This has been nurdling round in my brain for a bit, then I heard one of Belle Robertson’s one minute audios that really helped clarify it.
Sober supports/tools can b split into five categories. You don’t have to jump in with both feet and do all the things (although I do recommend doing food and sleep every day), but if your sobriety starts feeling a bit rocky, can you add in a new support? don’t try harder, try different.
connection/group/you’re not alone in this:
listening to sober audios/podcasts
face to face meetings, zoom meetings
reading other sober stuff (newsletters, blog, quit lit)
Self-soothing (calm calm calm things)
Going to bed (there’s nothing like being under the duvet, in your pyjamas with your teeth cleaned for stopping a booze run)
Time with pets
treats
nice alcohol-free drinks
Treats planned in advance - bath, haircut, cookies
change the channel in your head
Music
A TV show/movie that you will get into
Going for a run/walk/bike ride
Yoga
Prayer, meditation
Self-care (these can blur into self-soothing, but to me, self-care items are the basics you need to stay alive)
Food
Shower
Exercise
Sleep
Accountability
Sober coach
addiction counsellor
Sponsor
Therapist
apps (in my first month, the knowledge that I’d have to reset three different trackers, and that I couldn’t be arsed, kept me sober more than once).
I find cravings can be addressed with HALT the BS
am I Hungry Angry Lonely Tired or Thirsty Bored Stressed or Sad
if I work out which one of the above applies, and address that, then cravings will typically disappear.
Therapy and gym are my big ones lately.
There was a reason I was trying to numb myself with alcohol so often, definitely needed some therapy to address those core issues.
Gym is a mixed bag for me. I used to have some pretty bad body image issues despite being pretty darn fit. Trying to get back into the gym with a “I’m doing this for long term health” mindset instead of my college era mindset of “MUST LIFT HEAVY, MUST GET BUFF” which led to injuries on more than one occasion. Still working on that. But sometimes the old mindset creeps in and I do stuff I could manage at 21, but shouldn’t be doing at 31. Tweaked my back last week picking up some heavy dumbbells with poor form. Yay…
Trying to learn to be nice to myself and do things that are good for me in the long term. It’s a work in progress
Thank you for posting this.
The more dimensions of traction one applies to one’s unconscious, the more-likely one is to succeed in getting it to evolve.
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In my experience, willpower alone isn’t going to work. You use up willpower in a thousand different ways from the minute you open your eyes and get out of bed, and by the time your personal witching hour comes round, you’re all out of the willpower required to resist that glass of wine, and by the time you’ve drunk it, you’re definitely out of willpower to refuse the second or third or fuck it, might as well finish the bottle.
So you support your willpower, and strengthen it with scaffolding, sober supports, tools, stuff you can lean on when the cravings hit.
HALT the BS. ffs, thank you!
Marijuana
That’s not legal where I am, but I imagine it comes under “change the channel in your head”?
I’m not one for groups as an introvert, but I listen to the Recovery Elevator podcast for the connection piece. My dog is my best buddy, and he always just listens and lets me rubber duck my problems.
Now that the weather doesn’t suck, I’m going for a run when I get the “this calls for a drink” kinda frustration. Yard work is becoming my new meditation.
Play the tape forward is a classic goto. The tried and true, sleep it off and try again tomorrow hasn’t failed me yet.
… Oh and I use the Habits app with a “IWNDWYT” widget to count my days. I tick it off in the morning and the mental hurdle to uncheck the box and break my streak helps against even having one drink.
Video games with my wife! We have just logged over 100 hours into palworld and when I get the hankering for a drink, I will often ask her “hey, want to hop on our computers and game for a moment? I want to work on this part of the base/this goal?” and she is always down because she is a bigger gamer than me.
Throw myself into that for an hour or two and I forget all about drinking. Grindy games with lots of progression aspects are awesome for this.
Gout. Gout is the biggest hammer in my toolbox. And I found this thumb-detector the hard way.
I love to drink, and I drink like the sailor I am. I steadily cut back the frequency and volume of my drinking as I aged, primarily because I don’t drink swill, and that gets expensive quickly. Also, what I like to drink can be tricky to find and/or seasonal, so that was always a natural limiter on my drinking. And finally, it was getting harder to stay fit, so that further limited my drinking.
Last week though, I woke up in the middle of the night in excruciating pain. My entire foot was on fire. I have a high pain tolerance, but this is up there with stuff like tearing my plantar fascia and sepsis. I couldn’t even move my foot if I wanted; the joints refused to respond to commands. Digging into the medical literature, this is one of the more painful things that can happen to the body, however still not in appendicitis and kidney stone territory. My neighbor has gout, and she said her “mild” case far exceeds the pain of childbirth. 0_0
I couldn’t walk (still can’t). Laying down caused my foot to throb. The pain at night is so bad that I couldn’t sleep, even with prescription-only anti-inflammatories and opiates. And I eliminate anything that messes with my sleep.
If you don’t have gout, count yourself lucky. Alcohol is hugely inflammatory, but I thought I was in good stead. With this first gout flare, I completely stopped drinking instantly. I can deal with pain, but when my joints refuse to work, that’s the kind of thing that gets in the way of living and sailing. And I live on my boat.
In the US, medical care is a joke even with health insurance. But for the love of your body and sanity, get your blood markers checked in an annual physical! You really don’t want to experience gout, and you really, really don’t want to find out the hard way you have it.
Be graceful to yourselves fellow non-drinkers. And thank you for being here today.
I’m so sorry you’re going through this - I really hope you can get some effective treatment.
Would you share the apps you found useful plz?
I use Easy Quit Drinking, Try Dry and I Am Sober (all Android, but probably available for Apple as well).
I used an app called HabitShare. You can link it with an accountability buddy (if you want to, you don’t have to share it with anyone to use it) and track whatever habits you want on a daily/weekly basis
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