'Abuse' means you use these substances to the detriment of your life and the lives of others. Is that the case?
Since the age of 14, I have probably a combined 90 to 180 days of pure sobriety. I am 28. I struggled early on, but got things in control and got my B.S. in business, had a family, etc.... but I still struggle to this day going day to day with out a substance or a drink. I dont share this with many, thought this would be a good place since you guys dont know me in real life and can give cold hard advice. It doesnt hurt my work, doesnt hurt how I deal with my family... but I want to know what it feels like to be completely sober and happy.
Truth be known, I think most people take a drink or substance every day, you might not think it but coffee is a drug, having a glass of wine every day is also very common and, I don't care who you are, once you start taking these substances it is darned hard to stop. The real question here is how much do you 'do' each day? I am hard pressed to call you an addict because you say it doesn't hurt your work or family. Is it hurting you in some way? A lot of people are completely sober but, I doubt if anyone is truly 'happy.' Perhaps the root of your unhappiness lies somewhere else and maybe you should do some soul searching about that. As far as quitting, my advice is to not TOUCH any substance you do not want to take. I quit smoking that way. I found that merely touching a cigarette started the whole process of wanting one. Also mental affirmations such as 'I don't do that' helped me when the urge would pop up. Once you stop don't ever start again. Pretty soon your brain will start dropping the neural pathways you created by using but, they can be re-created by just one backslide. (that's the way I think about it anyway). As my old friend Ardus use to tell me...'Nothin' to it but to do it'.....So...man-up if you really want to quit but, do take a look and be objective about your usage.
Well..... here's a tho't and you might want to check this out - hypnosis. Hypnosis works for smokers - have 2 friends who it worked for, but for hypnosis to work, you have to really want to quit the addiction.... Talk to a hypnotherapist and see what he has to say...... and let me know. You're a good person, Oldy, and would like to know you conquered this problem.... I'm a firm believer in hypnosis and it has helped people in different ways.
Weekdays are for sobriety. Weekends are for everything else. I drink a lot, and it makes things easier.
It is important to connect with the higher power and the highest power is that of God. Seeking after the truth (seeking God) is the ultimate motivation which will carry us through anything and through everything.
If you have the wherewithal go to a rehab program, you sound like a good candidate for one. I don't believe in the 12 step thing as I think that's just exchanging problems. People get all hung up on the morality thing but it's really nothing more than a sickness. Do you beat yourself up over having chronic constipation? However, one question to ask yourself is do you really want to stop. You have to realize that most non-users aren't happy, they're just non-users and being completely sober won't, in and of itself, make you happy. There are people who use substances heavily throughout their lives and they still get by. (Winston Churchill drank a quart of brandy most every day, Hitler was a vegetarian teetotaler) The only good reason to stop is because you'd just rather not any more and the only reason to be distressed is when you find out you can't.
You probably don't want to hear this but I did it with God. He broke my legs to get my attention. I was hammered I knew all the barmaids and beer tenders they gave me free drinks and so on the 3rd of July I crashed my harley and died almost. But it took that near death experience to make me admit I had a problem. Before that I had been charged with 11 DUIs (only convicted two times), I got into fist fights and worse. I thank God I didn't hurt anyone but myself. That was over `11 years ago! Then what kept me sober other than my religion was a tee totaler girl friend, she is gone but my sobriety remained...lol. The best of luck to you; reva
Wolverine that worked for me too. But some things grow on me. In addition to drinking to excess on the weekends I began drinking on Wednesdays or sometimes Thursdays instead. Then I caved and began getting few for the road home after work (or I iced a case and left the cooler in the car). I was doing ironwork then mostly reinforcing iron and man that is hot difficult work, so I still miss that ice cold beer cutting cryogenic swath my parched throat. Then I started stopping at the bar before I finished the half rack on ice.....Somewhere along that line progressively increasing drinking I stopped being able to drink a set amount drinks or and by the end I was staying at the bar or club til quitting time. Try as I might I even tried taking just enough money to buy six or so... but there are ways around that. The above don't include the recreational drug use...it got to the point that the white lady (coke) made me (after scoring a couple of eight balls on Thursday) mail my ATM and Credit cards away so they wouldn't get back until Monday...its funny now but it wasn't then...ok confession over~ The good news is those days are over a decade past. To oldyoungin; The first thing is something you already have and that is the desire to stop. God bless you if there is anything I could do to help PM me.
Off topic Hitler may have abstained from alcohol, but he was by most accounts addicted to a mixture of uppers...mainly methamphetamines. "Crystal meth" as it is called today.
I certainly don't crave alcohol, I will drink for a span of time, then drop it without issues and such. I have set boundaries with friends in regard to alcohol: I prefer beer and wine. When I drink hard liquor I tend to do stupid... stupid... stupid things. I went without hard liquor for over a year, and stuck with just beer and wine, fun times with friends. No issues. I fell off that wagon for a bit this last time when the newest ex took off and delved into whiskey and Jager, well, I did stupid things (again). Serious apologizes were made. The two instances that I think of still bother me because it goes to show how thoughtless and selfish I can be, especially when I think I might get laid, and too drunk to consider the feelings of friends. Honestly, a fist in my face would have been justified. So, beer and wine again. On the weekends. Hang out with friends, write music, play PC games. No more selfish bull(*)(*)(*)(*). lol
I used to smoke cigars, and I quit those cold turkey. I've been smoke free for about 2 years and alcohol free the same length of time as they seemingly went together. The psychological desire to light up a stogie remains to some extent if I'm feeling stressed. Alcohol was never really a problem for me, I could take it or leave it. Quitting that, was not so bad. Any lifestyle change, whether it is quitting smoking, losing weight, quitting booze...requires an internal desire to do so. If you want the change to be lasting it must be motivated by yourself. Not your wife telling you to quit, not your family, the change must be internal. You have to want to quit. For some this point arrives when a doctor tells them they have lung cancer, cirrhosis of the liver or emphysema and it's too late. For some it requires hitting absolute rock bottom, losing a job, a family or savings; attributable to an addiction of some sort. The key is to quit these destructive habits while you're still healthy and the toll is not as severe on other aspects of your life.
I'm an alcoholic who hasn't touched alcohol in over 30 years. I wish I had firm advice on quitting, but what works for one may not work for the next. I knew I had a problem and very briefly tried to stop via AA. Didn't work. One day I simply decided I was out of control and checked myself into a small hospital, the Chemical Dependency Unit. My stay there was 30 days. Absolutely ZERO contact with the outside world. After I got out, I went to a couple of AA meetings, but quickly decided that having any kind of a schedule that involved alcohol in any way, including abstinence, was giving myself back to alcohol. I didn't want to talk about it or in any way relive the alcohol experience. Continuing to make myself a slave to alcohol in any way, shape, or form, simply made me think about it, which made me wonder if I truly was an alcoholic. You get my drift. A higher power, if you need one, can be anything that matters to you. I do know that when I checked into the hospital, they gave me some kind of drug, I think to keep me from having DTs or any kind of reaction to cold turkey. I had exceptionally good counselors. I was VERY lucky. I have very little recollection of the experience, partly because of the passage of time, but also because I simply don't think about it and never did. I wish for everyone to have the smooth transition I had. I think I simply decided, and that was that. No looking back, no regrets, no nothing. I just wiped my slate clean. Good luck. The bottom line is if you think you might be an alcoholic, you are one.
If it's not hurting you in your day to day life, IMO it's not really a problem. I drink, probably too much, but I'm not an alcoholic, rather because I'm self-medicating for insomnia. I've tried various pharma drugs for it, but their effectiveness is only so-so. I don't crave alcohol. I don't need alcohol. I can, and have, and do go days, weeks without a drop. But my brain goes on hyperdrive the minute my head hits the pillow so I end up staring at the ceiling until 3AM most nights. Part of that is my natural biorhythms, I think if I didn't have outside time commitments, I'd probably stay up until 5 or 6AM and sleep until early afternoon, but that's not not practical.
I suggest you look at the alcohol problem as a symptom caused by repressed hostility towards those you relate to on a daily basis.
I know about the apologies! I would lay in bed on Sunday and list those that I HAD to call. Lol. Yep hard liquor, but I and my best bud (on the weekends) would add Moonshine*, pot, zan-mans (Xanax) or Valium to the mix, knowing full well that we would either wind up in Jail the hospital and most likely bend the car. If we didn't wind up in jail (fighting) or any of the above we fell into a great depression, considering our weekend a failure. I just thank God we didn't hurt anyone except for our STUPID selves. *We consider real moonshine different from ordinary liquor. Around here it was called mountain LSD. As I said at first I would binge drink then quit, but that was when I was underage. However, as the years passed I became unable to just have a six pack, or so many at the bar, or make it home at eleven, even though I promised any one of my three wives over the years I would. I wasn't used to being a liar but the alcohol and later drugs sure made me one, to myself and my friends ! If it had not been for first, seeing many of my childhood friends die from OD or car accidents, then second the NDE (where I had a one of those talks with what I understood to be God) then religion (yes I fell off the wagon briefly many times) I would still be drinking and drugging today. I can say that its been since 1999 that I have had a mind altering substance for recreation. You may be one of the few that can drink socially and not have your tolerance etc creep up on ya'. I pray that is true, I wouldn't want anyone to go through what I and millions of other have and will. Good luck my friend~ reva
I too tried AA and NA and although it has 'saved' probably millions of people, I just did not fit in. Probably because I would make a good hermit! I like my dog and my friends I can count on one hand but even they (save for the dog) are too much at times. Anyway you are right about a higher power. My girl keep me in line too. I just did not want to disappoint her. It worked for me, her for the 'light work' and God for the heavy lifting.... More than a decade has passed, and I am still sober. reva
Reading over the responses it's not that difficult to get a sense of what does or does not work; but you have to bear in mind that to a certain extent your recovery path and maintenance process depend on your personal philosophy toward life and the nature of your pattern of coping habits in regard to other issues. I'm not being deliberately obfuscating about this. It's just that it can be as simple or as complex as the nature of the individual him or her self. A common theme is that while through the exercise of sheer will power many people can quit cold-turkey it is much more difficult than that to remain 'on the wagon' in regards to alcohol and other substances of self-abuse over the long haul. Many people use programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous and its related substance-abuse program Narcotics Anonymous. Others find instead (or as an adjunct to those programs) that getting deeply involved in religion works best for them. But one thing all agree on is that you are never cured. Yes it is absolutely true that after years and even decades of alcohol or substance abstinence you really can fall right off that wagon with a sip or a puff or snort or whatever. So once an alcoholic or chronic drug user, always a potential alcoholic or chronic drug user. Believe that if nothing else. A final point, becoming perpetually sober or drug usage free does not in any way whatsoever equate to a state of happiness for most former partakers or users. Happiness is an entirely different issue that is attained (if it ever is) by other means that can involve a methodical and cold-hearted self-assessment process followed by the self-enforced habit of altering lifestyle patterns of action and of thought that cause chronic unhappiness or it can instead involve becoming deeply and permanently involved in a outside project or projects that essentially consumes one's ongoing interest. Or in other words you can succeed in becoming permanently sober or drug free and still be an utterly miserable person from an ongoing emotional standpoint. Ironically being otherwise could involve drugs-sourced treatments.
Include me out. As far as I'm concerned it's a big fat lie disseminated by people who need to be needed at least as much as alcoholics need booze. You might just as well say it's an unforgivable sin, for crying out loud.
3 days 100 % sober.... longest stretch I can remember. Decided to go cold turkey and quit everything.
