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The Pressure of the Battle

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The Pressure of the Battle

8 years ago 0 +0 / -0 115

Interesting discussion everyone! Great insight from everyone, as usual.

I had a great conversation with an old frend a couple days ago. He quit drinking 9 years ago. I myself am quit 16 months. We had a great frank discussion about drinking. For both of us, we found it was easier to quit drinking than to manage it. Manging it was too hard. For both of us, it wasnt easy to quit altogether, but we both experienced the same long term experience. Once we crossed that line in the sand, it became easier each day we moved away from that line.

For us, its all in how we looked at it. The way I look at it now is like this: Drinking isnt good for me, it does nothing positive for me, so why bother? If I look at it that way, its not stressful. Its actually relief. Relief in that I dont have to worry about it anymore.

I guess my comment is tied directly to the title of your posting, The Pressure of the Battle. By loking at it the way Im looking at it, the pressure goes away. I dont feel the pressure of managing my drinking anymore.

Does what Im saying make any sense?

8 years ago 0 +0 / -0 54

PS: Julie, I have begun checking out Tiredofthinkingaboutdrinking - I love it, some really great stuff there! Tks

8 years ago 0 +0 / -0 54

Darn I wish we could edit our posts on this forum... There is something about how the paragraph spacing ends up vs how it looks in the input window that absolutely sucks! Sorry - I left 1 line between paras, you get 10!

8 years ago 0 +0 / -0 54

I guess what I really want is to have my cake and eat it too... Ideally I'd like to be free of both the habit AND the battle to be free of the habit. ie: to be a 'normal' person...

I was recently at a 2-day event with a crowd mostly of pretty heavy drinkers. It's something I would now try to avoid but I had committed to it a long time ago and accepted a share of responsibility for the event. (It's an awkward time to be letting people down, for reasons I won't get into here.) I did not abstain, but did pace myself, alternated with water, and passed altogether on quite a few rounds. I was socializing and had a good time. Many of the others got into it very heavily over very many hours. When I hit the sack my head was clear, I slept well, and I woke up refreshed and ready for day 2. Looking around at the others I couldn't help thinking "you're trying to hide it, but many of you feel like ****. You're not going to enjoy this day the way I am. Good on me."

Despite surviving this event without pain or regret, I made a point of not touching any alcohol for the next several days. Then I went through a few very stressful days at work, got tired of worrying about drinking, and had a few (but just a few - I didn't find them very enjoyable and stopped).

I know it's very possible moderating may not be the long term solution for me. I also know, just as the old addage goes "Rome wasn't built in a day", a 40 year habit is not undone by snapping my fingers and declaring it so. Perhaps I'm going about it by what some would consider the hard way, but I just feel that swearing off it forever is the surest way to guarantee I never achieve complete abstention. I feel that unlearning drinking as a habit and cutting it out one day at a time is the saner approach for me at this time. Maybe I'll eventually make it to complete abstention or maybe I won't, but the pressure of feeling I have to seems to trip me up at the start. Just drinking a lot less in the future than I have in the past would already be a big victory. I must adjust my outlook to take every situation and event for what it is, not for the drinking opportunity it could be. (Is that the psychic shift then?)

I finally let my wife in on what I'm doing. I told her I feel that I need to quit drinking as I often fail at moderating. I was sure she'd back me up 200% on that and then some. (Her career is centered on the treatment of people facing debilitating, disfiguring, and terminal illnesses related to substance abuse, and we recently lost a very close family member to exactly that.) This is perhaps why it took me so long - I felt that once I announced this to her I'd have her on me like a hawk for ever more. Her reaction surprised me: "You? no you don't drink too much, not around me at least, though I don't see how much you have when I'm not here..." She feels I should just focus on limiting myself to a maximum of 3 on days where I drink. I guess she has no idea how constraining that limit can seem to us drinkers; sometimes 3 would do just fine, but often it would be an unwelcome limitation, and I’d rather go without altogether than constrain myself to it.

Don’t get me wrong, everyone is different and I value and consider each of your views and experiences very seriously. Each must make their own way but there is something to learn from everything, and everyone. Thanks very much (again) for your insight and wisdom. I’ll keep checking in – however I may be coming across I am serious about persevering.

8 years ago 0 +0 / -0 286

SPMW,

For me, the toughest time in my journey was when I did recognize that I had a problem and I was trying to moderate and control my way out of it. I too got into an obsessive way of trying to control the urge for another drink and eventually giving in and letting go of control. I found this cycle very difficult. I think it was the realization and acceptance, finally, that I honestly couldn't moderate as others did. For me, it was eventually easier to not drink at all and no more decisions were necessary, no more arguments with myself, no more constant vigilance and thoughts. The one thing I had to do was not drink for a while. I joined the 100 Day Challenge with the "Tired of thinking about drinking" website. This gave me a goal in the distance and I have just kept moving that goal. As counterintuitive as it is, not drinking at all was more manageable than making daily decisions about drinking. And now with over a year of recovery, I really don't think about wanting to drink very often. As Foxman said, occasionally, seeing others drinking a glass of wine brings back those old feelings, but it is not a consideration for me anymore.

8 years ago 0 +0 / -0 113

What Foxman talks about was pivotal in my recovery. The mind needs to change in order to stop the fighting and insanity about alcohol. I, too, was fighting to stay away from drinking, but kept thinking about alcohol, stressing out about parties and not being able to have a drink for the rest of my life, etc. UNTIL Foxman lead me to the Ekhart Tolle chapter on finding acceptance with life just how it is in each and every moment. This profound shift changed everything for me. I no longer fight with life... or people... or circumstances. It's a work in progress, and I still fumble at times, but were it not for this crucial life skill, I am certain I would not be sober for these last 3+ months.

8 years ago 0 +0 / -0 1562

The psychic change the doctor talks about is attitude shift toward life in general. As we accept life and live life based on the principles of acceptance and love, we loose interest in liquor. For me the key is, the obsession is gone. Occasionally when I see a budweiser ad I may have 'a thought' that looks good. But then the conscious awareness that I can't safely drink alcohol ever again is constantly in the back ground.

We call it the 10th step promise:

We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically.

8 years ago 0 +0 / -0 54

Now that the glorious month of August and all it’s occasions, celebrations and temptations are out of the way it’s time to get ‘back to school’ on the alcohol question.

There is something I’ve noticed in my recent pattern of abstaining for a while, then drinking to varying degrees for awhile, then abstaining again for awhile, etc. It seems to be that when I do break down and say “aw screw it, today I’m going to let myself drink” it is as much as anything to relieve the pressure I put on myself not to break a dry spell. The last few times I’ve found that I’m not even enjoying the drinks anymore like I used to. (I see that by itself as a good sign – more on that below). The main “effect” I get now from alcohol is a temporary break from the battle of abstention. It puts aside, for awhile, the daunting prospect of “never ever being able to touch a drop again” and all the social awkwardness I fear that would entail.

I can honestly say the fact that I am not really enjoying the drinks anymore at does lead me to have fewer than I used to (but still often more than the recommended daily limit). Now I have to work more on not reaching for them out of habit. And that is something I have to keep reminding myself is well within my power to do...

I never took up smoking cigarettes as a habit. Sure, as a teenager I’d smoke them on occasion around friends and at parties, but I never got the inclination to smoke them regularly. Not even for the ‘cool’ factor. In fact for the most part I was one of the proudly un-cool people in that respect. The nicotine certainly didn’t hook me. Sure, today I could have a cigarette at any time and it would not be the end of the world. But why bother? I’m not afraid of having one but why bother? It doesn’t give me anything I want.

I’d like to get to that place with regards to alcohol. I do not want to live in fear of that next drink – that in itself is so stressful it eventually drives me to drink I find, but I DO want to say “why bother”? …and mean it. Nicotine has no power over me… I do enjoy a good cigar once in awhile, but in the way you’re supposed to – JUST once in awhile, and that has never been a problem. I could do without them completely and be fine (in fact there have been periods of years between one cigar and the next, purely due to circumstances, not due to any battle to abstain). Why should alcohol be any different for me? Truth be told, of alcohol, nicotine and caffeine, the latter should be hardest for me to do without, because it actually does give me something arguably useful (a kickstart in the morning).

I find the battle to abstain stresses me into drinking sometimes... Anyone else feel that way? It's a vicious circle. I suppose breaking out of that circle to the point of being comfortable saying "I could have one but why bother" might be the 'psychic shift' the AA folks refer to.

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The Pressure of the Battle