Plan
Guest
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: UK
Posts: 205
Tomorrow, its a common word in your posts. I used to be like it, it was a great way of continuing drinking with an empty notion that I would do something proactive the next day to stop. Problem is that next day, I would create a new tomorrow.
Actions speak louder than words
Actions speak louder than words
Member
Join Date: Oct 2017
Location: uk
Posts: 2,428
I spent years planning to do things "tomorrow". Tomorrow never came. I always had a birthday or celebration or some other excuse to push "tomorrow" forward.
What worked for me was taking action and just getting on with it. No matter what.
90 in 90 sounds very good idea. Starting now.
I also found listening to AA speaker talks very helpful and encouraging. There are loads freely available on You Tube.
I had to make my quit and recovery my top priority in my life. It worked. The rewards are beyond anything I could have hoped for.
What worked for me was taking action and just getting on with it. No matter what.
90 in 90 sounds very good idea. Starting now.
I also found listening to AA speaker talks very helpful and encouraging. There are loads freely available on You Tube.
I had to make my quit and recovery my top priority in my life. It worked. The rewards are beyond anything I could have hoped for.
Guest
Join Date: Jan 2018
Posts: 675
Gotta agree with everyone else here stew. There is no "tomorrow" when it comes to stopping or doing what needs to be done to stop. Tomorrow might as well be 5 years from now. Yesterday I said "tomorrow" will be my last day of smoking cigarettes. Reaching the end of today and my pack has conveniently not quite run out yet. Tomorrow is madness. You're done when you're done.. not while you're planning to be done.
Member
Join Date: Apr 2016
Location: UK
Posts: 4,553
Stewy when I had CBT a while back my counsellor said that when faced with a task I could easily talk myself out of, think of the Nike tick and just do it!
Tomorrow is now today in the UK.
Go for it!
Just do it!
Tomorrow is now today in the UK.
Go for it!
Just do it!
Member
Join Date: Apr 2017
Location: Australia
Posts: 374
90 in 90 sounds like a great way to break the cycle, Stewy. I also like the idea of an accountability thread that someone else suggested. I haven't tried meetings yet but would be keen to hear how they go for you. You've done this before, Stewy, you can do it again. Here for ya 👍
Member
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: Florida., USA
Posts: 3,252
I'm looking forward to hearing how your meeting went today Stew. Are you planning on a morning or evening meeting? I think if it were me on my first meeting day, I would choose a morning one to get me going and then maybe another one in the evening to wrap the day up.
You can do this.
You can do this.
Forum Leader
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Wisconsin, USA
Posts: 16,945
Originally Posted by Stew1984 
I’m dead, no way forward, end of line
Member
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: New York
Posts: 35,731
Stew, you'll stop when you're ready, not one minute before. Wish we could will you sober, but unfortunately, the only person who can stop the insanity is you. You're not finished punishing yourself, yet.
You've been sober before, for a long stretch of time, you know the kind of life you could have. You also know alcohol will bring you to your knees, hence the "I'm dead" post. That's the booze talking ... not you.
Tomorrow will be the same for you, same feelings of hopelessness, same feelings of worthlessness. I know, been there, lived that nightmare. Rinse and repeat until you make a choice to change.
I know you can do this ... dig deep, Stew.
You've been sober before, for a long stretch of time, you know the kind of life you could have. You also know alcohol will bring you to your knees, hence the "I'm dead" post. That's the booze talking ... not you.
Tomorrow will be the same for you, same feelings of hopelessness, same feelings of worthlessness. I know, been there, lived that nightmare. Rinse and repeat until you make a choice to change.
I know you can do this ... dig deep, Stew.
12 Step Recovered Alcoholic
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: New Zealand
Posts: 6,613
[QUOTE=Opivotal;6894085]
You've been sober before, for a long stretch of time, you know the kind of life you could have. /[QUOTE]
Quite a roller coaster this thread, eh Stew. Great optimism, followed by a terrible low spot. I can’t eyeball you, so I don’t really know where you are at. All I can do is share some experience and hope it helps you.
I have known a few alcoholics that seem similar to you. They drank after extended sobriety. Why? well maybe the life of sobriety didn’t measure up. Just stopping drinking does not always deliver a bed of roses. Probably the most common reason alcoholics with time end up drinking is that they were not happy with there sobriety for one reason or another. It was one of the main reasons I was reluctant to sober up. Sobriety In my experience, wasn’t all that great.
There was one chap who had many years of regular aa attendance. When he picked up it seemed to completely wipe his aa hard drive. It was like he had never been sober. I never would have believed this was possible if I had not seen it for myself.
The secret for me was to find a way to make sobriety worthwhile. I think your ninety in ninety idea isa good one. I did something similar. I think I managed 87 in the end. Of course the meetings were 1.5 hours long then. With one hour meetings you would have to do 135 to get the same amount of exposure.
But I also realised that meetings were only part of the picture. So I took 90in 90 to mean total immersion in AA. Sponsor, steps, service, everything. I suppose you could say I adopted a second approach, 12 steps in 12 weeks. I didn’t quite make that one, but I was half way through step 9 at the end of ninety days and my life had changed so much, I have never thought of going back drinking.
That doesn’t mean I got a bed of roses. Instead what I got was a deep inner conviction that at last I was on the right track.
Part of a biblical passage you might relate to ‘ for though the will to do good was in me, the performance was not” That problem, at the very root of my hitherto unhappy existence, had been solved. I now had the power to live how I thought I ought to be living, I was no longer a constant disappointment to myself.
Stew, there is a solution. A real solution in the form of a meaningful life, a life with purpose, a life filled with opportunity, a life where you too can feel good inside and look the world in the eye. All it will take is some meetings, and closely following the directions in about 21 pages of the big book, from 63 to 84.It’s that close. It’s not complicated.
I hope you can get something from this post Stew. It’s what I did, and it worked. All the best mate.
You've been sober before, for a long stretch of time, you know the kind of life you could have. /[QUOTE]
Quite a roller coaster this thread, eh Stew. Great optimism, followed by a terrible low spot. I can’t eyeball you, so I don’t really know where you are at. All I can do is share some experience and hope it helps you.
I have known a few alcoholics that seem similar to you. They drank after extended sobriety. Why? well maybe the life of sobriety didn’t measure up. Just stopping drinking does not always deliver a bed of roses. Probably the most common reason alcoholics with time end up drinking is that they were not happy with there sobriety for one reason or another. It was one of the main reasons I was reluctant to sober up. Sobriety In my experience, wasn’t all that great.
There was one chap who had many years of regular aa attendance. When he picked up it seemed to completely wipe his aa hard drive. It was like he had never been sober. I never would have believed this was possible if I had not seen it for myself.
The secret for me was to find a way to make sobriety worthwhile. I think your ninety in ninety idea isa good one. I did something similar. I think I managed 87 in the end. Of course the meetings were 1.5 hours long then. With one hour meetings you would have to do 135 to get the same amount of exposure.
But I also realised that meetings were only part of the picture. So I took 90in 90 to mean total immersion in AA. Sponsor, steps, service, everything. I suppose you could say I adopted a second approach, 12 steps in 12 weeks. I didn’t quite make that one, but I was half way through step 9 at the end of ninety days and my life had changed so much, I have never thought of going back drinking.
That doesn’t mean I got a bed of roses. Instead what I got was a deep inner conviction that at last I was on the right track.
Part of a biblical passage you might relate to ‘ for though the will to do good was in me, the performance was not” That problem, at the very root of my hitherto unhappy existence, had been solved. I now had the power to live how I thought I ought to be living, I was no longer a constant disappointment to myself.
Stew, there is a solution. A real solution in the form of a meaningful life, a life with purpose, a life filled with opportunity, a life where you too can feel good inside and look the world in the eye. All it will take is some meetings, and closely following the directions in about 21 pages of the big book, from 63 to 84.It’s that close. It’s not complicated.
I hope you can get something from this post Stew. It’s what I did, and it worked. All the best mate.
Member
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: Florida., USA
Posts: 3,252
Great post Gottalife. I especially related to this:
my hitherto unhappy existence, had been solved. I now had the power to live how I thought I ought to be living, I was no longer a constant disappointment to myself.
my hitherto unhappy existence, had been solved. I now had the power to live how I thought I ought to be living, I was no longer a constant disappointment to myself.
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