Originally Posted by
forabetterlife 
There is a huge emptiness without alcohol, or the anticipation of alcohol, during a few hours of they day, that's for sure. It feels uncomfortable and sad. I just keep reminding myself that alcohol is holding me back from so much. And if i keep it up, not only will I never grow or find peace with myself or my life, but things will get worse. I have goals for myself, goals that cannot be achieved with alcohol in my life.
So, even when my addiction tells me that it's Christmas, and I'm on vacation, and I have had a tough year and I deserve it, and that it will only be one night, or just once a week- I stop. I think of WHY I'm doing this. And there are SO MANY reasons why.
I think we are all in agreement that it's ok to ramble here, at least I hope so. Sometimes we need to!
I really appreciated this forabetterlife. You captured my feelings this week. Christmas is a celebration in our family which means drinking. I went out for a xmas get together last night and although only 2 of the 6 were drinking, I found myself envious of them - until I crawled into bed with an herbal tea and realized that going to bed sober is now as good or even better than waking up sober!
But I fall into that very same trap of "I deserve it" which is so hard to break. I am working through that myself and the only thing that has helped is addressing my all-or-nothing approach. I work myself to the bone and then want to nurture myself - or go numb - which brings on the I deserve it argument. Instead I am trying the 50/50 approach (been reading The Art of Extreme Self-Care) so I am hoping that this will help with treating myself like a work horse and avoiding the consequential urge to shut down.
And yes I love all the rambles. Let's not call them ramblings - let's call them Brief Uninterrupted Moments of Shared Introspection! BUMOSI! Err that's a horrible acronym - but you know what I mean lol
