bevin

A weird thing happened to me today...I forgot what day it was for the second time this week. I had set my quit date for Thursday..which I thought was tomorrow and I was pretty depressed. When I discovered that in fact I had one more day to drink my face off it cheered me up immensely. The fact is that I can only feel cheerful and optimistic about the idea of quitting drinking when I am drunk. How ironic is that? Did anyone else feel this way and manage to stay sober despite all of the fear and trepidation about quitting?

Dee74

I didn't want to quit...but I didn't want to die more....but yeah I pushed the envelope right out of shape putting off the quit....

Noone likes change - especially change that will be, less face it, pretty hard at times.


I'd also drunk for 20 years - it was familiar to me - and I had a drinkers mindset - even when I wasn't drinking I was pretty pickled in the cognitive department.

I think differently now - absolutely no regrets.

Being who I think I should be (or as close as I can get) is a great gift

Getting sober and staying that way was the best decision I ever made.

Use your sober mind - it's in there somewhere...how about making Wednesday day one?

D

newby1961

I agree w/Dee make Wed your day

I get really scared when I see stuff like this, because when I was making dates for when I was going to quit I was still playing a game in thinking I still had some sort of controll over this dam disease.

IMO the people who end up staying sober are the ones who have tried everything they can to continue drinking, but it just kicked their a** and they were desperate to try anything to stop.

I have friends that made quit dates, and guess what they never made it to that date, they died.

bevin

@ Dee74 - I hear you re: feeling pickled even when you're not. My thought process is pretty screwed up right now - I recognize that and I know what's going on. I've been drinking for close to 15 years I suppose...scary! Sometimes it's been really extreme and sometimes I've been able to manage to keep it under 'control'. It never really feels under control though.
@ both of you - The suggestion that I change my quit date is terrifying to me right now. I see why you're saying it, but it just sent me into immediate panic for some reason. I would have to throw out the drinks I was saving for tomorrow too, which is something I've never done. Honestly, I'm too tired to think about this right now, but you may be right. I'm going to sign off now and go to sleep - maybe things will seem clearer in the morning.

Kmber2010

Setting a quit date didn't work for me either.

I hope you take the suggestions here and I guess when I felt my life was far worse then I could have imagined yeah I just tossed out the bottle and forged forth. I was willing to give it my all....thats how much I wanted to change......so can you.

Now I look back and see all the changes I have made and continue to make and I just never could have seen back when I drank how much better my life could be and how much of better person I am in recovery. I am grateful everyday.

Hope you make today your day

ste

I used to blame my screwed up thought process, and physical degeneration on old age. Who could argue.

After quitting, I feel younger.

CarolD

For me to actually quit...I had to want sobriety
more than I wanted to drink,

I set all sorts of boundaries and kept ignoreing them.
I kept buying more...I kept drinking more and almost lost
my brain to alcohol caused depression.
My doctor suggested I abstain and check out AA.

I was not thrilled at either idea....but scared to not try
anything to get out from under that dark soul dead depression.

Off I went....and it was the best move I ever made..
I certainly hope you will stop ssaturating your miind.

LaFemme

I set more quit days then I even care to remember...never happened until the last one when I feel God took the decision from me.

I also poured a ton of alcohol down the drain...I would do it at night, plastered, determined that the next day would be my day.

You can do this...I hope you read this thread when you wake up...pour all the booze down the sink and start sobriety...its the best thing you will ever do.

Dee74

It is scary preparing to quit...I don't think I've ever been more terrified...

but it wasn't anywhere as bad as I expected bevin - and nowhere near as bad as dealing with the life I was leading as an active drunk

D

OklaBH

make today day 1. I spent more time making rules for myself and setting boundaries so I could still drink. When you look back you will know that it is scarier to drink than not.

ste

P.S.

If that doesn't "inspire" you, I can't inspire you.

LexieCat

The only way to quit is to do it. I've set a lot of "quit dates" for smoking, but guess what. None of them were "good times" to do it.

I quit drinking because I had no more options.

joedris

If you have such fear and trepidation as the day approaches, how do you think you're going to feel when the day arrives? It ain't gonna be pretty, believe me. All you do by setting future dates for quitting is prolonging the agony. You using intentions in place of actions. It's a good bet that when the day arrives you may well put it off again because on that day real panic may set in.

I also wonder what you're Plan A is for that first day? Got anything in mind? Any program that you're gonna try? Meetings, counseling, therapy?Or do you plan to just suck it up and see how things go? You didn't have a lot of success in quitting before, what makes you think you can do it now?

I'm not trying to be a hard*ss here, just realistic. There are probably people who decided that on Thursday they would quit, were successful in that and never looked back. My hat's off to them. I just never met one. My personal experience is that what you have in mind sounds good to you, but it ain't gonna work. Quitting drinking is one thing, but how you plan on doing that is quite another. Will power didn't work before, so it's pretty safe to say you can kiss that off.

So once again, do you have a Plan A? If you don't, then I'd suggest you look around for one. AA is always there. If you don't like AA then there are a lot of other programs that can help you. Search through SR and you'll find tons of them. You need to pick one of them to start, at least. You can always change from one to another if you choose. But any program will be infinitely more successful than going it alone.

And good luck. I sincerely hope you make it this time.

bevin

All right - you guys convinced me. I'm going to get rid of everything after I finish typing this. I haven't had anything yet today...and I don't exactly feel great, but I'll be fine.
@joedris - those are all good questions, and I'll do my best to answer them tho my head is a bit foggy.
My Plan A for the rest of today is to have a shower, some food, and that's pretty much it. However, this time I'm doing a couple of things differently in general.
I've never joined a forum before, and now I'm here.
I also got a couple weeks' worth of sleeping pills from my Dr. to take me past the initial insomnia - I'm REALLY hoping that'll make a difference.
I have meetings with a therapist 2x a month.
I've gone out and bought a truckload of healthy food - lots of dietary fibre and protein. Last time I gave in to the urge to eat tons of sugar and I don't think it did me any favours.
I have a phone # for a place that might be able to get me some one on one therapy with someone who specializes in alcohol addiction, but the wait list could be pretty long. I don't know yet.
As for groups...that's not something I can do right now - I have panic attacks in situations like that. I'm not saying that I'm ruling it out, but it's not possible right now. Phew - yeah, so that's my plan.
I'm lacking any kind of real enthusiasm right now, but I'm not as freaked out as I was last night. And I'm really looking forward to being able to actually digest food again!
Thanks for the reality check guys - I'll keep you updated.

artsoul

I wasn't very enthusiastic about quitting either (the word terrified comes to mind), and can wholeheartedly relate to thinking about quitting while drinking. I spent quite a few evenings reading on this forum just trying to get up the nerve to post.

Remember to take it a minute/hour/day at a time and know that it's going to take time to heal........ but you will. I figured I was the most obsession person in the world (and do have some OCD stuff, according to the psychiatrists). So, if I can sit here and say that the desire to drink got less and less with more sober time, I have faith that it will be that way for you, too.

Glad you decided to take a step!!!

Supercrew

Although it was hard to be enthusiastic about quitting, I felt like I was losing part of myself, the more I thought about what good it would bring me the easier time I had with it. Also instead of thinking I was quitting forever, I tried to think in small terms, first it was a day, then it was a week, next thing you know it was a month, when 2 months came most of the obsession was gone. But I couldn't ever quit because I had to, I had to quit because I wanted to and that made all the difference for me.

reggiewayne

Welcome Bevin. Your story reminds me of another one. "If three frogs are sitting on a log and one decides to jump off. How many frogs are on the log"?

The answer is 3. Making a decision, honestly, doesn't mean anything without action. Just because one of the frogs decided to jump, doesn't mean he did.

For me, I decided all kinds of great wonderful things when I was drunk. Vacations, great business ideas, fun stuff to do with my kids....... you name it. Almost all, if not all, of those decisions never happened because there was no action that followed it.

For me, deciding to quit is not just something I had to do once, it's something I have to do on a daily basis. Left to do this on my own, my mind will ALWAYS try and talk me into drinking. For this alcoholic, I have to take daily action into recovery. Like AA meetings, calling people in the program, helping others, participating in this site, listening to recovery podcasts, reading my big book, asking my wife what I can do to help her... These are things I, literally, do on a daily basis that support my decision of quitting.

I wish you the best. You can do this. Just try to back up the decision with some action - no matter your feelings. Remember that feelings follow actions, never the other way around. We feel good, when we do good. By doing nothing, we often feel bad. When I feel bad, I have a quick fix. Booze. The problem is that solution stopped working for me years ago and now brings with it an entirely different set of problems.

Focus on your actions and your feelings will follow...

bevin

Feeling better today. I poured everything out after my last post and took all of the empties down to the dumpster. Was feeling very anxious (not surprising) and pretty nauseous (a bit surprising), but I made eggs for dinner and I felt better. Hooray for eggs!
Took 1/2 a sleeping pill (I'm trying to make them last longer) and got in a full 5 hours sleep before I woke up. Lay in bed for 2 hours before I fell asleep again for another 1 1/2 hours. All in all, not too bad!
I agree that taking it day by day is a better idea. I tend to be an all or nothing kind of gal so I have trouble taking things in steps - I have a tendency to overwhelm myself with the big picture sometimes.
So here's the plan for today - if I start to feel really bad I'll go for a walk, and if I still don't feel better I'll take a bath. I'm going to buy a good book so I have something to keep my brain occupied. I am NOT going to drink today.

Kmber2010

What a great update Bevin but just a reminder that checking in with the Dr. is always a good thing especially when detoxing

Keep it going!!!

ChikkaB

Not drinking today is where it is at.

Stay strong!