DeplorableDog

Using past transgressions and failures as an excuse to drink just creates future transgressions and failures.- fishkiller

Oglsby

.....and keeps folks in the present drinking. Drinking robs the past, present, and future, Huge Fishkiller fan, here, DD, and you too!!

Bekindalways

Shame is such a killer of sobriety.

Perhaps this is why being around sober drunks is helpful. Most have been their in some form or another.

Pekelover2

Those are great thoughts, Og and Bekind!

Bubovski

Beyond the social drinkers "normalcy" there lie speace and green pastures........

JohnToon

How do you sustainability break that cycle where feelings of guilt and shame drive choices and behaviours that lead to more guilt and shame? Every time I think I've cracked it, the old ways return.

Tailai

Daily gratitude helped me to break the cycle of choosing to drink to deal with shame and other negative thoughts. And just the logic that continuing to choose to drink was simply unsustainable and will end very badly.

Dee74

I know this threads really abut quotes but new behaviours are possible - driven by the desire to change, John.

I gained a whole new wonderful life and all I had to really lose was drinking.

Your head might be full of rationalisations - but your head's also filled with the knowledge that our rationalisations are BS.

You can go round the block again (and again and again) - and reinforce that old behaviour again.... or you can drive straight outa Dodge.

You can start out in a new direction...or go back the way you came.

Its not really a choice when you look at it that way?

Driving a new road - and leaving all that crud behind really helped me look at my shame and regret in new ways.

There comes a point that you know you've changed and you can start to forgive yourself.

Is all that easy - sometimes heck no - especially in the early days - but that why the SR community is here JT

D

KneePads

“Drinking at fear is just rolling over and being spectacularly unready for what ever it is you’re scared about.”

KneePads

“it needs your arms and legs to go and booze and drink it.
If you refuse to cooperate there's nothing the voice can do about.”

DriGuy

Sobriety is not a sacrifice. Drinking is where the sacrifice takes place.

fishkiller

[QUOTE=JohnToon;8015673]How do you sustainability break that cycle where feelings of guilt and shame drive choices and behaviours that lead to more guilt and shame? Every time I think I've cracked it, the old ways return.

Sometimes the only thing that gets you through is following my favorite words to live by,
Just Don't Drink. No Matter What.

KneePads

This is such a great thread, well done for the idea, DDawg! xxx

DeplorableDog

I would rather go through life sober, believing I am an alcoholic, than to go through life drunk, trying to convince myself that I am not.

Behappy1

Using past transgressions and failures as an excuse to drink just creates future transgressions and failures.- fishkiller

Wow, so very true. I marinated in the murky cesspool that I was in for years. I had a crap marriage followed by a crap divorce. The self pity (although I didn't see or know it as that at the time) compiled with alcohol was a very slow death.

Coldfusion

Quotes and slogans are really helpful at maintaining sobriety.

At my local "Mindfulness" AA meeting, we often mention FREQUENCY, INTENSITY, AND DURATION, in relation to when one feels like drinking or having other dysfunctional thoughts.

KneePads

Focus on your changing your behaviors more -- and your feelings less.

DriGuy’s wise words!

Zencat

MC2 math guy said: insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.

Maybe I'm somewhere in the ballpark with my choice of quote

KneePads

“Drinkers need to replace their drinking time with something radically different. If someone drinks whilst unwinding watching TV, they can’t just carrying on unwinding in front of the TV sans drink. They’ll need to do something else.”

- Hodd

KneePads

“If I don't get some reminders of How It Was, I can tend to start forgetting How Awful It Was.

Never forget.”

- biminiblue