Once More Unto The Breach
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Join Date: Sep 2011
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Glad you're back, feeling better, reaching out to friends (even if non-verbally), getting exercise and practicing mindfulness. That's a great foundation for sobriety.
I really think you're on your way this time. Keep it up!
I really think you're on your way this time. Keep it up!
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Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 426
found a bottle under the kitchen sink tonite. just home from a 6 mile run following a long day at work, i grabbed for the dishwasher soap and came up with a half a fifth i've no recollection of buying, drinking, or stashing. it was like a punch in the gut. i froze. my body lit up and my mind went nuts - just one quick taste, just a tiny shot of relief, i can do this, just the rest of this one bottle tonite and tomorrow it's back to business, it's absurd to waste the good stuff, and you gotta give yourself a break and you woulda drunk it anyhow if you knew it was here. i stood there for a few moments, literally sweating thru the inner conflict, then dumped it. it didn't feel triumphant. it felt sad and definitive. i suppose it doesn't always feel awesome to do what you know you need to tho, and now, an hour later, i am very relieved to be sober.
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Originally Posted by NobleCause 
it didn't feel triumphant. it felt sad and definitive. i suppose it doesn't always feel awesome to do what you know you need to tho, and now, an hour later, i am very relieved to be sober.
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Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Ohio
Posts: 304
Hello NobleCause.
Reclaim your peace of mind and joy if you haven't already.You are going to get over this alcohol thing. Your way to brilliant. Please get on with it, if you haven't.
As a musician reading through all these post. I am working on a song that's starting to really shape up. I used much of what you said, and a some of Dee74. I'm still working
but liking what's shaping up and so are my band mates.
The Calm Rhythm of a simple life is unsettling. Quiet routine, tedious by the unbearable anxiety.
Waiting for the other shoe to drop."Is this all there is?"
Finding myself sipping soda at a fine restaurant with 8 friends,good folks, who believe in me.
The angst and hollowness of our conversation, proof of the lie I am living.
My body cannot sustain the amount of drink my mind dictates.
Dragging myself back home, my only comfort is thinking this doesn't have to happen again.
Knowing my relapse is as certain as the sun rising in the sky
Search my heart trying to find something, for day 2 blues, full of want.
Cravings rolling in and out like the waves, without peace in my mind.
Hobbling through swank hotels dripping in cocktails.
Staying one step ahead of the locomotive behind me.
Forgetting to look ahead to where I am headed.
Brakes being harder and harder to apply.
With a death glaze, incapable of caring about anything more than a trap door
and a bottle in the next room.
Who comes up with this NobleCause other than your average genius.
Who I think look for ways to make things more difficult and challenging.
Reclaim your peace of mind and joy if you haven't already.You are going to get over this alcohol thing. Your way to brilliant. Please get on with it, if you haven't.
As a musician reading through all these post. I am working on a song that's starting to really shape up. I used much of what you said, and a some of Dee74. I'm still working
but liking what's shaping up and so are my band mates.
The Calm Rhythm of a simple life is unsettling. Quiet routine, tedious by the unbearable anxiety.
Waiting for the other shoe to drop."Is this all there is?"
Finding myself sipping soda at a fine restaurant with 8 friends,good folks, who believe in me.
The angst and hollowness of our conversation, proof of the lie I am living.
My body cannot sustain the amount of drink my mind dictates.
Dragging myself back home, my only comfort is thinking this doesn't have to happen again.
Knowing my relapse is as certain as the sun rising in the sky
Search my heart trying to find something, for day 2 blues, full of want.
Cravings rolling in and out like the waves, without peace in my mind.
Hobbling through swank hotels dripping in cocktails.
Staying one step ahead of the locomotive behind me.
Forgetting to look ahead to where I am headed.
Brakes being harder and harder to apply.
With a death glaze, incapable of caring about anything more than a trap door
and a bottle in the next room.
Who comes up with this NobleCause other than your average genius.
Who I think look for ways to make things more difficult and challenging.
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 426
thanks for the kind words ollie909, but i can assure you that i'm far from brilliant. if i were actually brilliant, i'd have figured out a way thru life wherein my contributions outweighed my errors and my existence wasn't based around mitigating the destruction a 20+ year habit of obliterating myself, and sometimes those around me, in a hopeless and stubborn quest to achieve security and peace thru ever greater quantities of hard drugs and alcohol. brilliant is far from an accurate descriptor of my life - the ability i have to summarize the experience of my addiction is borne simply of familiarity. i have been doing this for too long.
rough couple of days. still sober. still a whole lot to fix.
rough couple of days. still sober. still a whole lot to fix.
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Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: San Diego
Posts: 4,451
You are fixing the one thing that matters most.
A lot of people don't stop until they are much older than you. A lot of people don't stop, period. Remember, there's more to Harry's line:
It's do or die. And you are doing it. Try to focus on that. Take pride in what you are achieving today, simply by staying sober.
A lot of people don't stop until they are much older than you. A lot of people don't stop, period. Remember, there's more to Harry's line:
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
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Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 3,677
Once more unto the breach....
Thanks, ReadyAndAble, for quoting the title of this thread once again.
"Once more unto the breach, dear friends..." Such a famous line from Henry V, the play by Shakespeare.
It is so representative of what addiction stands for, in terms of what those of us who choose recovery are up against. In the Shakespearean play, King V and his forces are battling France on territory once lost, and he urges his men ("dear friends") to blockade a break in the wall of the city, resisting the French forces at any cost, clogging up the breach with their dead bodies if necessary. England wins and the French King surrenders.
Sometimes the "forces" of addiction do feel that strong, and sometimes we do have to muster up our "dear friends" in a concerted effort to pound it back.
This is a very masculine concept, and even though I am female I do like this analogy. My "forces" are currently strong, but I am also on territory once lost.
I'm going to watch my "wall" carefully.
NobleCause, and everyone, I hope you are all well today.
FT
"Once more unto the breach, dear friends..." Such a famous line from Henry V, the play by Shakespeare.
It is so representative of what addiction stands for, in terms of what those of us who choose recovery are up against. In the Shakespearean play, King V and his forces are battling France on territory once lost, and he urges his men ("dear friends") to blockade a break in the wall of the city, resisting the French forces at any cost, clogging up the breach with their dead bodies if necessary. England wins and the French King surrenders.
Sometimes the "forces" of addiction do feel that strong, and sometimes we do have to muster up our "dear friends" in a concerted effort to pound it back.
This is a very masculine concept, and even though I am female I do like this analogy. My "forces" are currently strong, but I am also on territory once lost.
I'm going to watch my "wall" carefully.
NobleCause, and everyone, I hope you are all well today.
FT
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Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 426
Originally Posted by failedtaper
It is so representative of what addiction stands for, in terms of what those of us who choose recovery are up against. In the Shakespearean play, King V and his forces are battling France on territory once lost, and he urges his men ("dear friends") to blockade a break in the wall of the city, resisting the French forces at any cost, clogging up the breach with their dead bodies if necessary. England wins and the French King surrenders.
Sometimes the "forces" of addiction do feel that strong, and sometimes we do have to muster up our "dear friends" in a concerted effort to pound it back.
This is a very masculine concept, and even though I am female I do like this analogy. My "forces" are currently strong, but I am also on territory once lost.
Sometimes the "forces" of addiction do feel that strong, and sometimes we do have to muster up our "dear friends" in a concerted effort to pound it back.
This is a very masculine concept, and even though I am female I do like this analogy. My "forces" are currently strong, but I am also on territory once lost.
I'm about 10 days sober, and I'm still the underdog in this battle. It's been an awkward challenge lately - I am physically untethered from the bottle barring sporadic cravings, but still operating with circuits that reflexively turn every situation into a suggestion to have a drink. I get that it takes time for new patterns to take root, but it's a frustrating inner dialogue to keep up nonetheless, and it keeps me circling in places I probably shouldn't. A couple of times in the past couple of days I've put on my shoes and jacket to shoot over to the liquor store only to take them off minutes later after admitting defeat to my better judgement. This weekend will be my first one out and about since I quit, I am oddly curious to see how this goes.
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Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: San Diego
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Yeah, that's the addictive voice. AVRT tools really helped me see how to end that inner debate by refusing to engage in it. That lying little voice wants to drink all the time, I know I can't ever drink again—there's really nothing to discuss. Sounds silly, but it works for me. I know there's an active AVRT thread in SR's secular connections forums if you want to check it out.
Anyway, congrats on 10 days. Glad to know you're pushing on. I'm a peacenik myself, but we all have our Agincourts.
Anyway, congrats on 10 days. Glad to know you're pushing on. I'm a peacenik myself, but we all have our Agincourts.
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Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 3,677
Originally Posted by NobleCause
.... it's a frustrating inner dialogue to keep up nonetheless, and it keeps me circling in places I probably shouldn't. A couple of times in the past couple of days I've put on my shoes and jacket to shoot over to the liquor store only to take them off minutes later after admitting defeat to my better judgement. This weekend will be my first one out and about since I quit, I am oddly curious to see how this goes.
Your analogy of "circling in places I probably shouldn't" is reminiscent to me of the patterns of acquired behavior that I, too, subconsciously seek. There is a seemingly "ordered" pattern to our lives, and indeed that is true of repetitive behavior. Some of it works -- get up, brush your teeth, shower..., and even the order people put on their socks and shoes doesn't feel right if they mix it around. So, besides the not getting high, quitting alcohol leaves "holes" in our repetitive behaviors, so not even the routine things feel right.
Maybe this will make things worse, but try an experiment and "mix things around" with your daily routine over the weekend. Avoid the repetition that would have led to the coat-on-go-to-car-drive-to-liquor-store chain of activity. Throw something entirely different into your day to disrupt the conditioned response of drinking behavior, which it is, at least in part.
I've done this with my quitting of alcohol, and later on, opiates. ReadyAndAble is spot on with the reference to AVRT. I did that method without even knowing it was a method. I think it is especially applicable for those of us who have already quit our DOC and need a way to stay there.
FT
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Location: Bethlehem, PA.
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Do you ever consider what goes on with your body and mind when you make the decision to throw in the towel? You're trying to convince yourself that the one thing you've found that provides instant release and relief can no longer be a part of your life. Face it, in normal day to day life there is little that comes close to the instant gratification that drugs and alcohol provide. That being the case, is it any wonder why the first year or two can be an epic battle to slay those demons?
It's interesting that some claim to have a "spiritual awakening" of sorts and things just fall into place and everything is peaches and cream. I kind of wonder though if that's the exception and not the rule, my first few years without the alcohol or drugs were anything but peaches and cream. I actually had to relearn how to once again find joy in the simple things in life.
I guess what I'm getting at is that it may not be easy but it is possible to reclaim the inner peace and happiness that are an inherent part of all of us. Just don't get discouraged if you find it to be an uphill battle because for many of us that's exactly what it is. Stay strong NC!
It's interesting that some claim to have a "spiritual awakening" of sorts and things just fall into place and everything is peaches and cream. I kind of wonder though if that's the exception and not the rule, my first few years without the alcohol or drugs were anything but peaches and cream. I actually had to relearn how to once again find joy in the simple things in life.
I guess what I'm getting at is that it may not be easy but it is possible to reclaim the inner peace and happiness that are an inherent part of all of us. Just don't get discouraged if you find it to be an uphill battle because for many of us that's exactly what it is. Stay strong NC!
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Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 3,677
No "spiritual awakening" here.
For me, the balance began tipping in favor of not drinking as my life became more and more limited by alcohol. Eventually alcohol became the fulcrum of my existence and I began to see it as a problem and not a release.
That's not to say that it wasn't difficult in the first months after I quit, which has been many years ago now. I had to learn the same lesson with opiates almost a year ago. The recent sense of freedom I feel from the pull of opiate use is awesome.
Few things worth doing are without effort. For me, that has certainly been the case with "my" substances.
FT
For me, the balance began tipping in favor of not drinking as my life became more and more limited by alcohol. Eventually alcohol became the fulcrum of my existence and I began to see it as a problem and not a release.
That's not to say that it wasn't difficult in the first months after I quit, which has been many years ago now. I had to learn the same lesson with opiates almost a year ago. The recent sense of freedom I feel from the pull of opiate use is awesome.
Few things worth doing are without effort. For me, that has certainly been the case with "my" substances.
FT
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had a half a glass of wine last night at a party, a work thing. not sure entirely why i felt the need to test it, but after a couple of hours of holding strong, the distance between "me", awkward, stiff, & unrelaxed, and "them", backslapping, warm, & laughing, got to me and i accepted a glass of red. a few sips (gulps) in, i thought about where this was headed - if i was going to chase this buzz, i'd clearly need to kick it up. so i started plotting. eyeballing the scotch selection, top shelf stuff begging for a pour, i recognized that in a matter of minutes my motivation had changed from one of consumption for the sake of inclusion to consumption for the sake of consumption. same old rabbit hole. i put down my glass, half full, and said my goodbyes.
without minimizing the fact that i consumed alcohol when it was my intent and goal not to, i see decent value to the exercise of last night. i wouldn't qualify it as a 'slip' or 'relapse', more like just a scuff mark compliments of the growing pains of sobriety... good evidence that i need to be a bit more prepared for these sorts of situations, and a bit more accepting of the awkwardness of early sobriety. 'winging it' ain't my strong suit, it seems.
without minimizing the fact that i consumed alcohol when it was my intent and goal not to, i see decent value to the exercise of last night. i wouldn't qualify it as a 'slip' or 'relapse', more like just a scuff mark compliments of the growing pains of sobriety... good evidence that i need to be a bit more prepared for these sorts of situations, and a bit more accepting of the awkwardness of early sobriety. 'winging it' ain't my strong suit, it seems.
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NC, the social anxiety you described above is quite common. My mind always associated socializing so much with alcohol that I couldn't fathom one without the other. My brain called out for the warm glow and relaxed feeling that always followed the first few drinks. Those connections at a subconscious level are formed through repetition, your mind sees social event = anxiety = sedation = alcohol. Take the alcohol out of the equation and your brain knows that something is amiss. Keep in mind that just as the connections were learned through repetition they will also be unlearned through the repitition of taking alcohol out of the equation. The desire will fade over time, it always does.
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I had a dream last night I was drinking from a flask. One of the most rewarding things about accepting that alcohol is a problem in my life has been the unveiling of other, deeper problems. It's hard to describe, as if nearly 2 weeks ago the act of self-admission cracked the shell of me -- the ego I thought was so necessary in order to face society, this stressful emulation that has held me back from accepting who I am. Have you enjoyed this as well? This feeling of breaking in a good way? This evening, I was surrounded by drinkers, and I savored my sobriety, their drunkenness, and I felt so happy that I have perhaps made a real change, have sustained this lasting impression of having begun to change even as several days ago it led to a serious emotional blunder at work, and moment to moment I can almost phsyically feel my dopamine levels moderate. What I mean to say is don't go back because there is so much here. Here lies the mystery, the pursuit. All that other stuff -- all that is already known totally, hellishly. Stay here.
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