Beyond the Struggle

We are told to not dwell on the past and look forward. But I think dwelling has its place because it can make me appreciate what I’ve actually achieved. And thinking about tough memories related to alcohol can force me to let go and help me forgive myself. I’m letting go of the hard memories of me being too drunk when I was out with my friends. I forgive myself for coming home in the middle of the night having stolen something just because my drunk brain thought it was fun. Something I the next day had to return in shame. I’m letting go of the memories of me quarreling with my ex over something stupid because alcohol made me more on edge. I forgive myself for not being the best husband I could because of alcohol. For not seeing her and appreciating her. I also forgive myself for not understanding that in time. Everything has its process and I was not ready with my process back then. I will never judge my actions then with the experience I have now - even if the memory hurts. I...

Had to go fetch a thing at my ex-wife’s apartment today. She showed me her newly painted living room. It was a really nice moment, we were having fun and I remembered why we tried so hard for so long even though we were incompatible in our relationship. She asked me about my sober journey and I told her about the relief of being totally honest with myself: if I drink I will always have to lie to myself because I know deep down within me that I will never be able to handle alcohol. Anything else is me trying very hard to not see that inevitable fact. She looked me in the eyes and said: “That honesty suits you! Well done!” I just felt so much love flowing between us in that moment. I’m so happy she’s my co-parent and that we have found a way to be honest and appreciate each other after the divorce. The power of honesty fueled from me not drinking brings love all around and I thank the universe for the opportunity to experience that! Onwards and upwards, comrades!

I’m riding a two horse wagon on my AF journey: one black and one white horse. The black one is Discipline and the white one is Motivation. Sometimes Motivation is the strongest and sometimes Discipline is. In longer and longer stretches none of them need to pull that hard since the wagon rolls by it self. My job as the coachman is to balance the two. Instant gratification monkey usually sits beside me and points in all directions to derail me. And the couple in the wagon (which is my former self) drinks sherry all the time and has opinions on which the best route to this place Happiness we’re heading to is. Sometimes instant gratification monkey gets bored of me not having any sherry or not driving where he’s pointing so he jumps up in my face so I can’t see where I’m driving. Then I have to rely solely on Motivation and Discipline. The couple in the wagon has fallen asleep now but I continue to drive the wagon through the night. I hear the horses panting and the squeaking whe...

I like to think that I’ve been in control of my life, like I’ve consciously chosen where to go next and how my life should develop. When I look back at it I must admit that I have failed myself in that regard: way to many decisions have just been me waiting til there were no options left therefore making the decision passive. Since I stopped drinking this has become even more clear to me: alcohol has played a great part in this chain of passive decisions. Because if I get to sit down and get drunk and artificially reward myself no matter what I choose - the decisions do not get as important. Going AF is an active decision, and staying AF even more so. I’m constantly reminded whenever I feel like drinking, that I have decided not to. This constant reminder has triggered me to take even more active decisions: quit nicotine, being more active with my children and taking steps to change my work life. I feel that there will be even more active decisions ahead which will change the tr...

Stuff I didn’t know before I stopped drinking: 1. The hours between 4 and 6 am actually exist and are silent and beautiful 2. A bar is a room where you can have perfectly meaningful conversations if you’re not so damned laser focused on pouring alcohol into your head 3. Kids are polite and don’t generally tell you when you drink too much (if you don’t completely overdo it) but show their gratitude for you not doing it in the most subtle and loving ways 4. It’s not only marketing talk that abstaining from both alcohol AND nicotine simultaneously does wonders to your libido 5. For me it gets easier if I right now decide to never drink again. I can always change my mind tomorrow. For others the opposite might be true: to always keep it open to maybe drink in the future but instead never use that option. 6. That alcohol makes people dumb also applies to ME. Yes ME. 7. Being AF improves my ability to be present and study my own reactions before lashing out on others 8. Love and ...

Instant gratification monkey. Mine is very strong! The root of many dumb decisions and lifelong misery. The instant gratification monkey is a force to be reckoned with because if we do not feed it - it tricks us to think that we have a BORING life. There are some fantastic things to be gained by going AF: better health, better relationships, clear-headness, longer life and low intensive well being overall. But as fantastic as they all are there is not a tiny bit of instant gratification over these fantastic things. They’re just fantastic, but they very seldom hit you as fantastic in the moment. And when they hit you (because they can), you can not choose WHEN - like you could with alcohol. It’s more like you’re getting blindsided an early Tuesday morning with an intensive feeling what a fabulous life you actually have gotten without alcohol. That’s why forums like this is so important: no matter how long we’ve been AF in order to counter the instant gratification monkey we need ...

I talked about “the switch” in my former  post being the moment when the struggle of being AF transforms into acceptance and ease of mind. In a comment to that post Theresa Miller had a very important point regarding the process leading up to “the switch”. Theresa’s point was about acceptance and grievance. You have your brain and you heart. In order to experience the switch both of them must accept that your life is better without alcohol. When writing your why-list you give the brain a lot arguments why you shouldn’t drink. Your brain will accept that you can’t drink by repeating that list and will listen to arguments like “alcohol is poison”. The heart, on the other hand, does not read lists - it processes feelings that enters it, like your liver used to process alcohol. The heart can not process ANYTHING if you push it away such as sorrow for not being able to drink. You have to let your heart grieve the loss of the fun and exciting things alcohol actually has given you in ...

Maybe you’ve felt it - maybe not yet. I’m talking about the switch. I felt it around day 60. The switch for me was that I woke up one day and felt that I hadn’t thought about alcohol for a while. The switch was also that I didn’t feel robbed of fun anymore but instead I felt like I was given richness and devotion. But the strongest sensation of the switch was that it hit me that alcohol is a very lousy reward for a sobriety challenge. It was not about white-knuckling and staying away anymore but instead choosing clear-headness, simplicity and energy. I think that these things come in waves and plateaus. I’ve felt the first switch but from my earlier AF experience I know there are more to come. Right before the switch it was actually pretty tough - like my body and mind resisted taking the next step. I recall that before each switch or plateaus there will be harder times with temptation and feelings that this AF life is boring before it says “click” again. The harder it feels - the...

In the beginning of my AF journey, it felt like I was making my life more narrow. I thought about all the things I couldn’t do, or probably wouldn’t feel like doing, being AF. The friends I probably would stop seeing, and the activities I would avoid like sitting in a bar drinking or inviting people home for dinner just to be able to drink a lot of wine. (I’m not saying that you can’t have people over for dinner being AF, I just silently note that the dinners have been way fewer when the opportunity for drinking wine under socially accepted terms disappeared.)  :-) In my early AF days, I would look at all those missed opportunities for having a good time and I really thought I was denying myself a lot of fun activities. Then I started to look at these activities and found that they all came in the same shape, but in different colors: they all revolved around getting drunk somehow. At the bar: getting drunk Dinner with random friends: getting drunk Out clubbing, getting d...

My first memories of alcohol were really good. I wouldn’t by any stretch have dared to kiss that girl in my school without it. And the conversations I had with my friends when I was eighteen, after a few beers. It felt like no one ever before had come up with the things we came up with, like we were some kind of geniuses. And the feeling of having your whole life ahead of you and drinking that wine on a balcony seeing the sun set. Alcohol really enhanced the feelings of those moments and if I got a hangover that was only romantic and a measurement on how good the night before had been. Since I belong to these people who really liked drinking at a young age I think that my drinking when I got older partly has been about reliving that young, untainted feeling of alcohol again. But the thing is - it is impossible to do since what really made me feel fantastic was not really the alcohol but to experience life at it’s fullest for the first time, like you do when you’re eighteen. It was...

The day I woke up I saw that I couldn’t do this anymore. I saw that if I continued on the current path it would lead me to misery. It would lead me to a place of anxiety and remorse and something inside of me asked me to stop lying to myself. The day I woke up I saw that I couldn’t do this and still say that I was ready to do everything for my children because what I was doing was taking away parts of me that I wanted to give them. I was at the crossroads with me in one direction and the shadow of me in the other. I couldn’t pick the road with the shadow and still say that I would do everything for my kids because they deserve a father and not the shadow of one. The day I woke up I saw that everything is connected. I can not look away from my problems with alcohol and live a life based on truth because when I lie to myself I will start lying to the people around me. It would build a cobweb of lies so intricate I would believe them myself. Truth can only be built upon truth. The ...

Be gentle with me - because I meant you no harm. I thought I was in control and could have alcohol close to me and still see you. I though alcohol could enhance my senses and make our moments together better. I thought that alcohol could make me experience the love I feel for you stronger and deeper and more sincere. I thought that my life with you could only be fulfilled if we could share a bottle of wine together. I thought that alcohol could be the bridge we together could tread over the boring parts of life like a magical all around fix when everyday life felt dull. Please be gentle with me - because I was fooled to believe all those things. In reality alcohol was not the magical happy elixir that I thought. It made me egoistic and made me forget you. It made us lonely even though we were sleeping in the same bed. It made us quarrel about pointless things. It made me say things that hurt you. It made me push you away when you wanted to be near and help me. It made us stop beli...

I’m not here because I have failed. I’m here because I resist to fail. Instead of my attempts I will let the fact that I don’t give up define me. I’m not here because I want the status quo. I’m here because I want change. And with change comes pain and second thoughts. But as long as I don’t resist the changes but invite them I will find new things on the other side. New things way more gratifying than being drunk on a Monday. I’m not here because I’m “normal”. What is normal anyway? To slowly drink my middle aged life away, night by night? If “normal” is to nervously laugh at my over consumption whenever I have another wine drenched dinner with my friends, I don’t want anything to do with it. I’m here because I want to be so much more than normal - I want to be special. I’m not here because I have problems with alcohol. I’m here because I don’t WANT problems with alcohol. There are a lot of people who have problems but never do anything about it. I don’t want to be them. I wa...

We all hit bumps on our journey. Our choice not to drink feels like a punishment and a life without alcohol maybe feels pointless. When this happens we are often reminded to read our whys again. But what if that doesn’t work and the AF life still feels dull and meaningless? The most probable cause for this is that you have too much focus on the disadvantages with drinking on your why-list. Things to avoid instead of what to gain. This is natural since you wrote the list in the beginning when you had all the bad things with drinking in fresh memory. After a while AF one forgets how bad these disadvantages were and the list shrinks to nothing. When you start to experience the upsides with being AF - don’t forget to update your whys with the positive things. It’s so easy to take the positive things for granted once they become your new everyday life. Onward and upwards, comrades!

There is a first for everything. Many of you have made it through your first Saturday, and about to make your second. When I started my 28 days challenge the first weekend was the hardest. Even though my whys were in fresh memory, I had so few days under my belt that I pretty easily thought: I managed to not drink during the week, that gotta be worth something. If I would drink this weekend (because I’ve been so great not to drink any in the weekdays) I could just restart my challenge on Monday. But I didn’t drink. Because something in me said: you wanted this. It was a lot of repeating my whys the first weeks. I especially said “I want to be the best father I can be” many many times. After a couple of weeks I started to close in on my 28. I decided to prolong but not without thorough thinking: do I REALLY want to continue? I saw a lot of people who struggled between 30-40 days because they signed up at a whim and felt regretful and just wanted to start drinking again. The...

What if you would meet someone that promised you a wonderful life together - but turned out to be an abusive psycho? Your whole life will eventually get destroyed. These relationships can be really hard to end and you need to summon all energy to get out. Maybe you’re using a support group on the Internet. What if you managed to end the relationship and sat on your friend’s couch. Would that friend tell you it would be a good idea to try to live with your abusive ex - just a little bit every now and then? Would your friend recommend you to live with your ex for even a second? To moderate? Maybe you sort your life out and get back on your feet. Would you still want to invite your tormentor into your life? To live a peaceful life in your apartment and invite the one who has hurt you the most to your sofa for a little chat? For you to feel whole? For your life to feel complete? For you not to feel like a failure? Maybe you think that you can change your ex to not have this destr...

An AF journey can be filled with joy but also with disappointment. Maybe I’m not experiencing the promised upsides fast enough? Perhaps my sleep goes haywire because the body is trying to adapt? And the weight thing that everyone is talking about? Why haven’t I in 101 days lost one single kg but instead gained? It easy to get stuck on the “marketing-pitches” for going AF. When you start the journey that’s natural since you will take away something that you obviously like doing and need to have some easy to understand advantages to focus on. But I think that the further you get in your AF journey the more subtle the advantages get: more like a constant feel-good feeling. At least that’s what I feel. When I was drinking I was always thinking about when I would get to drink the next time: tonight or maybe on Friday. Even when I was actually drinking I was thinking about the next beer. I would gladly shotgun the one in my hand so that I could open the next one. I was constantly li...

I’m not going to show a before after photo. Because the biggest difference for me has happened on the inside and not the outside. 100 days ago I was troubled. I found my drinking spiraling. Couldn’t even stay clean the weeks I had my kids. I went swimming with my youngest daughter, but had to go to the toilet to vomit before heading out, because I had had to much wine. The only adult around so drunk I had to puke! 100 days ago I woke up almost every day with those horrible shivers around the spine and with closed eyes, not daring to open them because I knew that the moment I did the headache would set in. Getting out of bed to go to work knowing that this would be one of these horrible days I just had to endure. 100 days ago I was lost. Couldn’t fit together why I was doing this to myself when I obviously had so much going for me. I knew that the ONLY thing that could destroy my life and prevent me from being the best dad in the world was alcohol. I KNEW this and was still doi...

I know I’ve been talking about the impossibilities with moderation. Even though that seems to have resonated with people I also feel like I pushed the point pretty hard which might scare some people who just started their challenge. If you’re here for a challenge and get the whole “because you are here you are an alcoholic guilty as charged”-rant, it can be a little bit too much to stomach if you’re just dipping your feet into the beautiful AF-lake... If you’re in the beginning of the challenge and the thought to NEVER drink again scares you - it’s totally fine. Who knows how you will feel at the end of your challenge? Maybe you will just continue being AF? Maybe you will try to moderate and will succeed? Maybe you won’t and come back for another round with more experience, purpose and understanding of why being AF is important to you? Just stay in the here and now. Enjoy your ride and do not forget to feel with all your senses how a life without alcohol feels like. Be honest wi...

Lying here in bed awake way to early (about 04:30 here). This is pretty common the first night after the kids have gone to their mum’s. I guess it’s a little bit of coping with loneliness. Yesterday I was invited to a jam session at a friends apartment in the neighborhood. They have a lot of friends from South America so I had to brush off my montuno-piano skills 😊  I brought my own kombucha and nobody really cared what I was drinking - I even think they thought my bottle was filled with some really homemade, strong stuff.  😇 I’ve been thinking about us sharing our experiences here in this group being a wonderful thing. We can help each other to spot dangers ahead and learn from each other’s mistakes. But at the same time - we should not think this makes us immune to mistakes. When someone tells you about how they took a blip and regret it or even a reset with a big “don’t do it it’s not worth it” the message will land in your brain - but not necessarily in your hea...

Photo: Karin Arver The ONLY people that can moderate are the ones who don’t like alcohol that much to begin with. You know the kind of people that don’t like to get tipsy and that forget that they have a bottle of wine at home. We are here because we have proven that we like it too much. We love the buzz and don’t forget that we have alcohol at home. On the contrary we make sure that it’s always around. Taking a break does not magically rewire your brain to not like alcohol - it just shows you that you don’t really need it. If you start again the pattern will come back. I KNOW it’s a scary thought but things gets so much easier if you just accept that you do not really need alcohol in your life. Over and out!

I've never found it hard to stop drinking. There are a couple of weeks when I feel somewhat strange and questioning my decision to stop. How bad can it be? How bad would it be with just one drink? But if you've got your whys straight I think this period is doable for most of us. Then comes the real problem which is not about stopping but about NOT STARTING. This is the hard part because no matter how long you've stayed AF the brain will come up with all kinds of fantastic reasons why everything is ok and that you could handle alcohol again: 1) Now that I have been AF for a while I will have a different perspective and never fall back to old habits again 2) It was not the alchol per se, it was the TYPE of alcohol. If I only drink beer or wine I will be fine 3) The problems were not about alcohol really, it was about where I was in life at the time. I'm at a different place in life now - so I will not experience problems if I start again. 4) Since I'm so ...