various parts of me that are important. I have another kind of music that I use to calm and soothe me.

9) Habit and structure. The majority of my day, most days, is plotted out. I used to hate that. Even when I was drinking I was goal-oriented and got most of those things done anyways, just not always at the same times. Now I like the habit/structure thing. It walls off other things. It's safe, it's predictable and it gives me a sense of accomplishment that I can follow a pattern no matter what else is going on in my life to stress me out. It reduces the number of opportunities I have to sit down and feel sorry for myself and get tempted to drink.

10) Alternatives to drinking: take a hot bath, read a novel, go to bed, eat something you love, meditation, take a walk, take an ibuprofen (for headache related to stress or PAWS).

11) I've just added weekly meetings at the local Lifering. I find that getting sober and staying sober are two different things. Getting sober is a more or less heroic accomplishment. Staying sober feels dull and dragging to me and I need to go outside myself for support to do that. I still get too many temptations to drink and the Beast voice has gotten louder again now that I've "proved" to myself that I can be sober. I need other people now.

Finally there is the two step Program:

Stop drinking.
STAY stopped.

If none of my tools are working I just hang onto Step Two until the urge to drink passes. I had a whole day last weekend where I just holed up in a dark room in my jammies and watched stupid movies and felt like s--t. That's what I did. But I didn't DRINK.
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