How did you get to that point? 85 days sober. I avoid people and places with alcohol usually. I did go fishing with drinking buddies a few weeks ago, they drank. Wasn't too tough on me. Time, AA meetings and time. It's not my habit to drink any more. I still think about it that's why I avoid it.

And how do you feel in those situations? The few I've been in I felt sacred at first. What if I magically grab a beer. I realize I will have to consciously grab one and the fear subsides. I decide I will not drink today. Still it's not a situation I want to be in frequently.

Mike- take the advice of folks on here. Stop "testing" yourself. There is No need. Life will test you more than enough in the future.

Whenever the majority of folks on here advise something I've found they were right.

I'm with tomsteve and the others on this. However, I just couldn't pass by this, Mike, and keep my mouth shut :)

I can't think of any good reason, or any point in sobriety, where this is necessary or even a remotely good idea! :headbange :scared:

As difficult as it may be to read your old threads, keeping fresh in your mind early on what life was like for you then can be helpful.

I did the math.

On the day that you drink again, if you do drink again, your brother won't be there.

I imagine that the effort you're putting into this shaky experiment might be better used elsewhere.

Not the smartest idea to knowingly put yourself in an environment (like a bar) that has alcohol that early in recovery. If you have to do it fine, but walking down a liquor aisle at the store without the need to get anything else is just setting yourself up for failure and not smart at all.

I mean its your choice, but I am telling you from experience, that EXACT thinking lead to two of my relapses.

Dude really? Come on. Why in the world would you even think about opening a beer and smelling it. You are trying to convince yourself not to drink but I promise you, that you are going down a road you dont want to be on.

Not taking any risks? Really? Do you really think that?

Sorry man, I just see so many people investing so much time in your posts, and I feel you would be letting them down if you do that. And most of all you are going to let yourself down, because that will lead to drinking. You're a big boy, you can make your own decisions, but one of these times, one of these "tests" or whatever you want to call them will lead to you drinking.

Its like running your hand over a flame. You do it fast, doesnt hurt, so you try it slower and slower and slower until you burn your hand. It just doesnt make any sense to me.

I remember last Wednesday smelling the weed as a sort of joke.. Ended up smoking and ruining my night/morning. Just stay away!!

I get where your coming from as I felt the same way early on. That I couldn't hide from it forever. Key word: forever. No one says you gotta isolate yourself forever, but your not even a month into sobriety. Based on my past experience your setting yourself up for failure. I would caution your motives here. Instead, learn to embrace your freedom from alcohol.

Now THAT is a coincidence. Today I decided to get a haircut and have it done totally different. It's really short now. :)

Watching newly clean/sober people decide they can be OK around alcohol is like watching toddlers play in a busy intersection.

Good questions Mike. So far I've had a few situations like going out to dinner in which this was all put to the test. And, it was actually an "assignment" from my counselor that the next we go out in public and people around you are drinking, pay attention to how you feel at the moment. So we were out to dinner with my son and his girlfriend and they ordered mixed drinks and I ordered a virgin. I wasn't tempted to drink alcohol and it went okay.

Grocery shopping. Don't know about where you live, but the grocery stores around here and really promoting wine and have vamped up their wine section like you wouldn't believe. It also seems there are more and more beer varieties out there more than ever now. Like you, my visceral response has a been a bit of nausea and I just tell myself I only want to healthy things in my body and will continue to feel so much better that way. Instead of drinking alcohol, I drink other healthy beverages and getting plenty of fluids is amazing in how it improves your health, your skin, etc.

Another thing that is a challenge is some restaraunts really seem to be pushing the wine. Not only do we not want to drink it for addiction reasons, it adds a lot of expense to the meal. We're saving a bundle by not buying that bottle of wine!

Thanks for the concerns and advice. I'll quit doing it. Btw, for those who didn't see it, I do like to refer to post #30.

The original idea came from CBT. I've had a lot of that and part of it is exposure therapy. Part of that is exposing yourself to the things that you fear. That is not done in a vacuum though, there's steps before and after it. And you do it in gradual steps to desensitize yourself to the stimulus.

That has worked really well for me for other problems, so I figured I could apply the same method to alcohol.

But given the responses, I'll quit doing it.

teatreeoil, you are absolutely right about the savings associated with not ordering wine with your meal! I've told my husband how lucky he is that I am such a cheap date now ��

It's kind of tough guys, cuz it seems like alcohol is EVERYWHERE. We even have some neighbors across the street that own a brewery and a few years we had gone to their "soft opening" when they first started the business. When you take a cruise it's really promoted. When you go to an outdoor concert or music festival it's usually there and many people are drinking. When my band was performing at one festival they even set up "refreshment tent" for the performers, complete with coolers of various beverages including BEER. Years ago I had a few, but wonder how that's going to go in the future as I want to continue with the music as it's something I need in my life to be whole. So, I'm going to have to find ways to overcome the temptations.

The family reunions on my side usually have alcohol there with people who really really enjoy it. We don't really want to be around that, but what do you do? I love my family. I don't want to just not be around them. I love them so much. They're my family! I'm not sure what to do about this......

I imagined that this might be the case.

The thing with "exposure therapy" or "systematic desensitization" is that we don't expose ourselves to things that we both fear and crave. It's also done with the supervision and participation of a trained professional, so as not to move too quickly and not to get bogged down with a sense of failure that often comes with moving too slowly.

The idea of exposing myself to experiences that typically are associated with drinking as a plan for recovery doesn't pass the smell test. If you're going to stop doing this because of a consensus against it (which is compliance), rather than due to it being a conviction on your part, then you'll open yourself up to feelings of resentment.

Each time I place myself at risk by being in situations that are associated with my drinking, I reinforce (consciously or otherwise) that behavior, leading me to continue doing the same thing. It's also possible that I could then convince myself that getting sober is "easy," since each time I expose myself to alcohol in an unnatural setting (i.e., with the presence of a supervisor), all goes well. It's easy to see how and where that might go.

Negative reinforcement means getting a reward of sorts by taking something away, as in aspirin taking away a headache or stopping the local bully from go after other children. Positive reinforcement means adding something to the situation in order to make things better. Both of these play a part in getting sober, with the latter focusing on positive action in order to live well in sobriety.

Punishment (which my undergraduate students uniformly confuse with negative reinforcement) is having an undesirable outcome based on what we do. This usually leads us to stop doing whatever we were doing. Usually. Though they were both obvious and extremely painful, the undesirable outcomes of my drinking didn't immediately move me to remove alcohol from my life.

If you want to get healthy, be healthy. If you want to do good, be good. If you want to get sober, be sober.

This was very enlightening. Thanks a lot! At first I did decide to quit doing the exposure therapy because everyone said it was a bad idea. Then I was in doubt about it. What should I do? Continue it because it does feel right or stop it for now? That were my main questions.

Your post made two separate messages come together in my mind and I had my answer. The first message (I'm very sorry to who wrote it, I forgot who it was) contained the observation that alcohol is everywhere. So there's no need to seek it out, not a day goes by that I don't come across anything related to alcohol at least once.

The second message was Dee's. Where he talked about building the sober muscle over time.

Well, all I have to do is live my life and stay sober. Alcohol is everywhere anyway and by staying sober, I will build the sober muscle.

So I'm back to my original plan. I need to go back to the post about making a plan and continue working on it. That's the most important part because that's the key for me to stay sober.

Thanks a lot!

CBT desensitization is not really ment for something that can kill you if you screw up. A panic attacks isn't going to kill you. Alcohol will

i hadent looked into CBT last night. did a couple hours of reading. didnt read anywhere anyone saying to do what ya said.

please remember to use common sense. this is a life or death matter. your next drink very well could kill you.
im gonna go out in my shop now. gotta do some work on my table saw. im gonna pull all the guards off. i know thats not safe. could very well cut my hand off.
but ive read and watched videos of people using their table saws without the guards all the time!
nevermind all the stories of people who did the same and lost a hand,fingers, or just have a mangled up hand now.
ill still not use the guards because someone wrote they did it without the guards.

I loved EndGameNYC's response to this. At first I could almost see the logic to what you were doing, but it just felt wrong. And the reason, of course, is that CBT would make sense for someone who was afraid to drink alcohol, in order to learn to be comfortable around it enough to be able to drink it. Your goal is the exact opposite of that. For you, it's a good thing to be afraid of it. You don't want to become desensitised to it right now. The human fear response is designed to serve a very useful purpose. Keep people away from things that can harm them. I would suggest for now, if anything, you want to build up your fear of alcohol because of what it does to you, the serious harm it causes you, not work on being comfortable around it.