Frenzy

Had a difficult day at work today, argument with the manager and was shaking like a leaf after, I was so mad, decided to have a drink when I got home, tearful afternoon.

managed to not hit the bottle when I came home though, surprised myself, bit of a breakthrough perhaps.
What do people here find to be their biggest stumbling block or emotion to tempt yourself from sobriety?

DogShow

The thinking that "problems" or "Bad days" have the power to make me drink is my biggest stumbling block. Because it's not what makes me wanna drink...Alcoholism is what makes wanna drink.

Scolova

Earlier on I believe it was my anger\resentment at anything or anyone that was hardest to deal with. Then the voice saying "Job well done... have a drink."... I still get those thoughts, but at 7 months it's easy to stop them.
The hard ones for me now come out of the clear blue, the thought of having a casual drink.. grrrr. I do my best to quickly reject those thoughts and try not to get to high or to low emotionally, but my mind is settling in very well to the "I do not drink." state of mind.
:ghug3

MycoolFitz

Hardest for me, the nights don't drink so don't sleep but I think of the good. Rather not sleep than pass out. And my friends here

eJoshua

Having nothing to do. Solution? Keep myself busy.

bayliss

I don't much have this problem now as I am trying to deal with my anger in different ways but in the past (while actively drinking) anger was definitely one of the emotions I had difficulties dealing with.
I'm the type of person that likes to please everyone and I want everyone to "like" me, which will never happen because that is life and you can't please everyone...so i would suppress a lot of my anger and I would begin to resent others and become bitter. Instead of standing up for myself to the people that I needed to stand up to I would take it out on people that had nothing to do it with.

So in the past...anger was definitely a "trigger" for me. My AV would have a field day if I ever got pissed.
"Screw them! Since you can't say anything in fear of it getting worse just go and have a couple of drinks to calm your ass down and all will be fine."

Needless to say, it wasn't fine...and it was still there the next day...plus a hangover.

I need to deal with my emotions differently now. Not use alcohol as a crutch...

At the end of the day I liked the way it made me feel. Of course. I liked the high.
Geeze, I liked to feel that more then anger or bitterness or sadness.
But that isn't living and it doesn't solve anything.

So as much as certain things may make you "want" to drink, when you wake up the next morning (or afternoon) with a massive hangover, your problem is still there, waiting for you to deal with it the healthy way and not the half-assed cowards way (with Monsieur Booze).

deepnblue

Anger is a big one for me right now and its coming out of no where, its like all of a sudden this white hot rage over a memory or a thought or hell, just fill in the blank!

The burden of this anger/resentment/rage overwhelms me, to feel that I have this much inside me makes me feel like a horrible person to be feeling these things. It's a cycle from anger to feeling bad for feeling the anger (I don't see myself as this person) and then back to anger. I feel weak for letting the anger take me over...and so the cycle continues though I've kept my sobriety, I've lost a lot of sleep.

Spinach

As time moves on you will become more emotionally stable. So when others start on a plan of argument you dont join in as easily.
Also you will not pick up that drink.
John.