To drink or not to drink is that a question ?

Old 11-18-2013, 01:07 PM
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To drink or not to drink is that a question ?

Hey y'all,
So i kinda hijacked a thread earlier (sorry) by asking someone why they had left the door open .. Seems to me if you leave the door open to drinking , you leave it open .

I don't ask myself this question anymore , shall i drink or not ? It gives me no anxiety . The answer "no" satisfies me … once you've answered a question to it's satisfaction the question in my experience disappears , i don't wander round thinking whats one plus one .

I have no questions about alcohol … I wondered if some of you did and by me saying how i perceive things if it might help someone .

In by asking oneself to drink or not to drink , is it setting up psychological needs and stresses one would not have by not having the question , if it were answered to your satisfaction it just seems to me you wouldn't ask it .

Just drop it, move on and get on with making ones life as nice as possible .

I'm not looking for an answer here , i have mine , this whole thing might be useless , but i just thought it was worth pointing out .

Bestwishes, m
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Old 11-19-2013, 01:37 AM
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It's a good point M I remember saying to you a while ago that I too found the leaving of the door open was too much to deal with daily. Every day I was having the power struggle 'drink or don't' it was taking me half the day to decide and it was constantly on my mind as an option I still had. When I was told about avrt and I finally wised up enough to take back control over my life it's just been a relief.
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Old 11-19-2013, 01:52 AM
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My Big Plan is made, and the decision therefore is also made and final. That's rule #1. If I ever begin to wonder or think about drinking in the future I see rule #1. I do allow that if I have free will I could choose to drink in the future. So yeah, that is possible. But I know now that I am running this ship, not the Beast. There's no rational reason to go back to drinking- it was killing me. So any thoughts along those lines are easy to recognize as AV/Beast Thinking.
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Old 11-19-2013, 01:55 AM
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My old sponsor used to say there was a difference between admitting I was an alcoholic and accepting it. That only once I was able to see it as just not an option anymore was recovery possible. Early days for me and working on that acceptance.
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Old 11-19-2013, 03:36 AM
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Yeah I 'knew' I was an alcoholic for a long time - i just didn't know how to not be - people kept speaking of hitting the ultimate low point and I'd hit that a few times and in different ways - it seemed that enough was never going to be enough for me. I was going to have to stop or be stopped by death if I didn't stop this beast from self destructing me. Slow daily painful suicide is how I still describe my drinking. I don't think that it's ever helpful to advise people that 'your not ready to stop drinking because you've not hit your lowest yet' my beast challenged that - loved it - he was like 'oh really let's see how low we can get you and keep drinking AT it all the injustice, the sadness, the self pitty, heck I'm going to make you so burnt out putting up the perfect image to the outside world and STILL drinking half the night that you won't even know what's real' that's how it was lol my life was a blur of frenzied and nervous energy activity and at night I'd numb those nerves down a bit. Oh it's insanity - it's mind altering what alcohol will do. People say heroin is nasty - I agree 100% but I think alcohol is totally underestimated - it made me such a sneak and a liar and I could manipulate any situation to justify to myself drinking. I remember being at the stage of I met a friend in a shop and I had alcohol - I didn't even bother to justify it. I was just thinking 'we will both ignore the elephant in the room' lol anyway rambling on as always...
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Old 11-19-2013, 05:15 AM
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Interesting topic.

What about those who say, just for today? Is that not leaving the door somehow open? I think whatever keeps us sober is good, maybe my door wasn't closed when I thought it was.

At first, all I knew was for some reason, I never wanted to drink again. I woke up one day and thought enough is enough. But for me (and it's just me), I had to move past saying just for today after I had a.slip a month ago.

To use your analogy Mecanix, the door feels closed now, but I don't feel it as a sense of finality, like a loss. It's just a fact...My body chemistry has passed the point of no return...my system is so screwed now that the messages alcohol send in my biochemistry are just all wrong.

I guess it's acceptance. Feeling comfortable with the facts. Not sure.
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Old 11-19-2013, 05:53 AM
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Originally Posted by Try18 View Post
My old sponsor used to say there was a difference between admitting I was an alcoholic and accepting it. That only once I was able to see it as just not an option anymore was recovery possible. Early days for me and working on that acceptance.
I'm not sure how one works on acceptance , to me it seems either i accept i can't drink or i reject it . I rejected the idea for a long time , then something changed and i accepted it . haven't had a drink since .

I don't see a grey area , for me either i accept it totally and that is the end of my question or i am rejecting it and justifying not accepting it with anything that occurs to me , and in doing so i keep the question alive , i keep the stresses and the strains involved alive and i get to drink or not drink another day.

Just accept it , the question will die , you'll be free to go and do something more fun than thinking about if you can or cannot accept something or not which is quite a twisted bit of thinking IMHO , either you can or you can't .. i don't see a grey area ..

I'm not trying to get at you, try18, it's just i think the difference might be worth pointing out ,

m
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Old 11-19-2013, 05:56 AM
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yup not even an option anymore
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Old 11-19-2013, 05:58 AM
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You post made me laugh a little. There's about 4 levels of abstraction one can choose in answering this question... I'll get even with you for that.

I closed the door. Funny thing about doors, though, you can just open them right up and walk through. Most days now go by without noting the door is there, and the door doesn't usually pop right up in front of me forcing me to acknowledge its existence. However, some days it does.... Stupid magic doors.

I acknowledge the door at times at my post closing to affirm that I control the door, it can't make me walk through it, and I must be vigilant as I'm not allowed to remove it from reality.

I choose not to drink today
FG
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Old 11-19-2013, 06:03 AM
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Originally Posted by Croissant View Post
Interesting topic.

What about those who say, just for today? Is that not leaving the door somehow open? I think whatever keeps us sober is good, maybe my door wasn't closed when I thought it was.

At first, all I knew was for some reason, I never wanted to drink again. I woke up one day and thought enough is enough. But for me (and it's just me), I had to move past saying just for today after I had a.slip a month ago.

To use your analogy Mecanix, the door feels closed now, but I don't feel it as a sense of finality, like a loss. It's just a fact...My body chemistry has passed the point of no return...my system is so screwed now that the messages alcohol send in my biochemistry are just all wrong.

I guess it's acceptance. Feeling comfortable with the facts. Not sure.
I don't know Croissant,
i was just pointing out the difference as i thought it might be of some use .. like i said what i'm saying might be useless … we are all very different people with very different experiences and i don't have any method or ideology to sell , i just thought it was noteworthy but i could be wrong .

Bestwishes, m
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Old 11-19-2013, 06:09 AM
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Originally Posted by foolsgold66 View Post
You post made me laugh a little. There's about 4 levels of abstraction one can choose in answering this question... I'll get even with you for that.

I closed the door. Funny thing about doors, though, you can just open them right up and walk through. Most days now go by without noting the door is there, and the door doesn't usually pop right up in front of me forcing me to acknowledge its existence. However, some days it does.... Stupid magic doors.

I acknowledge the door at times at my post closing to affirm that I control the door, it can't make me walk through it, and I must be vigilant as I'm not allowed to remove it from reality.

I choose not to drink today
FG
just ignore the door, it's all in your mind ignoring imaginary doors can't be good for you

Bestwishes, m
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Old 11-19-2013, 07:24 AM
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Brick that door up lol I don't think 'doors' are helping here lol!!
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Old 11-19-2013, 06:52 PM
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I kind of like the door analogy. I see it as a door I shut , it can't be opened from the inside and it's in a basement of a house in an increasingly distant neighborhood , that I am moving away from. The length of travel and energy I would need to reopen that door grows as times passes and I am certain of what lies on the other side . I know the door exists ,but it's closed .
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Old 11-19-2013, 07:22 PM
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When I think of doors and alcohol, I think of the one I was trapped behind, the closed door that kept me imprisoned. When I decided to quit drinking for good, I unlocked that door, and I became free. Not drinking for me is freedom, and a return to drinking would be to walk back right into that dark, lonely and miserable place once again.
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Old 11-19-2013, 10:44 PM
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I would say:

"To not drink and to be or
To drink and not to be".

And this is out of question) . At least for me.

Best wishes to all.
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Old 11-20-2013, 12:11 AM
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I guess everyone's opinions and ideas are going to vary a bit. For me there is a difference between acknowledging and accepting. That is why for me it is just for a day at a time.
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Old 11-20-2013, 12:17 AM
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Originally Posted by Croissant View Post
Interesting topic.

What about those who say, just for today? Is that not leaving the door somehow open?
I used this approach, but followed no particular recovery school.

When I would say 'I will not drink today' there was always the implicit assumption that I had to back up and do this again tomorrow.

I knew, viscerally, that if I opened 'the door 'again I'd be a goner....

but I still had no faith in myself to do the right thing in the beginning - that came later - until it did, breaking forever up into 24 hour blocks seemed more palatable (and more achievable) for me

I guess it worked...for me lol.

D
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Old 11-20-2013, 04:41 AM
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I need the finality of forever. To shut down any glimmer of hope at one day I might be cured and be able to have a drink again. I only drank to get drunk so I know exactly where a drink would take me and I prefer to never go there.
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Old 11-20-2013, 05:24 AM
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Originally Posted by jdooner View Post
...To shut down any glimmer of hope at one day I might be cured and be able to have a drink again.
WHOA. Back up the bus a minute there. That notion of being 'cured and drinking again' is whack to me. Drinking made me ill so I stopped, and I am 'cured' because I will never drink again.

Your mileage may vary.
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Old 11-20-2013, 05:30 AM
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My last quit, I quit with forever stamped all over it. The just-for-today thing didn't bring me any quit joy, wasn't working for me. Not sure why it didn't work because I certainly believe we can only live our lives a day at a time anyways - we gotta sleep, lol.

I don't think for those who it does work they are necessarily leaving a door open back to drinking - after all if its working ODAAT, then its working, and so no drinking that day. Rinse and repeat.

I needed a forever stamp for purely personal reasons, of that I'm totally sure. Forever is not better or worse than just for today. Just different experience with same results when done correctly with a real purpose kept in mind and heart, imo
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