Keeping a journal
 

Do any of you keep journals? If so what do you usually write in them (without being too specific). I find that during my bouts of sobriety, all I write about are the withdrawal symptoms and how I'm dealing with them, then later all the things I did on a particular day and how I felt, then usually just ideas that I have for the future...until the next binge in which I don't write for some time.
Then, on the next round of sobriety, I look over some of the old notes and wind up ripping them up and throwing them away and usually don't write anything for the first week or two of sobriety.

I would like to work on keeping something permanent, but don't have any ideas on how to structure it so it isn't the same old redundant stuff.

Any suggestions? ideas? tips?

Cheers
DR

I love writing in my journal - it can be really therapeutic when I can't get to my therapist. I often write about exactly what I'm feeling at that moment - largely because I've been drinking and numbing feelings for so many years, it can be hard for me to identify the feeling I'm actually feeling, so I write all the things I can think of about what I feel. Sometimes I take it to therapy with me when something particularly important comes up. Other times, I write about what I'm afraid of or try to write about, for example, what particular fear or anxiety is preventing me from doing a specific thing. And sometimes it's just a very short "here's what I did today" kind of thing. All depends on my mood and what's going through my head, I guess!
I have a time set aside each day - right before bed - to write. Only about 20 minutes because I do tend to start repeating myself if I write for too long...but that's ok, too, sometimes.

Great thread! I am trying to keep up a daily journal because I find it calms me. I try not to worry much about how much I write or how well I write. I also try to note the following in all my entries:

Date and sober day#
How I'm feeling today/yesterday
What I am grateful for today
Anything I realized about my drinking
Why I want to stay sober
Events/activities that have occurred over the past day

I also sometimes write about my dreams, which I believe often give me insight into what my subconscious is struggling with. Often I find myself writing down fears/anxieties, then later reporting on how the thing I was worried about went (slowly I'm seeing that I shouldn't be so anxious as things are rarely as bad as I fear they will be.)

I was advised to write a journal of sorts...

Did you know that you have about 50000 thoughts each day and some ridiculously high figure like 99% plus of them are repeated thoughts...in other words we think the same thing day in and day out...i dont know whether that is impressive or whether that we humans are really stupid lol the same thoughts everyday?!

Anyways back on topic, this is not very good for an alcoholic, thinking the same stuff everyday and having done so for x years is going to take a bit of change...so along with the steps of AA etc i was also advised to keep a journal, that way when the thoughts start on a specific subject a quick flick in the journal will tell you the outcome of the potential hours long of obsessing over the thought and coming to exactly the same conclusion that you did yesterday...

I admit i dd try to keep a journal and lasted 4 days before i got bored but i think it is a good thing to do personally...im just not going to do it myself hehe

Maybe use it to get outside yourself... Observe people. Don't analyze, just write what you see, what they do. Do that for awhile. Observe situations, places... whatever, don't analyze, just write what you see.

Then, later, go back What do you see? What don't you see? What should you see, but don't?

That's what I do, well, that what I try to do, I kept a journal religiously for a while, but have fallen off lately.

I described the office of the medical director at the treatment center I went to. I also described his manner and his questions.... Looking at it now, it's fascinating to see what it was I did see, and didn't... but do now.

Mark

I should write in my journal more... It allows for self reflection and insight as to how others treat you. The solitary time focusing on my feelings is good too, I think. Like many here (I suspect), my feelings were ignored, negated and ridiculed for most of my life... Self examination can be a healthy experience through keeping a journal, IMHO. I usually start with what happened in my day, how I feel about it and if it branches out from there then so goes it! Food for thought.

I keep one as well but I don't write in it as much as I think I should / want to. I find that each time I'm in a "spin" one common characteristic is that I haven't been writing. When I'm doing it successfully, it's really more of a dumping ground for all the thoughts in my head. Sure a lot of them look silly a week or two later but that's part of the point......to get on paper the things that are so bothersome TODAY.

I really want to keep my journal on my pc but I've learned that even though (maybe BECAUSE) I can type faster than I can write, hand-writing it on paper with a pen is more productive. Maybe I need the somewhat slower-dump that pen and paper provides (vs typing) I don't know but, once again, the way I WANT to do something isn't as good for me in the long run.

Also, like I handle all the 4th steps I do, I don't believe throwing them away is a good thing. If I did them on my pc, I'd be more inclined to delete files than I am to rip them out of a notebook. I've been taught there is some value in going back over what I've written but sometimes I don't recognize the value for some time (maybe weeks, months or even years).

If just writing (+ whatever else you're doing) isn't keeping you from that next binge (or at least your EXPERIENCE is that it hasn't) it's definitely time to make some changes. For me, that meant trying my best to quit fighting what I was hearing/learning in AA and, even though I didn't want to, trying to do more of what the folks who were successful in recovering from their addictions did. And believe-you-me, the biggie for me was to start working on NOT depending only upon myself to solve all my problems. I was sick of continually ending up being painted into a corner. I had to learn to start putting some trust into a God of my own understanding (* that I didn't really even understand at all - ha) and that started turning the ship around.

I blog on another recovery site, and I use it like a journal. It helps me to think of an audience when I write, even if I'm totally anonymous in the process. It makes me be more succinct and clear.

I do tend to write in spurts, and it's nothing like a daily basis. Some days I just don't have much to say. One GREAT reward is going back, and seeing my VERY first entry after I realized I was an alcoholic... wow, that seems like light years away. Things like that are I think valuable tools for anyone.

Yeah. Thanks for this. Although everyone gave some good suggestions, I was looking to change the line-up/format of what I was writing and this was the kind of thing I was looking for, especially the part about the anxieties/fears. I don't think I ever focused on that when I was writing.

Cheers
DR

I think blog or twitter on line is the one of the easiest way to start journal. On line journal is very easy and you can protect it by password on some sites (twitter, facebook, tumblr). I have such accounts and write something on them. Other than twitter I can not write often so far.

Detroit, I think for some people when we start or return to journal writing, we want to write out how life is to be lived. I have a small hard-cover book that was given to me by an ex-friend (partly girlfriend...which is the reason for the ex-). I'd never touched it since about 1995/1996, which is when my alcoholism also started to "mature" in a significant way. I started writing in it a couple of months after I quit drinking, and the initial entries were like an "introduction" to how life needed to be lived. The act of writing things down somehow makes pronouncements of some kind for us.

I haven't gone back to review the entries a lot, but I know I have already written things that are "not worthy of being etched on a stone."

I wouldn't trash entries. If you don't want to look at them when you don't like them, then don't. Wait for the curiosity to return and you might see things differently later. It's the act of writing that is the demonstration of living we need sometimes more than the content of the words we put down. When we do like something we said, we're grateful!

I don't do it every day (at least not yet), and I notice 2 weeks go by and then sometimes only 2 days. But it almost feels like I am nurturing something when I do. There doesn't have to be something ingenious about it, it just feels like it has to be done to keep a good thing going.

Thanks, Toronoto. That's kind of about the second part of what I was looking for. I don't consistently write in the journal, when I have started one, I feel like there is some unwritten law of the universe that "Thou must write in thine journal everyday"

There is a site called: Twelve Step Journaling that has a lot of private and public tools for journaling.

I do journal on almost a daily basis. Most of the time, it is directly resulted from what topic I heard in a meeting or on an online meeting. It kick starts my thoughts and gives me direction. I blog on blogger and no one in my non-internet life knows about it. It makes it safe for me to say what I need/want to say without fear of someone finding out my emotions as I work through them.

I forgot to say that I did journal withdrawl symptoms, including a letter to myself about why I never wanted to go through it again. I have re read it many times in the past few months in down moments. It helps keep me from taking that first drink.

welcome yogiart :)

D

Hi Detroit,

Everyone is different and if you feel like putting your feelings into a daily, weekly, monthly, etc journal than do it. Don't make it your homework, though, when you have a feeling to sort out--like the planets are misaligned and it's wreaking havoc with you brain...that would be a good time.

Do it when you need to SEE your thoughts.

God, I made a tape on the night before I stopped drinking---still listen to it . Although I have yet to figure out WTH I was trying to say.

Just listening to that keeps me sober, LOL!

Stay Strong,
TrixM

One of the things that I do with my journal is write positive affirmations to myself each time I write in it. Things like I can cope with whatever happens today, I enjoy living alcohol and smoke free, etc. I want remember to say those positive things to myself every day, and using the journal and actually writing them out makes them more real to me. I also write down anything that I want to get done, because once I write down it feels more like I need to do it.