Welcome to SR

The gym pfffft your just showing off now lol exercise is really good it will help you sleep but just go easy on yourself too - your body is tackling a lot just now. Glad your feeling so good today though. Happiness is infectious - be a disease worth catching lol (yeah shut up 13)

Good to hear you sounding so upbeat again, 13. Please don't shut up!! :):)

:) thank you - I'm glad to be doing this.

Welcome to SR and best of luck. You can do this. I found reading the posts here really helped me find the mindset to stay strong. I also would keep in mind my worst hangover and how I was never going to feel like that again. Not just the physical pain, but the mental shame and disapointment. That way when I have my down days I can still tell myself it is better than being hungover. Take time for yourself and congratulations!

Cheers for the welcome Heath and ChrisBen. Nice one 13, agree with you. If happiness were a disease I'd love to be permanently infected, hence the boozing I suppose, futile attempts at happiness. Happiness comes and it goes, think I'll just have to settle with being infected by Scurvy and Rabies for the moment. See what happens when a vitamin C deficient dog bites you!

I'm still sober by the way despite talking gibberish. No cravings so far today, long may it continue!

Hi RN-
Glad to hear you made your BP. I too started a thread to write on when I made my BP. It was great to have somewhere to go and write whatever I was thinking and have people to call me out on my BS. Anyway, I am glad you are here and sober.

Jess

Hi RN,

Wishing you the courage, strength, and wisdom needed to beat the little a$$ h@le in your head into submission. That's what we call it in our home. ; )

Thanks for the welcome jkb and HopefulinFLA, much appreciated.

Time to crash out, had the odd drinking thought this evening after getting frustrated with technology! No cravings as such, no real desire to drink just an unhelpful reflex reaction from the ghost of pissmass past. I'm sure I can expect a few more drinking thoughts in the coming days/weeks as drinking was the answer to every conceivable emotion. Not an option now. Good job too.

You guys are each doing just wonderfully! Most impressed!

For me, I tried to shift my AV off on the other side of a wall. Strength, courage and wisdom would be nice to have, but my BP doesn't need any of those. I'm going to go all Wizard of Oz on you. What if Oz the Magnificent, Oz the Great and Powerful, turns out to be just some fraudster behind a curtain? What if his promises of a brain, a heart, and courage turn out to be lies?

The Big Plan says that you already have everything you need to render your AV powerless. You don't even need to click your ruby slippers together! Thinking that you need extra super extra power to do this is just your AV trying to make you doubt yourself and lead you back to that misery.

Keep pushing forward, you guys are awesome. And badass, too, don't forget the badass.

I think that's a brilliant statement even if it means I don't need to buy new red shoes lol it's so true - everything we need we already possess - we just need to be open to it. Take the time to pay attention and appreciate everything we do have. It's so easy to say 'I don't want x,y,z' or 'I don't like x,y,z' how about for every one negative you choose 5 positives. There's so much to like in life. We have to be looking for the good though and really pay attention to our labels that we use.

Question everything - question your thoughts - people often say 'oh boy I HAVE to do x,y,z' change that to 'I want to do x,y,z because the outcome is enjoyable' in the long run in terms of face value thinking I don't want to clean every day but realistically I do WANT to because I prefer to be organised. The benefits outweigh the pain.

It's so beneficial to put a positive spin on things. Yknow like we all have our wee quotes - try and 'quote' your every day situations that you label hard,difficult,boring, put the sparkle on them :) and then we all won't be looking for the dam sparkly red slippers lol

Your life can be as bright as you want as long as you steer clear of the **** coloured glasses lol

I don't even know what 'you' I'm talking to here I think I just felt like talking. Haaa! Probably nurturing myself here as much as anyone else. You will all sleep tonight lol and on that note I'm away back to bed to try and sleep again.

Freshstart..... A fraudster behind the curtain. That is an accurate description, promising a load of stuff it wont deliver, just misery. Cheers for the encouragement, much appreciated. Hope you have a great day today/tomorrow (think your 7 or 8 hours behind me, it's 7:30 am here).

Yes 13 as in 'I want to stay sober' not 'I have to stay sober'. I do try to be positive and make positive statements but I can be a cynical sarky sod sometimes (try saying that after 8 cans of Stella!). Keep up the good work and the upbeat attitude. Wishing you a great day.

You too RN :) I hope you have a great day. It's a nice sunny day here today. Lovely jubley!

Argghhh. Just deleted my message by accident! I'll try that again!

I haven't had many thoughts or cravings for alcohol since I made my Big Plan. I've made BP's before, craved lots then capitulated. I realize it's early days, maybe the cheque is in the post but i'm finding this easy right now.

Went somewhere I usually drink (not a pub) for a couple of hours last night, no cravings. England are playing tonight, generally that's a great excuse to drink, not that I really need an excuse but I'm 100% sure I wont drink today/tonight. Anyway hope all is well in Sober Recovery land?

I believe that anyone can make a Big Plan only once. Also, after making the Big Plan, I found it impossible to use the present tense when talking about my drinking as you did. I would have said "Went somewhere I usually drank ..."

Not to worry. If you're really on an AVRT learning curve, you'll be able to pick out the AV that is scattered throughout this thread, for example.

I believe that anyone can make a Big Plan only once. Also, after making the Big Plan, I found it impossible to use the present tense when talking about my drinking as you did. I would have said "Went somewhere I usually drank ..."

Not to worry. If you're really on an AVRT learning curve, you'll be able to pick out the AV that is scattered throughout this thread, for example.


Speaking about my drinking in the present tense. I see. The addictive voice isn't always easy to spot.

I will be using AVRT (not very well so far evidently!), smart tools and when push comes to shove plain old fashioned willpower to beat this thing. I'd even pray to a higher power if I thought it would do any good but I reckon if he exists he's got better things to do then listening to some pisshead droning on about a load of old b----cks anyway. Miracles? Not tonight my child.... I'm cutting my beard. Lol

Cheers for the post GT.

I will be using AVRT (not very well so far evidently!)- Quote Recoverynow

that part made me lol.... It sounds JUST like me 7 months ago. Now I cant help but hear when it is AV. You will get there. ((hugs))

Jess

Hello Jess, I guess these things take time and effort. :headbange Head-butting the wall won't help but sod it. ha ha.

Cheers for the post and the hugs.

The Beast of AVRT can't even make a depression in your skin, let alone push or shove you. Physically speaking, it's more like a terrified, talking, ventriloquist fish, somewhere in whatever room you're in. You used to be very fond of it, and kept it happy in a big tank. But now you've put it in a small shallow pan of water from which the oxygen is slowly getting used up. Occasionally it flops and you recognize it. You will hear it talking, but as soon as you know where the voice is coming from, you can immediately ignore it.

Somewhere in the RR material, I remember the explanation of "willpower" as being not so effective a description of how the AVRT Big Plan works. A better term would be, I think, "willsupremacy". In other words, for me to exercise my will actually takes no power at all. It's a very quick neuronal brain activity that takes no muscles at all, ie. no power. But my will does reign supreme over my deliberate conscious behavior, and keeping alcohol out of my blood is part of it.

That said, keeping alcohol out of my blood is so specific and in-my-face controllable, that I do not attach ANY conditions to succeeding at that. I don't know of any other recovery program that attaches NO Conditions to never drinking again. In AVRT all such conditions are the Addictive Voice trying to throw red herrings into my willsupremacy.

Yep, if you find yourself about to swallow some alcohol, you can be sure something fishy is going on around you. :c033:

Plenty of food for thought there GT. I like the ventriloquist fish analogy! Basically what your saying is the longer you go without feeding the addiction the more the beast knows it's place and backs off.

Trying to get my head around willsupremacy but it's not quite registering. It sounds like a Matt Damon film! Keep firing this stuff at me though, it'll sink in, in time hopefully.

Cheers for the post, have a good one mate.