I would work on developing a coping strategy for that then :D

I find respite when I step off of the hamster wheel in my cranium and listen to my soul.

and now your left with everything that requires coping strategies.
which in simple terms is learning to live life on lifes terms.

Everyone has to live life on life’s terms, both inside and out of recovery circles.
I’d need effective coping strategies, alcoholism aside.
Conflating the business of life with the business of recovery confounds both the business of life and the business of recovery.

I suppose there is respite in mindfulness. I will give that a shot. Thank you for the suggestion, nez.

Mindfulness works. But beware of anything that smells fake or people trying to sell you something just because it is a fancy label.

I really never justified my drinking. But my then significant other would give me books and articles to delicately indicate that I need to address a problem. He even initiated counseling. The councilor however decided it was all my fault. He is a baptist, not wanting to bash him right off the bat he was very judgemental and it made it worse.

He pretty much told my partner of 15 years that he should leave me. He did.

But one of the articles that appeared and my boyfriend at the time left on my desk was from a scientific magazine was about certain populations such as where I was born, having a gene that is tied to alcoholism and impulsiveness. I am sure I have it but does that knowledge help my recovery?

People have free choice.

Recovery = do it or die. It can be manageable but it can be hard.

My aunt and uncle died from alcohol and I am enjoying lovely sunshine today and really do not want to upset you with details, in the end it was what they chose to do or not to do!

I know from this forum that most if not all of you are making better choices and wonderful progress. Children, family, relationships, rebuilding careers, letting the sun kiss your face and listening to the rain.

Stay strong!!! It is a beautiful world out there.

Mindfulness is a technique. It's not something I have to purchase from a snake oil salesman.

I've been increasingly inclined to trade in recovery for simple abstinence. Not sure if recovery--and its attendant hyperbole--is what I need. As I said earlier, much of my recovery is simply the business of living life without alcohol.

For me mindfulness is as close to "what is" (AKA acceptance) as I get. The further away from it I get, the more filters and judgements occur which starts the constructions process of blockages.

reads like you have it all figured out and are just trying to show everyone how much smarter you are than either all of us or alcoholism.
best of luck to ya.

I don't think that's fair to say. I'm not sure how you would infer that from anything I've said.

I'm trying to figure out coping strategies for some of the reasons that led me to the bottle in the first place.

I attribute my alcoholism, at least in part and parcel, to my inability to cope with the unpleasantries of life. How can I best cope, is the relevant issue. Does the answer lie in simple abstinence, or in the myriad of layers recovery entails? It's a fair question, I think, tomsteve.

It might also be relevant and fair to ask yourself what happens if you don't manage to cope? What would you do then?

That is to say, is being able to cope and deal with life a contingency upon which your continued simple abstinence depends?

I don't say this because I don't believe that you are capable of it, by the way. With the exception of those subjected to alcohol in the womb, we were born abstainers.

In other words, normal people don't drink.

Per a very instructive post of yours I once read, Algorithm, I realize without reservation that abstinence should not be contingent on adaptive coping mechanisms, nor should it hinge on the dissipation of existential malaise.

Oh my daredevil, very insightful words. That’s exactly what I did to stop my years of drinking all day, every day (sigh). I swapped Recovery for abstinence.....then on the back of abstinence I rebuilt my life. A life not defined by recovery and being an ex-alcoholic: but simply being a person who was once addicted, who stopped drinking and moved on to better pastures.

My previous addiction does not define me, and it certainly does not confine me within a lifetime recovery model: because I’m recovered.

Your situation is strikingly similar to mine, Tatsy.
That's what I'm striving toward.

existential malaise , i don't like it , booze only added to it , one thirty year lesson I'm not going to repeat

Thing is, normal, well balanced people don't usually sink into alcoholism running their life.

So when they quit as you said yourself, they don't have coping techniques to deal with life. So a lot of us need to learn how to run a healthy life along with putting right the train wreck of messes we have generally created, also apologies and amends to the people we have mistreated under our entitled "right" to drink!

Interesting thread and discussion. The issue that springs into my mind is "terminal uniqueness". Although most of us seem to have that so not so unique after all!

Interesting point, PeacefulWater12.

It seems most alcoholics are terminally unique, as you concede. If the designation can be conferred on anyone, then it can be conferred on no one in particular. I often find the designation an exercise in projection, more than anything else.

With respect to coping mechanisms, I'm not devoid, or barren of them. I have plenty, but I acknowledge that they're not as acute as I'd like, and most certainly can be honed.

Truer words on the matter of booze and existential malaise haven't been said, dwtbd.

I don't like it, and booze only added to it. Removing the booze doesn't remove the malaise, but booze exacerbated the hole in the soul.

Does anyone have any coping strategies for existential malaise (in addition to mindfulness)?

Yes. Quit drinking.

Then address the spiritual and existential problems but that is a life time story. AA really works. My sister that is not an alcoholic practices mindfulness. Just saying that there are books and videos, some are free and some not.

Existentialism per se was originally a movement of Camus and such, that watched himself from the distance. People have always added the question "why are we here"?

I am glad we are here!