Fusion

Yes! I was 'triggered' to drink by everything, every emotion, every feeling, until such point as I drank all day, every day, so pretty hardcore. To crawl out of that dark place, I had to commit to never drinking again (or NOW - nod to Obladi). So in the early days, whatever that took to ignore cravings....all the tools, or should I say distractions, have been posted previously, and they help.

But what I found helped more, longterm, once out of the physical withdrawal stage, was accepting that it was immoral for me to drink, it turned me into someone who hated herself, who did things against her moral code, which were wrong, for me. I had to accept that I could never become the 'normal-social' drinker I was decades ago.

For me, it wasn't about 'willpower' (which neuroscience says is a depleting power - especially when tired and stressed): It was about WON'T POWER.

I won't kick my dog, I won't kick my cat, I won't steal;, I won't etc., to include I WON'T drink. And that WON'T is now subsumed into my cells, so it finally, finally, became easier, and the 'tools' weren't needed because the cravings - my AV - lessened, and became easily demisable as another of the 70,000 thoughts that pass through a human beings head each day.

And my outside life, beyond my control is a zillion times worse than when I stopped drinking. But I still won't drink, and the occasional AV thoughts of a drink, are noted and ignored, and I remain calm and collected in my own presence. Meditation has assisted me immensely in reaching this state of equanimity.

To summarise, for me, stopping drinking had to be an inside job, because if I made it an outside job, what if that support dropped away? What then? Probably drink and die. It's all about locus of control for me., locus centric it had to be. I couldn't drink if I was forced by an outside agent, but that state took decades and a false start. Won't power, for me. Having said that, support is wonderful and very valued in the early stages of learning sobriety and equanimity.