New on here
Welcome Alice - you've come to a great place.
I'd suggest reading a lot of posts here and seeing what others are doing to stay sober. Depending on your drinking history, it's wise to consider medical help for detoxing. Take it one day at a time, or one hour at a time if you have to - just focus on getting through that day without a drink and then worry about tomorrow when it gets here.
If we can do it, you can too! We all know what those first days and weeks are like - it really does get better......
I'd suggest reading a lot of posts here and seeing what others are doing to stay sober. Depending on your drinking history, it's wise to consider medical help for detoxing. Take it one day at a time, or one hour at a time if you have to - just focus on getting through that day without a drink and then worry about tomorrow when it gets here.
If we can do it, you can too! We all know what those first days and weeks are like - it really does get better......
Alice - welcome to our family. When I first joined SR I was so numb from drinking I didn't know how I'd ever find my way out. As I read the experiences & suggestions here I began to see the light. Not feeling alone made all the difference to me.
Stay with us and tell us more about yourself - you'll begin to feel free again. Be proud of yourself for reaching out & wanting a new life. Some never see what they're doing to themselves.
Stay with us and tell us more about yourself - you'll begin to feel free again. Be proud of yourself for reaching out & wanting a new life. Some never see what they're doing to themselves.
Alot of support here. Have you tried Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)? When I first sobered up I read the AA Big Book and it helped to understand the disease. If you do not have one as of yet there is a free one on-line and it is as follows:
Big Book Online Fourth Edition
Big Book Online Fourth Edition
Member
Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 155
Advice? Beyond just don't drink? Those first days I picked up b-complex vitamins researching. It certainly helped mentally if not physically and was "medicine" I could take at night when the urge really hit hard a few times.
I swear I felt better.
I swear I felt better.
Welcome to the group! I recommend checking out the thread here on admittance and acceptance. I admitted i was an alcoholic long before i accepted it. As alcoholics, we have to come to peace with the fact that we cannot drink like normal men and ladies. i have found this to be an immutable fact in my life. I cannot change the fact that i am an alcoholic any more than i can change my eye color. When i accepted this, it opened my mind and heart to pursuing a new way of life. I found that the way i'd been living was an impossible way to live if i was ever to have a chance at long term sobriety. It meant that i had to undergo a fundamental psychic change with regards to how i understood life and how i reacted to what happened in my life.
When rehab alone failed to provide me with the necessary tools to change my life, i humbly dragged my drunk ass to AA. After trying to work AA in a manner that i desired, i again humbly dragged my ass back into AA with a willingness to do whatever it took to get and stay sober. I have found that i had to have more than a desire to quit drinking. I had to be desperate to have a change occur in my life. I had finally become willing to let go of things like resentment and anger. I came to see that resentments were poison to me. It's not that i would resent something or become angry and drink. What happened is that those emotions were constantly with me if i encouraged them at all at any time. I could spend weeks with them lying dormant in my head, slowly and quietly feeding on every perceived slight. Then, i found them exploding to the surface, often over trivial things. They were fully fed and that one slight opened the floodgates of all the wrongs that had been done to me and i raged against the world. When i rage against the world, the first casualty of this war is always myself. These are the times that i would find myself relapsing with no real clue as to what had set me off. I couldn't put my finger on any real definite triggering event because it was a culmination of dozens of triggering events. So i have had to adopt a manner of living that allows me to experience negative emotions and immediately let them go honestly.
My best advice is what's worked for me. Go to AA with an open mind and heart, become willing find a sponsor, read the Big Book, be ruthlessly honest,work the steps with a sponsor, develop a relationship with your own personal higher power, be of service and practice the principles of AA in all of your affairs. My sobriety is about way more than not drinking. I've come to learn that i must mold my life around my sobriety, not my sobriety around my life.
When rehab alone failed to provide me with the necessary tools to change my life, i humbly dragged my drunk ass to AA. After trying to work AA in a manner that i desired, i again humbly dragged my ass back into AA with a willingness to do whatever it took to get and stay sober. I have found that i had to have more than a desire to quit drinking. I had to be desperate to have a change occur in my life. I had finally become willing to let go of things like resentment and anger. I came to see that resentments were poison to me. It's not that i would resent something or become angry and drink. What happened is that those emotions were constantly with me if i encouraged them at all at any time. I could spend weeks with them lying dormant in my head, slowly and quietly feeding on every perceived slight. Then, i found them exploding to the surface, often over trivial things. They were fully fed and that one slight opened the floodgates of all the wrongs that had been done to me and i raged against the world. When i rage against the world, the first casualty of this war is always myself. These are the times that i would find myself relapsing with no real clue as to what had set me off. I couldn't put my finger on any real definite triggering event because it was a culmination of dozens of triggering events. So i have had to adopt a manner of living that allows me to experience negative emotions and immediately let them go honestly.
My best advice is what's worked for me. Go to AA with an open mind and heart, become willing find a sponsor, read the Big Book, be ruthlessly honest,work the steps with a sponsor, develop a relationship with your own personal higher power, be of service and practice the principles of AA in all of your affairs. My sobriety is about way more than not drinking. I've come to learn that i must mold my life around my sobriety, not my sobriety around my life.
Member
Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: Melbourne
Posts: 20
Welcome to the forum, Alice!
I definitely recommend searching around the forum and having a read of everyone's experiences. I found, especially when I was experiencing physical or emotional withdrawal symptoms, it very comforting to hear I wasn't alone and others had gone through it, too.
It's a tough battle, but it really is infinitely easier when you have a place like this to come and check in.
I definitely recommend searching around the forum and having a read of everyone's experiences. I found, especially when I was experiencing physical or emotional withdrawal symptoms, it very comforting to hear I wasn't alone and others had gone through it, too.
It's a tough battle, but it really is infinitely easier when you have a place like this to come and check in.
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