Day 250 - One step ahead.



The road forward has not always been clear for me even though that as long as I stayed to the constant “don’t drink” it has taken me in the right direction.

But if I do not fill the “don’t drink” with motivation or reasons it will only be an endurance test, like walking in the desert or in the snow with no purpose apart from just taking the next step looking down into the ground. I’m bound to fail.

With the whys and motivations in place I will lift my head and gaze further ahead and will be able to see the bigger picture why I don’t drink and what benefits it will give me.

But alcohol is a devious bastard: even with whys and motivations in place it will try to trick me. The strategies for HOW it will try to trick me varies: in the beginning it’s very much like an angry voice or one making me fee sorry for myself. When that doesn’t work the voice in my head will change tone and instead start congratulating me for being so good at not drinking that I deserve a drink. And when that does not work the voice will just be silent, but that does not make it has gone away because now it thinks that if it says nothing I will come to the conclusion that this alcohol thing is not a problem for me any longer so there is no harm in trying to drink a little.

From my former eight year AF period the voice stopped talking about how good alcohol was. Instead it started talking about how much I had changed my relationship with alcohol so that the problem had gone away and that I could start drinking again.

That was of course a lie.

The thing with groups like this is that by reading each other’s testimonies we can prepare for what is coming up next by people who has come further along. Because it’s only by being one step ahead of that devious alcohol voice we can beat it. It will change strategy all the time and we have to be vigilant to be able to counter it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 96: Rant on moderation

Image
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!
Read more

Day 160: Alcohol the energy waster

Image
Alcohol is supposed to bring us joy in life. But it is actually just a big energy waster. When thinking of it nowadays I just get tired. These are things that I actually wasted time and energy on when drinking: 1) Bad sleep and hangovers. Duh. Many days wasted. 2) Planning how to buy alcohol and get in into the house without anyone noticing the amounts. 3) Getting all the empty bottles OUT of the house without anyone noticing. 4) Excusing why it was not that bad last night to be able to stand my behavior. 5) Practice the quick "inhale"-kiss, on the back of my hand,  so that my partner wouldn't notice my breath. 6) Doing loud and unnecessary household work to mask when I was opening another beer. 7) Planning where to put different, identical, glasses so that I could fill them up independently to make it harder to track how many I've had. 8) Texting people to convince them it's a good idea to go out on a Tuesday. 9) Having the same conversations over and ...
Read more

Day 165 - Breaking the breakout

Image
Sometimes we get reminded that the world is a scary place even if our societies and institutions usually does a good job hiding that from us. The threat of an invisible virus really gets to me, with this creepy feeling that I need to watch where I touch and who I go near. I'm not really scared that the virus will affect my health that much but I'm thinking about the mayhem at the hospitals that probably is about to break loose in a couple of weeks. And I'm thinking about my parents and other elderly that I hope will not catch it or catch it when there are resources at the hospitals. I've sent my parents to the countryside to live there for a while. And my ex-wife is home coughing, after treating someone who had been in Italy,  so I will have the kids at my place for a while. Every party, concert or other event the coming month is cancelled. I've stashed up with food in the fridge and the freezer and I'm gonna be home with the kids this weekend, play games and ...
Read more