New to alcohol recovery
 

Hi
I'm 45. Have been drinking in excess for about 15 years. It progressively went from weekends only to a daily routine. Able to be a functional alcoholic, meaning able to go to work. Mostly rum or beer.
Around 1 year ago one friend of mine told me that my face was looking red and I was sober at that time. I realized that alcohol was causing struggles in my face. Decided to quit but was very hard and came back to beer only and instead of daily I switched for weekends and or every 3 days. My face is still red and The longest I have been able to go sober is 2 weeks.
I think now that I'm committed to totally quit. Making a list of triggers that make me to drink my first beer and avoiding them. 1 week so far.
I now that just 1 beer and will loose control and end up with 6 or more and drunk.
I want to join this forum to listen to you all with more experience staying sober.
I can give some of my commitment list that i did to recognize triggers in a later post
Thank you all !!!

Welcome.

Welcome cerati. I look forward to seeing you around. You can do this one day at a time.

Welcome Cerati :)

You're making a great decision to quit completely :)

D

Welcome. Im glad you're here, reading and posting. This place has been a bug part of my sobriety and recovery.

But you know, the triggers don't trigger the drink as such. If we could slow-motion it actually the trigger starts of an emotional reaction, and we drink because we believe that alcohol will make us feel better (which sometimes it does for the short term, but the back-lash of the alcohol is that it makes us feel worse in the long term).

Do you think you will be able to avoid everything that makes you feel bad for ever? Or even this week? Nope. That would involve controlling our environment and this isn't something that any of us can do.

I'd suggest that a more useful strategy might be to learn new and better ways (less counter-productive ones) of dealing with life on life's terms. And that is what Recovery is about. Growing and changing so that we gradually teach ourselves new ways of responsponding when life happens to us. We can't change the world. But we can change how we react to it. That's why the Serenity Prayer is used in so many AA meetings,.. 'God, Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.'

Wishing you all the best for your sobriety and recovery.

BB

Thank You Berrybean...I needed to hear that right now too. I'am with you Cerati. I'am about ready to hang this loser life of mine up forever!

Welcome- glad you are here!

Thank you BB. Great post!

Welcome to SR cerati! There’s lots of great support here if you need it.

Thanks berrybean !
 

I'm open to all comments and advices. I find your comment about the trigger starting as an emotional reaction very true. I'm going to analyze in a very slow motion my emotional side. That obviously is different for everybody. Thanks for the advice !!.
By the way, staying sober for 6 days !!

6 days staying sober!!. Went to a party last night and did not drink at all !!!!
 

6 days staying sober. Yesterday ( SATURDAY ) was the real proof to see if im commited to this. Had an invitation to a birthday party of one of my best friends. Cannot say no. I live in southwest florida and it is very common to do a BBQ on parties. You can see the picture: beers, liquor, music, etc. Showed up and all my male friends with a beer on hand, as always. Offered me 1 and when I said " no thanks", they all were looking at me like if I was sick or something. Just said that I wanted to stay that night with just water and after a while they stopped pressuring me to drink my 1st beer. Believe me: this has been so far the most DIFFICULT challenge. In other circumstances, I would have started drinking with them and end up drunk. I enjoyed the night, the meat and music.
Something that never happened to me before: I was able to see all my friends getting drunk and how ridicolous they act and look. I don't want to quit meeting them. I really appreciate their friendship and we do other activities that don't involve drinkink/partying.
I'm proud of myself of doing this last night. I feel sooooooo goooood today. No hangovers, not feeling guilty. I want to continue on this commitment, 1 day at a time !
THANKS for reading this !!!

Cerati73;6815084]Hi
I'm 45. Have been drinking in excess for about 15 years. It progressively went from weekends only to a daily routine. Able to be a functional alcoholic, meaning able to go to work. Mostly rum or beer.
Around 1 year ago one friend of mine told me that my face was looking red and I was sober at that time. I realized that alcohol was causing struggles in my face. Decided to quit but was very hard and came back to beer only and instead of daily I switched for weekends and or every 3 days. My face is still red and The longest I have been able to go sober is 2 weeks.
I think now that I'm committed to totally quit. Making a list of triggers that make me to drink my first beer and avoiding them. 1 week so far.
I now that just 1 beer and will loose control and end up with 6 or more and drunk.
I want to join this forum to listen to you all with more experience staying sober.
I can give some of my commitment list that i did to recognize triggers in a later post
Thank you all !!![/QUOTE]