231–240 of 600 posts
I've found it easy to stop a great deal of such behaviors by examining not what they promise to deliver, but what they actually brought. I.e. don't look forward, look backward when making decisions. Alcohol promises a great time. Alcohol delivers a hangover and regrets. Junk food promises a great time. Junk food delivers poor health and regrets. Going to the gym promises hardship and struggle. It delivers health. I'v…
It's almost impossible to stay sober with all the social pressure. In our culture, every event has to have alcohol in it. Every occasion is a drinking occasion. Which is fine, except that I already drank my share for life and now just prefer enjoying life in other ways. So now I show up in full gear, put my helmet on display and have a nice evening without any nudging and questioning.
It's really positive that you seem to have recognised some patterns and that you have a desire to quit for good. It's also good that you don't seem to be physically dependant on it after your weekend 12 packs.
What worked for me after ~8 years of increasingly deep alcoholism that started with weekend bingeing, ~2 years of trying to get sober, and now 18 months clean was two simple things:
1. Accountability of some sort. For me it was to my mother, but it could be to anyone or anything. Just someone or something you respect or that you hold dear.
2. A simple therapist. My therapist is a general therapist, not a specialised addiction counsellor. I'd tried AA, SMART, and 2 stints in rehab...nothing stuck until I just started talking to a therapist. Just talking, and slowly but surely breaking down my thought processes around life/love/relationships/work etc and I started to truly and fundamentally understand myself better and why I was drinking. Then is was so much easier to not pick up a drink. It's the best £50/week I've ever spent and I still go weekly.
Anyways, every one is different and that's just what worked for me, I wish you the absolute best. You've got this!
I've quit twice.
Once when I was 21 for 4 years; Once when I was 27 going on 12 years.
Both times started for health reasons (UC) and stuck because of superstitious/religious reasons that I have largely grown out of. I stay dry now because of vanity reasons and I'm a homebody - I lift,run, and eat really clean and look better than I ever did in my 20s or early 30s. Also inertia helps a ton.
WRT peer pressure I would tell randos at bars I was allergic and might need an epi pen if I drank and could bullshit a conversation which was kind of fun...I don't advise being dishonest but I was young and it was entertaining when I would go to bars to socialize (a lot more fun saying this than I have UC and I am a little scared this might knock me out of remission).
With friends and family, it'll just take a lot of polite "no...I'm good thanks" before they'll stop pestering you. Just know in advance its coming.
For what its worth the same thing is true with eating healthy. I've been eating healthy for 6 years and because of my GI issues tried some diet to help with symptoms. Before everyone and their mother is shovelling burgers and sweets and cheesy things in front of me, "why don't you eat it? Its good". After I dabbled with that diet no one looks twice at me for eating "weird".
Check out the Sinclair Method, which is basically taking Naltrexone before you drink. Also check out the book "The Cure for Alcoholism: The Medically Proven Way to Eliminate Alcohol Addiction" by Eskapa. I used this method, along with keeping a log of drinks consumed, to eventually quite drinking over the course of a year. I went from having anywhere from 3-8 drinks a night, every night, to eventually stopping comple…
Danish drinking culture is a bit on the heavy side, and I enjoyed getting absolutely shitfaced, I generally didn't have blackouts or do anything too silly, but the hangovers started getting really serious.
One day, with "yet again" the worst hangover in my life, I decided the hangovers were not worth it, and that whatever magic I felt in the drunkenness, was ephemeral, it'd never lead me anywhere, it'd never become real, it'd never truly make me feel good.
I stopped drinking the same way I stopped smoking after a 20 pack a day for 8 years. Simply didn't do it again. I didn't throw out all the alcohol in the house, just like I didn't throw out my half-finished pack of cigarettes..
Eventually, visitors drank the rest of my whiskey and beer, and eventually the cigarettes were thrown away eventually, but they were deliberately kept around for a long while first.
I kept them around due to an insight I had from a previously failed _attempt_ at quitting smoking, which was that.. If I had no cigs, my brain would constantly be looking to ways to get me into novel situations where I might act on impulse.. Like, "oh, maybe you should go get your car washed, then you can also refuel" -> "me goes filling up car, goes into store to pay for gas.. bot-mode kicks in and I impulsively buy a pack of cigs..". I figured that, if my temptations are out of reach, I will accumulate activation energy to obtain said temptation, and when that energy is discharged, and temptation acquired, there's too much momentum to stop mid-way, and I will indulge.
If the temptation is constantly around, no energy is built up, so no momentum, and it makes it very easy to simply look at the can of beer, or half-smoked pack of cigs, and go "yeah, I could reach over and do that, and I'm not going to", constant presence, constant control..
I hate to use the term, but maybe it's a form of mindfullness, being absolutely constantly aware of this thing so you never build up any kind of mental momentum towards it.
It's been so long, and I no longer have any desire for alcohol or tobacco, I enjoy the taste of beer, and I often drink non-alcoholic ones, many of which are great, and perfectly acceptable in social settings as well.
I don't have any trouble saying I don't drink, if pressed on the subject, I explain it as it is, that I've been as drunk as I've ever needed to and that the experience has nothing more to offer me, and that I will guarantee that I can be just as (insert politically correct word of the day) without the assistance of alcohol. Sometimes people then mention taste rather than intoxication as an argument and I explain that while I really enjoy the taste of red-wine, I also think cola goes well with just about anything.
Definitely look up the Sinclair Method. The idea is to always take naltrexone an hour before you drink. Also you only take naltrexone when you drink (this is key). Then just drink as normal. The naltrexone blocks the alcohol buzz, and you learn to not love it anymore over a period of months.
I used to put away a liter of vodka a night. I kept it up for years, accumulating a solid decade of heavy drinking. I was miserable. It was souring my relationship. The stress from work, personal life, and declining mental state of course made me feel even more compelled to drink. I was becoming a shell of my former self, and my dreams were becoming strictly that. I had a confluence of events that changed my course:…
For anyone else who’s drinking at this level (a litre a day of vodka) please don’t quit cold turkey without seeing a doctor. It genuinely can be lethal. There are temporary medications that dramatically mitigate that risk.
Working out is easier for me than quitting smoking. I was able to achieve both, but the latter felt exponentially more difficult.
This repeats to other things I want to change, big and small. Stopping a behavior is more difficult than starting one.
Recently, I thought about how to come out ahead of this. I am now trying to rephrase "stopping" as "starting the inverse." It's a mind trick, but I am hopeful it will work. Instead of "don't eat as much", I am reframing it as "start having good-diet days" or "build a habit of intermittent fasting".
Could this work for reducing or eliminating drinking? Instead of "quit drinking" maybe it could be framed as "start abstaining." Materially it's exactly the same, but mentally it may be more actionable and sustainable.