KeepingUp

Hello!

I'm working on trying to really identify what my triggers are, because it's so hard. I go weeks or even months without drinking and, I'm sure you know the cycle, have one drink with dinner, because I think "I can handle it" or "I don't want to let alcohol control me" and maybe that goes fine, but soon enough I'll have a binge and blackout and feel wretched for a time after, just to start the cycle over.

But it's tough to know what it is that makes me let my guard down those weeks or months later, because I'm not paying attention then. One thing I know is that I keep myself too busy and I want to slow down, but I'm not sure how. I work a demanding-ish full-time job that I love and I have a few side project jobs that I also love and don't want to give up. I'm in a training for an advanced certification also, which I wonder if now is even the right time to pursue. Part of me wants to step back from that, but if I do it will be tough to start again. It would also require me to be pretty open with my mentor there about why I'm stepping back and that's scary, especially because I'm hoping to work with them in the future on a larger project (when I'm more grounded and have more time than I do now).

Other than that, I'm not sure how to find better balance. I know I need to put my health and sobriety first, and I'm trying, but I also have to balance using any time I free up wisely, because if I clear my schedule at all and get bored... well, I think many of us know that boredom itself can be a trigger.

Has anyone experienced this, of needing to be less busy, but not TOO less busy? I'm not sure how to evaluate my needs and right now I feel like I've been overfilling my time doing research on recovery to the point that I'm not giving my brain much of a break.

Thank you!

biminiblue

I don't know, alcohol made me really speedy and energetic. As it turned out I don't particularly like being over-scheduled. These days it's more about smelling the roses than it is about buying, planting, meticulously trimming, and entering the roses into the region's Garden Show.

Without alcohol I'm much calmer and much more willing to just go with the flow instead of having to be go go go.

I don't have any triggers, I decided to quit drinking - so now there are only past thoughts or memories about drinking. I don't let that become a reason to drink. There is no reason to drink.

aasharon90

Here's a little bit of read on balance in recovery
if you are interested and useful as you begin your
journey learning to live free from your addiction.

https://www.treehouserehab.org/how-t...tion-recovery/

RDBplus3

Hi KeepinUp,
I am what I think is referred to as a 'Type A' personality, probably modified as Type A+++...
I have a lot of driving factors in my life, that to me it would have been a selfish 'cop-out' to just abandon my responsibilities, because I 'needed to get sober' ... which I did need, desperately.

Thru working the Steps, I was able to get FREE ... on the run ... as life was happening. (Saying 'I' was able to get free, is actually a mis-statement , it was only thru working the Steps and the Higher Power / Spiritual Condidtion that came thru DOING THE WORK)

Also, about 'triggers' ... It turns out that I WAS THE TRIGGER. I could not even see that the 'trigger' concept was an inherent perception of my condition. I could not fix my spiritually diseased self with my spiritually diseased self.

RDBplus3 ... now 5 years, Happy, Joyous and FREE ... and I KNOW U can B 2

doggonecarl

I'm not sure that the pace of you life has anything to do with you deciding to drink. As you said yourself, the day comes along and you think, "I can handle it now."

That has less to do with what is triggering you and more about you not accepting never drinking again. You want to drink. You think you can, and you do.

Any resulting binge is a result of being an alcoholic.

Take drinking off the table completely. Get sober, stay sober. And address balance in your life as a separate issue.

KeepingUp

I get that and thought I had in the past, so I’m trying to figure out why I let my thinking change.

Guener

Slowing down your lifestyle is something on top of alcohol for you, it seems to me. Which is to say that it doesn't sound like you necessarily need to drink for lack of something to do, nor is your drinking presently holding you back in large parts from getting things done. I was very busy while I was an alcoholic, because I loved doing the things I was doing, but then I became busy being the alcoholic. And the things that I loved just peeled away bit by bit, then faster, and, finally, altogether. If you have intercepted this risk early enough to accept that drinking is impossible for you, then you don't have to fall into the state of total loss. Conversely, you can look at it from the perspective that to preserve your ambition and all else, giving up the booze is a very good thing to add to your list of activities.