first time
 

hello everyone! this is my first post...i am really interested in hearing how people talk themselves out of drinking. right now i drink basically every other day. i wake up every morning and tell myself that i will not drink. when i am on my way home from work i loose contol of my rational mind. i dont listen to myself and just end up driving to the bar. i dont want to drink but i do anyway. im sure that makes me an alcoholic....i dont care what it is called. i just would like to hear how other people handle that time in their day so they make the right choice....clearly i am not. thanks a bunch!

I joined a gym and started crocheting as a hobby and reading. I tell myself when I feel like drinking that it would ruin all that I have accomplished so far at the gym. When I get home I'm beat and than read myself to sleep and I no longer wake up feeling tired and crappy.

Joining up here, reading and posting really helped me akaska :)
next time you get the urge, let us talk you round :)

D

I focused my attention on my dogs. They had been getting less attention and sloppy care when I was drinking and I wanted to make it up to them. :)



:welcome to SR!

Welcome Akasha! It's good to have you join us. :)

All I had to do was remember some of the horrible & dangerous things I did when drinking. I had to admit that I had no control if that first drink got in my system.

Hi Akasha - The support from everyone on this site has been a HUGE help to me - when the idea of a drink comes to mind, I think about where it always takes me...how miserable my life with alcohol is & just take it one day at a time, knowing that my life will be so much better without it. I have 2 weeks of sobriety today - You can do it. Keep posting & read here:)

Hi. Akasha. I would go to the cinema, cook good food and try to have simple fun. There is a lot of support here x

Thats great that you came here. You will find many people can relate in some way to your questions. I am understanding more about myself now than ever before...thanks SR

Hi Akasha and welcome here! Only you can decide if you are truly an alcoholic. For me, when I started drinking on days I didn't even feel like it was an early warning sign. I would say try a book, a movie, gym or other physical activity. Maybe take a different route that doesn't go by a bar. If you continue to have issues I recommend AA and posting and reading here.

I would recommend that you find a local AA meeting and attend it a few times. It sounds like if you could find one after work, you could go to the meeting instead of going to the bar.

Welcome to SR! For me, I tried to stay as busy as possible. I changed my routine as much as I could to start building a new one without drinking. Because I was drinking so much for years, I had plenty of tasks available to keep me occupied due to neglecting so much during that time.

I had my house cleaned, organized a lot, got some new furniture, upgraded some of my electronic equipment with the money saved from not drinking, bought new clothes got back into my old hobbies, exercised outside (it was nice out then), cooked dinner every night and ate a lot of sweets (cravings for sweets hit hard when many people quit).

Basically, I kept busy. I made a plan earlier in the day of what I had to do that night and I stuck to it. I stuck to my new route home even though it was incredibly difficult for the first month or so. Now, months later, I find myself in a new routine and I don't think about making that stop for booze anymore. It takes time to retrain the brain but it can be done. You can do it!

Oh yeah, and I basically lived on this site for the first few months. :)

HI Akasha, i used to drink after work every day and on every weekend day. The very first and best thing I did was stop going to my 'local bar.' As I had only one, and all my drinking friends also went there, this was hard at first but easy in results. AA and CBT teach us to avoid the people, places and things that make us want to drink. If you can come to the idea you truly need to quit, without 'hitting bottom,' IE DUI or lost job or any other unerasable external documentation of your drinking, you will be much and better off. You have the reason, your post shows it. You have the fortitude, it is within you, not outside in a bottle or a glass. This is what we all remind ourselves every minute!

After a long battle with the bottle ,taking step 1 and admitting I am powerless over alcohol and my life has become unmanageable(and absolutely believing this for once) my obsession has been lifted TODAY.