Originally Posted by
FiveTries 
Since drinking still sounds appealing its hard for me to say right now that I won't drink ever again. I tell myself that if I want to I can quit forever, since I've learned the tools. But that leaves the door open. I've said never ever ever many times and obviously not pulled it off. Those two ideas obviously don't match up well.
I would have to prove that I can quit forever by not drinking ever again. Ugh.
I can definitely focus on changing the expectations. That seems like the best thing right now. I was feeling good but now life has lost its color it seems.
I'm like...ok. what's next?
A whole bunch of stressful stuff I don't wanna do, with nothing to take the edge off. Lovely.
I want to keep pushing through to see what happens, so I'll try to just get through the now. Not drinking this past weekend is a definite win.
Yeah, I get it. That's what gets my AV going - the "ok, what's next" bit. Actually, it's more like that's a sign that the beast is stirring. At that point, there's no "Hey, let's drink!" thinking going on. It's more like restless, irritable, discontent - or some combination thereof. My AV is pretty clever - it tries to keep the beast activity on the QT because it knows I'm keeping an eye out.
What I needed to learn is that my inclination to respond to "what's next?" ("Let's fix everything! Now!") is a danger sign. That feeling was at the start of my last slide. Here I thought I was doing the right thing by deciding the next thing to do was to tackle my perceived weakness, but noooo - I was just priming myself to freak the dickins out. Quite some time ago, I had a little talk here with myself and realized that sometimes the best thing to do when I feel all out of sorts is... nothing. Live through it. What a concept, right? I'd be lyin if I said I didn't do it very gracefully, but I got more skilled with time. Except for two months ago - I just didn't realize the danger.
You don't have to prove you've quit forever.
You can just prove that you
never drink
now.
You're not drinking right now, are you?
See? You did it! And you can do it again.
For me, it's much more do-able that way.
Yes, absolutely not drinking over the weekend was a big win. You should feel proud of yourself for breaking through that barrier.
xo
O