Tell me the steps to get free....please

[Lion]

Tell me the steps to get free....please

yes, uk some withdrawls...but hard to tell that from anxiety. i listened hard to all tho posts and it ringts true to me.....pray please. usual is 1/4 pint plust 2 beers but tonight was 1/4 pint, plus a wine box i think 1/2 liter plust one beer, just so tired, not evern really drunk, just really tired.
i think sheri is right, it rimgs true, the al voice is at me and i listen to the wrong voice lately....jeez this sucks really bad. tomorrow i will begin anew an try to listen to ME and not the al voice now that i can hear it

[redredwine]

Tell me the steps to get free....please

Everyone hears voices in their head, even sub consciously. It doesn't mean they are right or that you have to listen to them. In many respects they represent an internal debate.

Say you have to give a public speech and, while you have done it before a few times, the last one didn't go as well as you thought it should. You will get voices (perhaps trying to discourage you from making a fool of yourself by cancelling it) saying, "you're going to drop your notes, loose your place, loose your voice, no one is going to laugh at the funnies," and so on.

In order to deliver a successful speech you need to ignore the negative voice in your head and produce a new one saying positive things "It is going to be a great success, people are going to love it, you are going to be confident, you don't need notes!" and so on.

Now if any of this rings true to you about a normal business event, can you see how it can be translated to avoiding alcohol? The negative voices saying "you are going to fail, that life sucks without booze" and so on need to be replaced with positive mantras - included in this and many threads on MYO Forums. Check out the toolbox

And best of luck. I am new here and only learning this myself. It helps me get it into my head, repeating what I have learnt from others, with a little common sense of my own ;-)

[Shikakai]

Tell me the steps to get free....please

Sheri;858109 wrote: Hi Lion,

If you are truly only drinking 1/4 of a pint of vodka (about 4 drinks) plus 2 beers, your withdrawal symptoms should not be too severe. The Ativan will help with any symptoms that you do experience, but you should definitely not be taking it while you are continuing to drink. As noted in the following article (Alcohol and Ativan), mixing the two may slow both the heart and breathing, which can cause you to pass out, have difficulty breathing, or even lead to death, and that?s what I would be most concerned about if I were you.

The only way that I know to break free from the alcohol addiction is to never take one sip of alcohol?nada, zippo, zilch?no ifs, ands, or buts! I don?t feel sorry for myself because I can?t drink, just grateful that I?m finally free, because I know how horrible my life got when I was drinking, and I never want to go back there again. I also don?t allow myself to glamorize alcohol by telling myself, ?how nice it would be to sit and relax with a glass of whatever,? because that?s just a load of BS! While that might be nice for some, that?s not how it is for me. My reality is that I wind up drinking 10, feeling really crappy about myself in every imaginable way, and want 10 more the next day to get rid of that crappy feeling, only to feel really crappy again. Let?s face it, none of us wind up here because of how glamorous our drinking was, we?re here because it was ruining our lives and will continue to do so if we don?t stop.

The bottom line is that we simply cannot quit unless and until we get honest with ourselves and are willing to do whatever it?s going to take to not drink. Shutting down my junkie thinking was by far my biggest challenge, but it had to be done, otherwise I?d still be drinking today, no doubt about it! We have to be ready, willing and able to counter attack at all times of the day and night and that can?t possibly be done while we?re still drinking, because when we're drinking, that's all we want to do. We all know that drinking is a vicious cycle (circle): we drink, we feel lousy, we drink, we beat ourselves up, we drink again, and so on, and the more we drink, the more we want to drink. Well, lucky for us, it's the same with getting sober: we don?t drink, we feel better, we don?t drink, we?re proud of ourselves, and so on, and the more we don?t drink, the more we don?t want to drink.

How do you get there? You get there by not drinking and telling yourself:

I AM A NON-DRINKER NOW (not a lush)
I CAN STOP DRINKING (I do not need to drink to get through a day, feeling, whatever)
ALCOHOL IS POISON (the way I drink, it is)
ALCOHOL WILL KILL ME (my liver, heart and every organ of my body tells me so)
I DON?T NEED ALCOHOL (it?s a lie to tell myself I do)
I HATE ALCOHOL (and have a history of good reasons to remind me why)
ALCOHOL MAKES ME SICK (it does not make me feel healthy or better about myself)
ALCOHOL DOES NOT MAKE ME CONFIDENT (it makes me sound and look like a drunk)
ALCOHOL DOES NOT RELAX ME (it fills me with anxiety and gives me panic attacks)
ALCOHOL DOES NOT MAKE ME HAPPY (it makes me depressed and miserable)
ALCOHOL DOES NOT HELP ME SLEEP (it makes me pass out and wake up with all kinds of problems)
ALCOHOL DOES NOT HELP ME MANAGE MY RESPONSIBILITIES (it makes my life unmanageable)
I WILL NEVER BE A NORMAL DRINKER (and no amount of wishing or hoping will make it happen)

That?s how I got myself sober and keep myself sober today. You can break free, too, Lion, you really can.

Sheri

Thank you, Sheri...