Six months ago , I began to wrestle with whether to even mention what's going on. What do I have to say ? ...that I missed 4 days without pressed shirts and things are getting desperate !?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Found SR early April in 2010, as a blackout drunk, got sober for nearly 3 years with some earlier , and longer stretches of sobriety, starting in 1988.
For me AVRT makes sense . Fits with a Secular Humanist worldview,
.....after almost 3 years sobriety, I hoped I'd stumbled on the Holy Grail of moderate drinking.
I have some undiagnosed periodic condition that causes a very high level of joint pain. Initially , I was convinced it was related to heavy metals , or diet, and later possibly advanced Lyme, ....since this has been going on for nearly 24 years. Sometimes , it really brings me way , ..way down. I medicated for years.
Anyway, .....I started germinating this idea; since I'd become more aware of identifying "beast" behavior, not only in my past thinking , but also in the posts here at SR; ....it seemed rational to employ that skill "while I had a few"
All this in Dec 2012
naturally , it worked. I'd drink 2 or three beers, .....and nothing.
I knew early on , it was probably going to be like dancing on the head of a needle , with my history.
By the second time I had a couple, the first bit of BS my "beast" came up with was: "this is working beautifully, but you'll probably need to "practice" some , (.....as in frequency) , to prove this experiment is
really doable.
I thought , ....I'm not falling for that Shiite !?!
My drinking progressed a bit, ......still taking a few days off here and there , a week , sometimes almost a month maybe. Who needs to count days anyway ?
Of course, a little buzz from 4-6 beers don't touch pain, but it was a distraction , at best.
Year later, cycling workouts (along with my optimism) dwindled to nothing, and before I knew it, the self loathing started growing, along with my weight.
I'll admit it ; I'm scared of pharma's. It's not that I don't think they're great for some people, .... I was just convinced it would be a cinch for a Dr . to diagnose my condition,.
2010 was the first time I'd had healthcare ....(thru my job)
Dr visits , lab visits, more Dr visits , more lab work , ...nothing. .
Anyway ( I can get so scattered !?!) ....I'd never experienced any real ambivalence about quitting in the past. For whatever (many ?) reasons , I only quit after things were dire. I come from a rough background where a sort of masochism comes natural.
This time , I
finally understand how damn hard it is to quit
before sinking into a desperate hellish drinking induced madness.
Finally ,
finally got a foothold, a couple weeks ago.
Ambivalence sucks.