alcoquit

It's been 20 days and I want to have a drink very badly. This anxiety is killing me, I'm not able to work properly all I want to do is have a drink.
Here is my addictive voice:
"What's life without drinking, you can control it. The ER incident is just one incident because you were stupid to have too many shots, you can drink in a controlled way. Remember those days in childhood when you threw up just by drinking soda. You learned how to drink soda, you're just a greedy ******* who wants more of anything that is tasty. You ate too much, you drank soda too much when you were little and now it's drink. You learned how to eat properly and lost 20 pounds in last two months, you learned about not drinking too much of soda didn't you ? You can learn how to drink in a controlled way too. How will you socialize with friends, have fun ? What's life without fun ? You're afraid you will die because of alcohol ? What are the odds, you might as well die in a car accident. You love alcohol, not like others. How will you live without it for the rest of the life. Oh I know you want to be one of those people who don't enjoy their life. Moreover, you're not even an alcoholic, it was an accident. Everybody drinks look at person1, person2,person3 (all my drinking friends)".

Agghhh....How do I beat this voice...

AlcoholicDream

Its safe to say we all have this voice, some call it a personification of your dark desires, some call it mans subconscious self destructive behavior through his own desires, some call it the beast or the devil, whatever it is, it's very real.

Sadly, this voice is going to accompany us for the rest of our life... It's like we opened pandoras box. The only thing we can do is fight, don't let the voice become you, isolate it and start trying to win back lost territory in your mind step by step.

I've only been sober 3 days so I'm struggling every minute, the easiest way the voice gets us is with the "social anxiety" part, weren't we just so funny and social when we were drinking? Of course, but an active drunken social life requires alcohol, more and more and more and more and as you said, ER and death await us.

Scary stuff.

ReadyAndAble

I'd suggest analyzing this comment:

Do you? I'd say you don't want a drink, otherwise you would have had one about 19 or 20 days ago. The fact you've kept on struggling this long against the idea tells me that the last thing you want is to return to drinking. Check out the AVRT threads in Secular Connections if you want info on how to better identify and distance yourself from those urges. Some of those techniques made things considerably easier for me, to the point where it stopped feeling like a struggle at all.

Whatever you do, keep moving forward. It will pass!

Gottalife

What is it about 21 days? I remember my first attempt, just going to about two meetings a week and not committing to the process, but I managed three weeks sobriety, then drank. I came back to the next Sunday. I couldn't see how I would ever get three weeks up again. That's 21 whole days, a very long time to go without a drink. They told me one day at a time. That was 32 years ago and I ain't had a drink since. Of course it wasn't quite that simple, I had to do a lot of work and make my sobriety my number one priority. I went to lots of meetings, took the steps and followed other suggestions. But it did work and it can work for you too. All I needed to make a start was honesty, open mindednes and willingness. I never did manage to beat that "voice" you talk about, instead I had it removed.

alcoquit

The voice says:
"Dying isn't bad. Everybody dies. People go into army, you don't think there is a risk in it. And you're a coward for a drink ? Get a grip and go for controlled drinking. If you do like this you're suffering, this is not a cure, control drinking is a cure. This is shutting yourself out and never curing a phobia. If you are a binge eater, will you stop eating or will you learn how to control your eating ? "

I guess I need some answers. Is it a fact that alcoholics can *never* drink in a controlled way ? How many of you are into stressful work. I'm a programmer and things can get lonely and stressful quite a lot. The voice uses the same clever logics I would use in so many things...agghhhhh

least

Talk back to the voice! Tell it to STFU! I used to talk to myself when I was craving a drink. It does get better with time. The longer you're sober, the dimmer those voices become. I rarely hear them now, only a whisper sometimes that's easy to ignore. Keep on keepin' on. Keep reminding yourself why you want to be sober.

NYCDoglvr

Great topic! I have several ways of keeping the "voooices" in check:

1. Get busy, go for a fast walk, or go running. This diverts your attention away from your "disease".
2. Call another alcoholic or go to an AA meeting; I leave it there, it doesn't follow me home.
3. Say: "Thank you for sharing (disease, mother, whatever), now get the f*ck out of here" Turn on TV, get a book, get out of house.
4. It's only today I don't drink. Reel my mind back to the present and set reasonable goals.
5. Don't go anywhere where liquor is served (for the first few months). Stay away from drinking buddies. These things can trigger a drink urge. Again, it's only while it's tough.

6. I don't have to drink. Repeat that over and over. I can choose to drink or not drink but I do not have to drink.

soberlicious

The voice will say anything and everything, take every angle, convince, plead, cajole, debate...will stop at nothing because it wants what it wants. Rather than see it as evil, I just see it as it's "doing it's job" so to speak. It's job is to get drunk/high, but I'm not interested in that and I'm the one who decides, so a conversation with that voice is over before it even begins. Separation is key...it's not YOU that wants to drink. As RAA said, AVRT outlines a specific way of dealing with the AV. Maybe you will find it helpful. Best to you. Hang in there. It's challenging in the beginning, but you can do this.

Firehazard

Outsmart it by starting a recovery journal. Begining with a list of every instance in your life that makes you think you can not control your drinking or when it has gotten you in trouble or lead you into danger.

Whenever your disease drinking brain wants another drink pull out the journal and reference to see if it is a good idea.

CONGRATULATIONS on 20 DAYS

Terminally Unique

I had discussion about this with soberlicious before. The addictive voice "borrows" from your intelligence, and to a large extent, is a reflection of your personality. If you are a largely logical person, it will use logic, and if you respond more to emotion, it will appeal to emotion. Similarly, it draws from your existing knowledge base. If you speak only English, for example, your AV will use only English, whereas my AV, since I am bilingual, is also bilingual.

thisisme

Engage the voice.
Do not try to reason with but treat it as the lying piece of *&^%^ it is.
After loosing many arguments brutally, the voice will begin to fade.
Best.

MemphisBlues

What does the beast say about trying an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting?

kanamit

The Beast just loves AA. In fact, all Beasts love all recovery groups of all kinds.

The only way to put your addiction in its place is to make a plan to never use alcohol or other drugs again. When you go to meetings you congregate with others who have failed to permanently leave their addictive substances behind. The treatment industry, including AA, teaches that relapses are an expected part of recovery. So to your Beast, the idea of meeting up with people who tell you you probably will drink or use again is quite a mouth-watering notion.

For more information Google "Where's the nearest meeting?". (With or without quotes should be fine)

tomsteve

there is one who has all power.that one is God. may you find Him now!

kanamit

I think you posted in the wrong forum. This is about addiction.

Gottalife

[QUOTE=kanamit;3387221]The Beast just loves AA. In fact, all Beasts love all recovery groups of all kinds.

The treatment industry, including AA, teaches that relapses are an expected part of recovery. So to your Beast, the idea of meeting up with people who tell you you probably will drink or use again is quite a mouth-watering notion.

For more information Google "Where's the nearest meeting?". (With or without quotes should be fine)[/QUOTE

Allow me to correct some errors.
AA is not part of any "industry", (if it was there would be some individual making money out of it) it is concerned soley with sobriety, abstinance from alcohol through the teaching and practice of the 12 steps.

The AA program as laid out in the Big Book does not teach that relapse is part of recovery. Sobriety is recovery.

The book was written by 100 men and women who had recovered from alcoholism with the specific purpose of showing others precisely how they recovered. A few years later 150,000 had recovered and some statisics became available which showed of those who came to AA and really tried, 50 % recovered at once, a further 25% after some relapses. The rest showed some improvement.

Program as practiced in some parts of the fellowship may differ from the book, but in every meeting I have been in the emphasis is always on staying away from the fatal first drink. It is known that relapses are dangerous and not everyone gets another chance. Recovered members will do all they can to help a newcomer see the seriousness of their situation.

If a relapse happens, recovered members will try and help the newcomer to use that experience to see the true nature of their situation - ie they can never drink safely again.

All the above refers to real alcoholics and really tried means took all 12 steps without reservation.

Mark75

All in good natured fun, laughing with, not at....

Mark75

I am AA and I incorporate some of what I've learned about AVRT here on SR (thanx TU) in my own recovery.

I would think, alcoquit, that disengaging the beast means doing so on many levels, most importantly the emotional one... and that must be what TU was talking about... how we relate to the outside world... emotionally, logically whatever... is how we relate to the beast ... since the beast draws it's power from our own, or it's intelligence, whatever... we are screwed... turning our own weapons against us. Mutually assured destruction, I guess, scorched earth, all that, ... better not to fight the beast at all.

My approach is the one I learned in the steps... I just abdicate my authority, I am not in charge, I don't have to make the choice anymore, my higher power is in charge now.

Beast.... Higher Power... hmm... Not fighting anymore.

instant

I have found that if I accept that this type of mental activity exists and that I know that it is irrational (it helps to do the work to accept that this is the case) I then just treat it as a passing thoughts. Engaging with these ideas will promote them.

I have many other 'crazy' ideas that I do not try in the real world- I just put them in the same box.

I now don't have much of this type of stuff and it is not emotionally changed or associated with urges. The emotion/urge aspect of things will settle down.

All of the above worked for me once I was committed to sobriety.

MemphisBlues

Nothing in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous -- as defined in the black part of the page on 164 pages of the book, Alcoholics Anonymous -- states that relapse is a part of recovery.

I find the people in the rooms of AA do not adhere to the principal that you will relapse, it's OK, it's just part of recovery. I don't need AA to not drink. I need AA to grow.

AA equals relapse? Nope. Nada. Zip. Zero. Ain't true.

I buy into the psychology of AVRT. I just surrendered to the beast and discovered by so doing I no longer empowered it. That's what the powerlessness part of AA is all about.

I am really weary of this "My-program-is bigger-than-your-program" stuff. I put the measuring ruler away in junior high school.