feeling better
 

does this happen to anybody?? as soon as u start feeling better u get the urge to drink again??? cause basically im a binge drinker not an everyday drinker and after drinking heavily i wake up one morning and say to myself this has to stop!!!! and then i do everything i can to be the best person i can. i spring clean my house go that extra mile for the kids and everything goes great... til i feel too good and its like this terrible force that makes me think oh ok u can drink now. STUPID STUPID THINKING!!! how can i make this stop???? how can i change my thinking so that the better i feel the LESS i wanna drink not more??? any advise would be great!! thanks guys:)

Hi Lor,

Yes, all too familiar! I found the SMART Recovery AVRT works well for this, helped me recognize where that creepy, flawed "logic" was coming from (the "oh, I feel better, I can handle it, so I'll just have a drink/drunk" thing)

I also really try to value and be grateful for how good I feel physically when not drinking, and how much nicer and more peaceful/guilt-free my life feels when not drinking.

I know that drinking will take all that away from me and make me feel horrible.

Hope this helps.

I lost the power to choose if I was going to drink. My advise? Find your truth.

Good luck,

Traid.

I just drank so much I thought I was going to die which scared me into believing that no matter how good I thought I'd end up feeling from drinking, I would never ever want to feel that sense of total, impending doom again!

I don't have the tools to battle this either. The drinker self, even after a week or so of sobriety, seems to only gain strength off your feel good mood. We need to find the tools to battle at this time. I don't have them yet, but I know they are out there. Just refusing and dealing with the cravings is actually a process to recovery. I hope we can both get there.

Hello Lor,
I was a binge drinker too who became an everyday drinker this last year. I've been on the roller coaster ride your on right now for over 40 years. For me it was all just me trying to fool myself into thinking it was going to be okay which it never was. It was a cycle which repeated its self for 40 years until recently when I pretty much hit rock bottom. I hope it doesn't take that for you. I don't have the answers either but I hope we both/all find what we need before it's too late. Coming here was a good start for me and I'm sure it will be for you too if you allow it.

I went to counseling, AA meetings for the first three months, used my docs and focused on making a new life for myself and by extension my SH and family. I also used thinking similar to AVRT as I used to be a counselor years ago and eclectically mixed some reality Therapy with a large dose of RET and behaviorist with humanism if that makes any sense.

I decided to stop and needed to detox in hospital first to get well detoxed. Before that I had already made a firm, determined, decision that if I could ever quit that long I would be over the hump and never drink nor smoke again.

I was not secretive nor talkative about it. In other words my friends and family knew when I checked in and I told them I would be fine just needed a head start and my doc said I needed to be safe when I quit drinking for good.

I remember what I thought was good about it, and the nice buzz I got in the first years drinking. That was true. I also remember very clearly how helpless I was at the end of my drinking.

One thing has not changed. I will never drink or smoke again.

So why am I still here a year plus later?

Gratitude.

If obsession over alcohol were money I would have to declare bankruptcy.

But it took more than fear and hiding for me to make it. SR has been a major part and is now the major part.

I consider myself recovered now. BECAUSE I know I am one drink, and one smoke, away from being enslaved again. And as in all cases, in this case too, Freedom Isn't Free. It cost me my drinking, a cheap price to pay, to stop being cheap myself.

hey sugar...some good advice here...once again! and, to answer your question...YES.
you are so very quite normal!....good luck...mags

Oh, yes, I can relate! That was me totaly.
The 4th day. Feeling better, looking better, food in me why not drink, I'm cured.

This went on for years. I hope you don't fall into that trap, because once I did start drinking again, I never knew when it would end. Then back to the same cycle.

That's how I drank. Thanks for your post and the reminder of those awful days.

Best to you.

What I did to get rid of the desire to drink was practice gratitude every day. Had to force myself at first as I was so miserable I didn't think I had anything to be grateful for. I was wrong. I started finding joy and gratitude in so many things/people/events I wouldn't have time to list them all.:) And my whole attitude shifted into 'positive' and my perspective got better and more clear. I can't express what a difference gratitude has made in my life but I suggest you give it a try. What can you lose by being thankful? Nothing but your misery.:) We even have a gratitude forum here just for giving thanks. Take a look.:)

Lor. Recognising that there is a cycle to addiction is important. Understanding that at each point on the cycle the way we feel and explain our alcohol use to ourselves can be noted so it deepens our understanding of what we have got ourselves into.

For me, "why's" don't matter , it is just addiction.

The three main tools and skills I think are AVRT, the SMART pros and cons list of using, and AA's Big Book (free online)

yeah your just like me , not sure if its exactly normal but i think most people in general do it. my mother stopped takeing her anti-depressants ..because she felt fine she didnt think she needed them anymore. i stopped going to AA, why because my life had become manageable, obviously i didnt have a problem with drinking anymore, this cycle we all face is never-ending, it gets easier most definately but it will always be there. to forget the pain of active addiction is to head straight back to it. And maybe i'm alone in this but the quiting part is easy, after detox, the hard part is remembering later when life is good , job is stable, and everything is back to normal...but somethings missing. i would recomend smart recovery, it seems to be pretty good at sniffing out the "stinking thinking". the disease of addiction is cunning, baffeling and powerful and soon as you think you have it licked is when its at it strongest. best wishes on this i hope you do better than i have :)

Hi lor!

Yes, it's really common to want a drink once the pain goes away and we feel "in control" again. Just having feelings (even if they were good ones) make me want to change or enhance my mood.

The good news is that when you don't act on those feelings, the cravings start to get weaker and further apart. It takes a while, so don't lose patience........ just think of the sense of freedom you'll feel when the first thing on your mind isn't a drink!:scoregood

I'd go from feeling like death and 'never again' to 'Oh I feel great now..I must have over reacted'...never mind it took me those 3 or 4 days to get over a binge.

Like I said in another thread - I think more support helps. - the more tools in your toolbox the better lor :)

D

Must have discipline!