A Technique to stay sober
 

When you want to drink it feels like a form of torture to deny the craving.

However, you want to stay sober.

There are various methods that you can apply to aid your bid to stay in recovery and I have one that you may as yet not have thought of.

When your cravings are in danger of conquering your mind and killing your heart's desire, turn you mind to the men and women who did not speak out under the merciless torture of the Nazis. Turn you mind to having your fingernails torn out. Turn your mind to being pursued daily by the fear of the gas chamber. Turn your mind to the hunger and filth of the concentration camps. Turn you mind to watching your children die of starvation and disease.

Turn your mind to the strength exhibited by those who bore these terrible times in our world history. Turn you mind to their suffering.

Then turn your mind back to your own and remember that you have a choice and they did not.

Which do you choose?

The tortured often chose to save others by keeping quiet. Will you choose your family and friends?

The incarcerated chose life every time. Will you choose your life or will you choose to give it over to disease?

Is what you bear bearable?

The good news it is gets better. You know that. The aforementioned did not and yet they fought on.

Have courage and be kind to yourself and those you love.

Have a great day. Stay sober.

"Traveller, there are no paths. Paths are made by walking."

Sounds rather extreme.

No thanks.

Sometimes we need to think in the extreme in order to make our own pain easier to bear.

Whatever.

It kind of sounds like taking one extreme in order to counter another. I have anxiety issues, so it's important for me to find healthy ways to stay calm. I used alcohol in large part for years to do this and eventually paid a big price. The issue with dwelling on suffering for me is that it makes me nervous, which naturally fans the flames of my addictive voice to seek immediate relief. Just my 2 cents.

That's sort of my suggestion, think non drinking thoughts. I preferred to think of being in my small boat drifting in with the tide and fish. Yours are a bit difficult but whatever works go for it as we don't get drunk until we drink.

BE WELL

Alcohol is as cruel as the nazis and has killed far more. Alcohol wants us dead plain and simple but not before it destroys everything that is important to us

How about this one? I was about to lose my marriage, my job, my home, my health. If someone were facing me, about to take them away from me, I would put a wall at my back and a blade in my hand. I would fight with every ounce of my being to save those things. I would not fail, no matter what. Failure would not be an option.

I saw my drinking as the same enemy. Not alcohol, because it is harmless, it is only when I put it in my hand and pour it down my neck that it is deadly to me. I decided I would kill that enemy, once and for all.

I did.

As for cravings, they are creations of my own mind. They come and go, and are powerless to harm me. They will disappear and I will remain. Sober.

If it works for you Gaudi then great but it wouldn't for me.

One of my close friends in postgrad Uni days was German and her field of historical research was the Holocaust. We spent a lot of time on it.

Thinking about that - the sheer stark horror, the brutality, the inhumanity, the loss and the underpinning evil - reading first hand primary sources and looking at pictures often drove me to drink, not kept me off it.

I found it literally incomprehensible. It was too much for me.

Sometimes I can still see pics of corpses piled on one another...

I find comparisons to anything else to be a bit facile, to be honest.

I prefer my motivations to be positive ones - I'm alive I'm reborn and I'm trying my best to make a difference - those were the type of things that drove me when I quit and still drive me today.

D

I couldn't agree more. Thanks for this.

For me, mindfulness, yoga breathing exercises are helpful.
Sorry, Gaudi, but just reading your post unsettled me, and I needed to do a breath meditation for a moment.

Great post ,Ill think of it that way as well .

We can always find someone with more hardship ,than we have at the present time .

i tried similar thoughts many times during my repeated failures at staying quit; the comparing myself, my situation, my wanting to drink right NOW to courageous people in "real" bad spots and ...well, what happened over and over, what i did over and over, is to end up with "****-it, i'm just not as brave, ethical, decent, strong, of integrity, loving...you name it, i'm just NOT as good as they"

it added to my conviction of deep-down wrongness. fed it.

if it works for you, that's great, but it backfired for me.

I think I understand where your going with this Gaudi. I use something a little less extreme

I try to remember that no matter how bad my life is, there are literally millions of people who are in much worse shape than I am. Millions of people around the world would gladly trade places with me in a heartbeat--despite all my problems. Because my problems pale in comparison to their problems.

That helps me to cherish the things I do have, and it helps me stay focused on the positive things in my life, and to not dwell on the negative.

I don't know if this makes sense to others, but it does help me keep things in perspective.

Exactly FeenixxRising. Actually I only really used those images right at the start of giving up drinking. I found that thinking of how strong people can be when they are faced with such evils a huge help in putting my "cravings" into perspective. Also it really helped with the "self-pity" aspect. It was my "kick up the backside" if you like!

I agree that this would not work for all but I found it was a very quick way of knocking the cravings on the head!

Thank you for your reply. I hope you are having a good day/night.

if I really wanted to drink I could care less about the sufferings of others especially if it didn't include my immediate loved ones. I've looked at my kids thinking why the F*ck am I taking this drink (again). I need God in my life, I need to find the path that takes me to him whether it be service to others or whatever it takes to get me out of myself. I'm on this journey again and it's taken me so many times of putting my hand on that stove and I still have an inkling it may be different. But what ever works for us is individual in nature.

No Thanks

In history, law makers, politicians, so called leaders, mind bender type people who are "democratically" voted in power,judges, lawyers, high profile greedy corporates -----,
I often wonder if they were secretly under the influence of alcohol when they made decisions that affect the whole of mankind today?
If so, are we then living in a delusion

If the common worker has to be breath tested before he or she goes to work on machinery, why can't a judge and or jury be breath and drug tested before they pass judgement ?

:herewego:herewego:herewego

Good idea Pete55. Churchill was renowned for his brandy consumption. And history bares witness to a number of powerful people who took opium and other mind altering drugs.

If we gave drug and sanity tests to everyone in government, lawmakers, wall street, etc.etc., we would have to shut the world down.

I think that it's natural when we find something that works for us that we come here and share. It doesn't necessarily mean that it will work for others but hey, if a suggestion just helps one person it's well worth posting. You never know.

Everyone has to find their own way on this path, what works for them. I applaud the effort no matter the method.

The AA Big Book and Twelve Steps have a different take on this.

We strive for spiritual fitness so that we may be of maximum service to others, including others who are not in recovery. While offering ourselves to those who suffer, we are continuously reminded that there are people who need our help. No sleight of mind keeps us spiritually fit more effectively than doing whatever is necessary to help those in need.

SR is a place where this happens every day as a matter of course.