Be123

Hi guys - 19 weeks sober today. I really enjoy sobriety and things are improving slowly for me. Anxiety has gone; sleep is back; feeling fit and healthy and more able to be live like me again.

The last two weeks I've had lots of thoughts saying; 'It'll be great to drink now' or 'When you're on holiday you can drink' etc etc. you know - typical sort of AV bullshine. I'm not feeling like acting on them and someone on my monthly group gave a great example of how he'd acted on this previously...and then drank seriously for years and years!

Anyone who wants to put the boot in to my AV and remind me why what it is saying is completely ridiculous, I'd love to hear it. It may help firm up my sobriety and give me more resource in case it ever does tempt me to take the first drink.

Dee74

Hi Be

I think the important thing is, random thoughts aside, you accept now that you have a toxic relationship with alcohol that does not change with abstinence, no matter how long that abstinence might be.

I also think you're starting to see who the real you is again and the good things your future has in store for you - and no AV argument is more powerful that that

D

C0ntr0ls

For me, it still works by unfortunately reading the others relapse stories and their regrets. I don't think I've read one yet that said it was a great idea, they were happy they did it and why they didn't do it sooner.

YMMV

Fusion

Hi Be, my experience is that my AV's only function is to tempt me to drink. It has many phrases, some of which are opposites, which proves how daft it is. For instance, a drink will drown my sorrows after bad news, a drink will increase happiness at a celebratory event, or the standard, I deserve a drink after working hard, a drink will relax me, a drink will remove stress. Or it's favourite after a short period of sobriety - you didn't have a problem with drinking, you stopped, you can revert to occasional social drinking.

I drank for twenty years. I joined SR in 2016 and stopped drinking for two and a half years. I was content. Some outside circumstances caused extreme distress. My AV went into full "you didn't have a problem with drink, you stopped for two and a half years, you can drink for a few nights, just a few drinks, to switch off for a few nights". My AV was a liar. I guess the clue was in that word "few". My brain remembered the amount of alcohol at which I stopped, within a week I was drinking the same amount.

I returned to SR, I nearly didn't make it back to sobriety. The lesson I learnt? My AV is a liar, always.

a drink

Hodd

Like most ex-drinkers aka alcoholics in remission, I gave this some thought. A lot of sensible/occasional drinkers only drink on holiday or on special occasions, and that works. Unfortunately, this doesn’t apply to anyone who’s ever crossed the line into alcohol dependence whether it’s a few weeks ago or a decade ago.

I’m going abroad for a week next month. I must be mad I know, but it’s to a country I used to live in and know well. I wouldn’t be heading far or anywhere new in these crazy times. So why can’t I have a few drinks? I’ve worked hard and am 18 months sober....

Here’s what would happen. I’ll drink every evening on holiday and have hangovers. At the end of the week, I’ll return home, and my cravings will be manic. At the very least I’ll be back to day one withdrawals, anxious and unable to sleep. Or, as I’d been drinking all week anyway, I’ll have one more as it won’t do any harm, right?

Well done on 19 days. That’s brilliant, but you know you crossed a line into dependency somewhere in the past, and there’s no cure just remission. Your craving’s will still be high after 19 days. Give it time and they’ll fade. I’ve got way too much to lose to drink on my holiday.

Steely

I drank after 5 years and it didn't take long for everything to hit the skids again.

One thing I've used in the past as to think of "tomorrow" and know how totally disappointed in myself I will be. Even if I've managed to not consume much. Which never lasts, by the way.

The pride and happiness you are feeling now will be reduced to feelings of anxiety and regret.

Others have said it, but never once have I heard anyone say they were glad they had picked up again.

D122y

I am an addict for the rest of my life. Any relapse will lead to my demise, sooner than later.

I would rather be wrong thinking this than thinking I can try and drink "normally"...whatever that is.

Normal drinking doesn't even make sense to me. What is the point. Have a glass or wine before bed, wake up slightly hungover and off my game, slightly irritable, sleep impacted, etc etc.

I always remember booze is poison.

Addict for life. I hate the stuff.

Love and Thanks.

Greentree87

This is what I am realising right now that it requires a life long commitment to stay on track . I recently had 10 weeks sober and the AV crept in with similar thoughts, I recovered again had another 4 weeks and I'm on day 3 today. Well done on not giving in to your AV and no you don't need that first drink, you don't need it in your life anymore. xx

PuckLuck

Unfortunately you're not cured : (

At 8 months my AV did the same damn thing. While taking a walk on a beautiful day all I could think about was... What's going to happen when I go to a BBQ and people are casually drinking? I've gone this long without a drink, I can easily have one or two and control it. What's going to happen when I attend a work function and people are drinking casually and having fun? What's going to happen when... These same made up scenarios over and over until I convinced myself I just went through some hard times and I'm not an alcoholic.

Fast forward a few days later and I'm drinking a pint of vodka alone. Then fast forward a few days later and I'm on a bender, just like old times.

Amazing how our AVs always plays the same tricks on us.

Be123

Thanks everyone. It's a snidey old beggar that AV...I would love someone to give me a brain-science explanation of what is going on with it.

As much as it's helpful to visualise it as an external voice it clearly isn't, it is somehow ME talking to myself, coming up with extremely cunning reasons to persuade me to drink. Can someone explain that to me in relation to neuroscience? What chemicals/ transmitters are going on here??????

Fusion

Be, my AV certainly isn't an external voice, it's the addicted part of ME, my brain, talking to the ME part of my brain, that doesn't want to drink. My AV sounds like ME talking to myself. There's loads of neuroscience information on the internet as to how alcohol affects particular parts of a human's brain and creates the addiction and the resultant AV: the desire to keep performing the act that part of the brain has become addicted to, in my case, drinking alcohol. Other people have other addictions.

Hodd

I’m not going to pretend to be an expert, but I took some tablets known as Campral once upon a time which supposedly reduce alcohol cravings by inhibiting the parts of your brain which tell you that you want alcohol. You’re on the right track in that our brain activity has unfortunately been altered by alcohol dependence. This article is the most user friendly I could find.

https://www.candi.nhs.uk/news/unheal...-mental-health

But to try and reassure you, those cravings fade over time, weeks or months.

PuckLuck

I have absolutely no idea, but I think this all comes from our subconscious mind somehow, someway and how we have conditioned ourselves over the many years of drinking.

Obladi

Of course it's you!

I am not qualified to explain it in scientific terms, but what has happened is that you have (unwittingly, of course) created this beast in your brain called addiction. That beast resides at the bottom of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. The beast doesn't think, not anymore than your lungs think. The beast needs its fix, the lungs need to breath. Sometimes that feels like "want," a really really strong want; like when you are underwater and absolutely must surface for air. Same thing for the beast. Only it's not actually true that you need alcohol, and you know that. The beast does not. It doesn't know anything.

That really really strong want is going to happen. And it may start as very faint stirrings. For me, the faint stirrings are physical in nature and don't "look" anything like a craving. When I develop tension headaches, when I get really shaky, when I just plain feel physically not right - those are signs that my beast is trying to come into the picture again. I have to stop and pay attention. What's really bothering me? It's not about the booze, not really, and it hasn't been for a very long time. For me, it's about escape from some situation that feels threatening to me emotionally. That is what I need to pay attention to and work to resolve.

Yeah, my addiction is part of me. But it's a separate part that is a maladaptive tendency, just like I dunno... that inclination I occasionally have to just turn the wheel of my car hard right and fly off the bridge. Unsettling? For sure. But I don't actually have a death wish. Thinking about it now, I realize it's probably got the same root - my need to escape some threatening situation.

Sit with those feelings for a bit. See if you can figure out why you want to go blotto.

Just my thoughts...

O

Obladi

p.s. You ARE cured. As long as you never again indulge that addiction. That might sound flip, but I'm serious.

Sober45

The science of it (IMO). I'm going to use driving as an analogy:

Addiction (or habit) is a survival mechanism. It is ingrained on the subconscious level (the part of you that drives a car without thinking).

When we learn to drive, at first, we are very CONSCIOUS…actively thinking about what we are doing.

When we start drinking, at first, we are very CONSCIOUS of its effects. We decide “this feels good”. Our beliefs about alcohol start to form.

Over time, our driving moves into autopilot (to the subconscious level). So now you can drive while listing to music and putting on lipstick. When you come to a red light, you stop without thinking because your brain knows, from all the training you gave it, not stopping will cause an accident. Did you every drive from one place to another and not remember how you got there?

Over time, our drinking moves into autopilot also. So it doesn’t matter what you are actively thinking because you have already been programmed. The drinking “autopilot” is there. Your subconscious does not reason, it just is and will continue with what it was trained to do. So now you decide, “drinking is bad”, but the drinking autopilot kicks in and goes against your conscious thoughts.

I look at like I’m in training. I have to create new neural pathways by staying very conscious of my sobriety. As soon as I relax my thinking, the door is open for the subconscious urges to creep back in. This is an actual neural pathway that exists in my brain. It may always be there but I have the power to consciously create new pathways and that is what I’m doing now.

MaximusD

It's all dopamine and serotonin based. I had 5 years and the FIRST time that I drank after 5 years I got really sick, left work without telling anyone, called once I got home and almost got fired. I was sick the rest of the day and drank for another, well, here I am on day 3 so there you go. This was 2012

Be123

Thanks everyone for taking the time to reply. I know what I need to do - keep to the forefront of my mind that I cannot drink sensibly, and to read the stories of people who have tried to remind myself of this if it ever gets a bit on top. Also to remind myself of my own pathetic attempts at moderation and where they landed me.

I dont miss alcohol, I much prefer life without it, and yet that small, beleaguered part of me in the AV keeps at me. Thats fine - I can live with that.

Hodd

Nothing pathetic about you. You’ve done well and realised life’s easier without booze. Well done 👍

Everyone’s tried to cut down/moderate in the past. I tried for years.

Scott2295

Hi Be123 - I was 16 weeks in and let my trigger (stress) listen to the AV. I'm not sure if I thought I could moderate. Regardless, I could not. I went right back to drinking in the morning and the whole 9 yards. Thankfully, I was able to pull myself together after 2 weeks and drop the bottle. It's been 5 days and I am just starting to feel normal. My blood pressure is back to normal as well as my resting heart rate. Both went through the roof. I didn't have the withdrawal symptoms I've had in the past but I have been exhausted by afternoon which I had not been prior to falling back to old habits. I never want to go through this again. I feel very confident that I won't. Hope this helps