Hi Kaily,

I'm really sorry that you're feeling down, this really could be the last time alcohol brings you low though. Make a Big Plan and then don't let anything talk you out of it. You said before you drank you were feeling down, that's a common AV tactic and one that I fell for many times myself. The AV tells us that life is bland, boring and meaningless without a drink to get us through, which is, of course, nonsense. Do you have the Rational Recovery, The New Cure book? This concept is covered very well in it.

I'm really glad you aren't giving up. You can do this. A useful AVRT tool is to think, "I never drink NOW" when you start to feel overwhelmed. It is always right now to us, so staying in the present can be really helpful. Also labeling the situation as vertigo when it starts to seem like a certainty that you will drink. "Oh, I know what this is, it's vertigo, but I never drink." It gives you that pause to collect yourself. The power is in the pause, the moment between thought and action.

Hi Kaily, the power is in the pause, sums up how people are able to stop drinking. That pause creates a gap in time between the Beast and ITs AV, “I/we/you want a drink” and the “true-self YOU that doesn’t want to drink”.

The true-self you is the ONLY you that can buy that wine, uncork, or unscrew it and pour it into a glass and raise it to your lips and drink it. The Booze Beast and its mouthpiece, the AV......are absolutely powerless. YOU have the power: neo-cortex trounces the limbic system where the desire to drink resides, so long as you veto that lower brain desire to drink.

Please post again, wherever :grouphug:.

How are you doing Kaily?

How are you today, Kaily?

BillieJean and Tatsy thank you for asking how I am today.

Not great! I suffer badly with depression and spend far to much time on my own. I have not seen anyone since Sunday. This latest bout has come out of nowhere, normally something will trigger it but I was feeling really positive and pleased with myself for the 7 weeks of sobriety. Then bam this black cloud came over me and I couldn't think straight at all never mind separate from the beast.
I drank to medicate not through desire but to make the pain go away.

Anyway I am not drinking now.

Isolation and loneliness can certainly lead to depression. I wonder what you could do to alleviate that? Do you have any ideas? Drinking will only lead you down a worse path, but you know that. Nothing made me more morose and depressed that getting drunk over how depressed I was. It's a terrible way to live. My AV used my emotions against me all the time, my worst tragedies were IT's greatest opportunities. Quitting drinking was the absolute best thing I could have done for my mental health, but it took time to feel the difference, more than 7 weeks. At 7 weeks I was still obsessing about how I wasn't drinking, it wasn't until around 3 months that I started to feel really better. I know that my AV used feelings of anhedonia against me in past attempts at quitting, but I didn't recognize it as AV at the time, I do now since those dark feelings lifted as soon as I started drinking. Was it the same for you?