maxjet

Hello, I am a heavy drinker and am trying to cut down. I have not had a drink for 6 days. Went to my first AA meeting yesterday too. Thanks for reading.

doggonecarl

Welcome to SR, Max, and congratulation on six days sober. How did the meeting go? Great if you can leverage face-to-face support in your recovery.

Is your plan to reduce your drinking or eliminate it?

Soberpotamus

Hi Max, welcome to SR! Congrats on 6 days

maxjet

Thanks, meeting went ok, first time I had ever been to one. Trying to reduce drinking and making some progress.

doggonecarl

Good luck.
This is a site for those seeking sobriety and guiding people who stuggle to maintain it. If you look around the forum you will see a lot of posts from people trying to control or moderate their drinking. The answer they usually get it "Great if you can do that, I never could."

Not trying to discourage you from being on SR. Hope you stick around. Perhaps when you've accumulated sufficient sober time you might want to continue staying a non-drinker. Or if you struggle to reduce your drinking, as so many of us have experienced, we'll be here.

Hevyn

Welcome to SR Maxjet! I hope you'll find the answers and support you're looking for. We're glad you found us.

maxjet

Thanks again. I've really been struggling with alcohol over the last few years. Just two months ago I was drinking whole bottles of vodka to myself every week. Been trying to quit this year. Tried last year but tried to quit smoking AND drinking at the same time and only quit smoking. Its been really hard to keep my drinking down to a sensible level.
Last night had one beer. Yes, one beer. Had to fight myself to not go to the shops and buy more beer, sat down had dinner and watched a movie instead. But QUITTING drink? That doesn't seem remotely possible.... feels like a lot of my life revolves around drinking on some other level I can't see or find.

Maylie

Welcome to SR!

Congrats on 6 days! When we are in the midst of addiction each day is such a struggle and 6 days is a big accomplishment!

I know it might seem impossible to picture never drinking again, but just take it one day at a time. You might not be able to wrap your head around never drinking again or making it 6 months or even 1 month...but you can get through today right? As long as you keep working at it one day at a time before you know it you will get to a month and realize there is life without drinking.

Until you give life sober a chance you'll never know exactly what you are capable of. I never realized how much time I wasted being sick, trying to find drugs, sleeping in, driving around, waiting, etc. until I got clean. No wonder I thought life was boring, I spent it all sick or waiting!

Keep reading and posting! You are def. NOT alone.

doggonecarl

I discovered that controlling my drinking was more of a struggle than quitting.

But I had to quit first to realize that.

Iwanttobebetter

Hi Max. I'm on day 6 too. Good luck!

maxjet

Man I do not know.... Two years ago I told myself "This is the year I'm going to quit." And I ended up going full throttle for long periods as I had done the previous 18 months. Last year I vowed to clean my act up and quit, ie. all out just quit. But it backfired quite drastically and I ended up spending a night in prison, nothing major, nobody got hurt (apart from me and only slightly) and I was released in the morning with no charges. But it was serious and definitely a wake-up call. So again I told myself, That's it, this is ridiculous, I'm quitting completely, but 6 weeks later I'm back to drinking again. "Quitting" drinking, no matter how serious I get about it, is much harder than I thought it would be. so what I'm doing now is slowly moderating my drink down and not getting drunk every night... eating meals with a drink and going to bed without being drunk... it is very hard but I have cut down drastically.

Dollyangel17

Welcome Max! Glad you have joined us.

ScottFromWI

I actually found moderating was even harder than quitting, because no matter what I did I always ended up back to full on drinking eventually.

What have you tried to help yourself stay sober the times that you've quit other than just trying not to drink?

Zencat

It looks to me that maybe you could benefit by reading about AVRT (Addictive Voice Recognition Technique) Theres an AVRT thread here at SR (http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...ined-long.html)

I have practiced distraction so as to dissociate from the urge. Keep hanging in there, as sober time adds the urges go away,

Dee74

Hi Max - welcome

Yeah it didn't seem possible to me either - my entire life was suffused with drink.
But eventually things got so bad I had no choice but to quit, and I'm glad I did.

I love my life now, I love who I am, I love what I do, I feel grateful for every new day and I can look at myself in the mirror without looking away.

I've reconnected with the real me, a me lost through years of drinking.
My perspective is no longer skewed, and I have my soul back.

I couldn't have done any of that while still drinking, even a little.

I couldn't stand the thought of forever either - but not drinking today was achievable....then tomorrow...then the next day...soon I realised I was doing forever anyway

D

maxjet

Very little can keep me effectively off alcohol for long. I have no family, no friends, and no job. Whenever I have quit, I have always come back to drinking because I cannot deal with the hopelessness. I know from self-help that completely quitting, rather than moderating, is more recommended and it seems logical because of the health benefits. But whenever I've gone 100% quit mode, I stay off for up to a week before I come crashing back down to getting drunk every day and drinking even more than I was previously. Slowing down my consumption of alcohol, rather than totally quitting, has been much more effective to me - I still give myself permission to drink, but not get drunk. This means I can deal with the hopelessness a little better without abusing alcohol. My goal is to reduce my drinking to or just above the recommended amount instead of constant and dangerous binging.

I wish I could do that. I don't even see anyone in the mirror.