So, I'm back after several months away and reading my old posts here and my old journals from over the last almost a year of off-on drinking - more ON than OFF to be honest, with only a couple of serious and relatively short-lived (and in hindsight half-arsed) attempts to quit.
And, while I stuck my head in the sand the last few months after the last failed attempt and just drank like 'normal' - that is to say, alcoholically but still 'functionally' - obviously the fact I'm back means I still know I need to kick this.
BUT I just can't seem to wrap my head around quitting for good. I can focus on going the month of April but... My current exit strategy thinking is that I am going to Thailand for a month, where I will be visiting some dear old friends, married, who are both heavy drinkers (she, a very long-term friend, is clearly, to me, a high functioning alcoholic; she even refers to herself jokingly repeatedly as an alcoholic but also got very defensive when another friend worryingly suggested she had a drinking problem) ... I'll also be going for a resort weekend with people I don't know well where clearly drinking will feature heavily. There will be so many situations that will be tempting I just can't imagine I won't drink but is that just my addicted brain playing tricks on me and giving me an out before I've even begun??
(And yes, this plan was made before I decided - again - I needed to quit.)
I was hoping someone else could give me a lightbulb moment about all this but even typing it out is helping me think anew about it. I am coming up to a year since my last cigarette (whoo HOO) - a HUGE deal for me as an ex 20+ years heavy smoker. I likewise spent almost a year 'trying' to quit and during that year there were always many good 'reasons' to put off quitting... that party, that holiday, that weekend away, that stressful patch... I still can't say what finally snapped in me that I knew I just had to Not. Smoke. Again. Ever. But something finally did. I just got soooo tired of it finally. And here I am a year later SO happy I don't smoke and SO not tempted to, yet still so aware I must never take one again least I go right back to a pack a day. It hasn't occurred to me that being in Thailand will make me want to smoke - one of my friends there also smokes - and I'm 100% sure it won't no matter who the hell is smoking all around me.
How can I help push myself to this point with drinking? I don't believe in waiting for a 'rock bottom'. Can I? Or do I just need to reach my own breaking point?
Any advice anyone?
And thanks for listening if you've read this far.
Lilly
And, while I stuck my head in the sand the last few months after the last failed attempt and just drank like 'normal' - that is to say, alcoholically but still 'functionally' - obviously the fact I'm back means I still know I need to kick this.
BUT I just can't seem to wrap my head around quitting for good. I can focus on going the month of April but... My current exit strategy thinking is that I am going to Thailand for a month, where I will be visiting some dear old friends, married, who are both heavy drinkers (she, a very long-term friend, is clearly, to me, a high functioning alcoholic; she even refers to herself jokingly repeatedly as an alcoholic but also got very defensive when another friend worryingly suggested she had a drinking problem) ... I'll also be going for a resort weekend with people I don't know well where clearly drinking will feature heavily. There will be so many situations that will be tempting I just can't imagine I won't drink but is that just my addicted brain playing tricks on me and giving me an out before I've even begun??
(And yes, this plan was made before I decided - again - I needed to quit.)
I was hoping someone else could give me a lightbulb moment about all this but even typing it out is helping me think anew about it. I am coming up to a year since my last cigarette (whoo HOO) - a HUGE deal for me as an ex 20+ years heavy smoker. I likewise spent almost a year 'trying' to quit and during that year there were always many good 'reasons' to put off quitting... that party, that holiday, that weekend away, that stressful patch... I still can't say what finally snapped in me that I knew I just had to Not. Smoke. Again. Ever. But something finally did. I just got soooo tired of it finally. And here I am a year later SO happy I don't smoke and SO not tempted to, yet still so aware I must never take one again least I go right back to a pack a day. It hasn't occurred to me that being in Thailand will make me want to smoke - one of my friends there also smokes - and I'm 100% sure it won't no matter who the hell is smoking all around me.
How can I help push myself to this point with drinking? I don't believe in waiting for a 'rock bottom'. Can I? Or do I just need to reach my own breaking point?
Any advice anyone?
And thanks for listening if you've read this far.
Lilly
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