RunnerBean

Good morning guys,

I'm back here after a short hiatus. The return is down to a 3 day drinking binge of which I've just recovered from (after enduring a 5 day hangover).

I'm now experiencing the initial burst of enthusiasm which accompanies the decision that ''This is it, I'm stopping for good.'' But since I've been trying to quit (the last 3 years, I'm 25), I've had the same feeling about 5 times, and have returned to the bottle regardless.

I started drinking regularly from the age of 15 and I feel that alcohol influenced my formative years more than anything or anyone else, therefore, I'm completely lost and unsure of who I actually am at my core.

Up until now, I've believed a person's maturing process is advanced naturally and fluidly by the happening of life events and gaining responsibilities. For example, I have never actually noticed myself maturing, but compare me to an 18 old, and I am more mature (in most cases!). However, after my latest binge, whilst lying on the bathroom floor, I had a startling realisation that maturity was starting to get pissed off with me, so it proceeded to give me a firm slap on the back of the head. And maturity hits hard.

In the past few months, I have tried AA (it does not work for me at all), AVRT, and plundered through some self-help books (Allen Carr etc.) and of course none have been successful. I don't believe in giving myself to a higher power, nor do I fully believe in an ''AV.'' I don't mean to offend anyone with these views and I respect people who utilise these techniques effectively. In my opinion, we control our brains and cognitive functions, but when we yield to alcohol's temptation, it is us who is making that choice, not any repressed AV or Freud's ID etc. And that's what makes it so hard for me, it's my devastating truth, that I am the one who is in control of my brain. Yet I'm not, I'm out of control, and I'm an alcoholic.

I guess I'm here because I believe my best shot at sobriety is weaving my way into the fabric of SR as what I DO believe, is that a support network is vital.

Any suggestions on how to further combat the **** storm that is alcoholism, please drop me a comment.

Thanks

RunnerBean

*Apologies for any grammatical mistakes or typos, I'm typing on my phone.

<My relationship with alcohol. No prizes for identifying who's who.

Johnston

Just quit for yourself ... pure self interest. Has worked for me this time around.

Dee74

Using your terminoliogy I had to stop making 'that choice' runner bean.

I had to accept that I was an alcoholic and that as such a drink to me was like gasoline is to a fire.

If you find support to help you through the moments when logic doesn't work, and make a commitment to use that support in those moments of crisis...and if you're prepared to make whatever changes are necessary to your lifestyle to back up your commitment to being sober...

then I think you'll have a good firm basis for a lasting recovery, runnerbean

Welcome back

D

DisplacedGRITS

Just to be up front, I'm a 33 year old woman and I'm a member of AA. My homegroup is a young person's group because I identify more with them then older people. I don't have kids or a career and that seems to be the focus of people my age and older. That, and I really enjoy the energy and participation of my homegroup. We often meet and do fun activities together.

What do you mean that you "did AA?" I'm curious. Did you have a homegroup? Did you have a service position (or 3)? Did you work the steps? Did you attend sober events, conventions or get togethers? I know that I gave up on AA a few times because I went to meetings and did the first 3 steps (alone) and it didn't fix me. It pissed me off. I didn't want a sponsor and I didn't want to call people. Meetings were inconvenient and it sucked because I had stuff I needed to do, dangit.

I'm back in the program and it's totally different feeling. AA and my sobriety and my life are all in harmony. Everything is working together for me and I believe it's because I'm balancing everything. My life conforms around my sobriety and my sobriety conforms around my AA program, AA gives me the tools to maintain and grow my sobriety and sobriety gives me the opportunity to live a meaningful, peaceful life. I used to just try to plug AA into the side of my life and that didn't work. It was too easy for me to unplug it when it was inconvenient and my sobriety suffered and my life suffered.

I just wanted to share what didn't work for me and what is working for me now. After all, my experience is the only thing I can speak as an expert on.

GracieLou

When I stopped thinking that I could control my alcoholism (surrender) is when I found relief.

I know you said you are not into AA and that is fine but there is one story that rang out to me when I started recovery.

CROSSING THE RIVER OF DENIAL. "She finally realized that when she enjoyed her drinking she could not control it and when she controlled it she could not enjoy it."

EJ43

Hi runner bean! You sound like a very thoughtful and intelligent young man. You must do what works for you. I find myself employing a combination of things.....my primary thing is a therapist. It provides me support, a place to work through things, sounds so stinking cliche, but I am finding it to be true. I have a plethora of super stressful situations in my life and he helps me with coping and staying on track for myself. I also attend meetings, not regularly, but I just go and listen. I also struggle with some AA concepts, but for some their higher power is a room full of drunks and I get that. I also like the AV concept, it helps me to stop and intellectualize this overwhelming urge and raw instinct that comes over me. Thinking through it gives me the edge and also gives me time, eventually the urge will pass. This thinking has got me through to nearly four months. I am approaching my GREAtESt challenge with summer, pools, no school. And of course I utilize SR daily. I find people here understanding, willing to reach out and it is a community of souls seeking something better. Bevel come and good luck!

EJ43

Sorry, I meant welcome....not sure where bevel came from! Hahahaha!

DisplacedGRITS

GracieLou, I just have to say that quote is one of my favorites. I remember hearing another woman say that at a meeting and it was like pouring a cold bucket of water on my head. It struck me as being such an absolute truth in my life.

wpainterw

RunnerBean: Perhaps your rejection of AA and AV may have something to do with your lack of success in maintaining sobriety. Is it worth a second look to see whether, without accepting everything in either program, there may be some useful things, insights, in one or the other. You say that you believe that you are in "control" and that you are making a conscious choice to drink. This sounds to me like the old fashioned way of looking at alcoholism, namely the assumption that you can just "stop" and that, if you don't "stop" then it's just your own fault and you should be ashamed of yourself. My parent's generation pretty much thought like this. There is pretty solid scientific evidence that , given a sufficient intake of alcohol and a certain genetic predisposition, the primitive parts of the brain may start to control the more rational parts, which have been numbed by the booze. You say "you" are in control. But who do you suppose is "you"?

W.

Nonsensical

Bingo. I knew I needed to stop drinking while at the same time I was obsessed with wanting to drink. It seemed nonsensical. My research of the brain and the influence of addiction on the brain provided me with the answers I sought to understand this duality.

I cannot control whether or not I feel the compulsion to drink. I can, however, control whether or not I drink. By electing to not drink and then finding something else to enjoy while I was not drinking I have found that my compulsion to drink has been dramatically reduced.

RunnerBean

That made a lot of sense ''Nonsensical.''

Thank you

RunnerBean

Thanks for you comment @WPainterW

I am not sure who is ''Me.''

I'm hoping to discover myself during sobriety. There are definitely bits and bobs from various programs which strike a chord with me. I just don't believe in selecting certain aspects of a program and overlooking others. It's the same reason I'm not religious, because I find it hypocritical to follow certain teachings which I select, and dismissing others which don't complement my lifestyle.

I guess I'm just trying to find a way to recover that ''fits'' me. Which I suspect all of us are doing in our own way. If there was a ''One size fits all'' policy, there wouldn't be any such thing as alcoholism (in my view).

Gilmer

I don't do AA either. I have relied on SR and its tremendous support and encouragement to keep me accountable. For awhile I went a few months and relapsed--but now I've got 7 months sober, and I'm pretty sure it "took" this time.

SR has been my lifeline (plus, I do have a higher power whom I pray to for support).

FeelingGreat

RunnerBean, would setting yourself a target work for you? Sometimes open ended commitments don't give us something to aim for. If you're a goal oriented person you could challenge yourself.

I started by saying a year, then when the year came around I was doing so well I gave it another year, and then I didn't want to go back anyway.

FreeOwl

I don't "do" AA.... but I go to AA meetings sometimes.

Even though I don't find a lot of it sitting well with me, being open-minded and listening, reading the Big Book several times, really hearing people's stories, sharing my own parallels with my struggles with alcohol - have all been really helpful.

When I was in my early thirties I "did AA and it didn't work for me" also. I rejected it flat out and never went back beyond the minimum attendance I needed to do for my DUI penance.

I wish I'd have been more open-minded back then and took what I could from it and made changes in my life then. I wish I'd been more mature and honest with myself.

Maybe it wouldn't have taken nearly ten more years, two divorces, another DUI and a whole lot of agony to finally 'get it'.

Now, I still don't "Do" AA. But I am willing to listen and draw what I can from it. I have done some step work and found it helpful. SR is a huge support, but I'm sure that without making the investment of time and opening myself to the support offered by AA, I wouldn't be nearly six months sober.

IOAA2

[QUOTE=RunnerBean;4722890]

"I started drinking regularly from the age of 15 and I feel that alcohol influenced my formative years more than anything or anyone else, therefore, I'm completely lost and unsure of who I actually am at my core.

In the past few months, I have tried AA (it does not work for me at all), AVRT, and plundered through some self-help books (Allen Carr etc.) and of course none have been successful. I don't believe in giving myself to a higher power, nor do I fully believe in an ''AV.'' I don't mean to offend anyone with these views and I respect people who utilise these techniques effectively. In my opinion, we control our brains and cognitive functions, but when we yield to alcohol's temptation, it is us who is making that choice, not any repressed AV or Freud's ID etc. And that's what makes it so hard for me, it's my devastating truth, that I am the one who is in control of my brain.

Yet I'm not, I'm out of control, and I'm an alcoholic.

I guess I'm here because I believe my best shot at sobriety is weaving my way into the fabric of SR as what I DO believe, is that a support network is vital."


Hi. It’s said among professionals that a humans mental and emotional development slows way down to the age vicinity at which we start drinking. I identify with that as a truth.
AA didn’t work for me for different reasons until I surrenderd to the fact that MY life was unmanageable and the pain was immense. At this point I started to work the AA PROGRAM, not mine which had got me there. Being undisciplined and dishonest with myself about my drinking certain things needed changing to get and STAY sober.
Admitting and accepting I am an alcoholic was my first step.
There is a tremendous amount of help here on SR with very dedicated people giving great help and suggestions. However my ism wonders what all the people would do if SR would for some reason leave the internet. For me AA is still my program to sustain my sobriety with thousands of meetings every day all over the world.
It works if we work it.

BE WELL

Serper2014

Hi, hope all is well.

I don't have a higher power, and I've never been to an AA meeting. I've also never relapsed. I'm also 25 and I've been drinking daily since 22. Granted I'm only on Day 11, but when you get drunk 588 nights straight followed by 2 sober days, followed by 268 nights drunk. 11 days feels like years. I have read a bit of the big book and stuff off websites and of course posts on here, but here is what really worked for me.

In my drinking life I kept saying "one more night" I just want "one more night"
I just turned 25 and I said "one more night" and I really meant it. I was 100% ready to quit. So I did. Everyday since then I've tried to change as much as I can about my life. I mean everything. Like that episode of Seinfeld where George just does the opposite and everything works out. It's been working really well. Last night I had to go to the store to get bread. Normally, I would buy cigarettes and beer as well. Instead I bought popsicles and grapefruit juice. Why? Because I haven't had these since I started drinking. It was quite enjoyable to consume, haha but I wouldn't recommend consuming them right after one another! Yuck! Haha. The point is that drinking isn't who you are, it 'also isn't just something you do a lot. It's a lifestyle. So the thing that worked for me was changing my lifestyle. "Serper2014? Yeah I've never seen him drink, I think he used to, but yeah he's not really a drinker" That's what people will be saying about me, because that's who I am now.

Hawkeye13

Maybe you should rethink this.
For my recovery, I have taken whatever I feel fits me best, and leave what doesn't.
I see that as more efficiency than hypocrisy.

For example, I am not religious either, so I haven't been interested in a faith-based program like Celebrate Recovery.
I think you can be Recovered, and not be perpetually in Recovery, and I don't think I'm powerless over alcohol, so AA isn't a good fit for me.
However I do see the value in group support so I come to SR
to get connections with other former drinkers like both of those groups do in their group support.

They work great for many people, so I'm not bashing them, but I personally can't accept the basic ideas I mentioned so I take what is helpful and leave the rest.

I think the biggest issue for you may be what others have mentioned--a program or methods will never work without that first rock-solid internal commitment to not drink no matter what.
That is, I believe, the first and most critical step for anybody who manages to quit and stay quit (no matter what methods) they use to support their quitting.

Take that step for real and the rest will follow runnerbean.

lovesymphony

I compare the urge to drink for an alcoholic to someone who's starving to death being placed in a cell with nothing but a big pizza and told not to touch it all day. Sure it's a choice but the desire to drink can be so strong some days it's almost as bad as if you don't have one... I wasn't strong enough.The key for me so far has been to get rid of the obsessive cravings. I did that by turning my mind off to alcohol, with this board's help and constantly reminding myself how drinking hurts me

totfit

For most of us quitting is a process and not an immediate event. I found two things that profoundly helped me. The first was that once I firmly realized that drinking offered me nothing and that I had no control, then things were easier. I am not physically the same as those that can drink normally. The second thing was that an obsession not to drink is also on the other side of the coin an obsession to drink whether we mean it to be or not. The way I keep from drinking is to just always realize it is a "dumb" idea, make light of it, and do something else. The biggest thing I do is focus on other things that I can do to make myself a better person and contribute to my fellow "beings".