jpgolfer

So many times in my life I have been dragged down by booze. The terror that I feel the next day. What did I do? What did I say? How much did I really drink? How am I going to make it into work? etc... the terror that comes with being an alcoholic.

The problem is somewhere deep down inside me there is a place that looks at alcohol as the ultimate reward. If I've had a good day, done well at work, played golf, coached my son's team, mowed the lawn, you name it... I'm actually looking forward to the reward (drinking) while I'm doing the activity. I've actually thought (recently) while playing golf that I need to shoot a better score just so drinking that night is more enjoyable. I feel like I am just programmed wrong.

The problem is when I start drinking, I don't just stop at 1 or even 10. So the reward turns into the terror the next day. So I'll stop for a while, only to be a "good boy" for a while then reward myself for not drinking by drinking. Insanity...

I don't drink for the party, I drink for sanity. When I drink life slows down for a while, it makes sense, I can see my place in this world very clearly while drinking. But then the 10th and 13th and 16th drink kicks in and I black out and wake up hungover and ashamed.

I must stop this cycle. I must find another way to live in this world with the bills, stress from work, kids, wife, etc... without needing to reward myself with drinking. It only brings me down.

Chris Rock had a joke once that said how people brag about never going to jail. His comment was "What you want, a COOKIE". I find a parrallel in that joke and my drinking. When I do just normal stuff my brain says "it's time to reward yourself with some drinks. It's my time. It's the only time that I feel like I am 100 percent at ease. It's sooooo great, right up until it's not. And it's not everytime... Why does my solution to life have to come with such horrible side effects? I may never know... I just hope that I can re program my brain to not seek reward all of the time.

I'm on day 2. I've been sober before 6 months is the longest stretch. But I always felt as if I was missing out on my peace. I just want peace and serenity and the only thing I've ever found to give me that (however brief and fleeting) is alcohol.

I need a different solution...

Good night all...

6palms

I know what you're saying about rewarding yourself for being "normal". I do it all the time. Good job being sober for the week...have a drink, you obviously don't have a problem...or, today was bad so have a drink to bury it. If you allow your savage mind to decide what to do the answer is always, "have a drink". I need to reprogram too...I just went thru 6 days of complete sobriety and clarity...only to celebrate by having 4 days of drinking..we need to get our sh!t together. I've determined that it's total abstinence or nothing...I'm not a "black out" drunk but I can't drink in "moderation". That's my latest revelation...

Amy2011

I will have 1 year tomorrow. My suggestion is to find a program of recovery that works for you, commit to it, and follow it through even when you don't want to. I needed face to face support and directions to follow which AA gave me. I had to accept that my way was not working and I needed to listen and learn from people who were successful in recovery. Follow through is key. Just don't drink for today. I have found that to be successful in recovery you have to be an active participant in your recovery. I also decided I would rather be home sober then out drinking with friends. The good things in life usually take some work. Some days are good and some days are bad, but at least I remember them now Nothing changes if nothing changes. My peace and serenity started to come when I started to learn how to live a sober life and be comfortable as a sober person. It took time, months, and I am still learning as new situations arise. Good luck.

eJoshua

It's a long process and it helps to have support along the way. Hang in there, you will relearn how to live normally.

Tippingpoint

You should check out the AVRT thread in the secular connections forum as well. AVRT would help you to recognize and disassociate from that Addictive Voice that is driving your thoughts right now. Once you can do that you will find peace.

jobei

Yea this is how I am as well. The programming tells us that the alcohol is the reward... rewards are why people do things and how habits are formed. If you want to change a habit a great method is to try to change the reward. I've been doing that this time... rewarding myself for NOT drinking. I've been saving the money that I would spend on booze each day and putting it into a jar... after a month or two I'll buy something big that I can be proud of. Until then just watching that jar fill up daily is a nice reward!

ReadyAndAble

Yep, we all need to rewire ourselves to escape addiction. It interesting how I came to view alcohol as a refuge from stress and sadness and monotony, yet once I attained escape velocity and broke free of its gravitation pull, I could look back and see quite clearly how it was the single biggest source of stress, sadness, and monotony in my life. The cause, masquerading as the cure.

Freedom and self-respect—those are the rewards I can truly count on, in good times and in bad.

InsertNameHere

I agree with this you say that it seems like you are programed "wrong". I don't know about wrong but you have programed yourself to view alcohol as the end state to feeling good about anything. Our brains are programable, with enough repeated actions we can learn to do just about anything well and without thinking about it. Hence the expression practise makes perfect, we have been practising drinking, in some cases we have been practising drinking more than a multimillion dollar NFL quarterback practises throwing a football. This is going to take time and practise as well to get us out of this pattern.

I also agree with tipping point in that AVRT might give you a leg up on identifying those thoughts and dismissing them, helping you to get past thinking about them and get on to developing better patterns in your life and therefore your thought process. "reprogram" your brain so to speak. Also if it helps pick another reward, it could be anything, a cigar, an apple, a shower, a nap, anything you can associate as a "treat" that you use to replace the alcohol. Be forewarned if that works you may find yourself hooked on something else entirely, but I don't think anyone ever got put in jail for eating three apples after the golf game and then driving home

jpgolfer

Great stuff guys. I have been reading into the AVRT and like what I see. I like the idea of taking control over your thoughts and not being lead by impulses.

Quick question, how does AVRT address cravings?

vinyl

JP, I have a similar slant to my own drinking, much different than those I know who drink. I'm the only one who works hard at doing a good job at anything from coaching a game to finishing a rough draft of a project. The moment I feel great about something, it's time to pi*s it all away in celebration of my efforts.

I did however get some insight into this a while back from a therapist. You see, I spent much my my youth being torn away from home to home, friend to friend, etc. Whenever things got good and I felt safe, it would be ripped from under me. So now I have this sort of self sabotage thing going on. Whenever I'm doing something great or being successful, I kill it before it has a chance to be taken away from me. It's a deep stretch, but it makes a lot of sense, for me anyway. So it's not as much as a reward (as I thought it was) as an opportunity to end the success before someone hurts me ort I lose it all. After all, the happiness wont last (that's what my brain thinks).

With that said, I too feel absolutely clear when drinking. Not exuberant or happy, just clear of mind. That has always been way too scary. I was also not a habitual drinker. I could go a few days without a drink. The problem for me is, when I do drink, I don't stop and will go until dawn, or blackout. I feel so confident, lucid and outgoing when I drink that I feel the world is mine. Crazy, right?

I'm on day 6 btw.

Anyway, hang in there and keep sharing. It's important.

InsertNameHere

Here is the link to the first AVRT thread in the Secular Connections Forum;

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...iscussion.html

That thread (and the four after it) will answer a lot of your questions about AVRT. Addictive Voice Recognition Training, is all about being able to identify cravings for alcohol, feel them, acknowlage them but not listen instead is it a form of disassociating with them. In AVRT you learn to identify those thoughts as "not you" but a different person or entity which is the primitive survival side of your mind that has come to associate alcohol with life itself. The basic idea is that the lower "beast or lizard" part of your brain doesn't know that alcohol is bad for you, it only knows that alcohol feels good, so it thinks that you need alcohol to survive, because anything that feels good to that part of your brain is necessary, like eating or breathing. So that part of you is the part that wants to drink even though you know that you don't because your thinking or "human brain recognizes the draw backs and negatives that drinking causes, is your "beast" or primitive brain. The thing is that the "beast" part of your brain doesn't control you it can only talk to you and sugest, you have to act. This talking is called the Addictive Voice, and AVRT teaches you to recognize when the addictive voice is talking and how to identify it as not you but it. There is one key though, you really have to WANT to stop drinking all the way forever, for it to work as advertised (that is the part that took me a while to grasp). I have gone on a few rants before about it describing to people and there is a lot of information on the link I sent but also there is this site that will give you the basic premise of it;

https://rational.org/index.php?id=35

That will give you a better idea on what it is about and let you decide if it is for you.

Hope that helps.