How many days are you free from booze?

Worztron

Well done, https://www.boards.ie/profile/jj880 , keep it going. 👍🏻

reggie3434

approaching 6 months, have had some small inklings for a pint but feeling pretty ok. Anyone else notice strong emotions surfacing (or maybe just there all along!) during this process?

jj880

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123510403#Comment_123510403

Well done. You've the hardest part cleared. I think it gets easier after 6 months…

You're right about emotions. Not dulling them with the drink or lying hung over brings them out. Ive found all my relationships have hugely improved with my loved ones.

reggie3434

Thanks for the words of encouragment JJ, I find myself reaching for greasy sweet foods, playing old retro pc games as a way to escape the present, while better than drink it's still similar and this awareness is a pain in the neck. I think of Homer simpson and the purple crayon up the nose but I know that way of living certainly didnt work either. Everyone has their own cross to carry and in fairness it's a good thing to tackle

taxAHcruel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123510403#Comment_123510403

I have heard similar for sure. That a lot of emotions were suppressed by alcohol and they started returning after an extended period off the drink. Both positive and negative emotions.

I've even heard of people discussing seeing things like color again and hearing bird song. Not that they could not INTELLECTUALLY see and hear those things while deep in the alcohol. They could look at something blue and identify it as blue. But they try to describe not really SEEING the blueness of it all the same.

Which sounds strange but people who have experienced it (people with depression sometimes describe similar) will know what they are saying.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123510719#Comment_123510719

I was discussing something similar with my oldest (14) Daughter not too long ago. I was talking to her about the idea of things that are an "escape".

I was telling her that there are broadly speaking two types of escape. Escapes that get you away from your thoughts and problems when they take you OUT OF the present moment entirely (computer games, alcohol, drugs, social media doom scrolling, binge TV and much more) - and escapes that achieve it by bringing you very closely INTO the present moment (art, exercise, archery, fighting, difficult tasks, healthy discomfort).

Speaking equally broadly I discussed with her how the former is much more often an unhealthy way than the latter. You rarely gain anything from it, often need more and more of it to get the same effect, and when you are done with it it often has made the things you were trying to get away from WORSE. So if you have anxiety about all the people you have wronged, or work you have no done, or your own health and fitness and so on - when you come back from a binge of any of those things the problems are A) still there and B) often worse.

The latter however tends not to have these things be as true as often. If at all. You rarely need to get more and more of them for the same effect. They often directly target issues like health and fitness and so on. You do get a sense of having achieved something and bettered yourself. And their knock on effects on things such as getting work done are relatively positive and rarely negative. Getting up to face a day of work after an evening on the beer compared to an evening out in the garden doing archery on some targets? Not remotely comparable.

So escapes are great for sure! We all need them. But like many things in this world there are better and worse versions of it to look to. And I think that might be the "awareness" you speak of.

Fingers Mcginty

1 month today. Had some issues sleeping over the last few years due to spinal pain and i got into a bad ould habit of drinking every night to numb the pain with alcohol and painkillers to try and get to sleep only to wake a few hours later with a blinding hangover .

I've learned to sleep over the last month without alcohol and my sleep pattern is so much better now. I uise the Wim Hoff method and find it great. I'll be honest I used to enjoy "getting out of my head" to escape reality sometimes and miss that aspect of it. I still romanticise about alcohol and i do miss that buzz after 2 or 3 beers but in the end alcohol just takes way more than it gives for me.

I now enjoy a few non alco beers on the weekend. Theyve certainly come a long way since the old Kaliber days. Some of the better ones for me are Guinness Zero and also Corona cero.

Heard a good wxpression recently "If you can quit the booze in a world absoloutely obsessed wuth alcohol you cab do anything!" I know I'm only a month in and i've a long way to go but I'm staying away from pubs until my defences are a little better fortified.

taxAHcruel

Of course feeling more "fortified" against alcohol is one of the tricks alcohol can use to make problem drinkers relapse.

It has a rather special way of making you forget how bad the bad times even were. Like it is whispering to you saying "Sure what was the problem anyway? Can you even remember? It's fine! Have a drink!".

And it can make you feel you have control over it now even if you did not then. So why not have a drink? "Sure you did not drink any of me for months now. How disciplined that was! How strong your control must be now! Go on have some of me now! You can control it for sure!".

Fingers Mcginty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123513135#Comment_123513135

Totally agree…as time goes on you forget why you gave it up in the first place as pain has no memory. I kicked the smokes 20 years ago and found it easy compared to quitting the drink. It's tough especially in this country where everything revolves around it…weddings, funerals the whole shebang.

jj880

Its definitely ingrained in all parts of society here. Im lucky in that my wife is very supportive and considerate. It also helps that we actually enjoy spending time with each other so our house is peaceful. Some of my friends are married to lunatics that would drive anyone to drink.

Fingers Mcginty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123513263#Comment_123513263

you're blessed :)

khaldrogo

Haven't had a drink since last September.

Heads in a much better place. Lost 13 kgs also.