Newbies Nest
Hi Mein,
Wow, it has to be really strange living in an unfamiliar country. I agree on what Roxy said about the "boys" and that's just how they are. They want to fix us! Ha! Good luck with that! If you ever need a sympathetic ear, come and post your thoughts and you'll get great feedback, if you want feedback, or just say "I need to vent." You can also pm me. I don't know if the "chat" works or not. Great job on looking the other way while in town. That's what we have to do. Turn our heads. Literally. It takes a great deal of time to become stronger in sobriety. Check out Spiritwolf's Gratitude thread. Another thing Pav said, at this point, in early sobriety, we have to just "take a leap of faith" and believe what the long-timers say-that life gets so much better without alcohol. I just watched the video Freeby posted, and the guy said it takes lots of time for the alcoholic cloud to lift - another thing Pav said (she's a brilliant girl here!) Give lots of time. Keep pushing through those thoughts. Do anything to get your mind off of alcohol. Here's a part of a post that one of our MWOer's wrote a while back:
In Deprivation Mode, we think alcohol is a good thing that we are being deprived of. We are sad, and grieve the loss of what had felt like a friend to us. We consider it a treat that we never get to give ourselves again. We are envious of others who "get to drink."
In Gratitude Mode, we recognize that alcohol is (for us, because of our brain structure, genetics, physiology, etc.) a toxin, a poison, something that nearly destroyed us. Mentally, physically, and spiritually. We recognize that we have the most amazing opportunity to rid ourselves of something that makes us very sick in all those ways. We recognize the craziness of voluntarily damaging our brains, minds, bodies, families, jobs, futures. We are really, really grateful for that opportunity, and we guard it and cultivate it carefully.
Most of us start a recovery program in deprivation mode. Some people stay there forever. Those people tend not to be able to create a consistently successful program, or life, of freedom from alcohol and its devastation. Some of us transition into gratitude mode.
For most of us, Gratitude Mode does not just happen all by itself. We have to make it happen. If we want to shift into gratitude mode, we learn to cultivate it. We cultivate it by being careful about our thoughts, and about what we notice. If we find ourselves thinking about how wonderful it would be to have a drink, we deliberately shift attention away from this train of thought, and we deliberately choose to think about how good it is to know we will never humiliate ourselves with alcohol again, never again have another horrible hangover, never disappoint our children again with the way we are when we get drunk. We notice alcohol advertising, pay attention to how it makes us feel, and detach from the message by noticing how distorted the message is.
Hi Mein,
Wow, it has to be really strange living in an unfamiliar country. I agree on what Roxy said about the "boys" and that's just how they are. They want to fix us! Ha! Good luck with that! If you ever need a sympathetic ear, come and post your thoughts and you'll get great feedback, if you want feedback, or just say "I need to vent." You can also pm me. I don't know if the "chat" works or not. Great job on looking the other way while in town. That's what we have to do. Turn our heads. Literally. It takes a great deal of time to become stronger in sobriety. Check out Spiritwolf's Gratitude thread. Another thing Pav said, at this point, in early sobriety, we have to just "take a leap of faith" and believe what the long-timers say-that life gets so much better without alcohol. I just watched the video Freeby posted, and the guy said it takes lots of time for the alcoholic cloud to lift - another thing Pav said (she's a brilliant girl here!) Give lots of time. Keep pushing through those thoughts. Do anything to get your mind off of alcohol. Here's a part of a post that one of our MWOer's wrote a while back:
In Deprivation Mode, we think alcohol is a good thing that we are being deprived of. We are sad, and grieve the loss of what had felt like a friend to us. We consider it a treat that we never get to give ourselves again. We are envious of others who "get to drink."
In Gratitude Mode, we recognize that alcohol is (for us, because of our brain structure, genetics, physiology, etc.) a toxin, a poison, something that nearly destroyed us. Mentally, physically, and spiritually. We recognize that we have the most amazing opportunity to rid ourselves of something that makes us very sick in all those ways. We recognize the craziness of voluntarily damaging our brains, minds, bodies, families, jobs, futures. We are really, really grateful for that opportunity, and we guard it and cultivate it carefully.
Most of us start a recovery program in deprivation mode. Some people stay there forever. Those people tend not to be able to create a consistently successful program, or life, of freedom from alcohol and its devastation. Some of us transition into gratitude mode.
For most of us, Gratitude Mode does not just happen all by itself. We have to make it happen. If we want to shift into gratitude mode, we learn to cultivate it. We cultivate it by being careful about our thoughts, and about what we notice. If we find ourselves thinking about how wonderful it would be to have a drink, we deliberately shift attention away from this train of thought, and we deliberately choose to think about how good it is to know we will never humiliate ourselves with alcohol again, never again have another horrible hangover, never disappoint our children again with the way we are when we get drunk. We notice alcohol advertising, pay attention to how it makes us feel, and detach from the message by noticing how distorted the message is.
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