kevlarsjal

My brain which is sober for 8 days suddenly realised something today, that is very important to me. So I thought I shared it on here, maybe it will help some of you.

By listing all the different reasons why I drank (feeling sad, anxious, stressed, angry,...) I noticed I could just put it down to mainly one thing:

I drank to get rid of any kind of negative feeling.


Today was a particularly tough day and I feel scared and sad. But that's okay. And I try not to fight it. It's a scary situation I'm in and I feel sad about how some things developed. I'm just trying to accept that I can't always feel okay and that there's no need to try and change every bad mood with the help of substances.
Until now feeling sad meant to me that it needed to be changed. Which is true but it doesn't have to be changed immediately and sure not by drinking. I'm trying to accept that negative feelings are just as much part of life like positive ones and that I don't need to be scared and run from them.
Rather I want to try to accept them and then maybe find out what caused them and how I can change the things that caused them.

This was very important for me to understand.

Anna

I drank because of positive and happy feelings, too.

You're right, it's good to know that feelings are just feelings and they don't have control over you. You can let them go.

Hevyn

Hi kevlarsjal. That's a valuable realization. I, too, drank to cope with emotions. As you said, they need to be dealt with, not stifled. Glad you are here.

fred59

learning to live with the ups and downs of life in sobriety, that is one of the tests in sobriety.
Smart Recovery has a work book that could be beneficial to you, worth a try.

kevlarsjal

Thanks for the tip, Fred I'm fairly new to the whole topic of recovery methods, so I don't know much about it yet. Could you tell me where I can find the work book you mentioned?