Posted by Dragon Black on September 21, 2007, at 20:48:47
In reply to Re: anyone learned to control their drinking w/o A » Dragon Black, posted by ClearSkies on September 21, 2007, at 8:19:34
> I can't say that I ever managed to control my drinking, despite many years of serious attempts to. And I tried weed, to, which makes me feel just dandy - but it also makes me feel like drinking! So I consider that experiment a failure.
>
> AA just wasn't for me, but it wasn't because of the policy of abstinence. I just found that I needed a lot more positive reinforcement in my life than negative in order to maintain my sobriety for any length of time. For me, the ideal model turned out to be from the Women For Sobriety organization (try googling them), who use daily affirmations to uplift us and reinforce the positive aspects of abstaining from alcohol.
>
> And I guess that the answer for me was that I learned to replace alcohol, not with another substance to recreate the feeling, but with healthy habits that keep me grounded and in touch with the natural beauty of the world. It sounds totally hokey, but a walk outside, appreciating the sights and sounds of the world around me, makes me profoundly grateful to be in possession of all my senses in order to be able to feel them all.
>
> That's my story, anyway. (2 years' sober last month.)
>
> ClearSkieshi, thanks for your response. congrats on 2 years sobriety! I envy your disposition, but frankly, can't begin to comprehend it. the idea of being thankful is foreign to me, i'm here b/c i have resigned myself to the fact that i can't put my family through my death, so i i'm not allowed to leave, which i would really like to do. c'est la vie (is irony implicated here?). anyhoo, maybe i'll end up at the point where i do have to quit, i realize that it's quite possible i'm just in an intricately woven tapestry of denial and that this is apparent to everyone but me, but i'm not so sure. for years i blamed all my problems on my drug use (mostly weed) and alcohol. somewhere along the way it became *painfully* clear that i had a mood disorder, depression. only recently, as in the last two weeks (thanks to this board, btw - thanks everyone! fuchsia in particular : ) ) have i figured out that i am actually bipolar (II, i think, though i've been rapid cycling like "crazy" recently due to med issues). so now i've gone back and basically been able to chart my cycling over time, for all the years that i didn't realize it, and i think that alcohol and weed were instrumental in getting me through it, basically taking the edge of the highs and the lows, making them much more manageable. clearly, both have horrendous side effect profiles, and since i abuse both they may not prove sustainable for me in the long run, but they have had a great deal of utility for me, and i think that while they certainly caused me some problems, they were not the original source of my problems, like i always thought. it was just my way of self-medicating. there have also been times when i've stayed sober and had my anxiety just shoot through the roof, to a paralyzing level, so given that alternative, i'll take alcohol. i don't know, maybe i am just deluding myself, but i think it remains quite possible that quitting drinking isn't the magic bullet i'm looking for. sorry for the long post...thanks again, everyone.
poster:Dragon Black
thread:784274
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/subs/20070626/msgs/784397.html