Stable

dpac414

Hey Stable,

What are you going to do to stay sober during lent and beyond? Words don't mean a whole lot unless you have the actions to back them up.

What's your plan?

kk1k5x

Drinking doesn't 'happen' to you - you choose to drink. The first drink goes down a sober throat.

Best come up with a plan while you're still able to. Good luck

JdA23

maybe it's time to look beyond just the drinking. Alcohol tends to be just a symptom of everything going on. Heck even boredom can lead to drinking. But seriously though, what leads to the drinking? Boredom, loneliness, friends drinking, family drinking, depression, sports, concerts? The list can get quite extensive. I would urge you to look a little deeper than just the bottle and dont use holidays as an excuse to be sober because that just becomes another reason "to drink" after the fact. I found a millions reason to drink everyday, it's pretty easy to do. The challenge is finding the reasons to not drink; if that's what your goal is.

Stable

cantsleep123

Man I hate to say it but your posts sound more like a drinking log rather than a trying to quit log. You drink because you are an alcoholic and don't have a recovery plan in place. Get at it.

Stable

JdA23

Thanks for sharing that. Just recognizing those is a great start but they don't have to be conquered in one day. Kinda pick one and focus on working out that particualr issue. The why's and how's and how does this affect me and in what way. Easier said than done, i know . I'll let you know that finding distractions from drinking is not as easy task. I will also tell that it has taken almost a year to get comfortable with myself, definitely a work in progress. I attended AA for about 11 months, I study up on(not as much as I should) some Buddhist principles to realign my thinking. The one thing that helped me the most was accountability. I have failed pretty much at everything in life so I was gonna make sure sobriety wasn't one of them. There were days I was punching the steering wheel yelling I just want a f'n beer. Asking myself whats more important, drinking or my marriage, just a lot of different situations were I was extremely unconfortable. I would say to anybody that wants to quit drinking, be prepared to want to crawl out of your skin and and practice patience with yourself and others, find a substitute beverage. Mine was gingerale or coca cola(ice cold!). Soda water w/ lime. Anyway, I just started to learned to appreciate other things that would curve a craving. But I def would say, if you haven't already is to check out some 12 step groups. Im in no way preaching but what they do they help with is holding yourself accountable. Something I always had trouble with. I apologize if I'm going beyond my boundaries here, this is just my experience. But my expereince will be different from the next person. Finding sobriety for was a big mash up of options but I eventually figured out what works best for me and am following that path now.

2ndhandrose

There are "stickies" at the top of the newcomers forum, here is a link for some ideas.

https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...at-we-did.html (Recovery Programs & What to Expect (What We Did))

Dee74

Hi Stable

I know I've given you a version of this link before at least once:

https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...ery-plans.html (Psst...wanna know why I'm always recommending recovery plans?)

I can post'em but I can't make you read 'em....

Good luck with the Lent thing. I could never make it stick - I'd always find a really valid excuse to drink in those 40 days.

I hope you do make it through - and I hope you'll also use this time to consider what you'll do to stay sober once Lent is over.

D

PhoenixJ

Stable- I know a guy who was 15y sober. He was quite content with life, but for no reason he can identify, he drank an entire bottle of cooking wine. That is the difficulty- booze for me did not follow a logical path- except it's own use. I think of SR, meeting- and all the other support stuff I have built up- as a circuit breaker. A safety swith=ch that stops me even reaching for booze- by reminding myself daily what I became. If I started drinking again- it would not matter on what I did- but what I do on that moment. There is often no thinking involved, I think.

Support to you.

CRRHCC

When your values trump your addiction, there is no addiction!
All choices in life are made by pursuing what we truly value, what makes us happy (reward). This is another way of saying, we are all driven to seek happiness (reward). All human behavior is driven by the pursuit of happiness (reward) and that, when you choose to do something, you do so because you see it as your best available option. (yes, getting drunk is perceived as your chosen best option at that time).

This concept is vitally important because the only way you will stop desiring heavy substances and change your behavior is by seeing more happiness in change than in the using. You must reach that conclusion yourself with your free will, because, as Aristotle said, “We desire in accordance with our deliberation.”

Surrendered19

You know what it is. You just want it to be easy. And it is not easy.

Hawkeye13

Someone left the link from above where I cut and pasted this.

You need to do something different Stable--this crap can kill you and ruin your life meanwhile. Don't you deserve better?

Following are some Specific Ideas for your Recovery Plan

1.Therapy can be useful – Group Therapy, Addiction Counsellor, One-on-One Counselling, CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

2.Reading (An awesome way to supplement your recovery). Here is our Book Thread:
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...rituality.html

3.Guided Meditation, Mindful Meditation, Yoga & Pilates

4. Exercise – Walking is a great way to help recovery. It gets you outside, gets you moving, gets you connecting to your community, physically your body will feel better and it helps get you outside of your head. But, there are lots of other ways to fitness.
Here is a link to the Fitness, Health & Nutrition thread:
Fitness, Health, and Nutrition - SoberRecovery : Alcoholism Drug Addiction Help and Information

5. A Gratitude Journal – Here is a link to our Gratitude Thread:
The Gratitude List - SoberRecovery : Alcoholism Drug Addiction Help and Information

6. Chat Room – Many of our members make regular use of the Chat Room. Here is the link with information:
Chat Meetings and Chat Discussions - SoberRecovery : Alcoholism Drug Addiction Help and Information

7. Cravings? This is a great thread with tips for dealing with cravings:
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...-cravings.html

8. Urge Surfing – This link is really helpful for getting through the really tough minutes of urges to drink:
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...e-surfing.html

9. Reaching Out – Be prepared with Phone #’s from people you can talk to if you’re having a hard time. Keep SR close by, we are open 24 hours a day. We do have a great, free App which you can download and keep with you on your phone.

Hawkeye13

It isn't "miraculous"--these suggestions are just helpful tools but no more than that.

You, yourself, are the miracle.

You are the (only) one who has to take agency and control of your life and make sobriety the first priority. From this, all else follows.

These tools are useless unless the will and effort to use them is in place.

August252015

This is exactly what I had to finally "get."

And giving up alcohol for lent is just like doing dry January. It's not any kind of solution for us alcoholics. It's meant to be something maybe a normal drinker who wants to lose 10 lbs and run a 15K in 3 mo does.

We have to quit. And we have to be the ones to take the action.

Up to you.

Sober45

^^^I tend to agree with this. We have two parts: 1. conscious thinking brain (the one that plans) and 2. subconscious/animal/instinctual-the part that's the addictive voice.

No matter how much you THINK you want to stop, the addictive voice will still be there, because it's ingrained into your subconscious. This is why using the thinking brain to plan every step is so important. sobriety for me is like a "reprogramming".

When I go home from work today, I'm making pancakes and will have a soft drink while doing so. I'm not thinking about how "i'm not going to drink". I'm thinking about "how lovely that diet coke is gonna be".

Think about something you can do without really thinking, like driving for example. Driving doesn't require thought over time, it becomes automatic, instinctual. And the same is true for drinking.

On top of this, the first thing to go when we drink is our consciousness (or thinking brain). This is why one drink ends up turning into 20..... until our consciousnesses ceases to exist. But of course it comes back full force when we wake up. And then we feel regret which creates more bad feelings. And then the subconscious addictive voice pipes up and we feel excitement over the prospect of killing those thoughts/feelings with alcohol. We might "consciously" say "just one" but since the alcohol kills consciousness it is never just one.

Anna

Stable, this thread is full of good suggestions and ideas for how to make a recovery plan that works for you. Hopefully you can work out a plan that helps you.

DayTrader

Similar experience here... kept drinking even after I said "no more." Drank sometimes minutes after vowing "not today."
Drank when I really didn't want to.......but a lot of the time my opinion about whether I wanted to or not would suddenly change, seemingly subconsciously, to "yeah, you should go ahead and drink."

As far as what to do.... there are a lot of options.
1. Make up your mind for sure and don't allow your thinking to change, ever.
2.Choose not to drink, get support, seek out alternatives to drinking, get in shape physically, start living a more healthy lifestyle.
3. Get involved in any of the number of successful recovery "programs" out there - AVRT, SMART, etc.
4. If none of those prove successful, there's always AA.

I found myself in the 4th group. I could couldn't seem to stop permanently but what was a killer was, as I'd get more time away from booze, the worse my life would feel. For ppl like me, "the" problem isn't so much the drinking but something that seems more sinister that leads to the drinking.

There are lots of options and I've seen so long as we're willing to take the appropriate action for what's wrong with us, you don't ever have to drink again AND you can have a wonderful life.

least

I agree that drinking doesn't "happen to you", it's a choice you make. I hope you'll choose to stop drinking before something awful happens to you as a result of drinking.