hankfrank

I was wondering if anyone has had success introducing good habits like exercise? I just pulled the juicer out of the garage and am thinking of detoxing with lots of good fruit and vegetable juice!

PurpleKnight

Yeap, the old habit of drinking needed to be replaced with new habits, small steps but they can all add up:

-I drink a large glass of water every morning before leaving to go to work.
-I go for a long walk after arriving home from work each day, I'd usually be pouring my first drink.
-I have substituted alcohol for green/white teas.
-Something simple, but I now brush my teeth every night, I used to blackout out into bed, my dentist should be happy.
-Every week I stay away from the alcohol aisle and instead check out the fruit/veg aisle, which I set myself the challenge of buying something different every week to try out.
-Every evening I spend alot of time in my kitchen cooking fresh from scratch, I'd usually be drinking during this time.
-I have adapted my sleeping patterns from about 6/7hrs per night up to 9hrs per night.
-Every sunday morning I now go buy the newspaper and with some coffee read it cover to cover, hangover free, it's such a great time of relaxation for me.

All of these things are small but have really made a difference, get that juicer out and go for it!!

trachemys

I took up walking again to get back into backpacking shape. I'm doing 19 minute miles now.

Purpleknight said:" -I have substituted alcohol for green/white teas."

We shall address grammar after sobriety.

airwick

my "new" habit change:



I used to take a soothing warm shower in the morning to slowly get my drunk self up to start the day without the fear of shock Now I take a cold one to get the energy circulating!



"Life is now good"

Dollyangel17

Oh boy...do many changes:

I eat balanced meals throughout the day instead of no food until late afternoon when my stomach could handle it.

I go to the gym on the weekend afternoons instead of the bar.

I actually open bills with the intent of paying them instead of using them for coasters!

I wear make up again now that I can look in the mirror with pride as I apply it and not fear I will see yellow eyes looking back at me.

I take my daughter places at night because I no longer have the fear of drinking and driving hounding me!

brasa

Wow, Hankfrank! I thought about writing a post like yours this week when I was pondering about my addictive personality.... I smoked cigarets for years (I have quit successfully for a decade), I was borderline a food addict (got that under control too) and lastly, I became dangerously addicted to wine (here I am, 6 days sober).

Like you, I've been looking for one or more healthy activities or habits that I can get myself hooked on: exercising, eating a healthier diet, crafting (knitting, crocheting, etc.), reading, working more on my biz --- these are the ones I have included on my recovery plan, so far, but I'll be keeping an eye on this post for more inspiration.

----- Purpleknight, I loved some of your suggestions:.brushing before going to bed, reading a paper cover to cover, walking during your "witching" hour, drinking a large glass of water every morning. I'm adding them to my big plan. Thanks!

Croissant

You know, it's something I've noted before. When I come here I post because I'm recovering from alcohol abuse. My brain is still fuzzy at times, as other are....and there are quite a few times I've been hauled over for posts because I haven't framed them the right way, or they've been misinterpreted. One very recently actually.

Ironically, I write for a living, but it's nice to come here and get something off my chest. Demeaning others is not the aim of the game here.

AlcoholFree66

Hi hankfrank - good post. That is what was suggested to me by my yoga teacher/health coach early one. She isn't an alcoholic, but knows I am, and I went to her as a desperate attempt at getting sober.

She said 'let's focus on adding in loads of good stuff so there's no space for the bad stuff'. This has been enormously helpful for me. I have changed my whole diet - cooking and loving healthy food. I do some exercise every day (very occasionally I can't squeeze it in) - even if it is a 20 minute power walk. I practice yoga regularly. Being sober and adopting this regime has turned my life around. I start the day by drinking a glass of tepid water with 1/4 of a lemon squeezed in it before I eat breakfast or anything else. This has been amazing for ensuring really regular bowel motions.

AlcoholFree66

PS Juicing and smoothies are great. I now love green smoothies - with banana in them you would never know they are filled with spinach or kale.

SoberHoopsFan

Exercise has been a godsend for me. I go to the gym 5 days a week now. During my darkest drinking days, I still dragged myself there once or twice a week, but I never got a good workout and I was always either hungover or recovering from a binge and had to force myself to make it through the workout. Now I LOVE being at the gym and have added a lot more cardio to my weights routine. It's just a healthy place to be. My gym also has a sauna and I will meditate in there for about 10 mins after my workout as well. It's therapeutic for me. The gym is also not a bad place to make friends that are living a healthy lifestyle.

Marcher13

Absolutely!

Like some of the others I walk a lot more, cycle a bit and swim in the warmer weather.
I go to bed at a decent hour instead of sitting up drinking and I get up early which actually does make for a better day.
I eat a balanced breakfast and lunch instead of waiting like Dolly did for my stomach to settle down.
I eat very little "rubbish" because I don't need the sugar hit anymore, dark chocolate takes care of that.

hankfrank

Awesome posts...I realized that I was using Alcohol to kill the boredeom (well among the many reason I was using it). But I realize now as some have said that I have to fill the time with good things. I had once in my youth done a lot of photography and painting...maybe that is a hobby I will pick up again (plus it will help me see the beauty all around us). Thanks again for such an encouraging first day all!

brasa

Looking forward to see both your photography and painting. I hope you share them here with us.

DG0409

I've definitely developed a lot of new good habits since I quit drinking 15 months ago. Some of these I adopted immediately after I quit drinking and some of them have taken a little more time to acquire.

-Brushing my teeth in the morning and flossing and brushing every night. (When I was drinking, brushing my teeth in the morning was generally a very short affair as it made me feel like I was gonna vomit and at night sometimes I managed to do it and others I was passed out.)

-Waking up and making my bed right away. (It's a small thing, but it sets a good tone for the day.)

-Eating healthy, regular meals.

-Exercising regularly.

-Answering my phone when clients call rather than sending it to voicemail and calling them back later (or not calling them back).

-Tracking my spending and finances. Used to be I knew that my money was going to weed, alcohol and cigarettes and I really didn't want to know how much I was spending on that stuff. Keeping to a budget would have been impossible so there was no point.

-Getting on SR every day to check-in with people here and keep focused on my sobriety.

-Doing yoga on a regular basis.

-Handling bad emotions in a healthy manner.

-Doing more stuff around the house.

-Limiting my caffeine intake rather than downing pots every day to make it through the day.

-Parking my new car in the garage. When I was drinking, my car was a pile and I didn't care if it was out in the elements, plus the garage was too much of a mess to imagine parking the car in there. Now I have a new car, the garage is clean and I take the time to park the car in the garage to protect it from the sun and keep it clean. (It's a bit of a pain because I don't have an automatic garage door opener, but so worth it. And one of these days soon, I'm going to get an automatic garage door opener installed.)

I guess it's been lots of little stuff that starts to really add up.

Thanks for this thread. It's a good reminder of how far I've come.

Notmyrealname

I think you really have to. You have so much free time all of a sudden, and you really need stuff to be involved in, things that give you something to work on, with a sense of accomplishment, and longer-term I think it's important to become good at something.

Also helps to interact with people, keeps you in perspective about the fact that other people exist and have desires and wants and you're part of a community of humans, not occupying an island, so to speak. Unless you really do occupy an island. Then you can do whatever you like.

I set a goal of losing weight my first sober year. Lost fifty-five pounds overall, somewhere in there I got strong, then I started running and quit lifting weights and I got not-strong but I can run half a marathon without feeling like I'm dying (i.e., "comfortably"). So that's pretty cool, I'm proud of that, wouldn't want to burn it all down with booze.

mburnsc

My experience with that was treating my new habits just like my old ones. Becoming obsessed with excercise and eating. To the point of hurting myself and becoming depressed when my workout went bad. Or playing video games obsessively or watching movies for 16 hours straight. I don't know how people replace drinking with good habits and find a balance with that.

DG0409

I used to think alcohol made things more interesting. But with a little sober time, I saw how truly boring my drinking life was. It was the same thing every singe night (and some days too): drinking, drinking and more drinking. I had stopped participating in other activities and a lot of the things that I had once done that I really enjoyed I no longer did.

Recovery was a little hard at first because I wasn't used to doing other activities and almost didn't know what to do. But I've come to see that there are so many things open to me now that I really never have a bored moment anymore. There's always something that I want to be doing: playing drums, traveling, learning to cook more stuff, working out, doing crafts, learning to program phone apps, going to my yoga class, working on projects around the house... I'm really never bored at all these days.

One things that helped me in the early days (and even still now) was to use a planner and write down the things I wanted to do that day: breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, exercise, chores, play my drums, do some work, etc. This helped me to figure out what to do next since I really had no idea how to spend my time at first.

Pondlady

Some of my changes:
Walking
Yoga
Volunteer work
Renewed interest in activities I'd let slide due to drinking.