bluedog97

Can anyone relate to this? You wake up hung over swearing off alcohol forever, or even the night before. But then once you start feeling better, you start thinking it’s no big deal and want to drink again. I know it’s the AV, but the AV concept hasn’t really done that much for me. I simply say to myself “Man, I want to drink”. Yet I feel guilty for thinking that. Like I’m supposed to be done, swearing it off forever.

I just get the impression many people are done and don’t look back. Like there’s no struggle. I struggle a lot. I think it’s becausr I have a lot of uncomfortable feelings inside of me and drinking takes them away.

How often does your AV pop up? Mine does often, and I just feel like somethings wrong with me. Anyone relate?

lessgravity

Couldn't be more wrong with this one.

Though I can relate, and I'm sure we all can, to the rest of your post.

There does come a time though when the drinking causes and has caused and will cause more pain that it is worth. It's like breaking up with someone who you know is bad for you. And in that way, it's like growing up.

bluedog97

It is like growing up. I’m glad I posted this. I had a craving and somehow admitting it took away some of its power. I guess it’s not a crime to have thoughts of drinking. It’s just not acting on it that matters.

I was thinking where the guilt comes from. Growing up, I wasn’t supposed to drink because my father was an alcoholic. Maybe that’s it.

thomas11

Yeah I can relate, I did it for years. We all reach our tipping point for those of us that have quit. Like Least says, you have to want to be sober more than you want to drink. And that threshold is different for all of us.

I've said this before, but I personally had to make not drinking the most important thing in my life for awhile, because that is what it required. Half measures, and I would have failed.

Dee74

all that was exactly me when I came to SR, so it's not like you're some outlier on the curve bluedog. My first month was rough cravings wise.

I looked around and it seemed to me no one else had cravings ever. I think I was doing some selective reading, subconsciously maybe.

Everyone struggles - thats why SR is here

to me the measure of recovery is not how many times we think of drinking, but in what we do in response when we do

D

bluedog97

Yea Dee, I can relate. Sometimes I’ve been to AA meetings and look around and everyone seems so relaxed and happy. I think, am I the only one struggling here?

Surfing the urges, posting here, AA, and outpatient rehab. That’s my plan.

AnvilheadII

"i want to drink"

i drive in brutal seattle traffic, every day, twice. the thing i hate the most is tailgaters, like when you're going 65 and you can see that traffic ahead has slowed down. and the audi/bmw/special snowflake behind you comes up on your bumper, and maybe even honks their horn.

at moments like this what i WANT to do is make sure my seatbelt is cynched tight, and then hit the brakes. let 'em buy me a new subaru, come on jackass.

obviously i DON'T do that i can want to, heck ya, but i don't have to follow thru.

we can think we want a drink.
we don't have to HAVE a drink.

NoBones

Mine pops up everytime I'm idle, and twice as strong after I've completed any sort of productive activity. A reward...

D122y

Blue,

That..feeling better...and wanting a drink....and the ...uncomfortable feelings....were my brain damage.

Parts of my brain are now dead forever. The, world seemed to move too fast.

It has slowed down now, but I suffered to get to this state of grace.

That suffering was horrible and I never want to feel it again.

I was a dead man walking.

Now, everything is better. I still crave daily.

Addict for life.

Thanks.

Nonsensical

I was on that hamster wheel for 25 years.
I had this idea in my head that once I knew I was an alcoholic and that I could only ever drink in a destructive manner (and never 'normally') that the desire to drink would vanish. I literally believed that 'when I was ready' I would wake up one morning and the desire to drink would be gone forever. A magical lightening bolt would strike me in the night and I would wake up changed.

Looking back this seems silly to me now, but I was very frustrated for a long time that 'I just wasn't getting it'.

Change was (and is) gruelingly hard work.
Change is messy.
Change takes time.
But Change is possible.
Therefore, Hope is reasonable.

You can do this.

MissPerfumado

I identify as someone who made the decision to stop and didn't look back. I had a moment of utter clarity that drinking would kill me and that I didn't want to die this way. I was sitting in my doctor's office at the time and telling her how bad it was. The memory still makes me go clammy.

I also understood in my bones that one drink would be enough to undo everything.

But I would like to point out two things:

1. I did a lot of work to quit and stay quit. It was like the most important project I'd ever worked on, plus the most important exam I'd ever studied for, plus the most important promise I'd ever made to a loved one ... ROLLED into one. I went to war against this thing. And I am still at war with it, even if it looks peaceful at the frontline.

2. I may not have struggled with quitting and restarting again and again but what I did have was huge denial about how bad the problem was. Maybe your struggle is with denial, as mine was.

aasharon90

It was back in August 1990 when
I was taken to rehab where I spent
28 days detoxing, sweating off all
those poisonous alcohol toxins affecting
my mind, body and soul.

Rehab was a safe haven away from
the temptation of alcohol. It gave me
a good 28 days start for me to allow
those capable of teaching me about
addiction, it's affects on me and my
life and plant the seed of an affective
continuous recovery program to
incorporate and live by in all areas
of my life.

The best part of all this that I learned
early on was that I didn't have to go
thru this recovery journey alone or by
myself.

Have you ever been to rehab?

There are many approaches to getting
sober and getting off the merry go round
of insanity that comes with addiction. Mine,
like many others found help with going to
rehab.

Those 28 days i spent there catapulted
me into recovery and have spent the past
27 yrs living life with a program of recovery
as my guideline to living a healthy, happy,
honest way of life.

You don't have to succumb to your
addiction. Surrender and seek help
by entering rehab to help set you
free once and for all to regain your
life again.

Buckley3

Thankfully my AV hasn't been much of an issue.

But the madness you describe - when I was drinking. Over and over and over and over again. The classic cycle. For some people it's everyday. For others it's every couple of weeks. But the cycle is the same. Drink-destruction to varying degrees - recover - drink again.

I don't miss it. Not a bit.

-B

August252015

I identify as someone who made the decision to stop and didn't look back. I had a moment of utter clarity that drinking would kill me and that I didn't want to die this way. I was sitting in my doctor's office at the time and telling her how bad it was. The memory still makes me go clammy.
-Miss Perfumenado

Ditto. I had a similar dr office experience where I got the sh*t talking to of my life (with a half full handle of vodka in my bag that I was terrified would bang into the table and I would get flat "busted"). I finally HEARD that I had a year, 18 mo if I kept going as I was.

My journey might appear "easy, pink cloudish" or such as I do share that I had no cravings, "everything is better sober" etc. I am indeed adamant that I was just DONE that Feb day. And I tend to relate what I do to stay sober. Like Miss P said, I work DAILY and DILIGENTLY to live a life in recovery. I use the tools I have learned- automatically and subconsciously at times, and very consciously at others.

For me, the "option" of drinking very rarely pops up. I believe one reason is I know it would kill me- quickly- and I also know that after experiencing the beauty of 2+ years sober I would be devastated at starting over- and might not be able to at all.

My focus is emotional sobriety, not physical sobriety per se- because for me, the former precedes and solidifies the latter.

I do NOT consider myself in a war. I consider myself a peaceful, happy, clear-thinking person who can now deal with all of life so much better. AA and building a program saved my life and I am a case where being a horrible, wretched, and some thought hopeless drunk has become a person with hope and a future.

Wholesome

The reason the AV concept may not be working for you is because you aren't dissociating from it. It's about attributing the desire to drink to your booze beast, not YOU. YOU want to quit. Once you start using the techniques you will notice that the thought will change from, "I want to drink" to "You should have a drink" or "We deserve a drink".

You are saying you struggle a lot, but with AVRT it becomes your beast that struggles a lot. The uncomfortable feelings become your beasts discomfort. The I/IT separation is crucial.

There are so many great threads about AVRT on SR. Give them a read. Seriously man, learning AVRT was a total game changer for me.

lessgravity

I second this. In a way it took a long time for me to deeply understand the concept and, moreso, to experience it. Are there times that I think it's a gimmick and that it's silly to think there is a separate Beast/AV from myself? Sure. But guess what, I truly think that is in fact the Beast talking.

The concept of divided self is something that has been a part of human thought for centuries.

Like many here, though I feel I've crossed a bridge in my sobriety (more impressive than saying I've "turned a corner" ha), it took many years of real pain and suffering to get here.

Hopefully we all get to the other side without losing things we cannot get back.

Mac4711

Spot on, that’s how I think about this whole thing, too. I am living a peaceful life now, but one drink and who knows where I will end up.

Mac4711

Less,
I don’t think that it’s silly to conceive of the Beast as a separate entity.
VS Ramachandran is a neuroscientist at USD and in his books he talks about this phenomenon all the time. Like there are 50 areas in our brain that contribute to our act of ‘seeing’ and we are not consciously aware of many of them.
So the beast lives somewhere in your brain, but it only comes to the surface every so often. The challenge is to recognize it and immediately put it back into its cage when it shows up.
Hence the mantra ‘I will not drink, no matter what’. We are using expressions here on SR, like ‘you can’t let the tiger out of the cage just a little bit’ or ‘don’t crack the door open’, and they describe real phenomena. There IS something lurking in the dark recesses of your mind...

lessgravity

You misread my post, or I wrote obtusely. I was saying that in fact I think it's the Beast himself that tells me "This whole Beast thing is so silly..."

And I agree, lots of demons of self-sabotage, with different strategies, flit about my mind.

Mac4711

Less,
I’m afraid I was being not quite clear. I think we are in violent agreement here that the beast is a sneaky bastard and sometimes likes to pretend that it does not exist!