Day 6 - Why I am leaning against Moderation

[Tipplerette]

The days have gone by and it's now day six and I am heading towards a short term goal of 30 days. Boy the tea and cookies will be flying when I reach that milestone. I might even spring on loose tea from the Tea Emporium.

I always thought and dreamed that eventually I could just have a glass of wine on my wedding day (this March) or while on vacation or New Years Eve and have even entertained the idea of being a weekend drinker.

But from everything I have read here and knowing my personality, the more I think about it the more I don't think I will be moderating in the future for the following reasons:

1. Moderation seems to fail most of the time and people end up retrying to abstain thus the vicious cycle continues
2. I really enjoy the "presence" of not drinking. My sober self is having a lot of fun. Waking up in the morning completely alive is nothing to give up easily
3. Having already said that it's at least AS important for me to stop thinking about drinking than to actually stop drinking, to moderate would be defeating the purpose.
4. The long awaited weight loss has begun and I want to KEEP it off once it's gone
5. I want to be a good example to my children, grandchildren and impressionable young people who we associate with

No promises yet as I don't want to distract myself from my short term goal by adding a threatening long term goal but I am leaning towards continuing to be the Tea Totaling, fun loving, good example that I have become.

One thing I have decided is that when the "Screw it, I am having a drink!" cravings hit, I will wait until the next morning to decide. My resolve is always stronger in the morning and after putting in days and days of sobriety, I will not let a "Screw it" thought derail me.

No decision to drink was ever made first thing in the morning by evening drinkers in the history of alcoholism to my knowledge.

[Nelz]

Day 6 - Why I am leaning against Moderation

Tipplerette;1253354 wrote: The days have gone by and it's now day six and I am heading towards a short term goal of 30 days. Boy the tea and cookies will be flying when I reach that milestone. I might even spring on loose tea from the Tea Emporium.

I always thought and dreamed that eventually I could just have a glass of wine on my wedding day (this March) or while on vacation or New Years Eve and have even entertained the idea of being a weekend drinker.

But from everything I have read here and knowing my personality, the more I think about it the more I don't think I will be moderating in the future for the following reasons:

1. Moderation seems to fail most of the time and people end up retrying to abstain thus the vicious cycle continues
2. I really enjoy the "presence" of not drinking. My sober self is having a lot of fun. Waking up in the morning completely alive is nothing to give up easily
3. Having already said that it's at least AS important for me to stop thinking about drinking than to actually stop drinking, to moderate would be defeating the purpose.
4. The long awaited weight loss has begun and I want to KEEP it off once it's gone
5. I want to be a good example to my children, grandchildren and impressionable young people who we associate with

No promises yet as I don't want to distract myself from my short term goal by adding a threatening long term goal but I am leaning towards continuing to be the Tea Totaling, fun loving, good example that I have become.

One thing I have decided is that when the "Screw it, I am having a drink!" cravings hit, I will wait until the next morning to decide. My resolve is always stronger in the morning and after putting in days and days of sobriety, I will not let a "Screw it" thought derail me.

No decision to drink was ever made first thing in the morning by evening drinkers in the history of alcoholism to my knowledge.

I have to be honest.....the losing weight thing is a tremendous perk......once you see it going away, and the scale dropping, its just that much more motivation to stop AL. Its "almost" like that magic weight loss pill people always tout on late night infomercialls......LOL

[Tipplerette]

Day 6 - Why I am leaning against Moderation

Ya, you got that right. The muffin top is getting to be a muffin rim, soon to become a pretty little cupcake. LOL..

Wow 180 days, Nelz, you sure stuck by your alcohol free comittment. So glad for you.

[caper564]

Day 6 - Why I am leaning against Moderation

hi guys, I truly wish for moderation to be in my future but alas it is not. i am amlsot at a month and my drunk brain is still not able to convince me of this, so i must be winning the batle somewhat.

If I can dream it I can have it... and I dream of a lifetime of sobriety.

[K9Lover]

Day 6 - Why I am leaning against Moderation

Tips -
I've been having thoughts of moderation lately too. Thinking that it would be okay if I "only" drink on Friday night. That wouldn't be so bad, would it? But then my REAL brain tells me exactly where that would lead. Plus, drinking beer will turn my muffin top into a five layer cake. LOL

Drinking one day a week would become a struggle for me...and why do that to myself? Right now I don't have to "control" it, I just don't do it. But damn, these thoughts get tiring don't they? Let's hang in there...

K9

[sunshinedaisies]

Day 6 - Why I am leaning against Moderation

There is no way that I could mod - I know that from the last time I quit. For 8 months!! I started again thinking I would mod and shortly after that was right back at the very beginning. This time I KNOW that modding is NOT an option for me. Ever. I know that for this to work for me, my mindset had to change from being a drinker trying to quit, to being a non drinker. And that is what I am doing. I do not drink. Period. Hang in there everyone.

Hugs, Sun X

[Tipplerette]

Day 6 - Why I am leaning against Moderation

I second the motion.

[GingerDust]

Day 6 - Why I am leaning against Moderation

Hey, Tip. As you know, I'm a member of Tip fan club, and this subject is near and dear to my heart. The problem with moderation is that alcohol still has me. I still think about it a lot! I think about drinking. I think about not drinking. I think about how much I am drinking, when and why. This is not freedom from alcohol.

I wrote this in the meds forum, where it was totally ignored, probably because most of those folks only want to moderate. I'm just going to copy/paste, and the topic is antabuse, which makes drinking impossible and people in meds say that when drinking is impossible, you just stop thinking about it. Anyway, for whatever it's worth, the study I mentioned showed that the longer you completely abstain, the better your chances for staying abstinent forever. One important reason is because your whole thought process changes. Here's what I wrote in meds:

I read an interesting article about the long-term use of anatabuse. The success rates they talked about in the article is AFTER a person has gone off of antabuse, and the long-term the success rates out do anything I’ve seen. It was a 9-year study.

The article said that people who stopped taking antabuse after 20+ months enjoyed a higher-rate of abstinence, even compared with people who took it for 13 to 19 months. The doctor attributed that to the psychological roles that antabuse plays. "These results support the theory that prolonged abstinence achieved with disulfiram automatically leads to the consolidation of the habit of abstinence. Practice makes perfect.”

I thought it was interesting because the use of “habit” applies to both the physical activity of drinking and also the thinking about drinking. The internal dialog about drinking – whether to, whether not to, how much – gets shut down cold with antabuse. It seems likely that over a long period of time, the habit of just not thinking about alcohol at all would become the norm.

In a nutshell, the longer a person is abstinent using antabuse, the greater their chances of remaining that way after stopping use of it. In the study, the patients who stayed on it 20+ months enjoyed a 50% success rate after going off it. That is awesome to me because they are not talking about people who were helped, people who showed improvement, etc. – 50% of them remained AF, TOTALLY! And the longer you stay on it, the more likely you are to never drink again! That had a dramatic impact on me. All of the power to be free of alcohol forever is mine.

[GingerDust]

Day 6 - Why I am leaning against Moderation

As an aside, I had a friend once who was recovering from heroin addiction. She was doing really well last we talked. If she had said to me that she had only used twice last month, and that she thought she might be able to safely use every now and then, for social occasions, etc., I would have been terrified for her.

Sometimes I think that our beast (alcohol) is a bigger monster than heroin because it's not only socially-accepted, it is socially-expected. It's advertised in neon signs and held up as "a good thing," even in healthy ventures,. like sports. Think of all the attention paid to Super Bowl commercials, as if the beer commercials were the coolest new fashion lines coming out. It's crazy! Would our culture pay that much homage to anything, even to a cure for cancer?

To me, it sometimes feels like a swim in cold, turbulent waters. I'm right in the rough water and have to fashion my own life vest while keeping my head above water, because those on shore are throwing full beer cans at me.

[sunshine_gg]

Day 6 - Why I am leaning against Moderation

sunshinedaisies;1253415 wrote: There is no way that I could mod - I know that from the last time I quit. For 8 months!! I started again thinking I would mod and shortly after that was right back at the very beginning. This time I KNOW that modding is NOT an option for me. Ever. I know that for this to work for me, my mindset had to change from being a drinker trying to quit, to being a non drinker. And that is what I am doing. I do not drink. Period. Hang in there everyone.

Hugs, Sun X

Hah! I could have written that! I also had EIGHT MONTHS in the bag and thought I was 'over it' and could drink 'occasionally'. Uh-huh. Ended up almost exactly where I started out!

I'm also having trouble saying 'forever' and such things.. but at the same time, I'm now unwilling to waste any more time and effort on 'not drinking'.

Ginger, I only used AB for about a month... just to get me over the initial hump. I do, however keep it close by for when I feel vulnerable. If I was to go on a vacation, for example, I would start taking AB before I left. As a little insurance policy. While I respect the study and its findings, I personally refuse to take any drug (haha, except alcohol, of course) any longer than I absolutely have to.

One interesting thing I've noticed over the past couple of months... the thought of drinking a glass of wine actually repulses me. My better half has his glass(es) of wine every night... I really dislike the smell of it and have no desire whatsoever to put that to my lips. Thank heavens for small miracles, huh?

[Tipplerette]

Day 6 - Why I am leaning against Moderation

You two Sunshines, answer this one please. I get what you're saying about being sure that you can't moderate because you tried but when I get my 30 days under my belt or even more, I will not know whether I can moderate because I don't have your experience. I have never failed because I have never abstained for longer than 17 days. I want to believe that I can be different but do you honestly believe that someone can keep themselves from sliding back down that slippery slope?? Let me know what you think.

On another, yet related note, about an hour or two ago I actually decided I would drink. The conversation in my mind was the complete opposite of what I have been committing to lately. My alcohol brain took over my thought patterns and convinced me totally that I would be drinking wine soon; whenever the next opportunity came. Imagine how tricky that little bugger is... I went to the grocery store and did the unthinkable in my house. I bought a bag of black licorice, a large bar of 65% dark chocolate with nuts, a bag of trail mix that included yogurt covered raisins, a bag of jalapeno kettle chips and came home and had all of the above for lunch... a bit of each but a real treat for me the health food nut. I got on here for reinforcement and my alcohol brain has been locked away again.... who knows when he will make another unexpected appearance... I will be ready.

[sunshinedaisies]

Day 6 - Why I am leaning against Moderation

Tipps - I THOUGHT I could Mod - but until you have that first drink - well, even after that first one, I thought I could, but after a few days, I thought "Oh, what the heck, I KNOW I can stop anytime", and had another one. I just KNOW I cannot, in good conscience ever have another drink. I am not even going to entertain the idea - after all, I am now a NON DRINKER. End of story. All the best with whatever you decide.

Hugs, Sun

[sunshine_gg]

Day 6 - Why I am leaning against Moderation

I can only speak for myself, Tippy.
For me... all goes well for a few days, even a few weeks. And then, slowly, the 'occasions' become 'it was a good/bad day' or 'I deserve a little treat'.. or some such nonsense.

I have to say that ever since I came here and abstained for 10 days the first time, I have never got quite as bad as I was before I found MWO. I just really couldn't bullshit myself as well anymore.

But I'm fairly certain that I will never be able to moderate. I may still end up testing the waters again but deep down I know that there is no gain and much misery to be found. I was actually debating whether I should pop some Antabuse before this past weekend. Mr. Wonderful was away since Friday morning and historically, this would have been the perfect time to 'have a few' (bottles) without witnesses, etc. However, I didn't take the AB and really had no desire to drink, either.. so all is well.

[Tipplerette]

Day 6 - Why I am leaning against Moderation

sunshinedaisies;1253524 wrote: Tipps - I THOUGHT I could Mod - but until you have that first drink - well, even after that first one, I thought I could, but after a few days, I thought "Oh, what the heck, I KNOW I can stop anytime", and had another one. I just KNOW I cannot, in good conscience ever have another drink. I am not even going to entertain the idea - after all, I am now a NON DRINKER. End of story. All the best with whatever you decide.

Hugs, Sun

OK, that "I KNOW I can stop anytime" ruse would be my downfall. Wth my cocky personality I would spend the rest of my life bragging drunkenly about how once I didn't drink for a whole damn month so how the hell can I have a problem. Good point, thank you.

[Tipplerette]

Day 6 - Why I am leaning against Moderation

sunshine_gg;1253532 wrote: I can only speak for myself, Tippy.
For me... all goes well for a few days, even a few weeks. And then, slowly, the 'occasions' become 'it was a good/bad day' or 'I deserve a little treat'.. or some such nonsense.

I have to say that ever since I came here and abstained for 10 days the first time, I have never got quite as bad as I was before I found MWO. I just really couldn't bullshit myself as well anymore.

But I'm fairly certain that I will never be able to moderate. I may still end up testing the waters again but deep down I know that there is no gain and much misery to be found. I was actually debating whether I should pop some Antabuse before this past weekend. Mr. Wonderful was away since Friday morning and historically, this would have been the perfect time to 'have a few' (bottles) without witnesses, etc. However, I didn't take the AB and really had no desire to drink, either.. so all is well.

Hmm... interesting. I, too have slowly drank less and less since coming here. But the misery of trying to moderate even if one is successful; is it really worth it? I think not.

You must be in a great place to have hubby away and still not drink without AB. Don't know how well I would do in that same situation but I will soon find out as he is planning a few boys weekends away Quadding or whatever you call it).

Thanks for responding.