This sort of works for me
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2017
Posts: 154
This sort of works for me
The only way I could beat the addiction to alcohol was to not tell myself I must never drink again.
I tried doing just that and failed time and time again, I knew all the risks and I had already lost everything so nothing much more to lose except my life ( and I couldn't care if I lost that either)
The problem was once I said never again I could hold a few days but any pressure from the outside world and I just started drinking again. So I said to myself I can drink only when I want too.
This held for 6 weeks solid until one night I just fancied a beer, I got through 3 cans of low alcohol lager before feeling a bit sick and making a cup of tea instead.
Another 4 weeks passed without any and again I then drank 5 cans of low alcohol beer and again felt sick afterwards.
That was last Friday night (a week ago)
So I'm not an ex drinker, but I'm not a full blown drinker anymore either, Slowly I'm learning to face the outside world and not taking as much so personally anymore.
All anyone can do is find a way to combat an addiction, it's easy to just say "no more" but for me that caused stress later down the track.
Maybe I will never fully stop drinking or maybe I will just grow more physically sick of it, either way I'm in a better position now than I was when I joined this site.
My advice would be to keep trying, don't expect Rome to be built in a day (though it might of been if I had been on the job
)
Good luck everyone!
I tried doing just that and failed time and time again, I knew all the risks and I had already lost everything so nothing much more to lose except my life ( and I couldn't care if I lost that either)
The problem was once I said never again I could hold a few days but any pressure from the outside world and I just started drinking again. So I said to myself I can drink only when I want too.
This held for 6 weeks solid until one night I just fancied a beer, I got through 3 cans of low alcohol lager before feeling a bit sick and making a cup of tea instead.
Another 4 weeks passed without any and again I then drank 5 cans of low alcohol beer and again felt sick afterwards.
That was last Friday night (a week ago)
So I'm not an ex drinker, but I'm not a full blown drinker anymore either, Slowly I'm learning to face the outside world and not taking as much so personally anymore.
All anyone can do is find a way to combat an addiction, it's easy to just say "no more" but for me that caused stress later down the track.
Maybe I will never fully stop drinking or maybe I will just grow more physically sick of it, either way I'm in a better position now than I was when I joined this site.
My advice would be to keep trying, don't expect Rome to be built in a day (though it might of been if I had been on the job
)Good luck everyone!
Keep Going
Join Date: Apr 2017
Location: England
Posts: 1,530
I really liked what you said. It's progress, isn't it? I kind of think of my sober date as the day I started withdrawing from a 5 day vodka binge.
I drank a couple of bottles of wine in the weeks that followed but not much. Now, I'm 6 months sober.
I can only do it by thinking "I'm sober this second" because I can achieve that. For me, I have to come right back to this moment or it's all a little bit too much.
Just keep going
I drank a couple of bottles of wine in the weeks that followed but not much. Now, I'm 6 months sober.
I can only do it by thinking "I'm sober this second" because I can achieve that. For me, I have to come right back to this moment or it's all a little bit too much.
Just keep going
Member
Join Date: Dec 2014
Posts: 2,965
That's what worked for me. Accepting the fact that I'm not drinking right now. I'd have a drink or 5,then none for a while..a drink or 3 then none.. I wasn't trying to taper this time..I was just not drinking like I did. I've only had one night in almost a year that I had a drink(I got trashed that night!). The 'never again' always gave me more anxiety,which led me to drink. I just prefer to be sober nowadays.
Member
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: northern michigan. not the U.P.
Posts: 15,281
Originally Posted by InApickle 
Maybe I will never fully stop drinking or maybe I will just grow more physically sick of it, either way I'm in a better position now than I was when I joined this site.
this reads like rationalizing and thinkin moderation will work for you.
Member
Join Date: Jun 2017
Location: Canada
Posts: 167
Originally Posted by InApickle
The only way I could beat the addiction to alcohol was to not tell myself I must never drink again.
I tried doing just that and failed time and time again, I knew all the risks and I had already lost everything so nothing much more to lose except my life ( and I couldn't care if I lost that either)
The problem was once I said never again I could hold a few days but any pressure from the outside world and I just started drinking again. So I said to myself I can drink only when I want too.
This held for 6 weeks solid until one night I just fancied a beer, I got through 3 cans of low alcohol lager before feeling a bit sick and making a cup of tea instead.
Another 4 weeks passed without any and again I then drank 5 cans of low alcohol beer and again felt sick afterwards.
That was last Friday night (a week ago)
So I'm not an ex drinker, but I'm not a full blown drinker anymore either, Slowly I'm learning to face the outside world and not taking as much so personally anymore.
All anyone can do is find a way to combat an addiction, it's easy to just say "no more" but for me that caused stress later down the track.
Maybe I will never fully stop drinking or maybe I will just grow more physically sick of it, either way I'm in a better position now than I was when I joined this site.
My advice would be to keep trying, don't expect Rome to be built in a day (though it might of been if I had been on the job)
Good luck everyone!
I tried doing just that and failed time and time again, I knew all the risks and I had already lost everything so nothing much more to lose except my life ( and I couldn't care if I lost that either)
The problem was once I said never again I could hold a few days but any pressure from the outside world and I just started drinking again. So I said to myself I can drink only when I want too.
This held for 6 weeks solid until one night I just fancied a beer, I got through 3 cans of low alcohol lager before feeling a bit sick and making a cup of tea instead.
Another 4 weeks passed without any and again I then drank 5 cans of low alcohol beer and again felt sick afterwards.
That was last Friday night (a week ago)
So I'm not an ex drinker, but I'm not a full blown drinker anymore either, Slowly I'm learning to face the outside world and not taking as much so personally anymore.
All anyone can do is find a way to combat an addiction, it's easy to just say "no more" but for me that caused stress later down the track.
Maybe I will never fully stop drinking or maybe I will just grow more physically sick of it, either way I'm in a better position now than I was when I joined this site.
My advice would be to keep trying, don't expect Rome to be built in a day (though it might of been if I had been on the job
)Good luck everyone!
don't quit quitting.
Member
Join Date: Dec 2014
Posts: 2,965
Originally Posted by tomsteve
i hope you take some time and read your past threads/posts to remember how serious the problem with alcohol is.
this reads like rationalizing and thinkin moderation will work for you.
this reads like rationalizing and thinkin moderation will work for you.
So I don't do that anymore.
Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 213,347
Hi IAP
yeah that method worked for me... sometimes... for a while.... with a great deal of teeth grinding effort...
but the bottom line is it never worked for long.
I could never consistently control my drinking - and, after a few years, I could not control it at all.
I think you've set up a situation here where you've resigned yourself to a long list of feelings or situations that you feel uncomfortable with and the only solution for that discomfort is drinking.
If you really feel 'no more' causes stress (thats a great line by our inner addict) maybe you need more recovery support....or you need to make better use of the support you have?
I appreciate you're trying for longer and longer spells - but until you look at your basic premise, I think you're going round in circles.
D
yeah that method worked for me... sometimes... for a while.... with a great deal of teeth grinding effort...
but the bottom line is it never worked for long.
I could never consistently control my drinking - and, after a few years, I could not control it at all.
I think you've set up a situation here where you've resigned yourself to a long list of feelings or situations that you feel uncomfortable with and the only solution for that discomfort is drinking.
If you really feel 'no more' causes stress (thats a great line by our inner addict) maybe you need more recovery support....or you need to make better use of the support you have?
I appreciate you're trying for longer and longer spells - but until you look at your basic premise, I think you're going round in circles.
D
Last edited by Dee74; 10-28-2017 at 04:48 PM.
bona fido dog-lover
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: SF Bay area, CA
Posts: 100,276
The only plan that worked for me was to take drinking completely off the table as an option. Never again. But at that point, I wanted to be sober much more than I wanted to drink . Going on 8 yrs now and I've never been happier.
O-n K-a-r A-r-r-e-s-t
Join Date: May 2016
Location: US
Posts: 600
I knew all the risks and I had already lost everything so nothing much more to lose except my life ( and I couldn't care if I lost that either)
I knew the risks too and forgot them. I was just floundering along, going from drinking binge to not drinking to drinking binge over and over.. and then bam I make a dumbass mistake of going out and threw my taken-for-granted life in the hole. Nothing really bad was going on. In fact some good things had been happening to me so why oh why was I drinking so much. I am not a good drinker - not in moderation, not a lot, not a little, not anytime. I had to admit it once and for all... that was two weeks ago after I got out of jail. Embarrassing that I thought I was handling it.
And you might be. I am not the person to say. You are. But the part that bothered me was when you said, "I couldn't care if I lost that either." The next stop for drinking me is prison or death. I don't want either so I am not drinking again period. No matter what it takes.
I think you do care even if it might be hard to say or feel right now.
I knew the risks too and forgot them. I was just floundering along, going from drinking binge to not drinking to drinking binge over and over.. and then bam I make a dumbass mistake of going out and threw my taken-for-granted life in the hole. Nothing really bad was going on. In fact some good things had been happening to me so why oh why was I drinking so much. I am not a good drinker - not in moderation, not a lot, not a little, not anytime. I had to admit it once and for all... that was two weeks ago after I got out of jail. Embarrassing that I thought I was handling it.
And you might be. I am not the person to say. You are. But the part that bothered me was when you said, "I couldn't care if I lost that either." The next stop for drinking me is prison or death. I don't want either so I am not drinking again period. No matter what it takes.
I think you do care even if it might be hard to say or feel right now.
Guest
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2017
Posts: 154
Originally Posted by Dee74
Hi IAP
yeah that method worked for me... sometimes... for a while.... with a great deal of teeth grinding effort...
but the bottom line is it never worked for long.
I could never consistently control my drinking - and, after a few years, I could not control it at all.
I think you've set up a situation here where you've resigned yourself to a long list of feelings or situations that you feel uncomfortable with and the only solution for that discomfort is drinking.
If you really feel 'no more' causes stress (thats a great line by our inner addict) maybe you need more recovery support....or you need to make better use of the support you have?
I appreciate you're trying for longer and longer spells - but until you look at your basic premise, I think you're going round in circles.
D
yeah that method worked for me... sometimes... for a while.... with a great deal of teeth grinding effort...
but the bottom line is it never worked for long.
I could never consistently control my drinking - and, after a few years, I could not control it at all.
I think you've set up a situation here where you've resigned yourself to a long list of feelings or situations that you feel uncomfortable with and the only solution for that discomfort is drinking.
If you really feel 'no more' causes stress (thats a great line by our inner addict) maybe you need more recovery support....or you need to make better use of the support you have?
I appreciate you're trying for longer and longer spells - but until you look at your basic premise, I think you're going round in circles.
D
Once I lost everything (and I mean everything) then the rest quickly transpired into total oblivion.
Yet still behind all this and travelling with me since childhood is an overwhelming thought of what's the point. What's the point of life.
This thought is as attached to me like breathing , it is one I had from very young and it is one which will never leave.
The only help and support I can reach out for is from within, I have listened to other peoples stories, beliefs, thoughts, theories etc etc but these are things engrained in their souls and you cannot inject others and magically think that they will install into others.
It's a good feeling if something said helps someone else but it's also rather demoralising if it goes completely over ones head!
Still time moves forward, keeping busy is important, even if it is keeping busy doing nothing, it occupies time or at least takes the sense of time away. I am busying myself making videos and messing with music, tomorrow I am buying a camera and plan to start keeping a video diary, not of me but of life around me.
Some days I work, other days I sit and think. Either one of the 2 cause me stress anymore, I do whatever I need to do to pass time..
To me life is a battleground, but it's a battleground I am starting to learn living on, that's all a major plus to where I was not that long ago.
I will probably never find out the true point of life, and one day all my time thinking and searching for it will be a waste of time and a waste of my life like family before have pointed out.
But what does it really matter in the end. I came into this world with about the same knowledge of it as I have now
Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 213,347
I wondered what the point was too and I struggled with that from teenage years onwards as well.
Quitting drinking went a really long way to settling the pain and angst I felt.
I drank for so long that a lot of the issues I started drinking or drugging for were no longer applicable.
For those issues that stayed with me, getting to know who sober me, the real me, was was a revelation - I found I was more capable, less cynical and altogether capable of being more content than I ever thought I could be.
I might have ended my days a cynical misanthropic old falling down drunk - but I'm glad I won't.
I've gained a lot from these last 10 years, and hopefully given a lot back too.
Maybe thats the point of life - make the most of that 3 score and ten...and leave something good/ meaningful behind when we go?
D
Quitting drinking went a really long way to settling the pain and angst I felt.
I drank for so long that a lot of the issues I started drinking or drugging for were no longer applicable.
For those issues that stayed with me, getting to know who sober me, the real me, was was a revelation - I found I was more capable, less cynical and altogether capable of being more content than I ever thought I could be.
I might have ended my days a cynical misanthropic old falling down drunk - but I'm glad I won't.
I've gained a lot from these last 10 years, and hopefully given a lot back too.
Maybe thats the point of life - make the most of that 3 score and ten...and leave something good/ meaningful behind when we go?
D
Member
Join Date: May 2012
Posts: 1,981
Originally Posted by InApickle
You may very well be right Dee, this is the first time in over 30 years that I have even bothered facing it.
Once I lost everything (and I mean everything) then the rest quickly transpired into total oblivion.
Yet still behind all this and travelling with me since childhood is an overwhelming thought of what's the point. What's the point of life.
This thought is as attached to me like breathing , it is one I had from very young and it is one which will never leave.
The only help and support I can reach out for is from within, I have listened to other peoples stories, beliefs, thoughts, theories etc etc but these are things engrained in their souls and you cannot inject others and magically think that they will install into others.
It's a good feeling if something said helps someone else but it's also rather demoralising if it goes completely over ones head!
Still time moves forward, keeping busy is important, even if it is keeping busy doing nothing, it occupies time or at least takes the sense of time away. I am busying myself making videos and messing with music, tomorrow I am buying a camera and plan to start keeping a video diary, not of me but of life around me.
Some days I work, other days I sit and think. Either one of the 2 cause me stress anymore, I do whatever I need to do to pass time..
To me life is a battleground, but it's a battleground I am starting to learn living on, that's all a major plus to where I was not that long ago.
I will probably never find out the true point of life, and one day all my time thinking and searching for it will be a waste of time and a waste of my life like family before have pointed out.
But what does it really matter in the end. I came into this world with about the same knowledge of it as I have now
Once I lost everything (and I mean everything) then the rest quickly transpired into total oblivion.
Yet still behind all this and travelling with me since childhood is an overwhelming thought of what's the point. What's the point of life.
This thought is as attached to me like breathing , it is one I had from very young and it is one which will never leave.
The only help and support I can reach out for is from within, I have listened to other peoples stories, beliefs, thoughts, theories etc etc but these are things engrained in their souls and you cannot inject others and magically think that they will install into others.
It's a good feeling if something said helps someone else but it's also rather demoralising if it goes completely over ones head!
Still time moves forward, keeping busy is important, even if it is keeping busy doing nothing, it occupies time or at least takes the sense of time away. I am busying myself making videos and messing with music, tomorrow I am buying a camera and plan to start keeping a video diary, not of me but of life around me.
Some days I work, other days I sit and think. Either one of the 2 cause me stress anymore, I do whatever I need to do to pass time..
To me life is a battleground, but it's a battleground I am starting to learn living on, that's all a major plus to where I was not that long ago.
I will probably never find out the true point of life, and one day all my time thinking and searching for it will be a waste of time and a waste of my life like family before have pointed out.
But what does it really matter in the end. I came into this world with about the same knowledge of it as I have now
Guest
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2017
Posts: 154
Originally Posted by Dee74
I wondered what the point was too and I struggled with that from teenage years onwards as well.
Quitting drinking went a really long way to settling the pain and angst I felt.
I drank for so long that a lot of the issues I started drinking or drugging for were no longer applicable.
For those issues that stayed with me, getting to know who sober me, the real me, was was a revelation - I found I was more capable, less cynical and altogether capable of being more content than I ever thought I could be.
I might have ended my days a cynical misanthropic old falling down drunk - but I'm glad I won't.
I've gained a lot from these last 10 years, and hopefully given a lot back too.
Maybe thats the point of life - make the most of that 3 score and ten...and leave something good/ meaningful behind when we go?
D
Quitting drinking went a really long way to settling the pain and angst I felt.
I drank for so long that a lot of the issues I started drinking or drugging for were no longer applicable.
For those issues that stayed with me, getting to know who sober me, the real me, was was a revelation - I found I was more capable, less cynical and altogether capable of being more content than I ever thought I could be.
I might have ended my days a cynical misanthropic old falling down drunk - but I'm glad I won't.
I've gained a lot from these last 10 years, and hopefully given a lot back too.
Maybe thats the point of life - make the most of that 3 score and ten...and leave something good/ meaningful behind when we go?
D
it is by far better than the rest I have heard, and one I also try and follow regardless!
Member
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Colorado
Posts: 390
I was at the point when 4-5 coors lights were making me feel down and tired (coming from strong IPA's and wine).
I figured I should just stop, and I did.
At day 41, I'm still fighting, but I think I won a good battle last night watching football and not drinking.
Went to bed at 8pm yesterday, and woke up at 4am; now 5am, ready to get some work done on a decent weather day.
I never thought tapering would work for me, but it did almost by accident.
I figured I should just stop, and I did.
At day 41, I'm still fighting, but I think I won a good battle last night watching football and not drinking.
Went to bed at 8pm yesterday, and woke up at 4am; now 5am, ready to get some work done on a decent weather day.
I never thought tapering would work for me, but it did almost by accident.
Guest
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Atlanta
Posts: 8,674
Kinda sorta quitting would not have worked for me. It is all or nothing and I continue to choose sobriety- and more importantly recovery.
You mention the thoughts not going away- I found that it took time for my drunk brain and thoughts to change. I literally had to get IT sober.
I hope you choose to quit full stop and follow a program of action to live the different life that IS possible.
You mention the thoughts not going away- I found that it took time for my drunk brain and thoughts to change. I literally had to get IT sober.
I hope you choose to quit full stop and follow a program of action to live the different life that IS possible.
Member
Join Date: Mar 2017
Location: Kampala, Uganda
Posts: 327
Originally Posted by InApickle
I like your theory Dee it is by far better than the rest I have heard, and one I also try and follow regardless!
it is by far better than the rest I have heard, and one I also try and follow regardless!
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