Wilcox605

I'm new to forums like this so hopefully I'm doing this right. I posted my back story to someone else's thread a minute ago. whoops. Anyway...

I just completed "dry January". 31 days no beer/booze. It wasn't too hard surprisingly, no detox symptoms really. I combined quitting with a new diet plan and exercise regimine which helped, but as the month went on (and now has ended) I'm feeling anxiety. It feels like "this was an interesting challenge, but now where am I?" I quit because I was getting nothing done except drinking every night (beer, at home mostly), getting fat and lazy, missing deadlines for work and personal goals, suffering self esteem issues because of that, and it was making me feel like a piece of crap. Like I was surrendering control of my life. I had the feeling I was at a crossroads where one direction would lead off a cliff, and the other to an unknown place that might include the chance to live the life I want to live and self control. I'm very disciplined with some things, but not alcohol. 1 beer leads to 6, which leads to 12+. I like to drink the 8.5% stuff so it adds up. One of my buddies, who I'm sure is an alcoholic, stopped with me and it was kind of a mutual challenge which both of us have completed. I became aware that I was thinking and planning for Feb 1 for a scheduled binge and it started to make me very nervous. Now I don't know what to do. I was at a party the other night (first one without drinking) and some woman started giving me grief about not drinking which was a new one for me. I'm not the kind of person to have trouble telling people like that to go screw themselves, and it was interesting watching drunks through a sober lens, but I'm scared that if I drink again it will lead to the same old familiar place. My uncomfortable/comfortable place. Like a pillow with rocks in it. I'm sure the most obvious advice is "Well...don't drink if it worries you!" Makes sense but is really difficult to reconcile somehow. I guess the worst part is feeling out of control and that decisions are being made for me because of my drinking. I know it's ultimately my decision but alcohol sometimes really does feel like another voice in my head (figuratively speaking).

By the way, it's obvious there's a lot of wisdom and experience on this site and I appreciate it very much.

hodor

Hi Wilcox, great to have you here.

The first step is to acknowledge that you don't have any control over alcohol. Either the quantity you drink, or the timing, or when you are going to have to drink again after a break. This may not be true in your case, but is up to you to do the soul searching to decide that.

Once you've truly acknowledged that, then the world is your oyster You can move into solution seeking mode rather than questioning whether you actually need a solution at all.

Like you said there is plenty of wisdom and experience, and also solutions available here. Be ready to grab them!

I wish you all the best in your journey.

least

Welcome to the family. So you've got a month sober. Are you going to continue? I think you'll find that living sober is so much simpler than drinking. I gave it up seven years ago and don't regret it one bit.

Wilcox605

Thanks Hodor! Your reply is greatly appreciated. I think it would be a good idea for me to join the February Club group on this site. I need time to figure out what this is. The feeling of anxiety surrounding the option to drink can't be a good sign. Or maybe it's exactly the clarification I need. At this point, not enough patterns have changed, and old habits are right under the surface. That part is clear at least.
It feels good to at least have taken the step to (even anonymously) admit I'm having trouble.
Thanks again.

Wilcox605

Thanks to you also Least. Maybe taking the option off the table is the best solution.

january161992

great job

heres a chip for ya

heartcore

"Like a pillow with rocks in it"

That's it exactly!

Welcome.

Wilcox605

Took me a second to figure out what the chip was, but thank you! I'm unfamiliar with this process. I think one of the worst things about any problem is inaction. It feels good to take steps. Thanks for the chip january161992. Thanks for the "welcome" heartcore.

Algorithm

That other voice in your head is not figurative at all, Wilcox, which is why the obvious solution is really difficult to reconcile, as you put it. You strongly suspect that you need to give up the drinking, but that voice has other ideas, and it tries to stop you from doing the obvious.

I stopped for a month a couple times, about two years apart, I believe, then a year once, then more years of drinking. It was pretty stupid to start up again when it was fairly easy to stop for a month the first couple of times. That year off wasn't nearly as easy.

I listened to that voice in my head, though, which said that the time out "proved" that I could take it or leave it. I could quit any time, it said.

Save yourself such stupidity, because the price can be steep. If you must be stupid, stop for a year, and seriously think things over.

You are obviously dependent on alcohol if the idea of giving it up the option to drink produces such anxiety. I would wager that you are also probably addicted to alcohol, based on what you wrote, but you must reach that conclusion on your own.

That voice inevitably advises you to "never say never to the possible future use of alcohol" (the Option to drink you speak of). Try doing the opposite of what the voice says, and think about never drinking again.

You should feel the recoil when you think about removing the Option.

Listen for the echo. What does it say?

Wilcox605

Hi Algorithm. Your thoughts and advice seem sound and I appreciate them.
"I would wager that you are also probably addicted to alcohol, based on what you wrote...." Whew, that has some bite to it but maybe because I know somewhere inside that it's accurate. Truth sucks sometimes.
This statement..."I listened to that voice in my head, though, which said that the time out "proved" that I could take it or leave it. I could quit any time, it said." sounds very familiar to what the voice in my head says too.

I've now joined the Class of February 2017 group on this site and therefore committed to continue sobriety for another month. Maybe I'm babying myself a bit but at this point it feels more doable to take one month at a time, one day at a time. I've just today decided to keep pushing and confront the real problem. I will strongly consider what you said about committing to one year.

As far as the anxiety I was feeling today goes, I'm experiencing a great sense of relief right now that the Option to drink is off the table. The echo says "thank god you don't have to evaluate and decide. You just have to Do."
So, thanks for the support and advice. I hate asking others for help. Today was a big step.

Jimmy58

Lots of helpful people here wilcox605 welcome aboard!

Hevyn

It's so good to meet you, Wilcox.

Yes, one beer leads to many beers. I should have known where I was headed when I first realized that. Instead, I tried using willpower to drink less - and of course that never worked. So on I went - and in the end, I was drinking all day. Social drinking had led to alcoholic drinking & dependence. This doesn't have to happen to you. Glad you are here to talk things over.

gettingsmarter

Hi Wilcox

Done4today

Welcome Wilcox and congrats on 32 Days!!! As you've been advised already I too agree that staying sober is easier than drinking and/or getting sober again. You've already gotten the hardest days behind you. As you stated, sobriety is done through action. You're already taking action by not drinking and joining the SR fellowship. I would suggest devising a plan of action moving forward. There are a few well known programs of recovery, AA and SMART are two such programs. I have 13 months sober using the AA program. So my suggestion is to find an AA meeting and attend it. Listen to people and see if you identify with anyone. Also, I would suggest getting the Alcoholics Anonymous book and read the first 104 pages including the foreword and Dr opinion. It has changed my life and taken the desire to drink from me. Good luck and god bless!!!

BTW, when you hear the word "God" in AA. It is referring to some higher power of your understanding. It doesn't refer to any particular religion or sect. AA is a spiritual program rather than a religious one.

Good luck

Dee74

Hi wilcox

certainly some good reasons here to quit
Have you considered that willpower is no defense against addiction - especially when part of your will wants to drink?

Acceptance worked much better for me.

Once I accepted I had a toxic relationship with alcohol and the only reasoned response was to stop drinking, things got better for me.
It was easy...the desire was still there...but sites like SR made it easier...it's a different ballgame to feel like I wasn't alone in this.

Gradually, over time, I found I enjoyed sober life so much I lost the desire to drink - and more and more I began to see the decision to drink as a madman's decision.

I was an all day everyday drinker so if I can turn things around, I think you have an excellent chance.

Really glad you found us

D

Wilcox605

Hi everyone. Yeah Dee, I have considered that. Not sure how similar these two things are but...I used to be a 3 pack a day smoker and it was acceptance and guilt that I couldn't control it that made me stop. I had some slips but now it has stuck. I found with that experience that willpower and acceptance were tied together because a different points, one would get old and I'd have to rely on the other. I sort of envisioned it as a physical fight with another entity that I had to beat back with a broom until I could approach it more objectively. I'm a very physically active person so this may have been a default approach.
I've never been an all day drinker, but it was so deeply ingrained in my nightly routine that it felt like I was on auto pilot with no choice in the matter at all. I don't have DUIs, or arrests, or drunken rage attacks. I'm a "drink at home alone until you pass out on the couch" guy. Doesn't sound too bad I guess until you factor in total lack of social life, avoidance of responsibility, the helpless feeling of watching your life slip away, etc. It's going nowhere good. I've had several friends slip into oblivion because of alcohol and I really, really, don't want to end up like that.

Algorithm

There is all kinds of information out there on alcoholism and addiction, volumes of books. I had entire shelves of them, and while they were very informative about brain chemistry, the subjective experience of addiction is rarely described in such books.

The addictive mandate is "never say never to the possible future use of alcohol" (the Option). The addiction organizes thought patterns around this single mandate, and those thought patterns are its voice. Keep this in mind as you go forward.

Any thinking that supports the Option is the voice of your addiction.

Consider that it feels more doable, because the Option is still on the table. You are not babying yourself, you are babying your addiction, and as long as that Option is on the table, it will bide its time, and time is on its side.

I really don't advise approaching this as an experiment, to see how it goes, though, because if something doesn't go as you hoped, the voice will inevitably argue that the deal is now off, and it's time to go back to drinking.

As far as time increments go, it is always today, and always now. Never drinking on any given day, regardless of what day it is, will do the trick. The same with never drinking now, or in the present moment.

"I will never drink again" = "I never drink"

"I never drink on any given day" = "I never now drink"

This is you, but again, the Option is still on the table come next month, so there is not much recoil from your addiction. There is some subtle push back, though, and it comes from the "Do" part.

It is subtle, but the voice is preserving the Option, and is essentially saying that if you don't "Do" x, y, and z, that you may drink next month, on schedule. It is already planting a seed for next month, by making abstinence contingent on something else.

They are similar, in that the nature of the solution is the same. You've probably learned from your smoking "slips" to never take another puff of a cigarette, because "just one" inevitably leads to just one more. It is the same with drinking alcohol.

Then don't end up like that. It's easy not to, if you make up your mind, and don't underestimate what you are up against. The addiction is centered around the addictive mandate ("never say never"), and it is maintained by organizing your thinking around that mandate, in support of the Option to drink some more.

You can either try to mitigate the desire to drink, in the hope that not drinking will just happen once the desire goes away, or you can simply violate the addictive mandate, and learn to differentiate the voice of your addiction from your own better judgment.

You'll find advocates for both approaches.

Wilcox605

Thanks for the insight Algorithm.
How much time do you have under your belt? It sounds like you've thought about all this quite a bit. You sound very disciplined. I like the way you phrase things.
"As far as time increments go, it is always today, and always now. Never drinking on any given day, regardless of what day it is, will do the trick. The same with never drinking now, or in the present moment." This is helpful. I appreciate the philosophical tone to your statement. Truth.
As far as the smoking thing goes, I honestly, deep in my heart, don't want another cigarette. The discomfort of guilt (several family members dead from lung cancer)and initial abstinence was so bad that no pleasure derived from smoking could ever make up for it. I simply don't want one anymore. I don't want to be "that guy". I guess this is what you mean by taking the option of the table.
Change in behavior = change in attitude and vice versa. Like you said, maybe the nature of the solution is the same. I hope so.
Thank you all for the support. Today went well. Just about to start the evening routine as this time of day is when I would normally drink.

HTown

Your drinking pattern is a lot like mine was, and I am almost a year sober. I cannot tell you how good I feel. Stopping drinking was the best decision I could have made.

My suggestion for you is to change up your routine. Go walk around the block, take a shower when you get home, start reading more, etc. Change your routine so you are not triggered to drink. After awhile, you will not have to try so hard to not think about alcohol.

Welcome and I hope you stick with us.

Hawkeye13

Hi Wilcox and welcome.
My first step was to commit to six months off from drinking, to give me a real taste of what sobriety could offer, a chance for my body to heal, and time to really let emotions I had been drowning with drink (like the anxiety you mention) to surface and to be dealt with.

After six months, I felt so much better that I extended it to a year, and though I have had some backtracking several times when I thought I could moderate but couldn't, I have been happily sober ever since.

A month isn't really long enough for healing and adjustment, but it is long enough to know in your heart and gut that the drinking really is a problem, isn't it?

Why don't try committing to sobriety for six months and see how you feel? Take the pressure off, and give it a real go.
You have nothing to lose and everything to possibly gain. . .