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    Revelation?

    When I was teaching I did a lot of work with an education psychologist in using his new way of helping all students (and teachers) to overcome subconscious blockages to learning. Rather like the theory here behind retraining your brain via hypnosis, this relied on bringing subconscious, prior but incorrect learning, to the conscious level and then getting the students to consciously, cognitively learn the new and correct way.

    OK - with me so far? Anyway, I asked him a long time ago, could I use this method to give up smoking and when he said yes, I said how would I start. He said "you first have to identify why smoking is good for you". And do you know, I have only just realised, at a deeper level, how important that is?

    So for a while I have been trying the same thing with drinking. Why is drinking "good for me"?.. I had a list of - relieves my boredom/stress/anxieties - or takes them away out of my consciousness. To get rid of a hangover more lately. Allows me to be uninhibited enough to meet new people/dance whatever. All the lists you people could do too, right? But that list was missing something.

    Anyway - about a month ago I wrote myself a short story which I called 'slow motion suicide' (though someone told me that name is already taken, drat). It was about a woman (me) who wanted to die or rather, didn't necessarily see why she should live, so she stopped taking care of herself. She drank excessively, continued to smoke, didn't exercise etc etc. She had no real reason to do this - a textbook perfect life, loving kids and husband, great friends, great opportunities. She just stopped or couldn't figure out why she needed to do these things. Not consciously - it was just there.

    Yesterday when I posted about my fear of escalators and stairs, I started to think of the other things that used to trigger my panic paralysis. I realised all of them were to do with situations where I could die. Like falling down the escalator, like driving, like choking.

    This seemed really irrational where on the one hand I am committing suicide and on the other get into a panic where it is possible I could die.

    So here is the revelation: I am scared of living! It is not that I don't want to live, I am scared that the end result of living is death. So ... I try to obliterate it. The real reason drinking is "good for me" is to help me wipe out a good section of my life.

    This fits in because I only started being a problem drinker about 7 years ago. What happened 7 years ago? I had three occasions where I was physically threatened by different parents of the students I was teaching and had time off work and counselling for that. Two of my nephews committed suicide, my mother started to show the signs of dementia, I seemed to be at the time in life where I attended funerals regularly. One best friend had her eventually fatal brain tumours reoccur. And ... my husband, the designated problem drinker in our family stopped drinking and smoking because his father, then mother died of complications brought about by both of these habits.

    It was 5 years ago I started to show signs of the panic disorder, though it took a year of medical tests to eventually determine what they were ... meanwhile I had started self-medicating with wine of an evening now leading me to this place - all with the total consent of my weirdo brain.

    I believe the reason I 'chose' alcohol rather than any other drug or method is due to the physiological predisposition towards it - which meant it worked for me. My dad and two siblings are problem drinkers too whereas my mum can't even stomach half a glass of sweet wine.

    OK - now I have to decide what to do with this revelation. I am thinking I need to incorporate it somehow in the hypnosis. I haven't done the hypnotic tape yet so I don't know if that is possible. Any suggestions gratefully received.

    #2
    Revelation?

    Revelation?

    Dear Wandering,

    WOW!:eek

    That is such an incredible thought, figuring out why alcohol or cigarettes are good for you. I never thought of it that way at all.

    I do not have an aswer to your question but I bet you could put that in a tape of your own making from off the CD's.

    I have both addictions and basically was doing very well on cutting back on alcohol last summer/fall. Then went to a hypnotherapist for not smoking. Did the tapes etc. Even had her put a subliminal phrase in there that when I quit, I would not need to pull up to the refrigerator or drink excessively. I was pretty faithful with the tapes and stopped smoking for about a month. At which point I realized I was drinking heavily every night and eating much more than I needed to. I am not overweight but my clothes were getting tight around my waist and it pissed me off. I was so out of control!

    So, I went back to smoking, then over the past few months added back in heavy drinking again. so I got on this program March 27th. I decided not to do the tapes because they were so time consuming on the smoking and I fell asleep all the time. Plus - I didn't feel they worked. I am smoking between 5-10 cigarettes a day.

    Since I started this program I went abs for 2 weeks and then to moderation. I am taking the supplements and of course, when I go overboard I have not bothered with the supps for a few days. I have gone overboard three times now in that month. Felt like hell the next day which my tolerance for alcohol has gone down so it doesn't take long to feel hungover and horrible.

    YES, there are alcoholics in my family. YES, I have trigger points and need to keep a close eye on them. While they are in my face, I have been able to keep my guard up and be OK. Then usually it has hit about 3 days later, I want to overdrink and allow myself to do this.

    I hear you, it is a suicide pact. When I first started drinking heavy about 10 years ago, I really didn't care if I lived or not. Now life is much better and I am in a habit. I think you are so bright to write the story. I am going to follow some of what you have done here and make the list.

    I really made the list in my head why smoking was bad for me - if I can understand why I find it good, then I may be able to tackle both of these issues much better.

    Thanks so much Wandering Wombat.

    I wish you luck in finding a way to add that to your tape!

    Hugs,
    Mary

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      #3
      Revelation?

      What wonderful insight you have wombat.........I do understand some of it as it applies to myself. My brother died about 16 yrs ago and I realised then I was terrified of death and started to drink excessivley (it was in the mindset of just bringing it on quicker to get it over with!). Alcohol is good for me (not because its stops the incessant chattering going on in my brain and the anxiety I feel when not drinking. I am doing COG therapy with my doctor along with campral. My first visit is in 1 hours time. I have also had panic attacks, 1 nasty one while driving on a freeway and I truly thought I was going to die! I found my panic attacks were worse when I drank wine and the spaced out & dizzy feeling the next day would lead me to the next attack. I know when I listened to the CD I balked at the stairs and visualised escalators instead because in my mind they are safer for me, needless to say I spent an aweful lot of time on escalators while listening to the CD:rollin
      Your revelation of being scared of living has given me alot to think about and I need to think deeply about that.
      Alcohol is my choice too because of a history of addictive personalitiies in my family.
      Actually you whole post has given me something to think about and I have relied because even though I have no answers for you........................you have helped me.
      Thanks,
      Love Shas

      Comment


        #4
        Revelation?

        Thanks you people - one thing you did do is make me realise I am not totally outta my mind and alone in this.

        Still haven't done the hypnosis tape yet ... I can't get a space here with the cd. Son is doing final exams so not at school, but I checked out some cheap cd players yesterday so am planning to go buy one today. Then I can lock the bedroom door and see where we go ...

        Tell you - one of the main reasons I want to go back to the type of drinker I used to be is to quit smoking. I saw that someone here on one of the posts seemed to have done the two at once? Smoking I would like to quit totally ... drinking I would be happy to be what I was - not being consumed by it.

        I wonder if within the moderation thread some of us smoker-drinkers can report on the smoking aspect as well? Or would that be uncool?

        Btw - there is a brilliant quit smoking site that also involves a lot of work digging out the subconscious. It is called cognitive quitting or something similar - do a google for it. Like this one, it requires work, but I just wasn't able to do that work due to the drinking. So ... I am now putting the horse in front of the cart instead of the other way round:

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