Higher Chances Of Success
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: South
Posts: 226
Higher Chances Of Success
I have been thinking about why some are able to quit no problem and others really struggle. I fortunately (for now) have fallen into the first bucket. But why? I can't profess to have all the answers or the secrets but I have observed this:
- when I was ready to quit I hated very specific traits about myself...as opposed to my situation. Self trait: I tended to harp on the negative in every situation. Situation: My friends use me....hopefully that clarification makes sense.
- I could directly see those self traits that I hated get worse with every drink. Actually, while drunk I was always happy, but lookout when I sobered up. I was a darn right arse of a human being: grouchy, vindictive, punitive, angry, resentful.
- I knew that the living i was doing was not consistent with God's intentions of humanity. I wanted to trust in people, not envy or resent them. I wanted to stop assuming the worst was always going to happen to me.
- My path to sobriety was actually a path to self healing. I was fortunate to be able to correlate alcohol with what I hated in me.
10 Months in, every single sober day brings me closer to accepting myself and allowing God to guide me to the human existence I hope to achieve.
- when I was ready to quit I hated very specific traits about myself...as opposed to my situation. Self trait: I tended to harp on the negative in every situation. Situation: My friends use me....hopefully that clarification makes sense.
- I could directly see those self traits that I hated get worse with every drink. Actually, while drunk I was always happy, but lookout when I sobered up. I was a darn right arse of a human being: grouchy, vindictive, punitive, angry, resentful.
- I knew that the living i was doing was not consistent with God's intentions of humanity. I wanted to trust in people, not envy or resent them. I wanted to stop assuming the worst was always going to happen to me.
- My path to sobriety was actually a path to self healing. I was fortunate to be able to correlate alcohol with what I hated in me.
10 Months in, every single sober day brings me closer to accepting myself and allowing God to guide me to the human existence I hope to achieve.
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Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: Northern Virginia
Posts: 108
Well said, and well done. Self transformation is really the goal, in my opinion. If you transform yourself, your thinking, and your life, you are better armed simply to say no to it. Sounds as though you hit the magic combination that is allowing you to transform your life (and stay sober).
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Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Mississippi
Posts: 7,910
Those are some great insights, DrunkTx. I can relate so much to the negative thinking. It's really amazing what happens when we're able to look at our thoughts and attitudes and decide we don't have to live that way.
Congrats on 10 months!!!
Congrats on 10 months!!!
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Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Between Meetings
Posts: 8,997
That's a great post DrunkTX....This hit home for me when I read it...From The Doctor's Opinion...BB.
Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks-drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.
Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks-drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.
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Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: UK
Posts: 1,145
Congrats on 10 months - good for you!
I've quit in the past and it wasn't easy because I never thought it would be forever - I told myself that quitting for a period of time (usually a month) meant that I could get right back at it. This time (I've been sober over five months now) I knew from the beginning that it was a forever thing. No question about it... I would never drink again. Believing that and accepting that has made being sober very easy. There were times at the beginning where I struggled, but because I'd taken the option of ever drinking again away, it was just a matter of me accepting that my future would be alcohol free.
I've quit in the past and it wasn't easy because I never thought it would be forever - I told myself that quitting for a period of time (usually a month) meant that I could get right back at it. This time (I've been sober over five months now) I knew from the beginning that it was a forever thing. No question about it... I would never drink again. Believing that and accepting that has made being sober very easy. There were times at the beginning where I struggled, but because I'd taken the option of ever drinking again away, it was just a matter of me accepting that my future would be alcohol free.
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