ivehadenoughnow

30 mins on the treadmill feels so good. Exercise truly is a miracle when it comes to stress. Not to mention I'll drop 10 lbs of fat in a month without the wine calories.

MyTimeNow

I'm on my 7th day sober. I'm making a timetable for next week of when I can get to the gym or swim. I'm a single parent so it's a little more difficult but very much looking forward to it.

Well done. I'm glad you've decided to try no wine for a while

Sobersunshine

Hi, just joining in. Welcome ivehadenoughnow! I've been sober for about 10 months, and like most of the other posters, tried for years to control my drinking. Instead, my drinking just got worse and worse, til I was drinking all day long every day. I still maintained a highly respected, professional job, and outwardly seemed fine, all the while dying, emotionally and physically. I kept thinking if I could just find a way to handle my stress, I wouldn't have to drink so much.i didn't have any great plan for stopping, I finally just did somehow. I learned how to cope with stress AFTER I stopped.
What helped me the most was being on this forum every night, and going to AA almost every day. AA taught me how to deal with stress and find some inner peace, through the 12 steps. Seriously, I am not the AA type, or didn't think I was, but it saved me. I still go to meetings once or twice a week, and "work the program.". I highly recommend you check out a meeting. Just go and listen, see if you hear your story there. Other programs work too, but AA was what worked for me, after trying so many other ways.
Yes, I still get stressed, no, my life isnt perfect,but drinking is no longer an option for coping with stress, and I am a happier person by far as a sober person.
Best of luck too you!

IWillWin

Yay I'vehadenough! This is a great thread...and I think you can see you are not alone in your challenges.

Good for you trying sobriety - I'm interested to hear from you again once you have a few weeks sober and see if you notice a reduction in stress levels. I predict you will

ivehadenoughnow

I'm trying the AVRT method based on some suggestions of a few here. It is not because I'm secular, it is because it makes a lot of sense to me. I'm trying something with my reaction to stressful situations. My "stress voice" likes to get stressed out, but I don't. He's been winning along with my AV. Last night we went to the movies. Not wine, some cravings were their during witching hour but nothing too tremendous. Plan tonight is 30 mins on treadmill after the kids get down, followed by a bath. I just don't want to do it anymore and so my AV is gonna have to take a back seat and that is that.

ivehadenoughnow

By the way, my wife has very little control over the kids. They don't pull that with me because they know where I stand at all times, I'm always fair, I never bribe, and I am always consistent. My wife prefers to fly by the seat of her pants, they know what they can get away with, and she makes idle threats that she rarely follows through with. Each morning is a series of chaotic rushing yelling. Each night at bedtime is the same. I realize that stress is part of life, and I'm taking steps to cope with it better. When I drank wine at night, I chose to do so, with encouragement from my AV. When I allow my environment to stress me out, I allowed it to happen, and I don't have to. This morning I failed miserably. I let it get to me immediately and I went from a 0 straight to a 10 within 3 minutes. I also hired a therapist that I can work with, in fact I hired her 3 weeks ago. She has been working with me on trying to be accepting of my wife's stress. Currently I am not. My viewpoint is that "it doesn't have to be that way." I feel it could easily be reversed if need be, so I let it get to me. Anyways, nothing happens overnight but it is something I'd really like to reduce or get a hold of.

soberlicious

Hey IHEN
I noticed you mentioned Julian Jaynes a few pages back and I was curious what you thought of his work. Have you read Trimpey on Jaynes?

I am a single parent of triplets (share custody with dad). One of them has moderate to severe autism. I work full time and manage my household and my finances completely on my own, so I understand stress.

I'm glad you are reading about AVRT. I have found it the most effective way to end my addiction(s) (alcohol, pills, nicotine). Understand that it is just a technique for ending your addiction, nothing more. But the thing is, once you rid yourself of the bigass monkey on your back, then you have a million ways to go about improving your life if you wish.

My .02 would be to read Rational Recovery:The New Cure for Substance Addiction, and the AVRT threads mentioned prior. You don't have to be a "secular person" to choose secular recovery. Many people of faith do so for various reasons.

Anyway, best to you. You can be completely free from the grips of addiction if you so choose. I believe in you.

Nonsensical

Wow, this sounds very familiar.

I never had any success in getting my wife to set limits with the kids and keeping them. Years and years of frustration.

I once got her attention for about 4 hours by telling her she was the reason our sons would grow up thinking when a woman says no, she really means yes. But it soon faded, and I was the referee/enforcer again.

The good news is that it all worked out. Best of luck to you!

ivehadenoughnow

I'm gonna order Rational Recovery. I was trying to find a Kindle version but haven't been able to. I like instant gratification, lol! Without even realizing it I have changed many behaviors in my life through something similar to this, so I guess it just resonated with me more than the disease mentality, but that is just me.

ivehadenoughnow

Incredibly frustrating, thanks for understanding. It it was just a bit of chaos and other parts of our life were in order, it probably wouldn't be that big of a deal. It is her stress that impacts our relationship more than any other factor. All the things we used to argue about in the past we rarely do any more. She stresses out, gets snarky with me, I take exception to it and then we are in a mini-battle. It also kills the romance side of things and for the most part is just a huge drag to be around. She is not the reason I poured wine down my throat, but it certainly made it more appealing since the witching hour included her being grumpy and not fun to be around.

soberlicious

Actually Trimpeys work is based on exactly that....what the "self recovered" population has done throughout time. Probably why it resonates...you've used a similar paradigm with success before in tackling other behaviors that caused you problems. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on it.

Nonsensical

Dealing with small, insane people all day is exhausting.

Rub her feet.

soberlicious

True dat...

ivehadenoughnow

If she'd let me I would. There are things you can do to minimize the insane behaviors and I'm right there side by side with her with the exception of 10-3 where I go to the office for a bit. But that is another issue entirely. I can't make her do anything, it is up to her, I just wished it wasn't so impacting.

littlefish

this is a great thread, I am jumping in here probably way too late, but anyway. Maybe I have missed your post progression and maybe you have been to this stage already I'vehadenough, but have you determined if you are an alcoholic?
Once we accept that we are alcoholics, there is no option of managed drinking, because we simply can't.
I tried drinking "controlled", "safely", etc, but I always underestimated the nature of this disease: that even if I put 8 to 12 hours between myself and my last drink, the obsession was still intense, like no time had passed at all.
Maybe you are not an alcoholic. Can you quit for a week, a month without too much effort?

ivehadenoughnow

Yes I have progressed. I am most certainly am a problem drinker, that frequently quits when training for a race without too much trouble. I tend to drink significantly more when I get stressed which is a pattern for me. Wife sent me a pic today of a mess the little one made. I immediate felt anxiety in my chest and my face felt flush thinking about the potential chaos at home when I got there. The moment I felt it my AV called out to me. Again, the stress isn't what made me pour the glass of wine, I did that, but one certainly leads to the other, and lately almost every night.

One thing I know for sure is that the stress outside of the house is non-existent. None at work. None when we go to other people's houses, with the kids. None when we go out on a date to the movies, like last night. I have associated my house with complete chaos and stress and I need to change it up. It is summer so I'm going to try and keep the kids out much later so that the time we spend here isn't so long. When they are entertained and busy they are perfect, but keep them in the house for any extended period of time they make you pay. Keep my wife in the house for any extended period of time she is grumpy. It is just a drag to be around chaos and grumpiness and it literally is driving me out of my mind. The wine numbed my mind for 3 hours a night which is why I did it, but it doesn't help me deal with the other 21 hours, in fact makes them worse. I don't need to explain why it is a bad idea. In any case I decided to eliminate it from my life and see if I'm a more patient father and husband, I just don't know at this point.

Tang

I would say that your original post matches most of my original thinking on reduction. At the height of my drinking I was doing P90X and running. Wife, kids (special need) and alcohol was my stress reliever (or so I thought). Hey I was healthy, just a little high too often. I wanted to live the French paradox, healthy Mediterranean wine diet. I tried it for many years, but could never achieve equilibrium with alcohol. It was always a pendulum swinging ever farther to one side.

Also I'd note, if there are people who found moderation worked, they probably aren't on boards like these. You will receive recommendations and stories on complete cessation.

Debe5

Home, your wife and kids, should be a place you look forward to... I can only say that until recently I dreaded when my husband came home, and he didn't want to come home. We had many good things in our lives but we were "keeping up appearances" . But day to day we were miserable. i drank at night to avoid him, he was the problem (now I know that's a cop out, I drank because I wanted to, me me me me, I I I I). Our relationship suffered, our children suffered, I suffered! We were constantly battling, when we should have been uniting. We finally sought counseling. We started appreciating each other again. We learned how to address/resolve issues. It is not perfect, but so worth it. It is impossible to see things clearly with alcohol. You, your wife and family deserve a chance....
Today I will be glad when my husband comes home, I will greet him with a big sober hug. He recently said "it is a lot easier to love you than to hate you". Couldn't have said it better!

SnwFlower

It sounds like you're really on the right track of completely cutting out alcohol as well as seeing a therapist. Maybe you've already done this, but thought I'd mention just in case, have you already gone to therapy together? Sounds like you're both stressed to the limits and therapy together could help?

ivehadenoughnow

She might go for it, but usually the idea of a "therapist" means that there is something wrong with her, and that makes her feel bad. My wife is driven by something completely different from me. What drives her, and she'd tell you this, is other's perception of her, how she feels about everything. What I mean is she ultimately views therapy as an admission that there is something wrong with her, and therefore she won't do it. To me therapy is a practical solution to feeling better, working things out, and changing behaviors. I'll be speaking with my therapist next week again and we'll be delving into the elimination of alcohol and my acceptance of things that are out of my control. I have not yet come to terms with the fact that my wife's stress and grumpiness is not related to me. I mean I do as much as possible to help with things that add to it with the children and the house but ultimately I can't make her feel any different, she has to figure it out on her own. My therapist seems to think that if I could be more accepting of my wife's stress and mood that I would in turn relieve some of my own stress. Thoughts?