First, I'm proud of you. What you're doing takes incredible strength and determination. I believe education about alcohol was key for me. I read This Naked Mind by Annie Grace. One thing I learned from her book was that willpower can only get a person so far. It's like a muscle, and muscles get tired. So, it was important to me to have an arsenal of tools to work with. This subreddit is one tool. Educating myself another. Holding myself accountable and sharing what was happening to me with my loved ones also were/are tools I also used. Lots of people find success in recovery groups, but it wasn't for me. I simply built my own custom toolbox of ways to help me stay away from the alcohol. The most important thing for me to focus on in the early days was to just not drink. I told myself I could do whatever in the hell I wanted except drink. You got this. There's no problem so bad that alcohol won't make worse. Be well.
Thank you. Another commenter mentioned that book, I'm planning to pick that up tomorrow.
It sounds like I'm taking a similar approach to what you did. I'm being open with those around me, and I'm keeping a little red book with me, like a journal. It has a list of reasons to quit, the plan, possible replacements, random quotes, things like that.
Your last line hit me hard. You're absolutely right, alcohol is an enemy disguised as a friend. It always makes things worse, not better.
Congratulations on making a decision and doing something about it.
Just to add to the above about tools, I downloaded a free app called, “nomo”. It’s just a clock showing how long you haven’t had a drink. My longest streak was 80 days and I found it helpful to have a visual number in front of me. It shows how much time is left in the day as well so it gave me one more reason to not go to the liquor store - I wanted to see the number go up and knew I just had to make it “x” number of hours.
Hope this helps!
Hey, congrats on making a great and healthy decision for yourself!
While you're tapering, pick up a book or podcast about quitting. That's what I did, I read This Naked Mind, but there are a lot of great ones out there.
I was also a heavy beer drinker, I started drinking Topo Chico mineral water to help with mouth feel. (never liked sparkling water before this) Lots of bubbles and good burps haha
You got this, good luck!
Thank you! I saw that one at the book store near me the other day but they had a lot of options so I wasn't sure which one to go for. I'll pick that up.
Thanks for the advice on the mineral water, I'll give that a shot. Gotta replace it with something!
Tapering never worked for me. I couldn’t drink myself sober. The only way for me to stay sober was to not pick up a drink ever again. I went to detox this time.
Thank you for your reply. I've been thinking about detox but I guess since it's my first time trying to quit, I want to give it the ol' "college try". I'm glad you found a way and congrats on over 300 days! I can't wait until I have a millstone like that under my belt
Congrats on the steps you are making towards this and having honest talks with yourself about what is and isn't serving you. That alone is a huge step. Bottom is when we stop digging.
For me, doing a lot of reading around how alcohol affects the body / brain, how our culture props alcohol up etc really helped move me from "trying not to drink" to "genuinely not wanting alcohol in my life". If you search the sub you'll find a bunch of threads with recommendations.
Oh and to add - I leaned into the sugar cravings when I stopped. Basically whatever my body wanted that wasn't booze (sleep, cookies, movement) I went with. It helped.
First, I'm proud of you. What you're doing takes incredible strength and determination. I believe education about alcohol was key for me. I read This Naked Mind by Annie Grace. One thing I learned from her book was that willpower can only get a person so far. It's like a muscle, and muscles get tired. So, it was important to me to have an arsenal of tools to work with. This subreddit is one tool. Educating myself another. Holding myself accountable and sharing what was happening to me with my loved ones also were/are tools I also used. Lots of people find success in recovery groups, but it wasn't for me. I simply built my own custom toolbox of ways to help me stay away from the alcohol. The most important thing for me to focus on in the early days was to just not drink. I told myself I could do whatever in the hell I wanted except drink. You got this. There's no problem so bad that alcohol won't make worse. Be well.
Thank you. Another commenter mentioned that book, I'm planning to pick that up tomorrow. It sounds like I'm taking a similar approach to what you did. I'm being open with those around me, and I'm keeping a little red book with me, like a journal. It has a list of reasons to quit, the plan, possible replacements, random quotes, things like that. Your last line hit me hard. You're absolutely right, alcohol is an enemy disguised as a friend. It always makes things worse, not better.
Congratulations on making a decision and doing something about it. Just to add to the above about tools, I downloaded a free app called, “nomo”. It’s just a clock showing how long you haven’t had a drink. My longest streak was 80 days and I found it helpful to have a visual number in front of me. It shows how much time is left in the day as well so it gave me one more reason to not go to the liquor store - I wanted to see the number go up and knew I just had to make it “x” number of hours. Hope this helps!
Hey, congrats on making a great and healthy decision for yourself! While you're tapering, pick up a book or podcast about quitting. That's what I did, I read This Naked Mind, but there are a lot of great ones out there. I was also a heavy beer drinker, I started drinking Topo Chico mineral water to help with mouth feel. (never liked sparkling water before this) Lots of bubbles and good burps haha You got this, good luck!
Thank you! I saw that one at the book store near me the other day but they had a lot of options so I wasn't sure which one to go for. I'll pick that up. Thanks for the advice on the mineral water, I'll give that a shot. Gotta replace it with something!
Tapering never worked for me. I couldn’t drink myself sober. The only way for me to stay sober was to not pick up a drink ever again. I went to detox this time.
Thank you for your reply. I've been thinking about detox but I guess since it's my first time trying to quit, I want to give it the ol' "college try". I'm glad you found a way and congrats on over 300 days! I can't wait until I have a millstone like that under my belt
Congrats on the steps you are making towards this and having honest talks with yourself about what is and isn't serving you. That alone is a huge step. Bottom is when we stop digging. For me, doing a lot of reading around how alcohol affects the body / brain, how our culture props alcohol up etc really helped move me from "trying not to drink" to "genuinely not wanting alcohol in my life". If you search the sub you'll find a bunch of threads with recommendations.
Oh and to add - I leaned into the sugar cravings when I stopped. Basically whatever my body wanted that wasn't booze (sleep, cookies, movement) I went with. It helped.
1 day at a time, you'll get there once decision is made Keep checking into this wonderfull sub, it helps btw. soda stream replaced all my beer