It's time for me to get serious
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Join Date: Oct 2020
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I thought this month would never end but here we are. It feels good to put a whole calendar month of sobriety behind me. I hope I can continue to read this thread and remind myself of why I cannot allow any more alcohol in my system. Most of this month I spent a bit worried about my health but it's gotten consistently better throughout. I will just stay sober and go get fully checked out probably in January. I feel great physically.
Mentally I feel confident in my ability to stay sober. I spent some time today thinking about acceptance. The idea that I have to accept so many things I would rather not, such as not being able to drink moderately, or not being happy with the person that I am, and accepting all of my past failures. And living with it all stone cold sober. I don't like it but what other choice do I have? I'm having to recognize the reality that there is no escape for me anymore.
In the past I would usually be happy that I made it to a month sober but now I realize that was all the addiction talking. Don't get me wrong when I see someone else get a month I think it's a great accomplishment for them, but somehow I don't apply the same standard to myself. After so many past attempts to get sober I am understanding that what I really need is recovery. I don't think I ever really wanted to recover in the past, I just wanted a reset button so I could get ready to drink again. This time I want to recover.
Mentally I feel confident in my ability to stay sober. I spent some time today thinking about acceptance. The idea that I have to accept so many things I would rather not, such as not being able to drink moderately, or not being happy with the person that I am, and accepting all of my past failures. And living with it all stone cold sober. I don't like it but what other choice do I have? I'm having to recognize the reality that there is no escape for me anymore.
In the past I would usually be happy that I made it to a month sober but now I realize that was all the addiction talking. Don't get me wrong when I see someone else get a month I think it's a great accomplishment for them, but somehow I don't apply the same standard to myself. After so many past attempts to get sober I am understanding that what I really need is recovery. I don't think I ever really wanted to recover in the past, I just wanted a reset button so I could get ready to drink again. This time I want to recover.
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Hi FiveX,
Here are some important sentences from your Nov 4th post on this thread:
When I read this, I understood that you had essentially driven a stake into the heart of the drunken you, even though you didn’t know what sort of thoughts and feelings you would have later on about having done that.
Well, now you know much better. IT has been whimpering, begging you to let it live in a sneaky way. IT can MAKE you feel loneliness and boredom as you live life without IT.
I learned to tear away the mask of those red herring emotions and see their true source and what was truly happening. I learned to accept and allow an actual sadness and grief of a real death to wash over me. I was killing a real altered state complex life. A whole set of behaviors and associated thoughts, feelings, and patterns of LIVING INSIDE OF DRUNKENESS that had been created and coveted by me with great effort for over one decade was dead. I had turned traitor against IT. As IT lay dying motionless, IT still “knows” me and IT could still make me HEAR and FEEL that old desire, but my serious pledge of permanent abstinence, like yours, rendered IT permanently paralyzed as IT faded gradually into oblivion. All that was left was dreams and fleeting memories of being Inside of Drunkeness that could get no traction within my new abstinent life.
Along with tearing off the mask of ITs red herring emotions, I also continued to identify IT as 100% bad and wrong for me. My Beast of Booze has absolutely NO redeeming features. Even the fact that its existence is/was a sign of a healthy pleasure seeking capacity of my human organism is NOT redeeming. For me, it had become a wrong, wrong, wrong pleasure; and always will be.
An important question for someone who has ended an addiction is: “Do I want to leave my commitment to permanent abstinence pristine within my own human competence, exit the recovery community, and get on with life on my own terms?” or “Do I want to make my abstinence conditional upon involvement in other recovery programs that arrest drinking/drugging using various belief systems and ways of living.”
GT
Here are some important sentences from your Nov 4th post on this thread:
Originally Posted by FiveX 
I am dead serious about never drinking again... Finishing up Day 4... I can hear my addiction talking to me... I have been on this forum day and night reading old threads and what a great resource!
Well, now you know much better. IT has been whimpering, begging you to let it live in a sneaky way. IT can MAKE you feel loneliness and boredom as you live life without IT.
I learned to tear away the mask of those red herring emotions and see their true source and what was truly happening. I learned to accept and allow an actual sadness and grief of a real death to wash over me. I was killing a real altered state complex life. A whole set of behaviors and associated thoughts, feelings, and patterns of LIVING INSIDE OF DRUNKENESS that had been created and coveted by me with great effort for over one decade was dead. I had turned traitor against IT. As IT lay dying motionless, IT still “knows” me and IT could still make me HEAR and FEEL that old desire, but my serious pledge of permanent abstinence, like yours, rendered IT permanently paralyzed as IT faded gradually into oblivion. All that was left was dreams and fleeting memories of being Inside of Drunkeness that could get no traction within my new abstinent life.
Along with tearing off the mask of ITs red herring emotions, I also continued to identify IT as 100% bad and wrong for me. My Beast of Booze has absolutely NO redeeming features. Even the fact that its existence is/was a sign of a healthy pleasure seeking capacity of my human organism is NOT redeeming. For me, it had become a wrong, wrong, wrong pleasure; and always will be.
An important question for someone who has ended an addiction is: “Do I want to leave my commitment to permanent abstinence pristine within my own human competence, exit the recovery community, and get on with life on my own terms?” or “Do I want to make my abstinence conditional upon involvement in other recovery programs that arrest drinking/drugging using various belief systems and ways of living.”
GT
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Thanks for that recent post GT, I had to think about what you said for awhile.
I think that I have a good grasp on tearing away the mask of my emotions, at least as far as knowing that the addiction thinks the answer to any feeling is a drink. That has been my most used tool up to this point. Every time that I am feeling out of control emotionally I repeat to myself that these thoughts are really about another drink. An addiction screaming to be brought back to life. To be killing a real altered state complex life is truly beautiful. Who knows what lies ahead for me in this new sober existence? There is so much opportunity. I am not casting doubt about my ability to stay sober, but I know that for me there are many subtleties to mastering this and achieving the goal. I am trying to enjoy the process as much as possible.
This idea that the existence of my addiction was a sign of healthy pleasure seeking capacity is quite interesting. It speaks to the heart of what caused me to quit entirely, knowing 100% that for me seeking that pleasure in any amount would lead to the same dark place and thus cannot be healthy.
To your question, I definitely hold my commitment to abstinence within myself. There are no conditions, no excuses, and no exceptions.
I think that I have a good grasp on tearing away the mask of my emotions, at least as far as knowing that the addiction thinks the answer to any feeling is a drink. That has been my most used tool up to this point. Every time that I am feeling out of control emotionally I repeat to myself that these thoughts are really about another drink. An addiction screaming to be brought back to life. To be killing a real altered state complex life is truly beautiful. Who knows what lies ahead for me in this new sober existence? There is so much opportunity. I am not casting doubt about my ability to stay sober, but I know that for me there are many subtleties to mastering this and achieving the goal. I am trying to enjoy the process as much as possible.
This idea that the existence of my addiction was a sign of healthy pleasure seeking capacity is quite interesting. It speaks to the heart of what caused me to quit entirely, knowing 100% that for me seeking that pleasure in any amount would lead to the same dark place and thus cannot be healthy.
To your question, I definitely hold my commitment to abstinence within myself. There are no conditions, no excuses, and no exceptions.
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Originally Posted by Dee74
I get where you're coming from Five but for me a month is still an achievement....4 weeks into a new way of living 
It's nice to think that as long as I stay alive I might have the opportunity to live two full lives. 25 years plus of addiction, and X number of years free.
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Had a drinking dream last night. It was so vivid. I was sitting there with two of my friends. One pulled out some shots of whiskey and I took a shot. I was thinking that I would just keep it a secret, of course. Then I woke up.
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Here I am, still sober.
In the past weeks I have urge surfed, disengaged, fought in my mind, argued with it, decided to drink, talked myself out of it, and accepted not drinking. Not necessarily in that order.
I haven't been here as much I got busy with life.
I think yesterday was my day. I woke up and felt amazing. Got dressed and ready for my day and all of a sudden it hit me. I am done. I never have to go back to that nightmare again. It makes me so happy.
Life has been hard and work very stressful. It's stressful being a husband and father. I am tired times ten. I don't really have any stress relievers. The illusion of stress relief from alcohol is just that though, an illusion. It will never be true.
In the past weeks I have urge surfed, disengaged, fought in my mind, argued with it, decided to drink, talked myself out of it, and accepted not drinking. Not necessarily in that order.
I haven't been here as much I got busy with life.
I think yesterday was my day. I woke up and felt amazing. Got dressed and ready for my day and all of a sudden it hit me. I am done. I never have to go back to that nightmare again. It makes me so happy.
Life has been hard and work very stressful. It's stressful being a husband and father. I am tired times ten. I don't really have any stress relievers. The illusion of stress relief from alcohol is just that though, an illusion. It will never be true.
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