trailmix

I read this thread in the Alcoholism forum today, posted by member Lessgravity and thought I would post it here for those of you that might have missed it, a link to the original thread is at the bottom of this post:

My guide to moderation

I was thinking of what the most important things to do if you are deciding whether to quit or to "moderate" your addiction to alcohol. For many years I employed the following techniques and I feel it necessary to share with those with similar experience or with those who are considering moderation.

1. Get comfortable with lying.
1a. Start with lying to your self. This is crucial, do not skip this step or moderating your intake may fail and you might just quit drinking entirely. The lies you tell yourself may be different depending on where you are in your addiction to booze. Maybe the lie is something like "I don't have a problem like Mr./Ms. X, so I'm not really an alcoholic". Perfect, start there. If for some reason you don't believe your lie and doubts creep in about your problem with alcohol, tweak the lie! Maybe say, "Sure I have gotten into trouble with my drinking, may have done somethings I'm not proud of, etc..., but life without alcohol is going to suck." Yes! That's it. Very, very important lie. You should support this lie with other lies about how great alcohol makes you feel, about how cool you are when you drink. Tell yourself it relaxes you, that you deserve it. A pro tip: get sad about not being able to drink again. This can put a lot of leverage on your ability to avoid quitting. If you focus on your sadness, avoiding the truth about what alcohol has done to you and will do to you, then you can keep the lies going.

1b. Lie to everyone you know. Yes, I know, this sounds a bit melodramatic. But it is not. That's why it's part of Rule 1. When I say everyone, I mean everyone. Your kids, your significant other, parents, boss. You must get comfortable looking people you love right in their face and denying how much alcohol you drank that day. You have to get used to accurate accusations that you are wasted from people who care about you. Confront these accusations with blatant, bald-faced lies. Deny, deny, deny. If you feel guilty about betraying those closest to you, use this trick (another pro tip!) - tell yourself they are trying to take alcohol away from you! Think of the fact they want to deny you the right to get obliterated! Screw them. You want to moderate - if they can't understand, then they must be lied to. It's as simple as that.

2. Count drinks. This is a fun one because you will not be able to do so for long. But that's ok, let it go. Not all these rules are as important as the others. Have fun here - maybe skip every other drink when you feel like it. Don't worry though, you'll have enough stress trying to follow the other rules. Give yourself a break. Have another.

3. Alternate the days that your alternate drinking. This is genius! You may have thought, Oh I'll just drink every OTHER day. Or maybe, I'll do 3 on, 2 off. Or just weekends + Thursday and why not Monday! The choices are yours of course! If you feel like the days are merging into one another, have no fear. This is the magic of moderation.

4. You'll save money. Rock solid truth here. You won't be spending as much on booze because you will start buying the cheapest crap available that you are able to chug down! Might be that weird Eastern European vodka on the bottom shelf with dust on it at the store, maybe it's even Franzia. Either way, you won't have to worry about getting top shelf anymore - you are going to try and pack as much drinking into your "moderation" as possible, so the cheap booze must flow. An added savings = food! You will feel like death after a 3 day binge and not want to eat on your "sober day" (really just a hungover day) so you won't waste your hard earned money on sustenance!

5. This a corollary of Rule 1 - switch stores. Maybe you are doing this already. If so, great. The point is don't always buy your poison from the same place. You want to save face with the cashiers right? You don't want THEM thinking you have a problem. Plus, if you are slipping on your moderation (and this is guaranteed to happen), they may catch wind. So get into a rotation. Also one store may open/close at times that better suit your drinking habits. Maybe you don't like the attitude you get from the clerks because you smell like gin at 9am on a Tuesday with your kid in tow. Avoid clerks like that. They may discourage you from moderating and who wants that.

6. Hiding spots. Do I really need to tell you about this one? I didn't think so. If for some weird reason you haven't been hiding alcohol around your house or in the backs of drawers at work, well you are behind the game. You'll need those bottles when people are around who might have the audacity to judge how much you are drinking. A related issues will be empties, which leads to...

7. Get a system for empties. Again, in order to disguise our moderation from others (neighbors are ALWAYS included) we have to figure out ways to get rid of all the empty bottles that accumulate. If you haven't been shocked by the sheer number of empty bottles in your trash then you haven't started really moderating. This is always a sign that you are finally truly moderating. So - maybe you take them out at night, maybe you stuff a couple in your purse or briefcase (don't forget them there, that will be embarrassing!). However you do it you don't want people you live with or even near to see how many empty bottles it takes to moderate.

8. Avoid mirrors. This one needs to be kept simple. If you have to get yourself presentable for work (hopefully you can avoid responsibilities like work as much as possible) then try not to look yourself in the eye. I can't stress this one enough. Avoid eye contact with yourself.

9. Shame. Get used to this feeling. It's self-imposed anyhow right? So chalk up the shame you feel to all that you have to feel sorry for about yourself and your life. Instead of seeing the shame you feel for the life of moderation that you are living, subvert this feeling into self-pity. The best moderators in the business do this effortlessly. Tap into anything that might work - upbringing, physical/mental makeup, tough relationships, bad luck, genetics, who is president, your favorite sports team stinks - doesn't matter what. Since you know you are just drinking because you are an addict and that these "root causes" are not the reason you are moderating, any of them can work. Shame is tough though. You'll have to combat it often. Stay strong.

10. Do not change your drinking habits. Hang out with other drinkers and around the same places you always have drank. For some this means the bar where everyone knows your name. For others this might mean under the covers with the shades shut in their living room. Point is - whatever it was that you have always done in your drinking life, don't change it.

11. Chase every drink with 8oz of water. Ha, I'm kidding.

12. Embrace your inner night owl. You will often be up at 3am, unable to sleep, wracked with fear and anxiety. Expect this to happen. This a sacrifice you'll have to make so you can keep moderating! Find a way to justify these horrible, soulless nights where your mouth is dry and your thoughts are out of control and your body feels like you fell off a small shed. You must get through these nights and not let the pain you feel during them change your moderating. Maybe catch up on viral videos, porn often works. Give yourself a break now and then and just have a couple sips of alcohol so that you can sleep from 6am until you wake up in state of shame (see Rule 9 above).

13. Use context clues when you blackout and can't remember putting your kid to bed the night before. This can also apply to conversations with parents or arguments with your spouse. Act somewhat aloof, let the other person talk. Don't ask to many questions about what happened as this may give away that you can't remember anything after 7pm when you finished a bottle of merlot to your head that you had hidden behind the oven. Fake it till you make it. Most of the time the other person won't realize you were totally blacked out. This is because people who aren't moderating can't relate to blackouts so they won't assume you were. You can also just act like you have a bad memory in other aspect of your life to cover. There will be more and more blackouts the longer you moderate so my advice is try and withdraw from the relationships you have that matter in your life. Protecting your right to moderate is the most important thing.

14. To keep this going as long as possible, distort your values. This final piece of advice is for the hardcore moderators. If used properly this technique can keep moderation going almost indefinitely, or until drinking kills you or puts you in jail. To accomplish this, put the value you give to your addiction to alcohol above everything else in your life. It has to be number one. Alcohol will most likely take everything from you if you can moderate long enough. If you get the sense that you might lose things that other people who aren't moderating value - like family or health or the wherewithal to provide for others or the ability to raise a soup spoon to your mouth without shaking so badly the soup falls back into the bowl - you have to let these things go. You must believe in your heart of hearts that drinking is the most important thing. Again, if you value the things that truly do matter in life, these things may interfere with your drinking. I say this as a stern warning.

Warning: there may come a time when your whole being finally understands that moderating your drinking will ruin the rest of your life. You will have to choose between drinking and losing everything else or quitting. The choice will be yours. I hope this helps.

https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...oderation.html (My guide to moderation)

PeacefulWater12

I did all of the above when I drank. My AH does it all now.

Alkies all do the same, it's like we have a handbook. If we did, it would be exactly like the above.

Which is good news as it means before either entering a relationship with alcohol or with a person who uses alcohol, we know exactly what to expect. There it is. Written out for us. Both sides.

Thanks Trail Mix for posting LessGravity's post here.

Well written, in light hearted way and 100% accurate. Easy to take in and nod along to.

Bernadette

This is awesome and informative...here's a version for OUR side of the coin:
My guide to codependency:

I was thinking of what the most important things are when deciding whether to continue to obsess over the alcoholic and the alcoholic's behavior or to "focus on myself and my own problems and choices." For many years I employed the following techniques and I feel it necessary to share with those with similar experience or with those who are considering continuing their professional codependent career.

1. Get comfortable with denial.

1a. Start with denying your self. This is crucial, everything hinges on this step; do not skip it or changing your life for the better may fail and you might just quit being codependent entirely. Denial has to be ongoing and it is dependent on how bad things look from the outside.

A good place to start practicing denial is (remember, always keep the focus on the Alcoholic not on YOU, this is crucial to the whole program's success!!) with something like: "He/She doesn't have a problem like Mr./Ms. X, so it's not really so bad". Perfect, start there. Individual instances of devastating behavior on the part of the Alcoholic will require tweaks in your level of denial. For instance, when He/She gets a DUI, there may be a period where a thought or feeling creeps in that this is not normal, this is not OK. Squash that asap! It's only a first DUI. Tell yourself, that this just might be the wake-up call for the Alcoholic (can't stress enough how you must be sure all your mental energy needed for evaluating these situations is expended on the Alcoholic, this is not about YOU, you are fine, you don't have the problem).

Keep the denial intact by clinging desperately to the illusion or memory of "good times." Remember only the good times provided by the A, don't think about your own ability to have had success or fun in life, that's a major distractor from the codie program, stay on target! Remember that time (10 years ago) when He/She stayed up all night listening to your problems and struggles and giving you some really good support and advice while they drank a bottle of wine? Remember that time She met you after you got a promotion with a flower and 2 tickets to your favorite band to celebrate, and you had a couple of beers before the show and then she got plastered? Remember when you were sick that one time years ago and He/She brought you soup and tucked you in before they went back into the living room and drank some more? Those really were the good times, hold tight to those beautiful moments.

Keep those beautiful memories at hand and replay them over and over especially when something happens that might put a crack in your denial program. If you wake up and the sheets are wet and stinking of ****, or you have to get up, again, to do all the responsible adult things like get kids up and out to school, walk or feed pets, clean up house, pay bills, go to work etc. You know, all that stuff that the Alcoholic either does and expects to collect a trophy or doesn't do and doesn't want to hear about it (your nagging is a bad quality, and they are just trying to help you become a better person by pointing out that your nagging is really a mood killer!). Give them lots of praise when they do something that all non-Alcoholic people do every day like mow the lawn, visit a sick relative, cook dinner, do laundry, make a tough decision. Alcoholics are troubled, and you can fix that if you try hard enough, are you really doing all you can to fix them??


1b. Denial has a public face too! Keep up those appearances. No need to be honest with friends or family about the Alcoholic's behavior. No one wants to hear your whining and complaining anyway right? Seriously, what's the matter with you? Life is not a bowl of cherries and you love the Alcoholic so your job is to protect them from discovery and consequences. This is a Full Time job by the way, so make room for it. You can't be meditating, taking classes, attending therapy or God Forbid AlAnon meetings, how can you possibly have time or energy for that, codependency is a full time job full stop, so get any other selfish nonsense off your plate.


2. Count their drinks. This is a good one because it is a task with no ending and it is super distracting from your own "problems" if you even have any! Once you find the first hidden bottle it will become a fun and single-minded obsession to find ALL the bottles. And you never will, isn't that cool, who knew there were games like this, with no end in sight? Awesome.


3. If the Alcoholic starts wearing on your nerves and you slip and start arguing with them about the alcoholism remember you can always back down and things don't have to change. Change is difficult. It's best not to push yourself, and it certainly creates a lot of stress for that Alcoholic, and stress makes them drink even more, don't you see that? Better to just tidy up until the current storm blows over and stuff goes back to the usual routine, see, isn't codependency nice and consistent, rely on it!


4. Another fun game is where you will try to be supportive of the Alocholic's efforts to moderate or quit drinking. Obsessing here is pretty natural so go with it! Are you saying all the right things so that He/She can quit? Because if you aren't careful you might say the wrong thing. OMG. Dont you want to hang on to this awesome power you believe you have? You better say every word correctly and have the right attitude, or the Alcoholic might have to drink again. But that will be a relief anyway since you can get back into the familiar easier to manage codie routine. Just do not, under any circumstances, use any of your energy to look at your own life or choices! Remember that is deadly to codependency!

5. Your job is to believe the Alcoholic when they tell you AA just doesn't work for them, or that the rehab was full of "really sick people and I am not like that," or "this therapist does not know what they are talking about!" The Alcoholic is always right, they are masters of self observation so never doubt them. They are actually better than you at maintaining the status quo so just follow along if you want to become a true Jedi of Codie ways.

6. Avoid mirrors. You will not believe how bad you look, how much you have aged, how many worry lines you have! If you must look in the mirror do so only as long as it takes before you start crying. Get yourself looking presentable and get out there in the family, in the world, and work harder on your denial.

7. Shame. Get used to this feeling. You'll be swimming in it. But if you can keep your denial game strong it won't drown you. This is especially useful if you are raising children with the Alcoholic. Don't tell them their parent is an Alcoholic, don't use those kinds of accurate honest words, it might damage them!! That is bad-mouthing. Clean up the Alcoholic's sh*t, p*ss, vomit quickly, let the kids know Dad/Mom is just not feeling well, or is tired. Never give the kids the proper language to describe what is going on, this might lead to questions and conversations that pierce your own hard-built walls of denial and we know where that will lead: change. And change is the enemy of codependency. Nothing changes if nothing changes so don't let anything change!

Take lots of happy family photos with the kids. Place them around the house. If awkward questions come up about Mom/Dad's drinking, get angry or talk about something else. Pretend things are OK, never ever let kids see the reality, if you want them to grow up to be properly f*cked up adult children of alcoholics it takes a lot of effort, do not drop this ball. Distract, lie, cover-up, pretend that your relationship is normal, or just let it speak for itself as the model adult relationship -- they are just kids what do they know?!

8. To keep this going as long as possible, distort your values. This final piece of advice is for the hardcore codies. If used properly this technique can keep codependency going almost indefinitely, or until your exhaustion makes you sick, bankrupts, or kills you.

To accomplish this, put the value you give to the Alcoholic above everything else in your life. They have to be number one. If you get the sense that you might lose things that other people who aren't codependent value - like family or health or self-esteem or heck, the wherewithal to go on living, you have to let these things go. You must believe in your heart of hearts that the Alcoholic needs YOUR special brand of help and that is the most important thing. Again, if you value the things that truly do matter in life, these things may interfere with the codie dynamic you have worked so hard for. I say this as a stern warning.

Warning: there may come a time when your whole being finally understands that focusing on the Alcoholic's problems and behaviors will ruin the rest of your life. You will have to choose between letting go of the Alcoholic and learning about yourself and changing your own behavior. The choice will be yours. I hope this helps.

Peace,
B.

Gm0824

Y'all nailed both sides of this dark coin.

Spahappy

Thank you for reposting this here trailmix and for your reply Bernadette. This really reinforces some things for me on both sides. I needed to read this today!

Aeryn

Ok this is one of the best posts ever....needs to be it's own thread....or even a sticky.

I'd add one more:

9. Moderation for the codie. This is necessary when you are about to be exposed to yourself and others, you can't let the truth cloud your denial and perfect image. So admit there "might" be a problem and start telling some family and maybe a few friends. Tell them of the A's hard past and how their childhood and life led them here and they need our understanding and sympathy. Tell them you are thinking of separating or maybe divorcing (but that's a last resort because divorce is so shameful) but can't right now because of well any reason you can think of but some good ones are: the kids (and tell them and yourself the kids don't know even though they likely do), the A has an issue in their life (it could be anything just make it something sad), you need to make the divorce perfect, etc etc any excuse works. Do whatever you can to convince them you're trying to change. Heck maybe even call a lawyer and do a free consultation.....that way they will think you're actually doing this. Then maybe tell them the lawyer said it's better to wait a while due to the kids, finances, whatever - anything works as long as you can buy more time avoiding change. Maybe you can get them to feel bad and help you help the alcoholic: they can be there to listen to the same story over and over or loan you money when the A spent it all....lots of stuff. Just keep telling them you are working towards changing the situation....and then have a new excuse not to...and if they really start pushing tell them to back off this is hard emotionally and maybe even cry, that will get them off your back. If they push some more tell them the A has gone to detox and things "might" change. Anything to keep the situation the same and them at bay as long as possible. Moderate as long as possible - a good moderator can lose their health, their credit, their home, their morality (there may come a time you need to lie to the police for the A and you might do it)...heck everything...a good moderator will go down with that ship because they are such a good loyal partner.

But WARNING: eventually friends and family will see through this and even you will see through it and that's when you may decide moderation isn't possible....or not.

PS - I'm definitely guilty of moderating for a while before I left my XRAH so I'm not trying to be critical here...it's just I didn't realize I was doing all those moderation techniques until much later...then I was like "wow!" I was in deep. I definitely did a lot of talking with no intent before I actually hit my bottom. :o

FWN

I'm bumping this because both sides of the coin (alcoholic vs co-dependent) illustrated in this post really helped me today. Maybe it'll help someone else.

Dazedandconfus

LifeChangeNYC

LovePeaceSushi

I just printed out both sides of the coin. Thanks so much for posting this.

hopeful4

Yes, yes, yes! To the original post, and to B's post for the codie!!! Excellent stuff.

LovePeaceSushi

I put the printed copy in my husband's bathroom to read (if I need him to read ANYTHING, it goes in the bathroom! LOL)

He completely agreed with its contents, but had to admit that after reading the heading and first 1-2 sentences, he was like "Okay! She thinks I can maybe moderate this!" (he was actually excited that this was a possibility)
........and then he got to rule #1 and it sunk in what it REALLY was about.

Eye opening how the alcoholic mind works.

dawnrising

Trailmix - my brain exploded!
Bernadette - you put me in the fetal position-uuggh (read: I checked all boxes including the added #9 by Aeryn)
and thank God for Sushi- you made me laugh, and this is a little bit evil, but imagining the excitement of moderation and then the crushing of that dream made me laugh a very sinister laugh but still therapeutic!

LovePeaceSushi

Don't worry, Dawnrising! I laughed my a** off, too!

sheepherder

So it MIGHT be possible there was an eensy, weensy, teeny, weeny movement in my AH's thought process this past week (I don't want to suggest he's attempting recovery yet), but I've very thankful for this post and also the person who suggested an ACOA meeting.

I had a meeting to go to last week about an hour away, and it got canceled. I headed back home. In the time I was gone, my AH had borrowed money from a neighbor, walked to the liquor store and back and drank a liter of rum (why he wasn't dead, I don't know). When I got home, he came out of the house to help me unload my equipment, but he was so incredibly drunk, I stopped him and did it myself.

As I passed by him and went into the house, I made a very inappropriate and snarky comment, which was, "Oh, is drinking a liter of rum your superpower now, Stupidman?" (I know, I know, where is the duct tape when you really need it? I should keep some in my car for emergencies.)

Anyway, that set him off. For the next hour or more, he ranted and raved (this was a new behavior -- he was not violent, and never has been, just couldn't stop -- it's perhaps the rum, since he's always been all about the beer), about how unfairly he's been treated by me, my family, AA, his AA friends, his non-AA friends, his ex-friends, his church friends, his dead friends, his bosses, his coworkers, his family (well, there he had a point), and on and on and on and on, everyone being to blame but not himself, of course. I'm sure he doesn't even remember a tenth of what he said.

(Shouldn't there be an On-and-On Anon? Sorry, bad old joke).

I left for the rest of the evening, but before I did, I printed out this post and put a post-it on it that said, "Why not try an ACOA meeting?"

Shockingly, two days later he went to his first ACOA meeting. Since I've known him for 40 years, he has gone to AA nearly every day, but never to an ACOA meeting. He said in passing to me later, "These people have a lot of issues and a whole lot of resentments!" (doh) "It was too emotionally draining for me."

But he's gone to two other ACOA meetings since. Six days sober. A miracle. That's the longest period of sobriety for him since November of 2017 when he started his massive drinking after being told by a doctor that he could have a few drinks a day and be healthy.

Do I expect anything to come from it in the long term? Not really. But they are such wise, insightful words. He might have actually considered them.

Thank you for bumping this up.

trailmix

That's really great sheepherder. I'm glad he is getting something out of the meetings. Dandylion often suggests them to family members who grew up in households were there is an alcoholic.

Including me lol

Your post has me thinking about it again.