fripfrop

Ah thats really cool! I just watch them for tips-err I mean out of a warped sense of fasination

fripfrop

Incorparating something else into my everyday life.
In the past, when I have stopped drinking, I begin to have obsessive thoughts. Be they about the past, and guilt, or hypocondria and what I have done to my body or just things like worrying obsessively about things that may never happen down to little things like is the mat straight and in line with the sofa, are all the pictures on the walls hanging strainght and at the right height and angle to all the other pictures.
Even going to online forums used to drive me mad, if I thought someone was wrong about something, I would be like a dog with a bone.
Somehow, in my mind I equated obsessive worrying about things with protection from them. If I worried enough, they wouldn't happen.
They always, ALWAYS led back to drinking. Because the thoughts made me want to escape my own thoughts. I just couldn't live in my head with all the noise..noise, that was another obsession.

In the past I found the Smart Recovery technique of "play the tape" useful in stopping me having that first drink sometimes. I found Trimpeys AVRT..recognizing the addictive voice, useful.

But really these were last line defences. I didn't do anything to stop these thoughts building up to such a noise that I wanted to escape them.

This time I have been using the "stop thought" Smart technique for the last week or so.
Not using it, to stop the thoughts of drinking, because I haven't had any serious thoughts of drinking. And I believe I haven't had any serious thoughts of it, because Ive been using the "stop thought" on any thought I knew was going to lead to becoming an obsession.
Like I have to go for a Cal ct heart scan. I dread to think of the state of my arteries. But I won't allow myself to dwell on it. I stop the thought in its tracks.
Like upstairs neighbours, have been putting rubbish (mostly their empty beer cans) in my wheelie bin and filling it up. But I don't dwell on it, I go and take the bags of cans out and sling them beside their bin, without mulling on it.
I'm teaching myself instead of obssessing, to do what I can about a situation, then leave it, stop thinking about it.
It was as hard at first as not eating proccessed foods and fat and sugar.
But this past couple of days, Ive been finding it a little easier, to stop a nasty thought in its tracks, and distract myself with something else. As a result, this time around, staying off the booze hasn't been so hard, as my head isn't filled up with noise, and a much easier place just to "be" in

fripfrop

AND it's finally sunk in.
I have control over nothing but my own actions and thoughts.
I don't know how I got here, here on earth.
I don't know whether its one big cosmic accident, or one big cosmic plan.
I don't know when I will leave, or where I will go, if anywhere.
I only know I "am" now, this minute

My dad has cancer, he hasn't long left, he's in his early 70s, I can't control that. I'm not going to grieve as if he is already dead, I'll grieve when the time comes.

My son is a single parent, my grandsons mother died when he was 4, my son is struggling with work, with grief still and with looking after a house and child.
I'm not going to sit and worry what will become of them. Of the future problems my grandson may have (he already had autism and behavioural problems). All th worrying I have done in the last 2 years about both of them, hasn't changed a thing. I'll help with the babysitting, and taking care of the house work and washing for my son, but I can't walk other peoples life paths for them.

My daughter lives away, she was involved in a traffic accident, now the other driver involved is trying to drag her through the courts with a bag of lies, hoping to bag himself a few thousand in undeserved compensation. I have worried and raged and mulled over this for months as it has dragged on. I can't do anything!
She's in her 20s, she can and will deal with it. I will continue to give her support, but I can't make the other driver tell the truth and lift the worry from my daughters shoulders.

I have no control over anything or anybody, but my own thoughts and actions.
And torturing my own mind or not, is one of the only two things I have control over

fripfrop

After 9 days on this strict new eating regime I am starting to see some pluses..yey...thank goodness some reward for the agony of no marmite crisps or chocolate!
For the last couple of years I have been going through the menopause, the hot flushes have been murder, at least 3 an hour, day and night, day after day week after week, year after year. They are vicious.
For the past 5 days I can count on one hand how many I have had. And they haven't been so "hot" and they haven't lasted as long.

Yesterday I realised I could fasten the top button on my best trousers, without needing an elastic band to bridge the gap

I don't feel heavy and dull after a meal, because my meals are not rich in fat and sugar anymore.

I feel really calm and balanced.

BUT, if the shop next door sold marmite crisps, I still don't think I'd be accountable for my actions

Berrybean

Dunno. I've behaved disgracefully in the past. Vile, selfish behaviour. But, with my recovery program I no longer see things how I did. The lies I told myself to make excuses for, or avoid looking at my behaviour no longer wash with me, and I've had to go through a process of accepting responsibility for my past, making amends and turning things around to become a person I can live with being. I no longer want to behave like I used to, nor DO I behave like I used to. I intend to keep working on my recovery on a daily basis so that I never go back to being the old me. I didn't actually kill anyone, or rape them, but I certainly put my 'wants' before others 'needs', best interest or happiness.

So. Good or bad? I'm not sure it's as straightforward as we are one or the other. I think we all have the potential for either. I don't belive I was a bad person trying to get good. I just needed to look for the good that was already there, and rediscover my conscience.

Anyway. That's only my take on it.

fripfrop

Yes, I know what you mean. I don't think we were bad people when drinking. The behaviour was bad. The drinking itself was bad behaviour when it affected others.
But the Smart thing, about we are not our behaviour, where do you draw the line?

Some people blame drink when they physically or sexually abuse kids. But not every drinker is a physical or sexual abuser. So it must be IN the ones that do anyway, and the drink can't be used as an excuse, I don't think.

I behaved totally different drunk, than sober. But everytime I picked up the drink to start, I was sober, so that was bad behaviour in itself.
And I don't want to be that person anymore.

They don't say that you are not responisble for your behaviour, or you shouldn't take responsiblity for it. Or that you shouldn't stop behaving badly.
Just that behaving badly doesn't make you a bad person. That you can change your behaviour. But whether you behave good or bad, doesn't have any baring on the PERSON you are inside. You shouldn't beat yourself up because you behaved badly

This is what I can't get my head around on this point. Surely it does?
I don't believe every drinker is a bad person, or every non-drinker a good person. Some people who are basically good act badly by drinking and all the bad behaviour that comes with it.
Some bad people drink, and behave like monsters, and blame the drink.

I will never ever get to the point where I can say to someone who has murdered, raped or sexually or physically abused someone else with no conscience "You are not your behaviour"
Although I could say it to people who have acted badly, as a thoughtless byproduct of their addiction and are sorry for it and want to change and work to change.
I'll never get my head around it.

Jsbodhi

I'm doing well with the eating too!
I feel great!

fripfrop

Thats great Jsbodhi You have more willpower than me, I don't think I'd be sticking to this eating plan if I didn't have to haha

I wish I felt great
I still don't have much energy or stuff, but its only been 16 days today off the drink for me.
I still have to give up the fags. I don't think theres much point to this healthy eating and still smoking.
Nevermind smoking clinic on Monday!

fripfrop

Mornings are the worst.
I'm so bad tempered on a morning because I can't have my toast with loads of butter on, I can't have a bacon sandwich and I can't eat as many eggs as I want haha

I'm slowly getting used to the new food regime during the rest of the day, but mornings are still bad.
Porriage? sick of it. Weetabix? Like eating a wet coconut welcome mat. Bran? I'd rather go and tear some bark off a tree with my teeth and eat that!

I have noticed though, with the influx of nutrition and the lack of fat and sugar, I feel amazingly calm!
Good nutrition is so good for your mental health, I wonder if that means that processed crap is amazingly bad for your mental health?

Those gonks upstairs have a kid, the amount of thumping of someone running backwards and forwards across my ceiling last night for 4 hours, leads me to believe it is a kid with 3 legs and 20 stones heavy.
This kid doesn't go to bed before 11.
Maybe this kid needs to stop eating crap and calm down? haha

I have a few long term goals.
One is to get a job, because I need a job to get out of this place.
When you don't have a job, you can only rent slums, because no one else will take DSS tenants. The place before last I lived in was a DSS welcoming slum as well.

For the moment, I'll have to make do here, the best I can.

Although I don't bodily feel 100% yet, I am feeling much better than I was, and think it won't be long before I will be able to be more aggressive in my job hunting. And in selling myself once I do get to interview.
I couldn't do that when I was still drinking.

I can't believe I let the drinking drag on for so many years. I can't believe the times I stopped, the daft reasons I dreamt up for going back to it.

Like for example, guilt over the past. What?? You feel guilty over the past, so you go back to drinking and do more things to add to the guilt list?
Now I think, I will always regret some of the things I did. I will always regret wasting so many years on drinking. But I'm ready to let go of it.
It serves no good to keep dragging it all along with me.

As well as no drinking, no processed food, no junk food there is a new thing added to my list. No mulling over the past. It's as bad for the mind, as junk food and alcohol is for the body.
And if I want a healthy mind, I can't shove stuff into it that is unhealthy. Simple as that.
I am the master of my thoughts!!
I will become the person I want to be. And I will treat people how I think they should have been treated by me all along.

Even if the past were as happy as it could have been, it's still past and gone. People not only grieve over bad things from the past. They can grieve over the passing of good times that are no longer here.
Neither is good nor healthy.

fripfrop

Oh yes, Ive just signed up for Buddhist meditation classes at the local temple

The first 10 are free, then theres a discount for dolites

It's Mindfulness of Breathing and the Metta Bhavana
I have no idea what this means, but am about to Google it.

This will keep me occupied for 3 nights of the week anyway haha

fripfrop

COOL!!!!

This is what it means...thank goodness for copy and paste haha

The Metta Bhavana is a meditation for developing lovingkindness.

“Bhavana” means “cultivation” or “development,” and “Metta” is a word that means “love,” “friendliness,” or “lovingkindness.” So this is a meditation practice where we actively cultivate some very positive emotional states towards others, as well as to ourselves.

This meditation practice helps us to bring more harmony into our relationships with others, so that we experience less conflicts, resolve existing difficulties, and deepen our connections with people we already get on with.

This meditation helps us to overcome anger, resentment, and hurt.

It helps us to empathize more, and to be more considerate, kind, and forgiving. We can also learn to appreciate others more, concentrating more on their positive qualities and less on their faults. We learn to be more patient.

In this meditation practice, we also cultivate Metta towards ourselves, so that we experience less internal conflict, and learn to appreciate ourselves more. This is a particularly important aspect of the practice. It’s traditionally held that we all cherish ourselves, and that what we need to do is to expand our love from ourselves to others. For example in the Buddhist text, The Udana, we read:

Searching all directions
with one’s awareness,
one finds no one dearer
than oneself.
In the same way, others
are fiercely dear to themselves.
So one should not hurt others
if one loves oneself.

And yet many of us in the west have been brought up to hate ourselves. We don’t thoroughly hate ourselves, of course. In fact we tend to treat ourselves very well! But we do tend to keep up an undercurrent of negative self-talk. And to the extent to which we hate ourselves, we’re unable to relate healthily to others.

Lovingkindness practice helps us to feel more positive, accepting, kind, and patient toward ourselves, in order that we can be more compassionate and loving toward others.

See, sometimes when you see something and get an urge to do it, without knowing what it really is, it pays to go along with it...cos I think this will be very useful

Berrybean

I'm sure it will be. I just went to market day communion (you can tell my city is ever so slightly 'rural' lol. Communion service that day because that's when everyone rolls in off the fens). Spoke to an elderly lady - someone I'd always though was a but of a grumpy old bat, truth be told, who I had nothing in common with. Turns out we've more than one job in common, and lots of shared ideas. And the reason she's been a bit grumpy turns out to be she was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus in January and has had quite a lot on her mind, and feeling very poorly. I was telling her about the meditation thing I go to at Clare Priory, and to my surprise she said she's started meditating this year as well, and how much peace it has brought her. It's strange, but it's only recently I realised that Christians meditate too, and although the weekly sessions where I live cost a fair bit, the monthly meditation days at Clare are free. I've been on AA retreats there as well that included meditation. This recovery malarkey can be a real eye opener when we're willing to open our minds, and become willing to accept new ideas or dispose of faulty ones (like my ones about poor old Norma, and what Christians 'do' lol).

fripfrop

How interesting!
I have dabbled in Buddhism before and like all the matra chanting and stuff too.
I knew Christians neditated, because I knew someone who used to go on a retreat every year just to meditate.
That poor woman, just shows you, you never know what private struggles people are having!
Yes, I'm all for new ideas, and new ways, sick to death (nearly literally haha) of my old ideas!

AND, who should ring not 10 minutes ago, after Id booked at the temple class? The local authority recovery team! I'd given up on them.
Have an appointment for an assesment next Wednesday, 10am...writing it here, because I will surely lose the bit of paper Ive written it on haha

fripfrop

Well, here is my plan, coming together!
Lovingkindness practice and meditation, local authority alcohol team, here SR, and any Smart meetings that happen to be on (very iffy when and if those meetings take place) I am giving up on AA meetings here. There are only a few a week, I can't afford the busfare to the next city all the time. And the 4 or 5 a week on here, always seem to be specialist ones.
Anyway I'll see how I go.
I'm still glowing with the praise the alcohol team woman heaped on me when I told her this is day 16 without a drink, hahahaha. I'm like a dog that never gets a pat and goes wild when it does hahaha

fripfrop

Oh yeah, smoking clinic at 2pm Monday, put that here too.

I can't wait to give up smoking, the more healthily I eat, the more the filthy stinking things and the craving for the filthy stinking things is getting on my nerves.

I aim to be a new, lucid, brighter, more responsible, more fresh smelling, slimmer me by the end of the summer..not much to ask haha...

fripfrop

Well, it looks like I am babysitting all weekend as my son has to work away. He is a massive handful. So is my grandson haha
I have a grand time with my grandson. We have a very tight bond. Which is why, if I drank on a Saturday, and he couldn't come over (nana is "poorly") I would feel so bad. It didn't often happen, I would usually make sure I wasn't drinking then, But the rare occasions I had to disappoint him were horrible.
This time as its for the whole weekend, I am going to his house.

I think we have lived a past life together haha. He's always saying "You know, when I was the big one and you were the little one, you had to do what I said"
And "Do you remember when we used to live in that place beside all the big trees?"
Niether of us have lived in a place beside all the big trees????

Today, I have been monumentally bored. Which is a good sign, means I'm looking for things to do to fill up my time. Instead of just wanting to sit cabbaging.

And for tea, I am actually having something I enjoy. Summer soup.
Butternut squash, potatoes, carrots, celery, onions, sweet potatoes and a handful of mug beans. I even ate this when I didn't have to.
With being sober too, I waste much less food, because I have my wits about me to be able to freeze what is left over for next week.
So far I have 5 meals for next week in the freezer, things left over from this week.

Although, I don't know why I keep buying melons! Everytime I go to the supermarket, I feel the need to buy a melon. Then it sits in my fridge until it explodes. I like melon, I don't know why, I just never get around to eating them.
I like them blended and mixed with chia seeds, because the chia seeds set like gel, and its like a real dessert.
Before I started to drink I was a real nutritional health freak, and its all coming back to me!

Berrybean

I found the whyquit.com website really helpful when stopping smoking . That was some time ago. There are loads of resources on there, and a great forum as well. There is some fairly scary images on there of what smoking can do to you physically, but also lots of hope in images of how the body can repair itself if we give it the chance.

This is the whyquit.com forum... Advice 4 Newbies Forum

And this is the website. ... WhyQuit - #1 quit smoking site

There is so much useful information and quit tips in this one place. I was bloody glad I found it as I'd tried so many different things. When you're ready to tackle your smoking please give it a look.

X

fripfrop

Thanks Berry, I'll take a look.
I'm desperate to give up..I hate smoking, I only do it because it feels so uncomfortable to give up, that is true wimp speak! haha

I doubt any damage Ive done with smoking all these years can be undone, I'm just looking to stop to stop any more damage happening, or slowing it down.

I don't want to look at scary images though, I shut my eyes when I open my baccy packet, I don't want to see that man with the huge cancerous tumour growing out of his neck...those scare tactics on the packets, just do that, scare you, they don't deterr you!
I think by the timelines on repair compared to how long you have been smoking, I'd have to be about 110 before any real repair happened haha

I will certainly have a look, I might try to go cold turkey.

joandmelandhan

Ooh.....giving up smoking.... (promptly puts head firmly in the sand!) You seem to be getting ready to give it a real go frip keep us posted! Your plan etc is coming together so well I'm really happy for you. Enjoy your grandson.....much better with a clear head I'm sure! Take care and keep on with it all

fripfrop

Thanks Jo, I'm not allowed anywhere near my grandson if I've been drinking, and I wouldn't dream of letting him near me. Usually the times Ive had to pass on a Saturday, is because I have been on a bender since the Monday or Tuesday and couldn't get off it. So had to make the call of shame, and ring my son and tell him I'm drunk..horrid.

Yes, I'm fed up with smoking, everything I'm trying to do with stopping the alcohol and food seems a bit pointless if I'm still smoking!

Yes, I'll keep you posted, too posted haha..this typing this thread is part of my therapy haha

You keep on with the no drinking too, and keep us updated!
You are doing excellently
Take care