ressurectJ

Hey sober recovery forums .its been a while hows everyone doing on there roads to recovery . well i just thought i'd share with you all .for a while ive been working on keeping track of the days that i don't drink Via marking days off on a calender .it worked not as great as i thought .i actually wound up back stepping a bit .( i knew relapses were going to happen at some point) Any who last night was one of them.I was so stressed at work we were hella busy and my boss when she gets stressed stresses everyone else out.i had to stay and extra hour .so i swung by the packie on the way home and went home and drank .like a fish ,Any who this morning idk what it was or where it came from but i had and idea just hit me .first i realized quitting cold turkey doesn't really work you are going to set yourself up for a relapse at first.

you have to ween yourself off of it over time .reduce the times you use and the days as well.this is what i did with smoking i haven't had a butt in almost 4 months nor care to .I thought today what i would do is make out like these sober cards and on the back of them i would write "i "my name" commited to being sober for said date .at the end of each day i would fill in the date .i would keep track of all the cards i racked up..the whole thing behind that for me is i will be taking a card each day taking it out with me to work /or just out or where ever i go .and no matter what .Having that card signifies my commitment to not pick up for that whole day .while i have that card in my pocession i can't drink .that card is my commitment to sobriety .i would have small goals of reaching 30 days .with the ultimate goal of 1,000 days .Just keeping track of my sober day's .i think will give me a sense of accomplishment .hopefully boosting my confidence up to a level where i can go fewer and fewer times without drinking .

i realize its important to focus on the days you manage to stay sober.focus on the positive as it were .before i was focusing on not drinking.instead of just focusing on all the times i managed to be sober .tell me what you all think of the idea i plan to put it into affect starting tomorrow .

Firehazard

Hi Ressurect,
I personally like the sober day card idea. Maybe writing more info than just you name can start you to monitor distorted thinking patterns and track your moods? The weening off idea did not work for me at all. In fact, as I look at my past attemts to control my drinking I have to laugh. I ended up drinking more than if I did not try to control my intake.

Congrats on the non smoking. I am at 20 days off the stuff and feel I am out of the woods now.

eJoshua

I don't think that would have worked for me. To be honest, although my active addiction was not fun at the end, the year and a half or so I spent alternating between quitting and "back stepping", as you call it, was the most miserable year of my life. Your theory works well for weaning off habits, but an addiction is a whole other thing.

What's keeping you from deciding to stop drinking? A life of moderation or "weaning off" sounds like pure torture; why put yourself through that?

DaveO

My opinion would to be to quit looking for excuses to drink. Only you can find a reason to drink, and blame it on something or someone else. Use the same method and find reasons to stay sober.

Get back on the wagon, bus, or whatever they call it nowadays, before you even get a chance to dust yourself off.

My opinion is cold turkey is the way to go.

Find a program that works if you cant make it on your own, and enjoy what sobriety brings. A chance at a new sober life style with unlimited benefits.

Remember a beer or an alcoholic beverage will not jump out and hold you down and make you drink it. Only you can make the choice to pick up the object and drink it.

You know what sobriety tastes like now get back up and keep going.

ressurectJ

firehazard what did you do to quit ?..what do you mean write more on the card??.im open to whatever suggestions..i'm going to try the weening .before i would start my drinking on a wednesday night and go to sunday Now i've managed just 3 days a week .and there not back to back to back ..

Dee74

personally J - weaning was like the death of a thousand cuts for me...I wasn't getting my fill but I wasn't breaking out of the cycle either.

I disagree that cold turkey is setting yourself up for a relapse...I think you're rationalising there...in my experience weening off makes a relapse far more likely.

I had to break with my past - when those stressful situations came, and they did - I had to make different choices about how to get through them - by getting through them sober, by leaning on the support I found here and not on the bottle, I learned a new skill.

If you're worried about withdrawal, see a Dr - its a far better way to go than weaning IMO

I know forever seems near impossible...but it's not - look around at the success stories here

I hope that you'll decide to make a clean and decisive break soon.

D.

ressurectJ

@ ejoshua .well the thing for me is this im finding it hard just to up and quit ..I was going ok for a while then idk what it is .i just picked up one day when out with a friend .then started back up with the drinking again..If you have a better way that is more affective im all ears

eJoshua

Your idea itself with the notecards isn't bad, I just think you could try it without the weaning part.

Have you tried AA, SMART, AVRT or any of the other recovery methods? Personally, I worked in a 12 step group and that worked great for me, but everyone's different.

Firehazard

Me I completely surrendered my life and will to GoD it got that bad yes! and I was sick of trying various ways on my own. Working the steps of Alcoholics anonymous definately removed my desire to drink.

As far as weening or periodic drinking I remember when I was able to do that.
It was never normal. Two bottles of wine in one hour before bed ain't normal then it got to be daily morning and night at the end. Alcoholism has been tagged by the medical profession as a progressive illness. It gets worse I can vouch for that.

At the heart of AA is the principle of abstinance. That is the only way for me. Attempting to drink every now and then is like trying to put out a fire with gasoline.

sugarbear1

If you aren't ready to quit, you aren't ready to quit.

Boleo

Initially, I had some success reducing the number of days that I drank each month. However, I found the more dry time I had between me and my last drink, the worse the relapse was when I did drink. It eventually got to the point that the DT's were getting farther apart but more life threatening when they did appear. I would have died if I had stayed with that plan.

BillyPilgrim

resurrect, for me it was stopping, I didnt think of marking off dates, I just looked at each day and was not going to drink that day, so I probably sort of had a virtual sober card in my pocket.
Dont have the first drink, that worked too. It is physically impossible the second, if you dont have the first, that is Billy's theory of sobriety

hypochondriac

Cold turkey doesn't work if all you do is just not drink. Have you looked into anything to help you? AVRT, AA, SMART? I tried to wean of and it was possible for a week max for me as it was keeping the addiction alive. I was surprised after I stopped how much effect drinking had on my thought patterns. Weaning of is for physical dependence but it won't help with the mental addiction. Good luck with whatever you decide to try x

instant

I did various things for a decade, before I was really ready. I guess in the process I realised just what I was up against, and I learnt the subtleties of rationalisation, urges and triggers etc I also learned that maintaining control was very hit and miss (with more emphasis on the miss)

In the end I had been aware for some years that I was addicted with everything that that entails despite working in a professional capacity.

I think there is no safe way to drink our way to sobriety.