saoutchik

Keep trying PeaceManic, analyse what went well over the three weeks and as well as well as the bad stuff and try to think of a way to reduce the times you crave booze. You can do this.

August252015

Wondering what's up PM -
and thought of this stunningly true statement: "we can't think our way into right acting but we can act our way into right thinking"

If I'd kept mulling things over, if you will, I'd be 1436 days dead. Give or take.

Surrendered19

How was your day today PeaceManic?

DriGuy

In your first post you asked why you keep relapsing. Now you may be on to something. "Thinking [you] can handle it," was my first thought. As I read through the other responses, I think it's possible that there are other reasons, even physical, but in this forum, we constantly hear people talk about how they thought that, "After a period of sobriety, they could handle it."

It's almost a universal mistake made by alcoholics. It's a desire we want to be true. For me, it was a desire that I wanted to be true at one time, but not anymore. It's now frightening for me to even consider I may ever have that desire again. It was the turning point for me when I gave up the desire to even think I could handle it. And it's not the bitter pill I thought it would be. I relish that knowledge and have fully internalized it into my being.

The reason many of us relapse is that after a period of sobriety, we start feeling normal as in, we aren't falling down, making fools of ourselves, or guzzling alcohol for reasons beyond our comprehension. We are in fact normal when we don't drink, so we conclude that we can now drink again. But we can't if we want to continue feeling normal.

August252015

^^^I have experienced another key thing: we still seek escapism. Life can be hard, it can suck, it can be simply mundane...and like all humans we want "out" sometimes. The one thing we cannot afford to do about it is drink. Or take drugs, if we're being full-list-like.

And that is something that this alcoholic has been experiencing recently and assessing the ways I am handling the things I just mentioned which have been going on amid a lot of awesome stuff.

PeaceManic

Hi, yeah doing okay thanks. Brutal withdrawals but I know the routine. Actually not as brutal as usual, like convulsions etc, because I thankfully ran out of money pretty quickly this month. @dee I'm thinking about other activities outside in time, not around alcohol, because one reason I drink is isolation.

But yes it is escapism, as I think everyone has anxiety more or less, life pretty strange and sometimes unpredictable for everyone. It's a terrible strategy of course, as it makes everything worse. I drink and go absolutely crazy in ways I don't want to think about, lucky to be alive sort of stuff I'm sure won't be unique here.

Thing is, I'm not that unhappy when I've had brief stretches of sobriety.. I've got loads of interests I've been to messed up to get into, that I know is much better escapism! Anyway, thanks for replies.