One year today
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2018
Posts: 278
One year today
One thing's for sure, there were many times I never thought I'd be able to say this... but it's been a year.
I don't count the days, but I know my anniversary, which is tonight.
Seems like quite a few in the community are also marking anniversaries around this time. Maybe summer is a great time to quit? ;-)
This past year has been full of learning. Drinking was something I think I just stumbled into, but I had to thoughtfully climb out of the hole. If I hadn't taken sobriety on as a deliberate project, and set out to learn about it, and approached it like a skill to master, then I don't think I could have been successful.
As many here have, I got great mileage out of the AVRT approach: recognizing the distortions that the craving brain creates in order to perpetuate drinking behavior, and realizing that the craving brain isn't the part of my brain that holds my values and feels like me.
Thinking back to that night a year ago, I had done something drunk that was particularly embarrassing, and I just decided: I'm done. I had never said that before. I always had some vague plans to quit in the future, like at the new year, or at Lent, or when I got into a new relationship, or when I had a kid. But planning to quit in the future literally never worked, ha!, not even close.
What worked was saying, one year ago tonight: enough is enough, I'm done. It's over.
And making a plan, and learning about addiction, and learning about triggers, and learning about all those craving-brain distortions. Learning how to say to myself "take a deep breath, you don't really want to be drinking, you're just anxious right now." Or hungry, or angry, or bored, or lonely, or sad, or Tuesday, or whatever.
Anyway, the plan seems to be working, and I'm very grateful for that. And I'm grateful for the community for being here.
I wish everyone peace and happiness.
I don't count the days, but I know my anniversary, which is tonight.
Seems like quite a few in the community are also marking anniversaries around this time. Maybe summer is a great time to quit? ;-)
This past year has been full of learning. Drinking was something I think I just stumbled into, but I had to thoughtfully climb out of the hole. If I hadn't taken sobriety on as a deliberate project, and set out to learn about it, and approached it like a skill to master, then I don't think I could have been successful.
As many here have, I got great mileage out of the AVRT approach: recognizing the distortions that the craving brain creates in order to perpetuate drinking behavior, and realizing that the craving brain isn't the part of my brain that holds my values and feels like me.
Thinking back to that night a year ago, I had done something drunk that was particularly embarrassing, and I just decided: I'm done. I had never said that before. I always had some vague plans to quit in the future, like at the new year, or at Lent, or when I got into a new relationship, or when I had a kid. But planning to quit in the future literally never worked, ha!, not even close.
What worked was saying, one year ago tonight: enough is enough, I'm done. It's over.
And making a plan, and learning about addiction, and learning about triggers, and learning about all those craving-brain distortions. Learning how to say to myself "take a deep breath, you don't really want to be drinking, you're just anxious right now." Or hungry, or angry, or bored, or lonely, or sad, or Tuesday, or whatever.
Anyway, the plan seems to be working, and I'm very grateful for that. And I'm grateful for the community for being here.
I wish everyone peace and happiness.
Member
Join Date: Jun 2022
Posts: 37
Nice job! I hope I am as successful, and more for both of us. When I quit cigarette smoking a number of years back, I told myself, never have a first one again, and it worked. Hopefully we can do the same with alchohol.
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