DeltaBravo

How to maintain that mental strength when you have cash in the pocket. LOL...all jokes aside I have found it easier to maintain sobriety when I'm strapped for cash. Or in places where alcholol isn't available for long periods of time....I never get the shakes or crazy withdrawls from abstaining from the drink.....but it's a challenge to not drink when I have the money money!

ScottFromWI

Taking away the alcohol (or the means of getting it) certainly removes some of the risk, but as you note it doesn't solve the real problem. Because no matter how hard you try, there will be times when you'll have money and/or be around alcohol.

I'm not sure that "mental strength" is an accurate view of how to deal with cravings/temption either - it's very possible to be a mentally strong person yet still be an addict. Accepting our addiction and recognizing it for what it is - a foe that lives within us that we cannot "beat" is how I look at it. You will never win by trying to control your addiction or your drinking, but if you simply accept that never picking up the first drink solves the problem then you can really get somewhere.

DeltaBravo

Thanks Scott. I'm still battling with that concept. This year was the first year I went in exposed my problems....got treatment and started AA....but yet I'm still struggling with that very concept.

miamifella

When I started out in 12-step recovery, I was advised to keep busy for the same reason. If my time was scheduled up, it was hard to drink/use for practical reasons.

But as Scott points out, you cannot stay poor or busy forever, and eventually you have to deal another way.

least

I noticed that when I was drinking, I always managed to find money for wine, no matter how broke I was.

Soberwolf

I found it easier when I wanted to be sober more than I wanted to drink regardless of finances

miamifella

Also, I have often found it easier to stay clean and sober when broke.

Even if others here do not believe you, I do. I have been there.

DeltaBravo

Yea it's pretty tough to admit. I sometimes dread having money because I am more liable to drink. I have trained myself to be this way over the last 8 years or so. I wasn't always like this.

Carlotta

Ditto.

Fly N Buy

Lot's of straight up honesty and truth here..........refreshing. I fell into that category of if I had enough $$$ I could have well ended up drowning in the Aegean Sea full of ouzo......or perhaps down under some place full of whatever.

Ironically, I went from the top shelf to the bottom self. I had no idea until a few years ago that I could buy a 750ml of vodka for 5 bucks. Wow.

Ultimately the truth is we find a way to drink regardless of cash. I had to find my way to sobriety regardless of circumstances, finally. But yea, I drank past the finish line for a long while cause I did have too much of everything. Drinking solved that however.......

Today, I am comfortable regardless of job or no job, wife or no wife, house or no house I have lost the appetite for the booze. I had to stay sober long enough to get to that place. For me that was around 6 months - however the obsession to drink was gone around 3-4 months.

Go to meetings - if you want it out, shout it out (or type it out) as you did here. Good for you man.........you're making progress = rigorous honesty.

keep coming back

ScottFromWI

And you don't always have to be like this. If you trained yourself to become this way, you can train yourself to change again.

Your addiction would love you to say "well, this is the way I've always done it so I'll just keep doing it". But you have the chance and ability to say "I'm not doing it like that anymore...I am going to change".

Mel12

I have spent a ghastly amount of money on alcohol. Depressing.

Dee74

Whenever I had money I drank. Then I didn't

If you want change, its very possible to change. Not necessarily easy but possible

I had to find the right level and amount of support, and I had to make a definite recovery plan - a plan to stay sober and what to do when I was 'wobbly'

As others have said I had to accept that my relationship with alcohol was, and always would be, toxic.

Gottalife

I have got more than enough money to drink myself to death with. But the desire to drink has been gone for years. That's the trouble with AA. Live the steps and the alcohol problem is removed.

SickOfIt79

Being broke definitely gives me more motivation to stop. $300 per month in booze, without even going out, is a car payment, a nice vacation every year, etc. I guess if you are making mega bucks it wouldn't make a difference, but its a big chunk for any middle class individual or family.