Still obsessing with alcohol
 

I'm sober for 5 months now and I still find myself obsessing about alcohol quite much. I have cravings of some intensity nearly every day and I have thoughts about drinking still every day. Most of the times they're pretty "harmless" just thoughts like "oh wouldn't a glass of wine be nice now" and only very, very rearely where I actually think about buying booze.

I'd say I am good at recognising them as my AV immediately and most of the time it's relatively easy to let go of these thoughts. Still I find it very exhausting and am wondering if it's normal at 5 months.

I did never make the decision "to never drink again and never change my mind" because it scares me to be honest. I know that I can never drink normally again and am comfortable about admitting that I am an alcoholic but making a life long comittment to anything seems overwhelming and scary to me. So all I know is that I won't drink today.

Did that maybe leave some kind of back door open for the AV?

Yes I would say so. As long as drinking could be an option your AV will use it against you.

I think so.

By not committing to never drinking again, what have you committed to? At some time drinking? Hence the constant thinking about drinking. Your addiction is trying to wear you down.

If you had a life-threatening allergy to tree nuts, could you make a life-long commitment to never eating nuts? I'm thinking you could.

Then why should alcohol be different. You have an allergy to alcohol. It isn't going to get better. Accept it. Accept never drinking again.

It's not that I consider it an option either. I know I can't drink anymore and that it would destroy me. Right now I know I won't drink, no matter what. But I don't feel comfortable saying that I'll never change my mind about this cause I don't know how I'll feel about this in the future.

Howdy Kevlar,
I think it's different for lots of people as to when they stop or reduce their thoughts about drinking.... I still think about drinking, jeez, I just had my first dream about thinking about drinking. Lol. I wasn't even drinking in my dream, I was having a massive urge to drink in it. Very weird.
Plus, you have some deep emotions you recently shared which I think would be super charging your AV. Drinking was your self medication to avoid those emotions I am guessing, your AV is active because you are dealing with them :)
Love to you and I hope your AV pi$$e$ off toot sweet.

I don't know how I would decide about the nuts. To me not drinking is comitting to life. Which I choose for now. But I don't know if that's gonna be different at some point in the future.

And is the " one day at a time" concept only working in the very first days or weeks? Do I have to move on from it eventually or did I misunderstand it?

I think for some people, framing the issue as "not drinking today" takes away the obsession and produces de facto permanent sobriety. I guess one could view that as a rationalization, but it's almost philosophical quibbling at that point. Doing something every day produces forever by iteration.

But if that obsession is still there, probably best to frame it as never, no way, no how.

Hey Poppy! And thanks for your nice words :)

Yes I hope so, too! That was one possible explanation for my AV still being hyperactive. It doesn't help that when I walk around the streets in the area where I live everyone seems to be drinking in the early mornings already. There's active alcoholics literally everywhere I go. Last night there was somewhat of a riot in the supermarket cause they were sold out on the cheap vodka...

Maybe I just have to give myself a bit more time. Im just scared of doing this the "wrong " way or not being good enough in my approach to recovery, old thinking patterns I guess.

Been thinking lots about giving AA another try, there's a lot of confusion in my head.

I am also thinking of AA as well Kevlar. Can't hurt to add this to our sober tool box.
It sometimes freaks me out thinking I can never drink again, but I romanticise drinking by day dreaming about a glass of wine at dinner or a cocktail by the pool.... I have never been one to stop at one or two. I have no off switch after I take the first drink so when I day dream about it, I also remind myself that I am wired differently to 'normal' drinkers. That thought helps me move on from the silly fantasy that drinking is enjoyable cause for me it hasn't been enjoyable in over 20 years.

Are there other programs other than AA that use this concept> I really don't know.

In the context of the AA program however, one day at time is simply a reminder of a much larger picture involving working a group of principles integrated into ones life. Doing those things removed the obsession for me turning it into just an occasional thought which I choose to not act on, today.

Meditation helps me a lot and can be very broad based. This sets my day on the right track, mostly.

I accepted I was an alcoholic years ago - at times would even admit it. Just cause I put my shoes in the oven, that don't make em biscuits though.

I had to take action in support of my sobriety and mentally be in place where I was done. Today, yes. But I also don't not drink alone.......

I think that what you are experiencing is common Kevlar. There certainly are some people who can just one decide they are going to quit drinking and then just "not drink" forever. But I think most of us have to do some active work to make sobriety part of our lifestlye..vs just white-knuckling it as you seem to be doing. Maybe going back to AA as you have done in the past will be that answer - because the 12 steps and the process involved with them is a very life-changing process, and an ongoing one. Many other sobriety methods are the same - they are ongoing and they achieve positive change in many areas of our lives along the way.

My personal tools are SR, counseling, mindfulness and meditation and I do a little of some of them each and every day. Not counseling as i could never afford that, but I review what I learn in my past sessions and help apply them to my life. A practical example would be that through living a mindful life, the question of whether I will "never drink again" really doesn't even come up - because I know that my focus needs to be on today and now. Sure I can think about the future, but it reminds me that I cannot possibly control something today that happens 10 years from now.

Thanks Scott, I think I just realised something reading your post. I think part of why I don't feel comfortable to say I will never drink again is, that part of me is scared of the future, that something might change in the way I see things, that I will be too weak and will feel like giving up. That's just unnecessary worrying and not living in the presence. It's projecting traumas from the past into the future. I think that's what made me stick to the "one day at a time" cause that's something I have to internalise in many ways. I live too much in the past and in the future that I tend to forget about the now. So the "just for today" approach does also remove some of these fears. But I see that there's still much work left to do at the not-worrying-about-the-future-front.

I wouldn't say I'm white knuckling though, I started seeing a therapist weekly the month I got sober. In therapy I'm working on the traumas that led me to drinking. I made some changes in my day to day life, allowing myself me time again and starting some creative hobbies again. I also make sure to have a somewhat regular sleeping pattern, which I didn't have for years. This is also my first attempt at sobriety and everything's still a bit new to me. I only realised I had a drinking problem last autumn and that's when I stopped drinking. I'm still a bit confused by all of this sometimes.

Maybe try not to think of it in terms of "forever". Just say to yourself "I will not drink today" every day...works for me!

I would never say I'll never drink again. How could I know that? After 25 years of recovery I just don't drink TODAY.

I used to be one of the I don't know what might happen in future guys...

but then I thought...I know I won't use heroin or cocaine ever...

so why should alcohol be any different? :dunno:

I do get the fear Kevlar, especially if you have history of recidivism like I did. But people change and grow and different outcomes can be achieved :)

D

Doctor Bob talked about stopping "for good and all". I suppose you either want to stop for good, or you don't. Personally, I wanted the misery to stop for good. I was well past the delusion that there was any pleasure left in drinking.

Could the second half of the first step direction still be up in the air for you? "The delusion that we are like other people, or presently maybe, has to be smashed"

Why? Because in that delusion lie the seeds of relapse. It will undermine any effort to recover with the idea that I don't need to do this or that because one day I will be able to drink normally. Drink normally, the great obsession of every abnormal drinker.

Thanks for all the answers, I really appreciate hearing all your opinions!


I fully accepted that I am an alcoholic and that I can never drink normally (again?). I'm not sure I ever did and to be honest I don't see much to like about normal drinking. When I drank it was almost exclusively to self medicate and I often just had water for dinner when my friends drank wine. I rather had the wine later home alone.

So I know that if I ever drank again it would be clearly self destructive.

And that's the point. Right now I want to do everything to get better and to be healthy. And I hope very much for myself that this will never change.

But I don't feel comfortable saying that I will never change. I can't predict the future. I don't know how I will be thinking about life in 10,20,50 years from now. But I do know that many alcoholics relapse. That is unfortunately part of the disease. And I don't think that I'm better or stronger in any way than other humans so I don't think I'm immune to relapse. It's not like I expect myself to relapse or that I'd "allow" myself to do that. It's just something that is statistically relatively likely to happen at one point.

Also, now my memories of how bad my drinking and the withdrawal was are still fresh but will I remember that any time in the future? What if I forget?

So I find it scary to make a promise for life when I don't know if I can stick to it. It's so definite. I don't know if there's anything in my life I can say for sure that I will never change my mind about it. Maybe one day I'll take cocoaine or heroin. I don't know. I don't plan to do it and I hope I will stay away from all kinds of drugs for the rest of my life but I wouldn't feel comfortable saying that I will never change my mind about it.

Edit:

Sorry it's late and this post came out a bit unstructured.

The thing I tried to say is, that I somehow don't feel comfortable saying that I will never change my mind about drinking. It just doesn't feel right.

And I wonder if that's a problem. And if there's anything I didn't understand (yet).

All I know is I made a list. I look at it once in awhile...add more as I find out. Fold your paper in half. One side all the pros....other side...the cons. Now for me..the pros boiled down to being able to "check out" ...chill. Have fun. The cons piled up. Destroying my health is what they boiled down to. Subjecting myself to insidious disease. AND the best part is alcohol stopped working for me. I either did what I call drinking myself sober (of course I was drunk but no longer felt the effect) or drank to blackout. No fun. Makes it easier to say "Today...I will NOT drink". Everyone is different. I log on to SR daily. I read books from alcoholics in recovery. I hope you find your way. If not...you will be in constant withdrawal.

There are people with long term sobriety based on a day at a time and other with never again mantras, Kevlar :)

I was some years into my recovery before I realised I'd never drink again.

I had no intent to drink the years in recovery before that, but the never again clause wasn't there. I guess I didn't fully trust myself to do this well?

If forever is a little incomprehensible to you right now just scale it back to not drinking today, and backing that up again tomorrow an so on.

D

I like doggoncarls analogy. Instead of thinking in terms of time, I like to think, some things are just off the table. As in, if I needed money and one option would be to sell my record collection, no, thats off the table, dismissed out of hand, think of another way or manage without.
You want to have a little buzz, a little lift, how about using alcohol? No, that's off the table, find a natural high, or do without, it won't kill you.