courage2

Very, very nice post, Zeroine. I'm 100% behind you.

For a while after I quit I used alternative rewards very intentionally, like crutches. You're right, a crutch doesn't provide the same payoff as booze. IMO, that's ok, even good, because if it did, you'd just swap addictions. My crutches, pitiful as they were, gave me little somethings to live for after I'd given up the main thing that drove me for the last decade or so of my life. Until I didn't need them anymore.

I took up smoking as a crutch, which of course I don't recommend, but I've never had a problem putting down cigarettes. I ate ice cream for a while every evening at 7 p.m. I started listening to music again not as background but just completely in a music zone with 5 minutes of something a day -- like a music infusion I tried various other things, and over 3 years have held on to those that I liked and discarded ones that I didn't like or didn't want to do anymore.

One thing I've found is that it's helpful to me to use these crutches ritualistically. That is, regularly, practically on a schedule. I smoked a cigarette every day on the way to work, before lunch, at 5 p.m., and on the way to a meeting. Music was after gratitude in the morning, but before breakfast. And so on. I think regularity helps to train the mind to recognize the crutch as a reward.

If Endgame chimes in, I think he'll affirm this is pretty basic behavioralism. Behavioralism isn't particularly popular & it isn't warm & fuzzy, but it works.

--Sb

Dee74

For a while my rewards were things - a nice meal, a CD, a little treat...but over time my rewards have become a lot more metaphsical...the joy of being alive, the gratitude of having a good life and people who love me, the laughter of children, the feel of rain on my face, nailing a song, the satisfaction of knowing I did something with my day....

I can see old me saying 'what the hell is this crap, dude?' ....

but I guess that's an indication of how far I've come from where I was?

courage2

Re D's comment, I also didn't have payoff in pleasure from drinking for many years of my career, and particularly in the last years drinking was pretty unpleasant. But my body and mind still perceived it as a reward.

Ask a lab rat. When you're trained to salivate at something, it doesn't matter how much it hurts you -- you'll drool.

courage2

D, I agree that over time, many people find metaphysical rewards to be more satisfying than physical. But maybe not everyone, and that's fine -- there's nothing wrong with enjoying ice cream all your life, and nobody says you can't have both!

The more subtle rewards of living sober may take longer to perceive. In my case, a lot longer LOL. And for a body that needs something *now*, I believe crutches have their place.

Dee74

Sure, I'm just sharing my experience Courage - I'd hate anyone to think I treated my posts as Universal Pronouncements

D

Soberpotamus

Like Courage, I find that ritualistic rewards in place of alcohol work well for me.

And like Dee, amazingly, over time I've begun to appreciate metaphysical "rewards."

I think, for me, it was huge that I began to see being alive and healthy as something not to be taken for granted. Sunrises, sunsets, walks, music, my animals, a good meal. I see those as "big" things now. Those things level us. I try not to compare myself with others much anymore. It's a tough habit to break, but it can be done.

EndGameNYC

So I'm chiming.

Yes, courage, these are basic, though often very powerful, principles of behaviorism. What the behaviorists largely missed is that part of what we do is associated with the way that we interpret things, what meaning we ascribe to our behavior, and what expectations we carry prior to what we do.

Think Ivan Pavlov and Classical Conditioning and Operant Conditioning, which is most often attributed to BF Skinner who, among much else, taught pigeons to play ping-pong. Both CC and OC are considered to be theories of learning. In OC, the more pleased or satisfied we are with the results of our behavior, the more likely we are to continue that behavior, and vice-versa. It's a punishment-reward paradigm.

There have been many elegant experimental designs in behaviorism, most often with the use of animals, that describe behavioral processes that lead to new and often habitual behaviors. In one experiment, white mice were placed in a cage with both food and water. When cocaine was introduced to the water, the mice continued to drink, virtually without interruption. They ended up dying due to lack of nutrition, going as far as neglecting the food. It doesn't work for everyone. In the case of alcoholism, the "reward" eventually becomes little else besides warding of withdrawal symptoms or circumventing the anxiety associated with cravings. I didn't get this completely right, but I don't feel like looking it up.

I learned over the course of my life that it was unhelpful, and sometimes destructive, for me to frame things in terms of reward and punishment. Such things are often very subjective and are, for me, very much associated with "feeling good" or "feeling bad."

It's all in the way I look at things. I've learned, instead, to think in terms of consequences. If I get the bulk of my work done today, then I'll have more free time tomorrow. A simple consequence of my choices and my subsequent actions. If I don't do the bulk of my work today, then I'll have less free time tomorrow. Either way, my life will not change in any significant way. And, in either case, no reward or punishment will come from the Universe, from the outside, or from within. My work is a responsibility I chose and is not in any obvious way connected with reward or punishment. A shift in attitude has helped me to learn to not get too high or too low around the consequences of what I do.

The ideas of reward and punishment are human creations, and depend, I believe, a great deal on perspective. The words themselves carry surplus meaning that, in turn, taps into our subjective reward systems.

I think a lot of things can be "fixed" in life (perhaps even issues around self-esteem) were we to approach consequences in life as something other than rewards and punishments. But that would be the moral equivalent of battling windmills.

Fly N Buy

This is the awakening we hear about.........

There's line from a movie - Jodi Foster - emotionally she proclaims "it's all so beautiful!" I find reward and joy in so many small things......

courage2

D, you know *we* treat them that way!!!

<3

courage2

Thx, Endgame. I agree that the whole reward-punishment approach is in the end not a very productive & certainly not subtle way of looking at human experience -- to start with, it diminishes the importance of individual perceptions and the moral dimension. I like your phrase "surplus meaning." Also meaning-deficit.

I personally like expectancy-value theory of motivation. because it's so simple -- your motivation to achieve a goal is a function of a) your perception of your own ability to achieve it; b) how much you value it.

Are you motivated to stay sober today? a) Do you believe you can? (I believe oh lord, I believe, all the way!) b) Is it really, really important to you? (yes I said yes I will Yes)

Soberpotamus

I like this one, too.

silentrun

I just tried watching that and I could not do it. They were talking about the feeling of being drunk and it started making me really anxious. When that guy started talking about the "sweet spot" of having a really good buzz going I had to click it off and my heart was nearly in my throat.. I haven't allowed myself to think of good buzzes or sweet spots since the day I quit. I can watch the show Intervention just fine. When I see people stumbling around drunk I feel bad for them. Even when I see people enjoying alcohol it doesn't bother me. Watching another alkie talk about the reasons they drank really got to me. Weird or maybe not so weird.

fantail

This thread has been really useful to me. Thanks for posting, Thomas/Jeff. I had a 0 accomplishments day today. I've been struggling with my motivation too, especially in the last week or so.

For motivation, I actually started with the metaphysical joy. Somewhat pink cloud stuff. But deeper than that, because I'd made myself really, really ill. Then I was in police custody, then detox, then rehab, and I have never experienced anything more harrowing than having my freedom taken away. So for the first 4 months or so (and still, actually) the metaphysical happiness at being healthy and unlimited just took/takes my breath away (less frequently now).

Thanks Endgame and Courage for your posts on behavioralism. I think that's the direction I need to go. I've never been a rewards or punishment person. I'm not disciplined enough, and I've got some pretty intense ADD I'm coming to believe, so I have a very hard time making decisions based on anything in the future.

T/J, like you I also think exercise is going to be key for me.

fantail

Silentrun, early on I read a post where you said that you never let yourself think about what drinking tastes like or what it feels like. That's some of the best advice I've gotten and I follow it religiously!

letitgo

"Some days the best thing we can do is just not make things worse. Thats the best we can do." Quoted from a meeting i went to a while back.
If your not motivated then take a day off but do not drink or self inflict damage. That stuck with me.

Great thread and responses.

Fly N Buy

We hear a lot about taking action. The act of not drinking will always give us an opportunity tomorrow........

Good point - not making it worse can indeed be action!

Aellyce

I've just read through this thread... One of the things I study in my work is motivation, many different aspects of it. This is an enormous topic, many different disciplines and philosophies have their own view on it, some were briefly touched upon in this thread. Lots of interesting ideas. I prefer to share some personal experiences related to:

For me, this is exactly the problem when I get fixated in procrastination. Thinking that I need to wait for motivation and inspiration to start on a task. I've learned it the hard way and during many years struggling with this off and on that I am making this so much harder for myself. What is far more effective, and ultimately brings the motivation and inspiration (and usually quite quickly): just start on the task no matter how I feel and how much I would want to distract myself. It takes forcing in the beginning, but what I find is that once I'm doing it and get in the zone, the drive most often comes naturally, on the go. Then sometimes I just don't want to stop But waiting for it before starting is most often the worst strategy, only leading to more anxiety, frustration, and procrastination.

One of the best examples for me is related to writing and my experience with procrastinating it. Call it "writer's block", perfectionism or whatever. Waiting for the muse to arrive and kiss me into action is the big illusion about how motivation works for me. No "magic" is necessary at all but discipline. Outline the story (have a rough plan of the task) and start on it, just pour anything out (start dealing with what needs to be done). Don't worry that it's rough or the result is not satisfying yet, keep going and can polish it a hundred times later if necessary. Something else that can help immensely is when I don't work in isolation, when I am open to others' input and there is ample opportunity for feedback and adding ideas, skills etc together. Use the environment constructively. It often created the best learning experiences. This way, motivation is something that is brought about, for example, as (1) a result of my overcoming blocks and stagnation, (2) the initial and ongoing rewards from completing small steps of the process, and (3) the challenge arising from dealing with the task to improve the process and find more satisfying solutions. All these components generate powerful rearrangements in our brain and mood that will help inspire, but waiting for them to appear in advance, out of the blue, so that we can finally start doing things can be a very sterile and frustrating exercise, also often leading us to look for instant gratification in the wrong way instead (e.g. drinking).

So, force it a little bit, start on what needs to be done -- see what happens.

EndGameNYC

Hi Aellyce.

Outstanding job on bridging the gap between despair and action in a very profound way, despite its exquisite simplicity. You've accomplished and suffered through a great deal in your life, so I imagine that it's likely that you set the bar higher for yourself.

There are thousands of ways to waste time in life, and waiting for things to happen is one of the most reliable ways to do it. "I'm not ready" too often translates into "I'm afraid." Despite a wealth of evidence against it, we're raised, taught, conditioned to think that life plays out along a relatively straight path that meets reasonable expectations. We're often shocked when things don't work out the way we expected them to work out, and especially when things work out very much against our desires and expectations. But nothing in nature grows in a straight line. A natural, human blind spot that's responsible for many existential ills and missteps.

"Why did my husband/wife cheat on me?" "Why doesn't anyone like me?" "Why don't I ever get what I want? I'm just being myself, and I can't be anything else." "Why can't I just do what I want to do?" "Why is love not enough?"

Your comments reminded me of something I read in my current favorite book, that's part of a series of books, last night, in reference to the expectation that life follows the plot of a movie or a book: "Life wasn't this, and therefore that, and so, of course, the other. It didn't work that way. Life was this, and then something, and then something else, and then a kick in the ass from nowhere."

And, later: [He smiled.] "It should, logically it should (follow a plot). But the world doesn't run on logic, it runs on the seven deadly sins and the weather. Even so, we have to try to do what we can."

Back to the OP.

No one is calling you a liar, Jeff, and no one said that honesty is worthless in comparison to getting sober. It seems that what is at issue here is your failure to appreciate that honesty in words and thought is much different than honesty in deeds, as demonstrated by your gross interpretation of what people had to say about honesty. Relative to our behaviors, honesty is virtually worthless when we don't act on what we say we believe.

The past "you" is no longer present. Reminding yourself and people here on SR what you used to be like will not summon the past and make it real in the present. What we are right now is what we are right now. If you want to be better, than you need to do better.

Drinking, relapsing, no matter how many drinks, is not a one-shot deal. We don't just pick ourselves up the next day and move on. You've provided enough evidence in your own life to prove this. For people like us, drinking affects us in often very subtle ways and in ways that have a more or less lasting influence even though we're loathe to acknowledge this. It's just short of a year following your sustained binge-and-posting here on SR, and you continue to suffer from the after effects of your falling down the stairs drunk, including your extended taper from painkillers. Whatever else is going on, it seems that you're getting close to "the final taper" every couple of weeks. Can you see that this provokes concern?

A "couple of drinks here and there" is used as evidence that we can have a couple of drinks here and there without consequences, and it's no consolation that "at least I didn't get drunk or drink like I used to." A couple of drinks here and there means that we're still drinking, and that our behavior is still influenced by what is often referred to as "alcoholic" or "addictive thinking." Comparing your recent drinking to how you used to drink is unhelpful and potentially harmful, just as is dredging up old posts from other people who've remained sober in order to justify your current thinking and behavior. This is not a competition, though it can be something of a race to the extent that we don't have an unlimited amount of time to set things right in our lives.

No one here wishes you ill, but no one wants to see you digging in and defending a perspective or way of thinking that hasn't helped you and, in some ways, has made things worse. The gaps in many of your comments between what you say and what you do, comments which are often contradictory, continue to be alarming for some of us, not because we want to see you fail, but because you continue to hurt yourself. When you don't seem oblivious to this, you seem to be indifferent, and then defensive when you get real feedback, feedback that directly addresses your comments and behavior. Feedback which you often seem to either dismiss or at least minimize.

No one here can change your thinking or what you do. Insight comes only after we change our behavior, and not before. There will be no magic moment when everything comes into focus and you suddenly know exactly what to do. Such romantic expressions of sobriety only serve to keep us from getting sober.

You've been doing this for a while, man, and it hasn't gotten any better.