Wednesday, 9 May 2018
Patched Drinking Is No Adventure And Sobriety Isn't Boring Quotes
Sobriety isn't boring. It's drinking that's boring. We were always just too drunk to notice. I'm still early on in my journey but I'm feeling really confident and solid in my decision not to drink. Once You Make the Decision to Stop Drinking, the Changes to Your Body and Mind Are Incredible, Say the Alcohol Addiction Experts at Summit Behavioral Health UNION, NJ / ACCESSWIRE / April 8, 2017. I'll take 'Boring Sobriety' over Addiction Autopilot any day of the week. At least my honest desires and interests are involved in this monotony. I knew I had to quit drinking to hold on to my career, my marriage, and all the other big stuff. What I discovered is that I had to quit drinking to find myself again. It’s crazy how lonely the early stages of sobriety can really feel. “Sobriety” it honestly feels funny even just saying that word. I almost feel that should be a word that is saved for someone that has at least 90 days under the belt but that is a whole other issue I could write a blog on.
Patched Drinking Is No Adventure And Sobriety Isn't Boring Meme
98 days sober.
Not quite the 100 day milestone, but close enough for me to start writing about it. I know that starting to write from day 98 isn’t the natural thing to do but writing about my sober journey is something that I have wanted to do since the beginning, but fear of failure put me off. I have read other blogs about people quitting drinking, and related to a lot of their feelings and thought processes, and I too wanted to put mine out there – regardless of whether or not it gets a read.
I’m not even sure where to start, my background and history? Im a 27-year-old guy who has a drink problem. I don’t want to make this overly negative so it will be hard to document everything that has happened in my drinking career. I have had relationship troubles, got into trouble at work, lost the trust of my family and lost a million iPhones. All for what, a few hours of a pissed up daze. I would probably class myself as a functioning problem drinker. I work full-time and own my house and car, I have a partner and a dog. Does this make me any different to anybody else who is addicted to alcohol? No. Everybody who is not able to stop drinking once they start, are all suffering the effects of alcoholism in the same way. It can be a sad, miserable and lonely place.
I started drinking socially when I was 16 after school on a Friday night with friends, it was new and exciting for me. I had this newfound confidence I never knew I had. Then at college, new friends and new freedom. Fast forward 10 years and I’m alone on a Saturday night in my house with two bottles of Shiraz and the remainder of the vodka bottle from the night before. Gone are the times when it was fun and exciting, it became a necessary routine which I struggled to get out of. During the week I would get home from work and the first thing I would do is pour a glass of wine, and rarely left anything in the bottle. I used to go to the local pub while my partner was at work, dishonest about the time I left the house, to make it seem as though id just ‘popped out for a couple’. He wasn’t silly enough to actually believe that I had just had the couple. That is probably the worst factor about living with alcoholism, the deceit and dishonesty. The sly trips to the pub, the bottle of wine that you buy and drink and bury in the recycle bin, the half empty vodka bottle that you hide at the back of the cupboard under the sink. Only people with a problem would hide their evidence, this should have been a massive warning sign for me.
As I approach my first 100 days sober, I begin to think about the previous attempts and how much stronger I feel this time around. My first attempt a few years back lasted 10 weeks. My second attempt last year lasted 8 weeks. Third time lucky serious. It is important to remind ourselves of two things;
number 1 – the reasons why we are giving up alcohol
number 2 – the consequences if we don’t
The past 98 days have already been an adventure, sobriety doesn’t have to be boring. Without alcohol I have felt happier, more ambitious, guilt free and without the depressing hangovers.
Patched Drinking Is No Adventure And Sobriety Isn't Boring Quote
I’ll post more on day 100. Thank you so much for being here with me.
Happy sobriety!
Patched Drinking Is No Adventure And Sobriety Isn't Boring Book
I swear nothing has made me happier than motherhood, but God forgive me, I find parenting after work between 5 and 9 P.M. a Sisyphean hell—picking Play-Doh out of the carpet; putting Polly Pocket clothes in one bin, shoes in another; coaxing my daughter into the tub; apologizing for the soap in her eyes and snagging knots in her hair; making dinner and lunch for the next day; folding laundry; strongly suggesting table manners; cleaning up dinner and more toys; and finally reading stories about lizards and princesses and talking cars. What can I say? It's a lot easier with a little buzz going.
Dr. Kosanke has me do a cost-benefit analysis about my alcohol consumption. I rate how drinking affects my relationships, job, health, and finances. I discover that, for me, the benefits of alcohol consumption slightly outweigh the costs. Wine worked. If it hadn't, as Dr. Kosanke pointed out, I would not have kept using it. The list showed me wine makes me a calmer, if hazier parent; and it's not very expensive since I like only cheap Chardonnay. On the downside, my sleep is totally disrupted, and my husband is worried because I've begun drinking every day. (Also, I am really bloated.)
'So, um, do you think the fact that it sort of works means I should keep drinking?' I ask.
'I think that you need to find other ways to get the benefits you get from alcohol,' says Dr. Kosanke.
The Center for Motivation and Change is a freesia-scented, tastefully decorated place on New York's Fifth Avenue and 30th Street. It is staffed by bizarrely good-looking psychologists who offer a spa-like menu of services, such as a 'mindfulness immersion day' (yoga, breathing, and meditation exercises), a two-week 'readiness for change' evaluation (to see if you really want to give up your habit), and a 'tracking program' (a way to assess how using drugs or alcohol is affecting your life). Inside its East-West/postmodern chicness, though, one of the center's philosophies is the extremely basic 33-year-old community reinforcement approach (CRA).
Taught by psychologist Robert J. Meyers, PhD, research associate professor of psychology at the University of New Mexico, CRA works on the principle that the most effective way to get people to reduce their substance abuse is to make sobriety more rewarding than addiction. 'Some people drink because their personal relationships are terrible,' says Dr. Meyers, who is the coauthor of Get Your Loved One Sober: Alternatives to Nagging, Pleading, and Threatening. 'Others drink because their work is meaningless. Some are depressed. Some are anxious. Some are just bored. A few are burdened with a genetic predisposition for alcoholism. Many drink for an amalgam of all those reasons. But if you ask a person what they want out of life and help them start to achieve it, they're more likely to reduce their drinking than if you just tell them to stop drinking.'
CRA has been lauded by the Journal of Studies on Alcohol as among the most cost-effective alcohol treatment programs and has been shown, in studies funded by the National Institutes of Health, more effective than traditional interventions. For instance, in one 2001 University of New Mexico study, alcoholics were randomly assigned to a CRA program or a 12-step treatment program. Over a six-month follow-up period, the CRA participants averaged 3 percent of drinking days, and those in traditional treatment averaged 19 percent of drinking days. In an earlier in-patient study, the CRA participants averaged only 5 percent of days unemployed, but the hospital's Alcohol Anonymous participants averaged 62 percent.