wichitalineman

When I started this journey 5 months ago, I had no hard and fast expectations. I only knew I had to quit drinking if I was going to make this thing called 'life' work in any way, shape or form. 5 months later, I am still standing on planet sober and feel more alive and in control than I have ever felt previously.

What changed? I've been trying to quit drinking for the last 2 years, relapsing every single time I tried. Why is this time different? I've been thinking about these questions an awful lot lately. I want to be able to express the answers to others who are looking for direction in getting their sobriety off the ground. I want to be able to see if I can apply these answers to other areas of my life I want to change as well. And mostly, I want to understand all these moving parts so I can steer clear or returning to the black hole that was my life at the first sign of trouble. What are these answers?

Right now I only have peripheral vision into these answers. My d.o.c was alcohol. I know I have to accept that I cannot drink ever again. Period. I have to fight, and fight hard, to stay sober. I have to work my recovery, whatever that ultimately ends up meaning to me. I have to go for it, stay firm in my resolve to remain sober, but flexible in my approach. I have to be willing to take massive action and try to stay as positive as possible, even when fighting of this terrible affliction to drink at every step.

I felt I had the motivation to do this. I felt I had the fight in me. I have been dreaming of the day when I'd be sober and free for as long as I could remember... in fact, I was obsessing over it and couldn't _stop_ thinking about it, and yet continually drinking every single night into oblivion. If I wanted this so bad, and it was dominating my thoughts every single day and night, why couldn't I bust out of this routine? Today I have been focusing on the ways and the whys of how I've changed up my approach to getting ahead of this thing.

I feel that I used to be like a trapped fly. Ever notice those times a fly is stuck in a room and is trying to get out? It flies up to the window and _smack_! It hits the window. 'Well, that didn't work, let me do that again... ' says the fly. Smack again! And this can go on, for literally hours at a time! We've all observed these flies at one time or another. It got me thinking. That fly sure has some deep, intense motivation to get out of this house, there's no denying that. Its smacking its head on that window all day long... but ultimately, it is getting nowhere and will never get out of this house. If that fly only changed up its approach, and looked for a different exit, maybe fly into another room and look for an open door or window, it would be far more likely to get out of this house...

Bam. It hit me. _I_ needed to change up my approach to getting and staying sober. I needed to change how I started my day, how the work portion of the day went, how the evening went. I needed to turn it upside down! Do the unexpected! I felt I had it in me to do this, and I felt I'd been banging my head against that window for years. I began with gusto. I took a different train route into work, I ate lunch at different places than usual and at a different time of day. I usually walk partway home in the evenings to get some exercise and further change up the routine by arriving home later.

I have to admit I feel somewhat bad about some friendships because I have honestly dropped the ball and not gotten back to people lately. Some people would just trigger a drinking episode and I had to just cut out of those scenes. The closer friends are still around and we hang out in a sober way, and the other friends turned out to be just drinking buddies - how lame. I thought those friendships were much more than that but once you remove the alcohol, turns out we were just whistlin' dixie all those long evenings. Funny (I guess) what alcohol will make you think and do. Interesting how sobriety will show you what's really up and going on in your life.

Like I said, I don't have all the answers in focus at this stage. I am still a newcomer to recovery. The biggest change I made was taking this go at sobriety head on, and am focusing intensely on changing up my game to make it happen. I am finally understanding what 'one day at a time' means. That phrase deserves to be tattoo'd on my forehead... but my mother would never forgive me. So, it's still there... just written on the 'inside' of the forehead, so to speak.

Joining SR and interacting with everyone here was one of the best decisions I have made in a long time! Taking this step of joining SR and interacting with everyone _really_ changed up my approach to remaining sober. Thank you to everyone for all of your thoughtful words and your stories. I hope my thoughts and reflections today on how I changed up my routine can in turn be useful to someone else. (Else, this just wasted 5077k of server space!)

I hung up the phone on my pal Jack Daniel's 153 days ago. Looking forward to many more. Thank you!

HumbleBee

Witchita,

What an amazing post. Thank you.

I love the fly analogy. Depsite us having a brain, we still proceeded to fly into that wall time and time again, hoping that by sheer persistence that we would break through the barrier.

It was only until we took real action, as you eloquently described, that changes began taking place.

And, you're right...the tatoo of one day at a time is better left imprinted on our heart instead of our head...

...besides, if it was on your forehead, it'd look funny when you saw it in the mirror. LOL.

Your gratitude, honesty and humility is inspiring, W. Thank you again.

P.S. I always think of the Glen Campbell song whose title is the same as your username. I love that song.

NEOMARXIST

Thanks for the post mate. Nice one on 153 days too!!

I think that sobriety absolutely requires change and most definately an altered attitute towards life, yourself, other people and the world in general. You seem to have that and have a great sense of gratitute and contentment in your sobriety/recovery. Which is great.

You give hope to many people starting out wanting to get sober.

Increase The Peace ps- The weather is terrible today! Typical England!

Dream2bClean

GREAT post!!! Thanks for the inspiration for myself as well as you.

I am a day 6er here and that really helped, as I can relate to the majority of what you wrote.

Thank you and keep up the good work... Im very proud and hopeful for you, I know you can do it!

<3 Dream