Hi there everyone. I just joined a couple of days ago, and I think this forum is great. I still have not explored the entire place, but I'm amazed at how RJ's program has things that I discovered on my own over a 30 year struggle.
I have used many, many things singly or in small combinations. The most I ever went alcohol free before now, was in the early '90's. I think I went almost 4 months that time. In addition, I was a heavy cigarette smoker, and just starting on a real nasty taste for hydrocodone, or Vicodin (the "House M.D." drug of choice.) I was probably just a couple of years from death due to an overdose, accident, or illness, when I decided to really... really do something.
So it will be nine months next week alcohol, tobacco, and painkiller free. I use a combination of things. Most important is exercise, nutrition, and meditative elements in a comprehensive program. I don't use, and did not use prescription drugs for my abstinence. I have had Prozac, Valium, and Xanax fed to me by doctors at one point or another in the past, and I didn't want those substances in me either. It was just a personal preference of mine, but I realize that prescriptions may be of value for others.
I felt the need to join here at the nine month point, due to a "rough patch" of emotional instability I was going through. I'm happy to say, that just posting here about my experience has already made a difference. The support and admiration I've gotten from a few members has been a real uplifting experience. This is new to me. My old drinking friends and buddies (the only friends I've had for over 20 years), would rather I rejoin them in their age old habits. I cannot do that.
I do have a email "pen-pal" as it were. Its a very nice lady, a few years younger than myself (I'm 50), who lives far away. She has given me little support, but she says she has maybe drank alcohol threee or four times in her entire life, and then only maybe one glass of wine. So she could not relate to someone who got often times falling down drunk, and at least to the point of blackout memory loss weekly.
She did however relate to me something that sort of blew my mind. I told her of my recent rough patch, and how I felt a terrible uneasiness and sensitivity the last few days. It was not the usual urge to drink, or jitters, or withdrawal. It was, and is completely psychological. Nine months after the quit date!! I was wondering what the heck was going on!
She came up with something that sort of blew my mind. I ceased all my self-medication nine months ago, and began my comprehensive program. She said something very simple. "It takes nine months from conception to birth for humans. Maybe you are going through a new birth pain of a sort."
The more I think about it, the more it seems to be a psychological reality. I really am re-born in a way.
I have decided to post a small series of threads in the holistic healing section of this forum, over the next months. I will go over in detail some of the specifics of how I did what I did. It is my sincere hope, that some of those things will help the others here that suffer. My first will be on "Brains Waves and Booze".
I hope to write a good essay on my exercise program as well. It is so very important, and I read that RJ feels that it does not get the emphasis and expansion it truly needs. It is my intention to help with that motivation, because it's hard to trade one physical discomfort for another. I have found that workout burns are far less unpleasant than black depression hangovers.
Thanks again to all those that wrote such very good words to me. It really means a lot.
I have used many, many things singly or in small combinations. The most I ever went alcohol free before now, was in the early '90's. I think I went almost 4 months that time. In addition, I was a heavy cigarette smoker, and just starting on a real nasty taste for hydrocodone, or Vicodin (the "House M.D." drug of choice.) I was probably just a couple of years from death due to an overdose, accident, or illness, when I decided to really... really do something.
So it will be nine months next week alcohol, tobacco, and painkiller free. I use a combination of things. Most important is exercise, nutrition, and meditative elements in a comprehensive program. I don't use, and did not use prescription drugs for my abstinence. I have had Prozac, Valium, and Xanax fed to me by doctors at one point or another in the past, and I didn't want those substances in me either. It was just a personal preference of mine, but I realize that prescriptions may be of value for others.
I felt the need to join here at the nine month point, due to a "rough patch" of emotional instability I was going through. I'm happy to say, that just posting here about my experience has already made a difference. The support and admiration I've gotten from a few members has been a real uplifting experience. This is new to me. My old drinking friends and buddies (the only friends I've had for over 20 years), would rather I rejoin them in their age old habits. I cannot do that.
I do have a email "pen-pal" as it were. Its a very nice lady, a few years younger than myself (I'm 50), who lives far away. She has given me little support, but she says she has maybe drank alcohol threee or four times in her entire life, and then only maybe one glass of wine. So she could not relate to someone who got often times falling down drunk, and at least to the point of blackout memory loss weekly.
She did however relate to me something that sort of blew my mind. I told her of my recent rough patch, and how I felt a terrible uneasiness and sensitivity the last few days. It was not the usual urge to drink, or jitters, or withdrawal. It was, and is completely psychological. Nine months after the quit date!! I was wondering what the heck was going on!
She came up with something that sort of blew my mind. I ceased all my self-medication nine months ago, and began my comprehensive program. She said something very simple. "It takes nine months from conception to birth for humans. Maybe you are going through a new birth pain of a sort."
The more I think about it, the more it seems to be a psychological reality. I really am re-born in a way.
I have decided to post a small series of threads in the holistic healing section of this forum, over the next months. I will go over in detail some of the specifics of how I did what I did. It is my sincere hope, that some of those things will help the others here that suffer. My first will be on "Brains Waves and Booze".
I hope to write a good essay on my exercise program as well. It is so very important, and I read that RJ feels that it does not get the emphasis and expansion it truly needs. It is my intention to help with that motivation, because it's hard to trade one physical discomfort for another. I have found that workout burns are far less unpleasant than black depression hangovers.
Thanks again to all those that wrote such very good words to me. It really means a lot.
)
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