I've got to a point where I can 'moderate', yet moderation itself isn't doing me good.
Last weekend I was completely sober, and I was doing a lot of research as to next steps in my career. I had a restful weekend, and I still overslept a bit and stayed up later then I wanted, but I felt good Monday. I felt way more positive about my life.
Fast forward to this weekend, I had three drinks on Friday night with this girl I've been dating, and two drinks on Saturday night at my family house where I go every few weeks. Along side the drinks, my diet wasn't great (it does seem to be a perpetual cycle of not feeling good about myself when drinking, and eating junk food).
I feel awful at the moment. Like I've hit rock bottom somehow. I've got awful hay fever already, a cold I'm dealing with, and a low mood from my choices over the weekend. I am reminded that sobriety is really my 'calling' in life.
I've made my mind up that I don't want to do AA. But I need to find something, someway to help me. In general I've moved away from drinking by playing sports on Friday nights, and spending time with my religious community on Saturday afternoons, and focusing more on hobbies and self development. And that's mostly been working.
But it's insidious how it can sneak up on me, for example I have been injured recently and that has meant stopping my Friday night sport, and as soon as it stops, it can be much harder resist peer pressure. I even have family pressure to drink alcohol. I feel like if I was to stop and 'own' it, then it would be easier. But because I haven't 'officially' gone sober, but just got too 'busy' to drink, eventually it catches up with me.
Given my job is very high pressure, and I am in a junior position where I'm under a lot of pressure to deliver, coming into work tired, hungover and looking awful is not something I can pull off, nor want to. I'm in the wrong profession, I'm trying to escape, and sobriety seems like it could be the ladder to pull me out, where as alcohol is keeping me stuck and I feel like I make some momentum on a sober weekend and then my efforts are reversed the following weekend.
I'd consider hypnotherapy as I stopped smoking almost a 1yr and a half ago without any problems, and I think It works well for me, so I'm wondering whether I could give that a shot.
I'm tired of trying to moderate to be honest, **** moderation. Time to put myself first. I don't want to moderate, I want to quit that toxic crap and be able to make the most out of my life.