Becoming someone who does not drink
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Join Date: May 2012
Location: canada
Posts: 7,242
jdooner,
i was thinking about this thread more, and about where you seem to be, and if i'm reading right it seems you're leaving AA and INSTEAD wanting to "do" RR.
i've been sober a few years and got sober with help from a secular forum, and secular meetings (LifeRing) and reading stuff from RR and such. i am now, the last few years, getting more and more towards AA. it makes more and more sense to me the longer i'm sober.
here's why i'm writing all this: AA and RR ...well, they're entirely different "things". they have entirely different premises and groundings. they have different aims, in a way. (yes, i know, staying sober is a common goal). one is about a way of living , the other is concerned with dealing with The Voice.
they can't be compared, or one substituted for the other.
so to say "i can't fit into this one so i'll do the other one" is , in a way, missing the point of both.
i was thinking about this thread more, and about where you seem to be, and if i'm reading right it seems you're leaving AA and INSTEAD wanting to "do" RR.
i've been sober a few years and got sober with help from a secular forum, and secular meetings (LifeRing) and reading stuff from RR and such. i am now, the last few years, getting more and more towards AA. it makes more and more sense to me the longer i'm sober.
here's why i'm writing all this: AA and RR ...well, they're entirely different "things". they have entirely different premises and groundings. they have different aims, in a way. (yes, i know, staying sober is a common goal). one is about a way of living , the other is concerned with dealing with The Voice.
they can't be compared, or one substituted for the other.
so to say "i can't fit into this one so i'll do the other one" is , in a way, missing the point of both.
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2013
Posts: 3,359
If strawberries changed your state of mind and risked your life then most certainly yes. The problem with the simply allergic analogy is one its not accurate and only holds true as a figurative comparison and two you are making a simple comparison to a complex one.
I don't disparage the allergy comparison bc it works for some but is flawed in many ways. See another longer thread on this.
I don't disparage the allergy comparison bc it works for some but is flawed in many ways. See another longer thread on this.
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Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Canada
Posts: 184
I wasn't trying to get into a debate, or even a discussion, on whether or not alcoholics are "allergic" to alcohol. I was simply (yes, simply) saying that sometimes we complicate things, especially drinking. Is the distinction important? Or does it really just matter that we stop?
Adventures In SpaceTime
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Ottawa, Canada
Posts: 5,827
Quitting drinking is a choice made for personal reasons, and so of course it matters to each person how and why they chose to quit. Does it matter to me why others choose to quit? No, it doesn't. It has importance to me if they have an enduring success with their staying quit, since my being open to learning from others makes good sense, but otherwise if they are not able to walk their own talk then it matters less to me what they have chosen. I have yet to see any body just quit and nothing else changes in their personal lifestyle. There's always some level of significant change in common in all successful quits.
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Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 211,364
On one level my decison to stop was simple. I stopped.
But to stay stopped I needed to look at my life, and myself, and all the ways I'd let my addiction take seed and prosper...I had to change nearly everything.
that part was not simple LOL
D
But to stay stopped I needed to look at my life, and myself, and all the ways I'd let my addiction take seed and prosper...I had to change nearly everything.
that part was not simple LOL
D
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Join Date: May 2012
Location: canada
Posts: 7,242
Originally Posted by bumble 
An interesting thread.
If we were allergic to strawberries, though, would we feel empowered by choosing not to eat strawberries? Or would we just not eat strawberries?
If we were allergic to strawberries, though, would we feel empowered by choosing not to eat strawberries? Or would we just not eat strawberries?
and then somehow ended up buying them, taking them home, relishing the first few and then slowly and steadily get that yucky feeling happening. next day i'd decide to just never eat strawberries again. but then, the end of that day, or maybe the next...well, see, i'd be "freely choosing" to get me some more berries...
there WAS no such thing as simply "just not eat strawberries" for me.
that's just one reason the analogy doesn't work.
the "just do it" approach is one i tried and failed at over and over.
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Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Lake Mary, FL
Posts: 159
thanks for this. made me laugh.
Originally Posted by BuddinK
When one is told they cant do something, they tend to feel bad. When one decides not to do something it can be a positive.
I wake up everyday and choose not to drink. I also choose not to rob a bank, not to run over a kitten, not to shoot my neighbor. Drinking is just one more think that I choose not to do because the end results would not be beneficial to myself or anyone.
Changing my thought process from can't drink to choosing not to drink has made the transition much easier. Tomorrow will be 10 months for me, and about 9 months since I decide to think this way.
I wake up everyday and choose not to drink. I also choose not to rob a bank, not to run over a kitten, not to shoot my neighbor. Drinking is just one more think that I choose not to do because the end results would not be beneficial to myself or anyone.
Changing my thought process from can't drink to choosing not to drink has made the transition much easier. Tomorrow will be 10 months for me, and about 9 months since I decide to think this way.
Member
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 158
Jdooner, I know where you're coming from. I've tried myself to lead a sober life without embracing anything but the will to stay sober. I felt that I did not need to go to AA, Smart Recovery, etc., because I wanted my life to be the same as before, except that I choose not to drink. Kinda like I was making a simple dietary choice to stop drinking alcohol.
So far, it's been okay. My social life is vastly different, but that's a necessary adjustment. No reason to go to bars twice a weekend or lounge around all day at a brewery/restaurant. It just so happened that these activities were my social life before. Slowly, but surely, I'm creating new routines and activities from which to develop a new social life. It's a work in progress, but absolutely meaningful work.
So far, it's been okay. My social life is vastly different, but that's a necessary adjustment. No reason to go to bars twice a weekend or lounge around all day at a brewery/restaurant. It just so happened that these activities were my social life before. Slowly, but surely, I'm creating new routines and activities from which to develop a new social life. It's a work in progress, but absolutely meaningful work.
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Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Canada
Posts: 184
For myself, I find when I over-think and over-dramatize something; I make it more difficult than it needs to be. If I think too much...I start to rationalize. If I try to keep in mind how critically-important it is to stop...I start to give the cravings more importance (making them even more tortuous). And so on.
I absolutely do not deny I have several, several flaws which I need to work on, not least of which is my tendency to over-dramatize! But I want to work on myself with the end goal of being less miserable. If it helps me to stay stopped, so much the better.
Lots of food for thought in this thread, though. Thanks!
I absolutely do not deny I have several, several flaws which I need to work on, not least of which is my tendency to over-dramatize! But I want to work on myself with the end goal of being less miserable. If it helps me to stay stopped, so much the better.
Lots of food for thought in this thread, though. Thanks!
Member
Join Date: Oct 2013
Posts: 11,414
I have been obsessed with, and then left behind, several things in my life.
Drinking will be one of these things, but I am "in process" at the moment.
I think we have this in common perhaps jdooner--throw yourself into things and do them with passion.
My favorite example to explain this is foxhunting. (don't worry--never killed anything--it was basically an excuse to gallop around madly on horses through rough wooded country
drinking hard seeing if you could live more dangerously than the next person)
It was what I did, who I was for years. I was good at it and I loved the rush.
One day I realized I was losing the rest of my life to do it, particularly in regards to drinking.
In my club, you drank before, during, and after.
I barely saw my spouse on weekends since he didn't ride, and I was not getting things in my life taken care of.
So I stopped. And for awhile it was a terrible ache of something missing I had done for a very long time.
Now I don't think you could pay me to do it--I don't want to be around drunks and I don't want to risk my life for some silly reason any more.
I have other things to do and think about now that for me are more important.
Still, I won't lie--on a crisp fall day when I'm in the National forest with my dogs on foot hiking and I'm "working" them gently
(leading them to places there is scent, making eye contact for directions, etc. like I used to do when I was a whip and worked hounds)
and I hear / see the snow geese honking above my head going south, I may get the odd twinge about not being on a horse going crazy through the forest.
But it passes and is recalled as a fond memory--no anger, no regret, but no desire to do it really in my heart anymore.
That's how I want drinking to be for me. I had fun and not-fun, many memorable things I wouldn't trade, but it isn't who I am any more.
It is "past perfect tense" for those of you who read my earlier post on this thread about verbs. Something completed in the past with things between it and now:
I had been a foxhunter for many years before I started hiking five years ago. Now I enjoy hiking more.
I had been a drinker most of my life before I decided to start feeling my feelings and grow up. Now I'm learning and growing in my sobriety.
Drinking will be one of these things, but I am "in process" at the moment.
I think we have this in common perhaps jdooner--throw yourself into things and do them with passion.
My favorite example to explain this is foxhunting. (don't worry--never killed anything--it was basically an excuse to gallop around madly on horses through rough wooded country
drinking hard seeing if you could live more dangerously than the next person)
It was what I did, who I was for years. I was good at it and I loved the rush.
One day I realized I was losing the rest of my life to do it, particularly in regards to drinking.
In my club, you drank before, during, and after.
I barely saw my spouse on weekends since he didn't ride, and I was not getting things in my life taken care of.
So I stopped. And for awhile it was a terrible ache of something missing I had done for a very long time.
Now I don't think you could pay me to do it--I don't want to be around drunks and I don't want to risk my life for some silly reason any more.
I have other things to do and think about now that for me are more important.
Still, I won't lie--on a crisp fall day when I'm in the National forest with my dogs on foot hiking and I'm "working" them gently
(leading them to places there is scent, making eye contact for directions, etc. like I used to do when I was a whip and worked hounds)
and I hear / see the snow geese honking above my head going south, I may get the odd twinge about not being on a horse going crazy through the forest.
But it passes and is recalled as a fond memory--no anger, no regret, but no desire to do it really in my heart anymore.
That's how I want drinking to be for me. I had fun and not-fun, many memorable things I wouldn't trade, but it isn't who I am any more.
It is "past perfect tense" for those of you who read my earlier post on this thread about verbs. Something completed in the past with things between it and now:
I had been a foxhunter for many years before I started hiking five years ago. Now I enjoy hiking more.
I had been a drinker most of my life before I decided to start feeling my feelings and grow up. Now I'm learning and growing in my sobriety.
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