So I'm new to the forum. Never been to a meeting. In the past year, I've quit drinking more times than I care to count. This time I'm on day three. Tonight I have to go into work, which is more times than not an extremely stressful 13 hour shift. I have realized that stress, particularly stress during a work shift, triggers me to want to drink after work. I've found that playing music and exercising help me stay sober, but neither of these activities is an option after I get off work at 8AM for a few good reasons (room-mates, having to work again that night, etc). So, I began this topic in hopes that there is someone out there, who might be able to suggest alternatives to coping with stress other than drinking.
The short and probably perfect answer for you is , go to a meeting. Start that habit in place of every time you want and usually drink. And make a sober friend there or two, also get a sponsor to walk you through.
If your work is producing lots of stress you can go to a career counselor, find out what your company has to offer via Human Resources or other...
Trouble with after work and you still have enough energy to just drink you need to get some kind of up lifting event or activity in place. So, other than going to meetings, there could be some sort of club or interest that you might get involved in. Community events, support of other kinds of things going on nearby you, church activity/group....Something to keep the mind off doing drinking and onto doing something that is rewarding and actually really is rewarding.
Yes that makes sense, a positive activity sounds good. Maybe a short (15min-1hr) activity like reading or yoga, would help relax me, to where I can get some sleep before my next shift. Thanks, a million.
And if you figure out that you ideas and plans for not drinking dont work and that you are completely powerless over alcohol, then go join AA 100% and dont look back.
Before AA nothing mattered but a drink! I couldn't do any of those 'tips' without a drink. I was powerless over alcohol and my life was unmanageable. Even if I wasn't actually drinking, I was either thinking about drinking or alcohol in some way or trying to figure out how not to drink that day.
I tried reading, yard work, shopping, bike riding (motor and non) , fishing, yoga, computer games, photography, walking, church, joined a gym, and on and on and on.
NONE of it worked for me. I wasn't able to do any of the above mentioned UNTIL I got sober first!
There is no such things as "tips' for not drinking, for this gal - unless you consider the tool box of AA. Which consists of meetings, practicing the 12 steps, working with my sponsor and sponsees, being involved.... and just not taking that drink, today.
In sobriety I'm learning about things I never knew I liked. I started drinking at such a young age, I related everything, every aspect of my life, with a drink.
Only by being sober, one day at the time, do I get to enjoy those things that only sobriety can bring ......
Glad you're here, Bob. Hope you keep coming.
Jen
-- Edited by Doll on Monday 30th of March 2009 07:42:49 PM
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Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass... It's about learning to dance in the rain.
"I've quit drinking more times than I can count"... Might it be that you are owned by the compulsion to drink? I mean until I found out that alcoholism was a compulsion of the mind and allergy of the body nothing I did made any sense at all. I didn't come into AA first...I came in thru the back door. I was born into the disease...it was the only atmosphere I knew and when I was old enough to fly the coop I did what I knew including marrying addicted women.
I came to understand in a manner similar to Dakota. I was always under the influence of alcohol even when I wasn't drinking or drunk. It was something I knew about because it was a normal and natural part of my existence.
I didn't start working on the compulsion to drink until after 9 years of not having one and finally having an assessment done on my past drinking life. Drinking for me wasn't a problem even the 3 toxic shock episodes (over dosing) didn't signal a problem. After all I survived them didn't I?
You have a condition you are concerned about. Are you willing to look further? Does getting an assessment from a qualified alcohol treament center make sense to you or is a part of your "try, try again" behavior triggered by fear. If an alcoholic knows one emotion...it is fear before anything else. I will not call you alcoholic only you can and should seek that information and for me it is best sought thru an assessment.
I rarely call another person "an" alcoholic or even identify myself as "an" alcoholic. Alcoholism is a disease, a sickness, illness...compulsion of the mind and allergy of the body. I am alcoholic and tuberculic. I have also been diagnosed as a depressent with a couple other feathers attached. There are solutions to all of these conditions and I work in the solutions. The best solution I have found for my alcoholism is do what the majority of other recovering alcoholic do world wide. I do the spritual based 12 step/12 tradition program (+) of Alcoholics Anonymous and practice, practice, practice. I have yoga experience, many years with PsyCyb practice, and tons of other support tools. Only one works best keeping me totally off of alcohol.
Wanna go try an assessment? You can also find it on the internet but sitting in front of a professional is a whole lot more scarey, honest and enlightening.
Welcome, it's always cool to see new people finding this slice of Heaven, we call MIP. Like AA meetings, all of us here can relate to the trouble we have or had with alcohol. We come to a point where we just know that we have to give it up for good. It doesn't discriminate and affects the best of us. It's hard too, at the beginning to imagine we will even be able to live without drinking. It takes some time behind our belts and slowly but surely we start believing that it is totally do-able. It takes some soul searching, meeting others in the same boat, meetings, etc to find ways to cope. We have to ask for help and do so, not out of weakness and defeat but with a desire to get well. You are 3 days in, that's a great start and you really only have to take it one day at a time. That is a more manageable way to look at it. When I look ahead too much I get overwhelmed, doubtfull, scared etc....not good. With sobriety and recovery, I am able to get to the "reasons" I drank and those reasons become less and less as I move forward. It does take teamwork, see if you can rally up some support wherever you live, it's not all doom and gloom once you get the ball rolling! Keep coming back.
scott
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Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. ~Buddha
I went to my first meeting on day 3 of not drinking. I had called the AA hotline two times and thought of all sorts of reasons not to need to go to meetings. I had stopped 4 months before with no meetings but was miserable, didn't know how to enjoy life and went back to drinking worse than ever. It took a miserable drunken car crash where I could have killed someone else or myself to get me off my butt and to go to a meeting. I work as a therapist and pull long shifts at work. I used to think that a lot of the people in meetings were retirees or on disability to have time to go and be so active. I used to get so stressed out I would drink on the way home. Now I go to a meeting to unwind and find sanity. It is true that I came into AA with a job and I didn't want to lose it, but I now realize, had I not gone to AA when I did, I would have lost it because I was headed there. And furthermore, there are people there that work even crazier hours and probably more stressful jobs than I do. So...I would suggest find a meeting...three of the ones I go to during the week start at 8:30 so it would seem you could find some you could make.
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
Your post took me back in memory to when I drank for stress of work, I drank for the stress of my marriage, I drank for the stress in life, I drank for the stess that 2 sons and l step son caused, I drank when I had something to celebrate, I drank when there was nothing to celebrate.
Finally when I stopped for good, I could see clearly that what I was drinking over was sort of a laundry list, of so many things, and then through AA I DISCOVERED that there was only ONE reason that I drank so excessively, I DRANK all the time because I was an ALCOHOLIC.
So I, or through the Program, was able to simply throw the list out, and take what the people in meetings were telling me. And those steps on the Boards of everyroom, I have to say that for almost 10 years, I would go to a meeting, look at those Lists on the wall, never understand anything, they looked so Greek to me. And so AA had a swinging door for almost 10 years, I was a newcomer at a certain meeting in my area, for all those years, and I had to reach a pretty horrible bottom before I was willing to just put my butt in chair, Pray to God that no matter what, He would help me not take a drink, til I returned the next day, that was my first year of continueous Sobriety.
So I hope you will pardon me, if I am going to come across as insensitive, but when i read your Post, my thoughts were, oh, theres one of those laundry list items.
And for anyone that is trying to stop drinking, I Pray for them, that they do not have to go to the depths of a gut renching bottom, and sit and just listen at those meetings.
We are all here together, we as Alcoholics are really all the same in so many ways. I dont know you, but interesting, I feel just like I do know you.
I do recall how baffling it is or was to begin, and my heart goes out to you. and someone said earlier in this tread, meetings are the answer, and i agree. 1000% try hard to not drink in between, and just go back everyday, this is as you probably have heard, a one day at a time Program, and that WORKS. Just one day at a time.
Hope you find a meeting in your area that you can begin to feel comfortable at, and continue going, just one day at a time. The gifts of a Clean and Sober life await you.
My very best to you Bob. Your new friend, or just one of your new friends here..... Toni
