Sudz No More

I have begun to accept the fact that I will never fully stop the horrid cravings I get every day. It is like getting used to having a nervous tic that makes your head or body jerk. You learn to look past it even though it sometimes distracts you.

Someone in a post last week said F Alcohol. Sorry, I couldn't find the post or remember who wrote it but I wanted to say thank you. I have been using that line every day, it just got me home without stopping and I must mutter it to myself 15 or more times a day. That is how often I get the recurring nightmare thoughts of having a beer. Somewhere in the area of one time every waking hour with flurries of them coming at hotspot times of the day.

Still staying sober and I plan to. Screw Alcohol.

shelly009

YA!! Thats a good way to think about it.. or I just think that its scary. Alcohol and the effects of it on my life scare me so I stay away from it like a bad horror film.

suki44883

If you loved peanuts but had an allergy to them, would you still have a hard time saying no if someone offered you a handful?

Sudz No More

I wish it were that easy. I think the memory of the mood altering effects of alcohol are what keep my mind racing.

keithj

That's not necessarily true, Sudz. There are many, including myself, that are every bit as alcoholic as you may be, that no longer experience any kind of cravings whatsoever, and haven't done so for many years.

MeAndOnlyMe

This ^

1lastchance

man I hope you are right! at the moment I am feeling like sudz in everyway
I can smell it and taste it and even feel a little buzz just thinking about it.
its wrong I know and I pray it go's away soon I just keep saying NO!

Sudz No More

Thanks for the insight everyone, hopefully I will be rid of the cravings some day. For now, my disgust with the very thought of allowing my addiction to win is keeping me from picking up.

keithj

Hate to tell you, but I didn't get to that position of neutrality by saying NO to booze. I got there by a spiritual awakening as the result of AA's 12 Steps.

The only thing saying NO to booze ever got me was drunk. And believe me, I tried that for years.

Your mileage may vary, though.

Taking5

I don't know if you are using AA, but I was taught in AA to surrender, not fight. You win by not engaging your addiction at all. Admit you are defeated by alcohol. Powerless is the word used in the first step but if you read the book this is explained in more detail.

We surrender to win. It is one of many paradoxes of AA, but it worked for me.

hendershot

I sometimes think recovery works somewhat like the stages of grief. In broad strokes: Denial, Anger, Acceptance.

Sounds like you are in the anger stage, which is awesome, you know you have a problem and are angry. I am not one of those AAers that believes that all anger is negative. Anger about your alcoholism can be channeled into recovery. Still, anger about booze can't keep you sober. Acceptance and, like dgillz says, surrender are necessary for that. At least that's how it worked for me.

Timebuster

Denial is like the guard dog standing at the front door of someone’s alcoholism. Few of us like to admit we need help with anything, much less something like the helplessness of alcohol. Whether it's alcohol narcotics, cocaine, deep down inside us we all feel that needing help means we're weak, or stupid, or we have some type of handicap. And obviously, society's attitude about alcoholism has a lot to do with that. Most people still feel that alcoholism is about weak character, poor choices, and less than adequate "moral fiber." And the truth is, it really has very little to do with any of that. Alcoholism is the result of a complex mix of factors.

Another thing that's unusual about alcoholism is that everyone who has the problem thinks that they and their circumstances are totally unique and that no one understands them. It almost seems like that's one of the first things that alcohol does to you - it isolates you psychologically. It gives you the attitude that "you're different," "you're unique," and "what applies to all those other people doesn't apply to you."

But it's more than a mere attitude. The alcoholic phenomenon actually begins to "re-wire" your thinking so you gradually begin to feel a very pressing and deep need to defend and protect it. It reminds you that it began as your friend - the "vehicle" that took you from a bad place to a good place emotionally. And ultimately, it deludes you into thinking that it's still doing that - it's still the only way to get to "the good place" psychologically, despite the fact that it doesn't feel as good as it once did, and in truth, it never will again.

And unfortunately, until we break through denial - until we have that small "MOMENT OF CLARITY" that so many people in recovery recall happening to them, the wall of denial and "terminal uniqueness" stays up and remains on guard. You can give someone a million good reasons for going to get help, meetings, addiction counseling and suggestion given on these boards and more often than not, denial will put up a solid brick wall that no amount of logic and rational thought can seem to penetrate.

So if denial about your drinking is still a part of the mind-set that you're trying to use to address your alcoholism, you're in a classic "no win" situation. It's like trying to fix your reading glasses and get that little screw in the hinge. And it wouldn't be that hard to do if you were wearing your glasses, but your glasses are what you're trying to fix!

Stop thinking, your thinking is what got you here, it's flawed. If you want to continue to live the life you have now, through self will, and if you continue to find you are restless, irritable and discontent without alcohol in your system, and the wheels in your head start turning faster and faster and it gets louder and louder, well, you can answer the rest yourself.

The saying is, "If you keep doing what you were doing, you are going to keep getting what you were getting, and I will guarantee you keep going down this road of belligerent denial what you are going to get is drunk.

I mean no disrespect, but how much can it hurt to actually listen to people who know how to get and stay sober?

Take care Sudz, I wish you well.
TB

DayTrader

/.cosign.\


9 months of a court ordered alcohol tether helped but without the spiritual aspects of AA working in my life... there's NO DOUBT in my mind I would have found a hundred reasons to drink by now.

Sudz No More

Thanks TB, I understand your thoughts. I can say this much, I know I am an Alcoholic so there is nothing left to deny. Stopping thinking about it, yes that is the key for me. I am trying to do just that, not let thoughts of having beer enter my mind. Problem is, the thoughts come on their own and I am left to push them away.

Rest assured, I feel well on the path to recovery. It has been six months now since I have done any major imbibing. Yes, I admit to a recent slip of several nights of several beers but I have righted that wrong and am back on the right path.

The thoughts of beer still persist though and I lately just shrug them away with a mutter of "screw alcohol"

So many here are saying that this whole white flag surrender has to happen. I will believe in this theory if I get back to where my habit was before December 2009. For now, I am on the right path. I just need to work on breaking my ocd for beer.