Thanks for sharing, Max. Is there anything we can do to help? If accountability aids your goal, we’d welcome you checking in as often as you need ITT.
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I’ve done a good job of tapering off and, for a few different reasons, I feel like now’s the time that I’m mentally and physically ready to call it good.
Posting mainly as a marker of date.
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This had an effect on me and has lingered since I watched it some time ago:
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Dodger, that video had a profound impact on me, too. Dax and Kristin Bell in general post some great videos. He also had a recent video discussing the tough spot he found himself in when he needed narcotics for pain management. It forced him to explore the difference between sobriety as abstinence in totality VS sobriety as abstinence from a compulsive relationship.
In Friday’s podcast episode, Shepard said that he was “high” on prescription painkillers while celebrating his 16-year sobriety anniversary.
“I was high at the meeting having people tell me they admire my sobriety,” he said. “It was the worst thing in the world.”
Shepard said during the podcast episode that he has since sought help and has been clean for seven days at the time of the podcast’s recording on September 21.
“I now feel again like my life’s going to get better,” he said.
Congrats on making it this far. Would it help to discuss your “few different reasons” or are you good leaving it at that?
Good job man <3
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I’ll check in a little bit. I don’t post much but I honestly feel pretty damn worried. All sorts of high, low, left, right back pain and stomach burning. I’m already finding ways to justify partying on NYE as some sort of last hurrah. Quarantine has really magnified my binges and I need to get healthy for my wife and daughter.
I lurked in the old 2p2 LFS(I think) Quitting Alcohol thread and I was glad to see this, as I hate posting crap like that on FB and I guess I’m finally there. It’s just so damn intertwined with my lifestyle and friends as well as bartending for much of my youth. I dunno, but I’d hate to see Limbaugh outlive me and I just turned 40.
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I hear you.
Do you have any resources that help you through tough times?
I get a lot out of jumping into an online meeting at the place below. There’s a meeting virtually every hour of every day for every kind of addiction or compulsive relationship.
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I’m fairly strong willed as long as I pour the energy into exercise or home stuff. I’m not opposed to online support groups though.
I’ve done a couple 60 day sobriety stints in the last 5 years but this feels somehow different and much more urgent. At the same time, my mind wants to get to feeling better and then find some new and “healthier” approach to the sauce, which seems insane to be typing out. Addiction is a mofo I guess.
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This is pretty much where I was when I decided to quit and did quit successfully the first time for about a year.
The first month is fucking rough man, your stomach will be a mess, the chills and alcohol-hunger are difficult. Stay strong man, after that shit is really great and you won’t know how you ever drank at all. You won’t throw up every morning any more. You will return to normal quickly after and be able to try to get your body back into shape. Just remember this is still just the beginning, for me 1 drink was a quick downward spiral so for years and years to come you have to resist the temptation or fall down again.
Good luck bro, you can do it. You have the awareness of what’s up and that is the main thing. You have decided not to let this shit kill you. You can make it. It’s all easy from here. Some people never decide to live and just rot and die. You are past the hardest part.
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Thanks RegretS, much appreciated. The wifey is also willing to go a minimum of a month or so, so that will make it easier. I’ve created a fellow alcoholic over the last few years I guess.
Was just about to run out and grab something since I gave myself a few days to soak. Feeling paranoid about by insides though, which is good I guess. Smoking weed is making me feel repulsed at the idea of drinking lately, and ramping up the medical paranoia, bigly. Sounds pathetic but it should help with the idle hands as well.
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Could you talk a little more about this? Interested in what you’re experiencing.
I don’t know that it would help, but I don’t want to leave you hanging. My story is long and convoluted and although not completely unique, differs from the normal tale.
To generalize it, I’ve never liked alcohol but started using it as an escape aid for avoidance when I was in a bad environment I’m no longer in. I got super drunk a few times in college but it never really stuck. I was always more into food; sports; and video games, that was enough (other than a high libido). I began smoking weed in my mid twenties and everything was copacetic. I had a series of escalating life changing events occur and was basically in my own personal hell for close to the next decade, then began using it as the aforementioned escape when weed wasn’t enough. Somewhat ironically, weed was my gateway drug to alcohol.
Anyway, alcohol served something of a purpose but that’s no longer the case. I’ve largely kicked the habit, but when I now drink I still do to excess (which harkens back to my original act) and causes behavior and actions I wouldn’t have done otherwise. (Nothing heinous but liquid courage to confront things I’ve specifically decided not to, and then doing so in a manner less than ideal.) After being chill forever, my wife also hates it now; I hurt her every time I drink and I see her countenance change immediately. I’m lucky she’s not a drinker or that would probably have been the end of me.
I’m only now feeling completely at ease and steadfast with never drinking again. The one day at a time thing makes me hyperfocus on it when in reality I’ve only let it become a big part of my life because I still chose to out of self-sabotage. Most all of my posting was drunk tho, I mainly just lurk and read otherwise.
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Ya, it’s been happening for a couple years. I would be driving home from a night bartending and if I got high on the way home, the idea of starting to drink late and staying up all night drinking would start to seem ridiculous. I would get home and eat ice cream and drink water. If I were to just go home and take a couple shots, without smoking, I’d immediately be in the party, gambling, music mode and could stay up all night, sometimes dabbling with blow as well for much of the last decade.
Since the body pain has ramped up, I’ve been having these inner monologues after smoking, where I’d just be thinking to myself that drinking while feeling these weird pains is just psychotic and arguing with myself about booze deadlines and stuff. It brings out some morality or self preservation thing that I can’t quite describe. Like, I’d welcome flirtation and inappropriate stuff while out drinking with friends but if I was just stoned, I couldn’t be less tempted, and would actively chastise myself for not always being better.
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Ok, this complicates things a lot and honestly I’d suggest that you seek group counselling for this. Soloyolo alcoholic kicking the habit is super painful but if you have a second party then its really important to protect the most important relationship in your life.
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I’m an atheist so have had to find my own concept of a Higher Power to guide me through recovery.
These are not mine. Just some of my favorites from today’s readings at https://www.recoveryreadings.com/
New Year’s Meditation
As we look back over the year just gone, it has been a good year to the extent that
we have put good thoughts, good words, and good deeds into it. None of what we have thought, said, or done need be wasted. Both the good and the bad experiences can be profited by. In a sense, the past is not entirely gone. The result of it, for good or evil, is with us at the present moment. We can only learn by experience and none of our experience is completely wasted. We can humbly thank God for the good things of the year that has gone.
Walk In Dry Places
Has it been a Year of Growth?
As any year draws to a close, we should reflect on how we have grown in sobriety. We should also identify changes during the year that enabled us to overcome bad habits and to move closer to better patterns of living.
Though we never are guaranteed favorable outcomes, we should always remember that sobriety is its own reward. We want a full life of course, but it must begin with a decision to seek and to maintain sobriety at all costs.
We find that with sobriety, lots of other problems seem to solve themselves. Even if they don’t we have the tools to move forward and to achieve goals that always eluded us while we were drinking. Every year in sobriety is a year of growth.
I’ll be conscious today of recent improvements I’ve made in my life and all my affairs. With sobriety, these improvements will go on for a lifetime.
Each Day a New Beginning
In the process of growing to spiritual maturity, we all go through many adolescent stages. --Miki L. Bowen
Progress, not perfection, is our goal in this recovery program. And many days we’ll be haunted by the feeling that we’ve regressed. We will display old behavior. We will feel unable to change, to go on, to make gains once again. But these periods will pass, and soon progress will be evident again.
We must be wary of our need for perfection. It’s this need that makes normal progress seem not good enough. And yet, that’s all we’re capable of–and all we’ll ever need to be capable of. The program, its Steps and the promises offered, provide the tools we have lacked, yet need to use in order to accept ourselves wholly and imperfectly.
Daily attention to our spiritual side will foster the spiritual and emotional health we long for. Prayer and meditation, combined with honest inventory-taking, can show us the personal progress needed, the personal progress made. However, we will falter on occasion. We will neglect our program some days. But it won’t ever be beyond our reach. And each day is a new beginning.
Today is before me, and I can make progress. I will begin with a quiet prayer and a moment of meditation.
Father Leo’s Daily Meditation
CHANGE
“It is not necessary to get away
from human nature but to alter
its inner attitude of heart and
mind.”– J. F. Newton
An understanding of sobriety and serenity that has proved helpful to me is that we
are not only changing but involved in change. We determine the results of the
change.I can change for good or bad. I can stay sober or drink. I can be cheerful and creative
or negative and destructive. My attitude determines the results of my changing life.Spirituality has been given, but it also needs to be nurtured. I need to surround myself
with loving and honest people if I am to allow my spirituality to grow in my life. My
continued willingness is essential to my sobriety and serenity.Thank You for making me with a mind and heart that together create the action.
NA Just For Today
Being Of Service
“Working with others is only the beginning of service work.”
Basic Text, pg 56We’re in recovery now. Through living the program, we’ve attained some stability in our lives. Our faith in a Higher Power has grown. Our individual spiritual awakening is progressing comfortably. So now what? Do we simply sit still and enjoy? Of course not. We find a way to be of service.
We tend to think of service only in terms of committee service or holding a position at some level, but service goes far beyond this understanding. In fact, we can find opportunities to be of service in nearly every area of our lives. Our jobs are a form of service to our communities, no matter what our occupation. The work we do in our homes serves our families. Perhaps we do volunteer work in our communities.
What a difference our service efforts make! If we doubt this, we can just imagine what the world would be like if no one bothered to be of service to others. Our work serves humanity. The message we carry goes beyond the rooms of recovery, affecting everything we do.
Just for today: I will look for opportunities to be of service in everything I do.
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I should add that my primary issue is binge drinking. For the most part, I’d rather have water for coffee than 1 or 2 beers. A typical session is 10+ drinks with blacking out maybe a quarter of the time, but I can take days off without shakes or vomiting. Wife is fine to not drink at most of the time but does have a hard time stopping, once started.
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More or less the same here.
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In an interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry on the inaugural episode of their podcast, “Archewell Audio,” the British-born musician said that he is still attended meetings every Sunday, even amid the ongoing pandemic.
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Hi. My name is…
Grunching, but am I allowed in here if I don’t want to quit?
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Of course! I would still take great value from your experiences.
How did your relationship with alcohol begin?