MagnumCat

Well, here I am at Day One again! Hopefully for the very last time. I am going to make a recovery plan this time. I just printed out the instructions and am about to get started.

Does anyone have any good tips to share?

I am specifically wondering how to shut up that other being in my brain that keeps telling me not to quit. The one that can make me sit in the parking lot of the liquor store while we have a great debate about why I should or shouldn't go in and buy a bottle. Of course I usually end up giving in and then feel horrible about it later! I literally feel like there are two entities inside of me battling it out, while sit waiting patiently to see who wins. Even if I have an action plan all written out at great detail, how do I remind myself to follow through with it while this battle is going on. Really need tips for this!

Please help! I need to win this time!

wastedpotential

I could never win once I made that decision to go to the gas station to get beer. The best thing I found is to quiet that voice that starts to think going to get beer is a good decision. Cut it off before the thought becomes a decision. As soon as the thought starts creeping in think no not today I don't want to feel like crap tomorrow. Seems to work for me, if I let myself start rationalizing going and getting beer 99% of the time I do.

Anna

This link has info on various recovery programs and lots of tips from our members:

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...at-we-did.html

least

You will stop having that internal dialogue when you want to be sober more than you want to drink.

2ndhandrose

I have decided, before the debate begins, that the answer is NO. Every single time.

So there is no need for a debate 'cause my answer is NO and I shut it down immediately.

Do not engage.

For me, if I allow it get to the point where I am in the parking lot debating, I have already lost the debate.

Keep posting and keep reading on SR, ton o' info here

PS Remember, you are the one in charge! Don't abdicate your throne, for the sake of a whiner (the AV).

Dee74

Don't have the dialogue. Seriously.

engaging with those thoughts means there's always a chance 'its' argument might sway you.

You know 'its' aim is basically self destruction so why listen to it?

Use things like UrgeSurfing.
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...e-surfing.html

Post here instead.

If required find face to face support like AA or some other meeting based group.

yeah it's hard and its an effort - but how else do we get the things we want?

Think of the AV as a toddler. It will throw tantrums and wail - but eventually it will exhaust itself and send itself to sleep.

However persuasive it might be, a toddler is about it's intellectual level too.

Don't engage.

D

rascalwhiteoak

Have you taken a look at the addictive voice recognition technique? It's the process whereby we can identify and reject any urge to drink. Dee's urge surfing link has a lot of good info, or search the forums here or google around a bit — it has helped me a lot.

KiKi0615

Yep! ^^^

Culture

What shut that voice up in the early days for me, was not getting out of bed in the morning without saying out loud" I will not drink today" and spending 10 minutes or so, reading some alcoholism literature or my plan. If that didn't work and most of the time it did, I would get on SR and get someone to talk me out of doing it.

Gottalife

It is encourging there is some kind of battle going on. That may mean your human defenses are still intact, but if you tend to forget then you may be an alcoholic of my type.

For me there was no way I could remind myself of all the good reasosn why I shouldn't drink. I found it impossible, even only minutes from the consequences of the last disaster when it all should have been fresh in my mind. I just clean forgot.

Below is a passage from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, which describes my experience. Maybe it describes yours too.

"The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so-called will power becomes practically nonexistent. We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink.

The almost certain consequences that follow taking even a glass of beer do not crowd into the mind to deter us. If these thoughts occur, they are hazy and readily supplanted with the old threadbare idea that this time we shall handle ourselves like other people. There is a complete failure of the kind of defense that keeps one from putting his hand on a hot stove.

The alcoholic may say to himself in the most casual way, "It won't burn me this time, so here's how!" Or perhaps he doesn't think at all. How often have some of us begun to drink in this nonchalant way, and after the third or fourth, pounded on the bar and said to ourselves, "For God's sake, how did I ever get started again?" Only to have that thought supplanted by "Well, I'll stop with the sixth drink." Or "What's the use anyhow?""

MagnumCat

Thank you for trying to put this into perspective for me. I am really struggling today. I keep thinking about what you are all saying. I have to want to be sober more than I want to drink! I am still torn. I want both! I just want to be a normal drinker. I know that every single person here has felt this way. Lots have overcome this and now live a great sober life, while others have given up and continue to fight. I keep thinking, if I can't do this for me then why can't I at least do it for my family. It's crazy the power a simple drink can have. It makes no sense. I only have to change one little thing in my life. I don't understand why that is so hard. Why I'm still trying to rationalize that's it's okay to drink on occasion. Why I'm sitting here right now deciding if I should go tell my husband that I've changed my mind and don't want to quit. That would be basically saying that I choose drinking over my relationships. But the thoughts to do just that are so strong I can hardly sit here and type this message out. Trying to be honest, even though it's totally crazy!

PalmerSage

Take this for what it's worth, because I'm still in very early recovery (68 days, but who's counting?) I've tried to quit many times in the past, but this time I feel different: More grateful for sobriety, real commitment to making changes in my life (big and small), and less mental obsession to drink.

Join a class and commit to posting every morning, whether I feel good, bad, or indifferent
Every time the idea of a drink surfaces, replace the romance with the worst possible memories of drinking. Say "no" out loud when thoughts of drinking enter my mind. Do not allow myself to romanticize alcohol.
Accept that I am different than normal drinkers. It's OK.
Accept that emotions will come up that I used to try to drink away. Make a plan for what I will do instead. Journaling helps me to get to the root of what is really bothering me.

I don't know of anyone who "got it" immediately, but you have to be willing to take the option of drinking completely off the table, at least for today.

Komplex

MC - for me I cannot think quit/forever. I know I do not want to drink today and that’s all! When I was in the first five days, I took it minute by minute. I have 37 days today, this is more than I have had in my 15+ year drinking career. This place and AA help a ton. Some days I’m torn, somedays I’m strong. I lean on my support and push through. We can do this - today!

2ndhandrose

This is a great post, full of great truths!

MC, when I found SR, I determined that I would immerse myself in this wonderful, like minded group. I read and I posted, I posted and I read. I engaged. I found the education, the wisdom and the support really helped me to understand myself, to accept that this wasn't going to be a lovely walk off into the sunset.

Sometimes, it was hard. Really hard.

But SR didn't fail me

I learned what worked for me (finding acceptance) and left behind the things that didn't (indulging in 'if only' fantasies).

Support, helpful suggestions, handholding, and so much more are right here at my fingertips, 24/7.

And, it is all right here for you, too, MC

Gottalife

You sound just like an alcoholic from the 1930s.

"This is the baffling feature of alcoholism as we know it - this utter inability to leave it alone, no matter how great the necessity or the wish. "

" The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker."

"Lack of power, that was our dilemma. We had to find a power by which we could live, and it had to be a Power greater than ourselves".

" He had a desperate desire to stop, but saw no way out, for he had earnestly tried many avenues of escape. Painfully aware of being somehow abnormal, the man did not fully realize what it meant to be alcoholic."

Strange the experience of these old boys is so close to your own.It seems the illness has not changed at all in the intervening period.

August252015

AA. I got sober, then I started working a recovery PLAN, and that's still working for me at 2 yrs last week. Accepting that I was an alcoholic AND wanting to be sober more than I wanted to drink (that last one was actually the key for me- I'd known I was an alcoholic for ages, I just wanted to keep drinking) keep me focused on the wonderful life I have in recovery (which is more than just sobriety).