JayEl

I'm feeling good today and trying to just be happy that it's a good, sober day but my mind keeps going back to 'my plan'...

Where does it fit that you do this day by day, sometimes hour by hour but still need to have a plan? I see that both pieces are crucial, but the forward thinking of a plan seems opposite of staying in today.

Thinking forward is scary, almost ugly for me. That voice kicks in, every time, screaming that I will drink again and to just forget about it. So I go back to focusing on now, and the ugly clears up.

How do these two fit together?

dwtbd

I resonated with alot of the ideas from Rational Recovery and their AVRT, there is a great thread about it in the secular forum here at SR.

IOAA2

Hi.

Today I plan not to drink, great! In a couple hours the phone rings with some terrible news which shakes me up and I want to escape my old fashioned way.

In my plan I would try to get in touch with my sponsor or other people in my group. Many peoples plan might drop to their knees and ask for help so they can cope right now and get in touch with their sponsor. If there is nothing I can do in this situation to help I’d try to get to a meeting and perhaps talk about it. If it came to it I’d rid my mind about drinking and think about not drinking.

There will be others who have suggestions to absorb and remember. The bottom line is we don’t drink. Even if.

BE WELL

Hendrix

Once you really believe that you will never drink again - that is your plan.

Anything else is your addictive voice.......

that's the theory anyway - taking it in bite size chunks helps too though

Hawk07

Hi Jay
They way I look at it is in the beginning of recovery handling the cravings can be very difficult so it makes it a little easier to resist the cravings with the mindset of I will conquer them hour to hour or day to day. In other words you're only handling the present moments instead of anticipating the future all at once which can be daunting in the beginning.

As you continue to work on your plan (support, life style changes ect) these cravings will start to get easier to handle. Some call it 'building your sober muscles'. Just like starting a new fitness regime you first make a plan and then work your way step by step to your goal.

Saskia

Jay, lots of good suggestions! I felt the way you do when I started. I need a plan so when I'm having drinking thoughts in the moment, I will remember that there are things I can do to prevent relapsing. However, if I try to think of staying sober forever, than in difficult moments I might just tell myself that, darn it - I just can't do this. By committing to 24 hours, it doesn't feel so overwhelming. My mind can deal with the idea of sticking it out that long.

If I'm simply having thoughts, I think through what will happen, including realizing that I'd end up back where I was and then I'd have to get sober all over again - ugh! If I have real cravings, then physical activity helps (even just standing up and raising my arms above my head helps) and being around other sober alcoholics helps - I think about how if they can do it, why then so can I!

Soberwolf

Jay keep it in the day if that helps its all we got anyway tomorrow hasnt happened so just focus on today bud

your doing well keep the good work up

strategery

Jayel-when I was first getting sober, the thought of being sober forever was overly daunting and I wasn't sure I wanted to give it up entirely.
I needed a plan to stay sober as the cravings were really intense for me. For me, I sometimes had to get out of the house and distract myself with something I wouldn't be tempted to drink.
While the cravings have gotten much quieter with continued sobriety, they do sometimes pop up for me depending on my emotional state. However, with continued sobriety, the thought of being sober forever is less daunting and is something I want now. I don't want to go back to where I was and am much happier without the booze.
So if you can just work on being sober today and make a plan to deal with the cravings, things will start falling into place and your AV will get much quieter. You'll also start noticing some positive changes.

Soberpotamus

Maybe you can connect them by seeing that what you do today is really the only thing you have any control over. And that what you do today adds up, each day, a day at a time, tacking itself onto the next day... so that one day you are seamlessly and successfully in the midst of your "big plan."

I can't do an actual real thing about tomorrow, not yet. I can only do something in the right now. And so my tomorrows are thus nothing more than all my todays strung together, right?

So what you do right now is call you can do.

You could also see tomorrow as perpetually tentative and conditionally defined by the NOW.

The loose sweater metaphor might apply here as well... you know, "wear your sobriety like a loose sweater"?

Nuudawn

That sounds like part of your plan to me....staying present

I know I too can get myself completely bent out of shape by getting my head wrapped up in the future...

There is some sort of zen wisdom that basically states...

Future tripping = anxiety
Ruminating on the past = depression.

My intention is to live sober...and I deal with that in the present...every arriving moment.

Fly N Buy

Glad you're posting, Keep it up!!

So, for me - simply the plan is;
1. Don't drink regardless of how I feel - happy, sad, glad, mad etc - that choice is done
2. Just for today, I will follow # 1 ( forever is not my focus = too daunting)

Follow the rest of the plan as I become more capable in small parts to achieve emotional sobriety and stay stopped.
The rest of the plan involves regeneration of body, mind and spirit and is multifaceted - for me.

This is all I do and know........gotten me to 182 days

Keep working, stay in the today......Follow one and two and integrate other parts of your "plan" as you grow in sobriety!!!

Warm regards,
FlyN

JayEl

Thanks for all the responses. I think I was expecting to see a lot of; go to meetings, set a schedule, do this then that type of answers but maybe it is this simple. Not easy, just simple. Don't drink, have a plan when you want to drink, follow that plan.

ubntubnt

In my case it was only when I quit that I realised that I had buit my life around drinking. Do I needed to quit day to day but also rebuild my life around not drinking. That's still a work in progress. Both are really important but the not drinking today or tomorrow is definitely the more important.

countrygirl2014

So far my plan is a day by day plan. Read my big book, go to a meeting when possible, call my sponsor, check in here, and don't pick up a drink. That's my plan as of right now.

Jennifer

Dee74

Hi Jay - for me staying in the day doesn't mean not thinking beyond the next minute - that would be a crazy way to live.

It just means that I accept that there are things I can deal with today and lots of other things I can't.

I think it's good to focus on not drinking in the initial stages.

Part of that is a plan - thinking about situations you might encounter, temptations, triggers, ways to deal with things in a healthier way than drinking.

Again - that doesn't mean you spend all your time future tripping...making a plan is about being forearmed that's all.

You're an infantry soldier. Your immediate objective is to win the battle you're in. Your ultimate objective is to win the war.

Stay in the present, but be ready for the future too. I don't really see a contradiction in that?

D

JayEl

I think I get it. Just needed to talk it out, ya know? No need to plan my next 6 months. Just know where my positive influences are, what my triggers are, and get on with the moment at hand.
Glad I started this post. Good thoughts from all.

I will not drink today!

fini

any plan i make or have, i can only live and enact day by day.

hm...maybe this analogy will work for you: saving money. you make a plan, you want something. a book, a trip, a car, a lunch with a friend...whatever. you make a plan to spend less and save more. that plan can be for this whole week, or a month, 23 years, until you die.

but the only way you'll make it through the plan and can enact the plan is by spending less today and putting a couple of bucks away today. and again tomorrow.

does that hold for you?

MelindaFlowers

I go back and forth between "forever" and just for today. Whichever suits my mood better at the time. What's great, and I didn't realize this, was that the constant thoughts of drinking do begin to subside. I doubt they ever go away completely, but as I sit here, five months in, lying on the couch, I'm not even thinking about drinking tonight. No internal debate.

I guess the "just for today" choir was singing a concert in my head when I went to a wedding reception.

Dee74

They really do go away - I spent yesterday surrounded by booze playing music...not a tremor

D

wpainterw

I guess it just means arriving at the point where I say "I'm going to give myself the privilege of never drinking alcohol again. That's something I'm going to do for myself and I'm going to end up so much happier. Now my plan is to work very hard one day at a time devising ways to make sure I don't drink. Exercise, changing friends, getting help from other recovering alcoholics, doing things that are fun to do provided they don't involve drinking, getting interested in fun projects, helping others and above all, ignoring my AV. I hope I never fail at this but if that should happen my plan is to reach out to other recovering alcoholics and helpers as quickly as possible, never think that somehow it's O.K. and that I can handle it. Because that's my AV talking. "

W.