Thanks, Dee. :)




ananda, I'm still goopy...

...I'm also a little snotty. :e088:



Anyone have a tissue?

Thanks for the tissue Ananda. I almost sneezed on my keyboard (still got that cold) and instead starting laughing hard. I needed that laugh.:Val004:

The Thanks button didn't quite convey how much I love that tissue box. I would so buy one.

Hello Gneiss! I totally understand the things you are going through. I quit drinking over a year ago. I'm an atheist and I knew there was no way AA would work for me. I have never been to an AA meeting and never had a desire to attend one.

I discovered the rational recovery website (I'm not allowed to post the link, but you can find them easily) and what they said totally made sense to me. Using AVRT I learned that I was not powerless over alchohol. In fact, I am the only one who has power over it. My "higher power" is the non-lizardlike portion of my own brain. I just had to learn how to get it back in control, which actually was pretty easy. Once you understand how your own brain works, the temptations are much easier to deal with.

I went through alcohol withdrawal - extreme anxiety, palpitations, emotional lability, shakes, but they tapered off after a few days.

Now I cannot for the life of me imagine putting anything alcoholic in my mouth. Alcohol is a non-issue for me now. I still have my same friends - in fact I go to wine dinners with them - I'm just the automatic designated driver. I NEVER told my friends the real reason I stopped drinking. I told everyone that any amount of alcohol started making me wake up at 3am and not be able to go back to sleep, so I had to give it up. "My metabolism must have changed or something!" is what I said. Everyone seemed to accept that without question. If they thought anything else, they kept it to themselves. Unlike you, I am unable to admit to people face-to-face that I ever had a problem with alcohol. This board is my only outlet for that stuff.

I didn't discover this website until two months ago - I didn't really talk to anyone about quitting while I was doing it. I discovered this website while trying to help my husband quit. Once one partner quits, the other pretty much has to, too.

The thing that amazes me about AA is that the people who go there are locked up in this "one day at a time" stuff, when in reality it only takes a few weeks to get over the daily desire to have a drink. Then the times when you think "it would be great to have a drink" get further and further apart. Eventually you rarely think about it at all. In fact, people who drink start looking ridiculous to you (but you have to be careful not to let them know you think that)!

I drank for more than 40 years, and before I quit I kept the massive amounts I was drinking pretty quiet. I had an alcohol meter and would blow in it to see what my level was as I was getting ready to go to work in the morning. I'd chew gum and make some comment about "coffee breath". Pretty bad, huh?

So, check out Rational Recovery. They are pretty much anti-AA over there, but just ignore all that stuff. AA isn't for me, but if it works for people - they should do whatever works for them.

Good luck!

I'd like to add one thing to my last post:

I really think that one of the biggest reasons people have so much trouble quitting drinking is this: Most people don't want to quit drinking. They want to quit drinking as much as they are drinking NOW. They want to go back to those days when they could have one margarita with their nachos, or one or two glasses of wine with dinner.

Unfortunately, the central nervous system doesn't work that way. Once you have had enough alcohol over a certain period of time (different for everyone), the brain suddenly says "OK, now I need this stuff to function." And once you have reached that point, it doesn't switch back to normal. Maybe one day we'll have a pill that will reboot the system, but it doesn't exist for now.

So....once you have crossed that line, you have to be OK with NEVER DRINKING AGAIN. Ever. Once you are truly OK with knowing that you and alcohol are through FOREVER, it's actually pretty easy to quit.

thank you SOOO much Ex!!!!

you really made me think...When I had been sober 7 years I never thought about drinking...it just wasn't a thought i had in answer to any problem, but then again, once i decided to "drink during hocky games" suddenly it became the answer to every problem again!

I've been sober about 14 or so months, and I don't think of drinking every day...I still think about it sometimes, but less....and it will seem like less and less of an answer the more i stay sober i find other answers that work!

Thanks again adn pleas poste more about rational recovery and your recovery.:ghug3

Hello, ExxWino. Welcome to the secular side of SR!



I wish that was true for me. This last time I made it 69 days before I caved. My main usage for booze is basically a poor substitute for coping...so I need to find a way to cope without booze. I haven't figured that one out yet, but I'm working on it.


Glad to see another new one around these parts. :wavey:

I agree ExxWino, with the rationale. And acceptance of the pickle/cucumber thing of never being able to drink is necessary. But for many, yes...it's pretty easy to quit. Staying stopped is another issue.

There are core issues that need to be addressed. Alcohol is simply one of the many substances and behaviors I used to anesthetizes my pain...pain that occurred in early childhood. It has been my experience that if these pains aren't addressed...yeah, you can quit, but there will always be the urge to soothe the pain. The pain is not eradicated simply because we decide to put the drink down. Actually, now we are left with nothing but the pain.

I was sober eighteen years and picked up. Luckily I quit again nine months later, but was ready to commit suicide. I knew I had to deal and resolve the "original pain" or my sober life would be a daily struggle without meaning.

It took seven years of intensive therapy to discover I was raised by very messed up people. Hurt people hurt people. So, dysfunctional adults raised a child who had no chance to come out unscathed. It happens all the time. Once I realized through therapy that I was just fine, a regular kid, deserving of all the loving and nourishment any kid deserves...that I was not a bad kid nor responsible for their behavior...the "original pain" began to diminish...and continues to diminish through the practice of meditation and seeing clearly things as they really are. I practice using the higher mind, not the lower one that used to constantly tell me that I was no good.

So though I embrace rationality completely, it is a bit more of tangled mess than just quitting.

Peace
:)

well...it is true that when I had not drank for 7 years and didn't have that draw to alchohol I was at a point where I had delt with so many of those pain issues that I had in my life....not 100% and not a total fix...but so much.....

so yes....it is also my expereince that dealing with those pain issues without alchohol is necessary in order for me to maintain sobriety...Not to say those pains don't still come up, but having a new way to work through that rather than the bottle...

I'm glad though that the thought of drinking it is no longer a looming black cloud in my life 24/7.