vulcan30

Hello there all,

Last night I had a heavy drinking session and am pretty hungover today. Fortunately I've been keeping a diary of things that trigger my drinking, my thoughts, emotions, how I respond to them.

Last night, my dad was drinking wine, was determined I wasn't going to drink. So I decided to take a bike ride down to the beach. Unfortunately, what I saw down there triggered me; it rubbed-in my loneliness. I've been using cognitive behavioural therapy tools to record. Today I want to share it.

ACTIVATING EVENT
-Being down the beach on my own on a warm evening and seeing large groups of people and happy couples socialiising, having barbecues, swimming, walking together (main trigger)
-dad drinking at home

THOUGHTS; WHAT WAS ON MY MIND?
-I have no social life
-I have no friends
-No one wants to meet up with me
-I have no-one who's interested in doing those things together
-The friends I do have only ever want to meet to go to the pub, they suck
-Everyone else is doing much better socially than me
-I'll never have that sort of social life
-This town is crap for meeting people
-I miss the Couchsurfing meets and having that sort of social life

EMOTIONS
Frustrated, angry, sad, jealous, envious, LONELY

BEHAVIOUR
-Initially FORCED myself not to drink, had a bath, tried to distract myself
-Rang a friend of mine to have a natter about how the media has been misleading to justify lockdown/house arrest/imprisonment*

SHORT TERM CONSEQUENCES
-couldn't stop thinking about drinking
-Felt MISERABLE and deprived
-Felt OVERWHELEMED by the amount of time in the evening and the thought of tossing and turning

BEHAVIOUR
caved in and had a session

*Phoning my friend, when talking about the enjoying the weather, he mentioned that he's 'enjoying a few beers most nights & getting pissed'.

Grymt

Thank you for sharing. Please continue to do so.
BTW... Do you have any questions. Do you need help with anything.?

tomls

I've found that patience is a very important thing in my sobriety.

fini

hi vulcan,
not sure i remember CBT accurately, but isn't the big part to counter all those "never, always, everyone else..." thoughts with rational counter-evidence? to get to a more balanced picture?

doggonecarl

That's what I was thinking too. It's more than just observing.

1. Be aware
2. Challenge you thoughts
3. Look for evidence
4. Search for alternative explanations
5. Put thoughts into perspective
6. What is the more positive/helpful thought?

Dropsie

Thanks for the openness in the orginal post.

I would have made the same points as Carl and Fini.

For me, I really had to DECIDE that I do not drink no matter what and then those tools like CBT became assets. But the stop came first.

dwtbd

You need to decide if you want to quit drinking or quit wanting to.

Making a self commitment to never again consume alcohol is 100 % achievable, it’s guaranteed a do-able human possibility.

No guarantee on never wanting to, understanding and becoming comfortable with that realization actually makes quitting the comfortable choice.