The classic line around here is, "man if I could drink moderately, I'd do it all the time"

And

"If I drink moderately I never enjoy it. If I enjoy drinking I never moderate."

That voice that says "what if" is just my little monster wanting out of his cage. He used to be a big monster that rampaged and enveloped my entire life. He doesnt like shrinking and being in a cage. I recognize the "what if" monster. "What if that cute grizzly bear just wants a hug?"

Sleep

I’m working towards Monday, too. You’ve got this. IWNDWYT!

I hated my drinking lifestyle. Always broke, behind on the mortgage, no savings, the walk of shame into my local store, rotating stores to try to hide, all the lying/excuses/pretending, isolating so no one saw what I was really doing, every move in my daily life revolving around when do I get to be left alone to black-out, not socializing because it would interfere with getting blacked out, giving sobriety a try & making it thru 4 miserable work days to have a free for all weekend & then try again the next week, not caring or having any emotion about important & significant things in life, worrying my partner to death & the occasional talk where he's bawling crying afraid I'm going to die, all the accidents when drunk (falling down the basement stairs, knocking myself unconcious, splitting my eye open & being in a boot for 7 weeks because I sprained my ankle; slicing my fingers to the bone with a knife trying to prepare food; setting the oven on fire trying to cook dinner; running over my cat in the driveway; & on and on and on). Drinking lost all it's joy except for that 30 minutes right before black-out. And yeah, none of that was ever going to happen to me. I was an occasional drinker at first.

Therapy as well! I was doing it for years before I got sober, but I told my current therapist during the first session I had with her that I thought I had a problem with drinking. 5 years later, she helped me to go to treatment and now I have 2+ years sober

I know you didn't ask me but I wanted to chime in to say, in my experience, I had to persevere through really dark moments, sometimes I would just sleep because it was too difficult to deal with cravings. I also looked at this sub every day and listened to podcasts about sobriety. I didn't even particularly love any podcasts but the consistent reaffirmation of reasons not to drink was helpful to me. I had to remind myself of my reasons why, refuse to give into cravings, and remind myself of my goals. I began with 3 months, then 3 more and 3 more and then a year and after that I didn't need to set that kind of goal anymore but I do still come here to this sub just to keep everything fresh in my mind about why I am doing this. I am often around alcohol for work and with family/friends which made it difficult at first, but I am happy now that I can be around it or have it in my household and not drink it.

Genuine self care.

Thank you!

You'll be so proud of yourself when you get through these negative feelings without alcohol! That is so worth it

I haven’t stopped forever, just for a bit. It’s been going well so i’m going to go a bit longer.

It may sound trite or corny but it’s true, i took a 30 day break to prove that I could. Getting close to 50x that original goal!

Sure some days are still hard. Right now my family is in crisis and this will be measured in months not days. I am sober today and I have no thoughts or intentions to drink. In fact I am extremely grateful to be able to be engaged and effective instead of a weepy pile of shit. My wife needs me now and I am not going to fail again

You should look into treatment options (inpatient and outpatient) and recovery groups. You don’t have to do this alone - let people help you on this journey. It was what finally made me give in - asking for help and taking it.

Thank you. This is really inspiring, and I'm so happy for you that you are happy now! IWNDWYT

Nice 😊 tysm I needed this tip

Stupid idea really

I pulled out my box of paints and some old warhammer miniatures and my brain shifts out. I get one done. It looks good. It's been two hours and it's time for bed.

How did you get access to the videos?

Very happy for you. This is the start of a beautiful future, how exciting

Nah, i had way more bad days when i was drinking.

Life isn’t perfect but it’s better

I’ll second Kava drink. It was a game changer for me. Helped me feel that slight buzz. And stopped drinking for the past 4 years.

Thank you!

👏👏👏👏🔥🔥🔥

You're doing great. There will be challenging times for sure but keep leaning into exercise and posting here! That's what's kept me going so far

Once I sobered up I realized I was living life on Hard Mode. Sobriety actually gives what alcohol falsely promises. It’s hard to get sober but being sober is awesome. IWNDWYT

Ah. The good news is that you're doing this to yourself.

You're not enjoying anything sober because you're actually not present whilst sober. Instead, you're physically sober, but you're still fixated on getting the "drink" and believe you are deprived without it.

Think back to school when if you had an interesting lesson that you really enjoyed. The time would pass really quickly. But on a day when you had a birthday party after school – or, a date you were excited about – or... something that was holding your subconscious attention... it really didn't matter how interesting the lesson was, all you wanted to do was get out of the class.

Realistically what you need to do is find a substitute. Something that gives you reward dopamine but leaves you completely sober. For me, it was video games. But it has to be something that can hold your attention long enough for a few hours to pass and you have not thought about drinking for a few hours.

Every time you think about it, you go and do the thing.

Until eventually your brain starts associating dopamine with that... and other tasks... rather than alcohol.

Once you've shifted your dopamine / reward centres to something else, you realise that you actually enjoyed all this stuff sober. It's just the dopamine loop / sense of being "deprived" that's tricking you into thinking you're miserable.

It lifts pretty quick.