Sapling

This is a little exercise that my counselor in rehab gave us...I'm sure some others here have heard of it. I found it very useful.
Write a Letter to your addiction...Give it any name you want....I was drinking a lot of Budweiser when I threw in the towel...(It was cheap.) So I called my friend...Bud F*ck. Call it whatever name you want.
You can do this on a word processor or a piece of paper...Whatever. Tell your DOC why you can't be a friend anymore...Be honest and let it come from the heart...All the reasons you can't be around them anymore...How they hurt you...Your feelings towards them. How you are going to part ways with them and stay away for ever. Anything you want to say. I found it to be a good lesson with starting to get honest with myself...Which for me is where recovery starts. I had to find out how much denial I was really in.
If you want to cut and paste it on here...Go ahead....If you want to burn it...That's fine too. It's a nice way to kill and hour or two and not drink. Have a great sober day.

DaveVelasco

I feel down today. Not actually about my job, but personal reason actually. I do not know why I am feeling it this way right now. Maybe I just don't feel a sense of achievement on where I am now, or not satisfied with what I am doing after all.

RobbyRobot

Yeah, that's YOUR call to make. You're the best judge of what satisfies you. I hope things work out better today for you, Dave.

When I have a "don't know my feelings" moments; then I know from that I'm already going through some kind of change process -- so I give myself a bit of a breakthrough, and keep pushing and working forwards, rather then just sit and wonder WTF is up with me. Sapling has a good idea too, above, as you now know.

Be a good friend to yourself too!

cb1

this is a really good idea, i think i am going to do this right now (while I am sober) and carry it around with me at all times...then if i have an urge, i will read it out loud. Thanks for the great idea!

sober4metoday

This is how I felt yesterday! I didn't write my old friend alcohol a letter but I did mourn his "death". I tried for 20 years to make him my friends but all he ever did was hurt me. I'm glad the rat b@st@rds gone! Now I will have time to make new friends like tennis and Pilates. They'll probably hurt me too a little but at least it will be in a good way!