dfw_txs

approximately how long does it take one typically to enjoy things without booze? One of the things I struggle with is how to enjoy vacations, ball games, nights out with friends without drinking. Thats my fear, and one of the reasons I always seem to go back to drinking - that life will no longer become fun without drinking.

Inevitably I justify going back to drinking because I get bored, and a few weeks later after trying to moderate, I am getting sloshed every other night.

So just looking for some adivce on the above. Right now it seems hopeless:
bored the rest of my life or dying early due to drinking. Not good options either way.

Anna

Hi Dfw,

It didn't take me very long to enjoy things with alcohol being involved, but that was because when I got sober, I changed a lot in my life. I went back to my roots and rebuilt, in a sense. Sometimes you need to make major changes and that can include the friends you hang out with and the places you go. I didn't go anywhere where alcohol was being served for a long time after I got sober, because I knew it would lead me back, sooner or later, to drinking.

Yes, it's hard but it's all about choices. If you find that you're always bored when you stop drinking and so go back to drinking, then maybe you need to do things differently.

You can do this!!

Music

You'll be able to answer your own question when bordom becomes desparation.

Peter

For me it began when I changed my thinking.

All my life I associated alcohol with fun and pleasure so it took me many months in AA to learn how to change my tired old ideas about booze.

CarolD

Hmmm...I see the word moderation in your post.

Here is some info you might find interesting.

According to the CDC...a woman who has 1 or a man who has 2 standard drinks daily is a moderate drinker..

What is a Standard Drink?
A standard drink is one 12 ounce beer, one 5 ounce glass of wine, or one 1.5 ounce shot of distilled spirits. Each of these drinks contains about half an ounce of alcohol.

Is beer or wine safer to drink than hard liquor?
No. One 12 ounce beer has about the same amount of alcohol as one 5 ounce glass of wine, or one 1.5 ounce shot of liquor.

If you are drinking more than that...you have passed the moderation level.

How about actually quitting and checking out AA?
That can give you a life of joy and fulfullment.

Cap3

How long does it take to enjoy things without booze?
It took as long as i wanted it to.
So for me it wasnt long at all.No more did i see booze as a benifit,fun thingy to do.Or the thing to do,because everyone else seemed to be doing it.I know the truth about my own drinking.Cant fool myself into thinking i could drink normally,because it just never happened.

trytrytry

That was one of my first fears when I quit. Then I started to ask myself why I thought things were more fun with alcohol. Maybe it made me more confident or reckless, maybe it was just an escape from stress or anxiety. I'll trade the headaches, lies, loss of money, etc. for a new kind a fun. As someone else said it is about getting back to your roots, your core. Find some interests or challenges you have always wanted to take on and make that your focus. You can do it.

Taiman

It takes while to start to enjoy these activities again, vacations, ballgames, hanging out with friends. However if you are trying to enjoy these activites with heavy drinker that could be why you end up drinking again. I am not saying that you have to be Ned Flanders but any activity you enjoy in should be with abstainers or normal moderate drinkers who support, respect and encourage your abstinence.

I think most important to quit drinking, no matter which path you choose, is a firm, resolute decision to quit. You will have to change things in your life. I quit smoking 7 or 8 years ago. I had to make changes. I stopped going to the smoking section in restaurants. I stopped hanging out with my smoking friends for a while. I planned an activity for after dinner because I knew I would crave a cigarette then. I surrounded myself with people who supported my desire to quit and stayed away from those people who didn't. The same goes for drinking, there is a period of adjustment, a period where changes have to be made. It doesn't mean your social life is over. For me I stayed away from drinkers whenvever possible for the first year and I didn't keep alcohol in the house. Some activities came quicker than others. Baseball games came quick, I just didn't go with heavy drinkers.

Sheryl85

Quote:

Originally Posted by dfw_txs

approximately how long does it take one typically to enjoy things without booze? One of the things I struggle with is how to enjoy vacations, ball games, nights out with friends without drinking. Thats my fear, and one of the reasons I always seem to go back to drinking - that life will no longer become fun without drinking.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>

<o:p></o:p>

<o:p></o:p>I’m in the same boat as Peter and Cap. It was when my thinking changed that things got better… but for me that was only made possible with the help and positive reinforcement granted to me by the program of AA. In the early days I too could not even imagine a life without my old friend alcohol. And like Try, I had to examine why I had thought drinking was all that fun. It might be to other people, but not to the alcoholic like I was. Alcohol was no longer a beverage, it’s a poison.

<o:p></o:p>I was considered young when I came in the program at 29 years of age and I couldn’t foresee a life without alcohol. I kept asking myself would I have to give up all the companionship and camaraderie that seemed to go along with drinking. One day I realized I didn’t have to do “forever”, I only had to do today! Today I still do the same things I did when I got here and will keep on doing them for the rest of my life…One day at a time.

Good luck and keep us posted on how it is going!

FaeryQueen

As a result of working the steps my idea of "fun" has definitely changed. Getting drunk, saying stupid sh*t, annoying people, fighting, and making a general ass of myself at concerts, fancy parties, fund raisers, sporting events, etc and then waking up with a hangover accompanied by impending doom, terror, bewilderment, anxiety....just doesn't seem fun anymore!

Imagine that!

Fun for me now includes creative endeavors, reading, playing with my kids, live music, and many of the things I used to have to drink to enjoy.

One day you will look up and realize "this is fun....I am happy and peaceful...and I am sober." This is the psychic change that occurs as a direct result of working the steps with a sponsor, but you won't be able to relate until you experience it.

Or you could just go on struggling with the endless cycle of
boredom---> drinking--->remorse--->boredom--->drinking--->remorse

Now that's FUN bro.

brigid

Took me a while to work out that what I really thought was fun. Take out alcohol and then look at the fun of things. Are they still fun? What makes a ball game fun, is it the drinking?

Alcohol had this way of taking over my fun, it dominated and didn't let the other stuff in. In fact the other stuff seemed so dam boring! Is this it? It this all there is to life? I need more excitement in my life.

Now there are exceptionally exciting things in life that I get to enjoy and feel without alcohol overshadowing my every feeling. In fact stuff that I thought would be great to do when I was a kid, I do now. Sometimes the childhood imaginings aren't always how it is in real life, but sometimes they are.

One of the best things about not drinking is getting back to myself, me, what did I like to do before alcohol. I agree there is a core of me that got totally ignored. The good stuff, the nice stuff, the truly magnificently caring stuff just seemed too mundane when I had alcohol in my life. Thank goodness I don't see things like that anymore. "Me" might seem tame to those people drinking their lives away, but I am much stronger and more focused than they are, simply because I don't drink anymore and because I have chosen to grow up.

Life can be so much more.
love brigid