Dry January

[Tabbers (a.k.a. KTAB)]

Re: Dry January

Hey RC, great idea to start your own thread. I did it last year and it really helped me to just put everything down on paper, as it were, for me to be able to read back on the days when doubts crept in, it helped keep my head on straight. You can do this.

[RunningCourage]

Re: Dry January

Day 4...

Thank you all for popping and saying hi. Your tuppence worths are more than appreciated.
[MENTION=7261]Guitarista[/MENTION] said this: Remember, the fact you are back on this site on the wagon again must send a message to the subconscious mind.......'i give a fk about me' . This resonates for some reason. For, just as I recognised my mind thinking about the taste of the first sup of a cold beer I similarly began thinking, well, what's wrong with that? And, in itself, there is nothing wrong with it... Only, my sense, just now, is that I can't have one without seeing that as a (not necessarily conscious) reason to drink on any night of the week - even if it is "just one" - or to having "a bit of blow out" on a Saturday night. (With myself and netflix for company.) (And the cat.)

For me "can't have one" doesn't necessarily mean I can't have just have one and stop. No, it's more that the "just one drink" would potentially become a key to a door that allows AL to be there daily. It was through December - sure, it may have only been one drink i had on any given day, yet sometimes maybe it was 5 or 6 or 7 - and though I may have done this first week back at school AF with the promise to be a more measured drinker thereafter, I wonder whether this would become simply a slow incrimination of alcohol consumed over time, so that in the future - months, maybe years away - it would evolve into a potentially debilitating lifestyle.

And even if it did not - that my consumption remained where it has been these past few months - sometimes a few days off, sometimes a routine of a beer before bed, more often than not hungover over the weekends - that my body would actually tire of it (if it's not already a wee bit wappit), and my mind a little blunted, not ever being as sharp as it could be. And If I am given the choice of not drinking or life... then there seems to be a no brainer of an answer. Which means: if I prefer life, if I give a fk about life and my experience of it, my place in it, my learning about it, I need to keep this to the forefront of my mind, before anything else.

Harder said than done. But Mr G's quote has got me thinking and that's good.

[Seeker1]

Re: Dry January

Hope all is going well RunningCourage. Know we support you! I'm on day 25 and as you know, it gets better every day.

[RunningCourage]

Re: Dry January

Dry January becomes Dry February, perhaps. Well, here he is, on Day 29 (mind I started January 7 days late!). Day 30 beckons. One day at a time and all that.

I have been thinking. For the truth is, after 4 weeks sober, there is something amiss. Not the drink as such, but something that I am beginning to think the drink nicely shrouded that I should not feel, or deal, with this... well, feeling. I mused to myself yesterday whether stopping drinking (all here believe that to be a very good thing, right?!) might actually exacerbate mental health issues, or dislocate (further) one's sense of wellbeing. Of course, a see a room of hands shoot up ready to tell me drink can hide reality and any feeling someone has when they stop drinking, be it positive or negative, is simply that which had been hidden under the shroud of a warm inebriation. I understand that.

I have never said this to anyone, but while on a long run across a wee part of the beautiful West Highland Way, two words came to my mind.

Open up.

Now, these are two words, or a wee phrase that can have all sorts of connotations/meanings/uses which I don't need to go into. And I thought, as I did when I quit back in 2012, that in giving up the booze perhaps I will be able to better Open up in certain/various areas/aspects of my life. Yet, all I have felt is that I have actually shut down a bit!

Perhaps it is a time thing. Perhaps I see how I feel/where I am come March. Fine. Yet at times it feels as if sobriety is another battle - the battle to get through a night out with colleagues, someone's birthday, an event, a relaxing dinner with family... all of which entail wine and beer... and so this can take precedence in my mind, when perhaps there is other matters that, perhaps, are more urgent, or are more deep-seated that need to be battled/tackled/opened up.

I sense that my turning to a single can or bottle of beer each night (and the Saturday night binge) was not just them endorphins celebrating the end of the day, but also avoidance of stark reality. That is, the moment in the day when there is nothing else to do but begin to realise the reality you exist in. Sobriety allows you to see this, and, with courage, energy, will, to change it, if that is possible. Or at least to come to terms with it, in due course. Drinking hid it. Or if it revealed it (for drink disinhibits) that, for me, what it revealed would as quickly be put back in a box, snuck under the bed and "forgotten" about.

I fear there are too many areas in my life that need addressing, that I just focus on the daily habits i've formed: run, eat, work, eat, read, eat, netflix, sleep! That, simply I am not motivated, or are too tired, or are too wrought up about changing that it's easier just to imagine change, maybe even plan it, but never ever execute it.

Apologies. Not sure quite what I am getting at. A ramble as ever. Just that something doesn't feel quite right.

[Byrdlady]

Re: Dry January

RC, it is GROWTH. Consider it growing pains. Time helps us adjust to our new normal. Please hang in, I promise, it’s worth it! Byrdie

[NoSugar]

Re: Dry January

Open up

Maybe that is what you want and need to do - here, to a friend or counselor, or even in a love letter to yourself. I hope you find some of the peace we're all looking for, [MENTION=18049]RunningCourage[/MENTION].