Wait there’s a rule where you get to drink if you want to? Or that you have to drink , because you want to? Maybe you should be a rule breaker. F k rules, don’t drink.

This is a really beautiful song...honest cries of breaking hearts...makes me tear up every time.

Like I said before, no biggie. You can start the two weeks anytime you want. Or, better yet, go right to your “a plan” which we all know is the Big Plan.

But it’s important to point out that your sentence I highlighted in green is the only part of this post that is not your Addictive Voice. The “am supposed to” part of the sentence is also AV.

If you want to wait on your Big Plan, just start using AVRT and try to do the pronoun switching and naming IT whenever you think of or feel like drinking.


It sounds like you’ve been drinking pretty successfully since that four months hiatus. No reports of any trouble. No reports of family disruption. And it sounds like you’ve stopped before getting blotto with lots of booze still right in front of you. No need to be so hard on yourself after the fact for drinking.

You just haven’t gotten IRRATIONALLY STUBBORN yet about REALLY quitting for good. In the end it’s just you. Not SR, not me, not your family, friends, or a new residence or a new job. If you want to wait on your Big Plan, just start using AVRT and try to do the pronoun switching and naming IT whenever you think of or feel like drinking.

Gosh this probably will sound so simplistic and dumb but if you want it badly enough you will get irrationally stubborn about your quit.

Hit a low you know you never want to repeat in a lifetime and you will easily quit. i knew in my gut that with more drinking my low was not only repeatable but beatable. If you're still seeing some benefit to drinking that fence is going to get really worn down, for a long time too. I sat on mine for ten years.

Asking the same questions you are asking. Why? When the answer was "not low enough."

you can be one of those who quits before a horrible low but not unless you have far more certainty than you have today.

That was not helpful I know. I'm just thinking aloud in your thread because you remind me of where I was five or six years ago.

I’m messing up (obviously) but I appreciate this: “It sounds like you’ve been drinking pretty successfully since that four months hiatus. No reports of any trouble. No reports of family disruption. And it sounds like you’ve stopped before getting blotto with lots of booze still right in front of you. No need to be so hard on yourself after the fact for drinking.”

I appreciate thus not bc you’re excusing me (I know you’re not), but bc (as a teacher) I know how much positive affirmations can help. I appreciate this.

My plan is to post in 4 days (where I was in sobriety today bf my screw up), strong and resilient.

Not true...Definitely helpful! I aspire to be like you, sassy. I’m trying to follow your advice.

Hey SoHard - your name says it all, this is hard!! Day one again - dust yourself off and get back on the horse. I’ve had SO many day one’s before. Let’s make this one stick, ok?

I would recommend posting before then Sohard. Isolating or moving away from your primary source of support is likely not a very good idea.

I'd also recommend trying to simplify things as much as you can. Intellectualizing the process, especially early on, can be a trick of your AV trying to make you think you can outsmart your addiction - which is not possible. You can certainly live with it and ignore it, but you can never "fix" the core issue of not being able to drink responsibly.

As far as dealing with "cravings" which seem to be a big problem for you, remember that it's purely a choice and that you have 100% control over them. We all make large numbers of choices throughout the day. What to wear, what to eat, whether to brush our teeth or not, which bills to pay, what to buy, the list is long.

The question about whether or not to drink alcohol is exactly the same and can be answered using the exact same thought process as whether or not you should pay your power bill for example. You might be tempted by the urge to use the money to buy something you want instead of something you need, but we generally make the right decision. When you have thoughts of drinking alcohol, simply remind yourself that the outcome will always be bad. Remember how much worse things will be. Accept that drinking even one sip of alcohol is always the wrong decision.

Since you’re a teacher, you’ve been trained to understand the dynamics of bullying with the purpose of stopping that dysfunctional behavior and helping others avoid it.

Well, your AV is the “dysfunctional” bully, and YOU are in control of what you let it do - to you today, to you tomorrow, and to you for the rest of your life.

Don’t mix up hearing IT with acting upon IT. Hearing it is just IT testing your territory. It’s good to steer clear of bullys. Acting upon it is it smacking you around. That assault of pleasure and all the other consequences (potential consequences) are just plain WRONG for you.

Don't not drink because the consequences are potentially bad.

Don't drink because it makes you feel good or less worse at any particular moment.

Don't drink because IT makes You feel good or less worse at any particular moment.

IT is using YOU, don't let IT.

rootin for ya

Yeah. So hard you are really not recognizing your AV. Nearly all your posts are written by the AV. It's clear to us but you are being controlled by it so you do not see it.

As always, great thoughts!

Thanks all.

I woke up today expecting to feel all the normal feelings: guilt, regret, hung over, cravings, etc.

My main feeling upon waking up, however, was a nice resolve. The moment I took my first sip of red wine last night, I thought to myself “I can’t believe I’m ruining my peace of mind and jeopardizing my life for this. THIS?!”

Of course, since I’m an addict, I finished the bottle. But I didn’t have any good feelings as I drank it like I have had in previous slip ups, like “great! I’m so excited I fell off the wagon and so am lucky I get to drink!” Yes, I’ve actually thought that before. Messed up, I know. Instead I just felt this overwhelming exhaustion because I am so freaking sick of thinking about this topic. I don’t want to spend my one time on this planet thinking so much about drinking, quitting drinking, messing up again, etc. but I know the only way to get the topic out of my brain is to quit once and for all. Then, it can at least fade.

So, I woke up, got my hair cut, did some work, worked out, and am now reading in bed. I worked out at 5:30pm. I had been working out in early morning. I think I need to move it to the evenings. After a work out, I feel very steady. I even walked by a liquor store on my way home from the gym tonight. I think I need that work out as an evening sober tool.

Anyway, so my thousandth Day 1 was a roaring success. I’m feeling relieved. I have a tiny ((just a tiny) bit of faith and confidence in myself today for some reason. I’m sure none of you have it in me though at this point! I look forward to surprising everyone. :-)

Thank you again.

It gets easier to stay sober the longer you are sober. :) You have to deliberately think about it at first, but the longer you're sober, the easier it is. :hug:

I did a lot of praying SoHard. I was an alcoholic binge drinker for over 20 years, almost every night. I'll have two years without a sip of alcohol next week. I finally prayed for Jesus to just let me die or release me from the obsession and I quit over the next two months. But it was a lot more than that...

But SoHard in the end it came down to just not picking up, not even once and a huge help was playing the tape through. I no longer let myself entertain the idea of "relaxing" with one or two, I would have ten minimum. Like you I had huge anxiety associated with my drinking at certain times but I also would trick myself into using it as a reward when I felt I had things under control. This most certainly was a trick of my AV as really terrible things could happen when I drank, over the years it went from uncomfortable to embarrassing to flat out nightmarish. Not sure what stage you are at exactly but this is a progressive condition, sometimes slow and sometimes very fast and nothing to play with.

Please consider just stopping, you can get your plan together after you put the drink down. I had a tremendous amount of anxiety about my plan because I thought I was going to have to re-engineer my entire life at the same time as quitting, but I put it down first and all of the changes and the plan too have followed. You don't have to have all the answers right now but you do need support which you will find here. Best of luck to you and God bless!

I'm sitting here searching for something to say that will be helpful.

An I've written this post probably a half a dozen times and erased it before I went to post it.

I'm really frustrated and it makes me sad that i can't seem to reach you in a way that will be helpful to your recovery.

So I think I'm just gonna listen more and not say anything else.

I just wanted you to know that I'm pulling for you and I hope this is the last time you have to have another day 1.

take care. :)

Bulldog - please don't feel frustrated and sad by this. I always very much appreciate your blunt points, which often (to be honest) put a needed fear in me. I don't know why I keep needing Day 1s., but I appreciate each time you try to steer me to safe ground. I am on Day 2 and trucking along. Thanks again.

Go to bed sober tonight. That's ALL you have to accomplish today.

I have 100% faith in your ability to do that. :)

Good plan with the evening workouts!

Just something to think about, sometimes we keep doing the same things over and over again and expect different results. But almost certainly, the result of the same sequence of events will be the same as it was last time.

What can you do differently this time?

This really isn't a mental thing for most of us, and "Just say no, but louder" does not often work. It's an action thing, it's the things we do. And the things we do differently from when we were drinking, and from the last time we tried to quit drinking.

hows it going sohard?

D