Jennyhenny

So I read here often. I do well for days and then screw up a couple and then good again. So I guess I am getting closer to being better.
Anyway, I just had a crazy thought. I walked my pup for miles and built up a nice blister on my heel. It is gross but I am one of those that have an urge to pick that scab. Gross I know!
My point is however, I can stop myself because I know shoes will hurt tomorrow if I do.
Why in the world can't my silly mind be so quick to remind me that I will feel bad if I drink?
Story of alcoholism I know, but it stopped me for a second to recognise if that makes sense.

ChloeRose63

What helps me is that when I wake up sober I remind myself that I would not feel this way if I had given in and drank yesterday. No matter how I feel I am sober for another day. Play the tape forward.

JudicatorPanzer

The universe speaks to us in mysterious ways.

Jennyhenny

That is such a great feeling!

Jennyhenny

I think you are right. It paused me to question the irony of my actions. I hope it is a sign in the right path. I have not thoughts of poison now. I will keep busy and make this sign meaningful

Awake61

I am deadly allergic to tree nuts. Don't touch them. Yet I almost drank myself to death. (and still could). Ever vigilant.

Dee74

Posting regularly here - daily or moreso -helped me develop that longer range vision, that seeing of consequences that I'd blanked out for years.

Its worth a shot Jenny ?

D

Grungehead

That's a good analogy. And while some struggle with the concept I do believe that AA's concept of alcoholics having a physical allergy to alcohol is generally correct if not precise to to the current medical definition. But instead of breaking out in hives or having our airway swell shut, the alcoholic's allergic symptom to alcohol is what's described as the phenomenon of craving and does not happen in a normal drinker.

Once I took that first drink I found it nearly impossible to stop, even when I knew there would be negative consequences. I didn't get the normal effect from having a couple of drinks (relaxed, tipsy, drowsy), I got energized like I had just snorted a couple lines of coke. For me not taking that first drink is the only way to guarantee I won't end up where I was 5+ years ago, which was nearly dead and wishing I was.

Bubovski

Alcohol tricked me for a good few decades, even the last twenty years that I drank relatively moderately.
I find the AA concept of taking on one day at a time helpful ODAAT, as for me I see even light drinking as a grave error.

SoberCAH

Your analogy is spot-on, except that we do keep picking the scab with dire consequences.

I was drawn to alcohol like a moth to a flame.

Until I asked for help, I was powerless to quit seizing it every night irrespective of the horrible results it was yielding in my life.

We hope you pick and pursue a plan of recovery.

For me, that has been AA, and it has worked without fail for a pretty good while.

Mango212

Mental health issues and obsessions are completely illogical.

Luckily, so is life.

Once I started embracing the illogical in life, many good healthy changes have naturally came about.

PinnacleOR

Alcohol is a poison, but it also temporarily lights up the pleasure centers of our brains. So our lizard brain wants more and more juice. At least that's how I see the difference.

zjw

in time it gets easier. anytime i think about drinking its basicly automatic now i play the tape and remind myself why i cant. My inner alcoholic is like AWE SHUCKS!! But i'm a happier me without the booze. I'm basicly conditioned now or brainwashed in the other direction the one that keeps me from drinking.

I'd like to think that if i decided to drink now i'd have to be pretty determined to do so. I dont think i'd somehow just find myself saying screw it and drinking. But I know i cant lower my guard either. I know theres a part of me always trying to trick me into a drink.

waynetheking

Picking the scab is not a matter of life and death. Unfortunately alcoholism will get to that point. Logic escapes people afflicted with this disease. So use it now and just quit. Don't let it get to that point.

WaterOx

I'm pretty sure picking a scab doesn't induce a chemical addiction. So, there is that.

What's more, scab picking might be a compulsive habit but I dare say it can't rival the associations we have with alcohol. You don't scab pick with your friends during the Superbowl, you don't scab pick at a wedding, you don't scab pick when you celebrate a birthday, or scab pick when christening a battleship.

matrac

You make a conscious choice to pick up a drink, just as to pick a scab. But does something change in your consciousness even when you have the first couple swallows of alcohol that does not happen when you pick at your skin? It does for me. I dont have experience with other substances, but I would imagine that that is the difference and that is why you have to abstain altogether.

freshstart57

It makes no sense to tell myself that I can't drink. Of course I can drink, I can drink like hell, and I did it for decades. There is a ton of proof that I can drink, just ask my family and my friends and anyone else who stuck with my until I made my choice.

I had a choice between drinking and having a life worth living. I had a choice between shame, anger, depression, anxiety, self hate, failure, loneliness, and accomplishment, respect, achievement, mental and physical health. I simply couldn't have it both ways.

When I came to see that my drinking alcohol was about to take away everything that I valued in my live, I decided to fight. I decided to quit and I decided that nothing, no how, at no time, would ever make me drink again. No grief, no sadness, no despair, no celebration, no excitement, nothing, would ever make me drink, could ever make me drink. I didn't quit because bad things had happened to me, tho they certainly had. I quit because I wanted a life worth living, and that requires I be sober.

I decided I was in control of this, and that I would exert ultimate control. I would never drink again, and I would never change my mind. Done. Boom. I have no idea how many days I've been sober, but I remember very clearly the exact date and time. August 21, 2011, 9:35 am was when I quit.

Could I drink again? Who knows? There is nothing that could matter less to me now. I would never trade my life today for one that had alcohol in it. Any alcohol.

Jennyhenny, I hope you can find a way to look at your drinking that solves it for you, and answers all your questions in a way they need never be asked again. I believe in you.