Bob4x4

Argh billy, you ever seen a grown man cry?

This morning after a good nights sleep i wake up still groggy from the quit "phase 1" and immediately the AV is screaming at me ....
- you feel better ok now would be a good time to go buy some smokes and have a coffee to reflect on how good you've been and how the future is going to play out - career and life and opportunities - that would be fun to chain smoke and think wouldn't it?
- hey Bob maybe later we could drink a half dozen beers and smoke and listen to some good tunes while we clean together just you and me ok?

etc

I planned on making some eggs but i ended up cleaning the kitchen a bit which delayed food . . . and the AV was getting louder and louder until finally i just caved into making OATMEAL ASAP and giving up on the eggs.

I think I'm going to have to give up coffee for a while until i get this shizzzzola under control as coffee makes me want to SMOKE and agitates me . . . Herbal Peppermint tea will have to replace it.

Sorry for posting, i just had to post or i may have melted down.

___my AV____ME___

Ariesagain

Good job on wrestling that down!

Every time you do that you know a tiny bit more that you can.

nez

Posting is good. It is letting it out, which is good because it creates some space in the head for new thoughts. The old thoughts were not pleasant, so why hang onto them. Toss them out and get better ones.

columbus

Coffee and cigarettes, booze and cigarettes

EVERYTHING and cigarettes.

Before, during, after.

Yep.

I've got the booze beast under control and am starting to play tricks
with the cig beast.

No smoking at desk, no smoking in car, no smoking in house...

That's how I did it last time.

Had to do it very quietly, very slowly, no sudden moves,

so as not to awaken the beast.

Bob4x4

Yeah it seems like once again I have to do that. What a day this has been for the screaming baby AV.

After breakfast I needed to escape the apt so off to Home Depot and Golf Town, that was 3 hours ago ... I ended up sitting in the parking lot negotiating with my AV , " yeah it's ok to buy some smokes and a six pack" .... "nobody will ever know" ...

"No..." I said weakly, " I must be hungry" ... so now I'm just uncomfortably full. Ready for a nap and a diaper change. But instead I'm at the park again, ready to do and old man shuffle for an hour .. 48F - good cool air. Then home for the nap.

I could have F-Kdeed up royally , saved by a sammich once again.

Wholesome

I found I had to do a lot of distractions in the early days. Exercise, walks, I took guitar lessons for while, books, cooking, SR, anything to keep my mind from circling around drinking. After awhile the thoughts lost their ferocity and power. I still have drinking thoughts even 8 months later and they can still feel intense at times but I've learned to live with them. I think it's all about perspective, those thoughts are only as powerful as I make them out to be, if I respect them and let myself dwell on them then they become harder to ignore but if I brush them off and just tell myself it's only my annoying AV doing what it does then I find I can live comfortably with them. If that makes sense.

Keep up the good work Bob!

Wholesome

Have you looked around the Secular Connections forum here on SR? It's got lots of good threads about AVRT if you want to learn how to handle your AV without engaging in debates with IT.

anxiousrock

Post all the time as much as you need to! I do when I feel anxious or excited or sad. All the time.

Stayingsassy

Just keep knocking it down, letting it know there is no way in, you are impenetrable in your sobriety. It will give up.

Bob4x4

i guess I'm just surprised at how weak and imperfect I am considering i have a few long quits under my belt, double quits where i quit drinking and smoking at the same time for years+ . . . and i guess i just forgot about how FREAKn difficult it can be.

My body had become used to sugars and carbs from beer, skipping meals, coffee w sugar, crap food late at night lots of it, and starting my day with darts n caffiene so -

it's not like I'm arguing with the AV,

my body gets hungry for food and the feeling is a dark heavy cloud with an Omnipresent James Earl Jones voice telling me that i must immediately get some beer and smokes. ( he was the voice of the original Darth vader and the voice of CNN ) and i have to tell myself to immediatley get a sandwich of some kind and eat, eat, eat...

after my late afternoon 1.5 hr walk and half a pizza the nasty semi craving irritation went away and it's time for bed again...

it's just surprising how hard it is to quit even for someone with a lot of experience... it's not like riding a bike at all.

ScottFromWI

None of us are perfect bob, and there is no "weakness" associated with addiction. I think a lot of us forget how difficult quitting can be though because we get lax on our sobriety after a while and assume we are "better" or "cured". I did that several times where I had months under my belt and got flippant/over confident about the whole sobriety thing. I found that the long term answer was to build a foundation of support that I can rely on every day, and also to work on the other underlying issues in my life that were wrapped together with my addiction.

Some people go about that in a very regimented way with prescribed sobriety programs like AA/AVRT/etc. Others use things like therapy, mindfulness, meditation, etc. I think the bottom line though is you have to do something besides just "not drink".

columbus

Hey, Bob--

Have you done any research on alcohol and hypoglycemia?

Renal fatigue (from too much caffeine?)

Wholesome

That's a good point columbus. Alcohol abuse can lead to hypoglycemia. Have you seen a doctor recently Bob4x4?

I apologize if my post came across as suggesting you were being weak.... that is certainly not what I meant. I struggled for years to quit drinking and I totally know that it's not easy. I think it takes real courage to keep trying, especially considering how alcohol addiction can be so demoralizing. You have to be tough to be an alcoholic and you have to be tough to keep up the fight to quit.

Wholesome

AVRT is not a regimented sobriety program. It is a quit drinking technique that is about one thing, not drinking.

ScottFromWI

The point I was trying to get across is that there are recovery programs that have structure/theory/concepts that one follows or learns in order to effectively use. Yes, there is a big difference between how Meeting based recovery works vs AVRT, but they all have a guideline/concept/framwork/theory that define them

In contrast, some choose to build their own plan with tools that are not specifically "sobriety" related by definition.

Bob4x4

@ScottFromWI @columbus @zenchaser ( the @ works as notification when enabled )

I have a few doctors appts coming up so the works will be done.

I was sober for many years so but on the grog for about 2 years, will ask the doctor about hypoglycemia.

AVRT was one of the things that really helped me to quit a long time ago but honestly after 4 or 5 years of not drinking it's not something that i would read ever again.

I've gone to the Rational Recovery site many times this year, bookmarked it, even went to it today (the flash cards) .

it's helpful, it's all helpful, the more stuff in the toolbox the better the chances for success. list in wallet, pavolvian conditioning, MBSR, yoga, health scare tactics, dream building, exercise, eating well, not smoking... AA meetings, ACA meetings . . . web forums this one and others... but i can't get my AV to read anything ! it is so selfish.

as far as caffiene goes / renal I'm not up on that, i assume after drinking a coffee renal failure causes you to go to sleep/feel sleepy?

ScottFromWI

You are right on the money there - having as many tools as possible and using them is the key. Not all tools work for all people, but you never know until you give them a try.

It doesn't really matter if your AV reads them or not - as long as you do that's what matters. Making informed choices based on sound logic and support pretty much kicks the AV to the curb no matter how selfish it might be.

Regarding caffeine, I cut WAY back after I quit because it made my anxiety even worse than it already was.