Giving up alcohol.(it's worth a shot)

Well I'll start with the good stuff.  I've been abstinent for 2 weeks now! Hooray!  I just got fed up of cutting down to be fair,I felt it was just needless boozing at that stage.   I get it's important if you're physically addicted to it, and would advocate to my dying days that slowly cutting back is imperative  in that situation.  In mine,not so much. I felt ready to let go of the emotional crutch. And with it has come some brain fog and narkiness.  This happened before to a much greater extent where I needed Thiamine from the doctor. Not so much now but I'm going to get some over the counter vitamin B compound. Alcoholism drains you of your vitamin Bs.  I'm definitely getting aggy with it,as the general life stressors are no longer being placated with booze. The alcoholic part of my brain is in fight or flight mode, primarily fight.  How dare I give up the life juice. As such I've started quite untintentionally or maybe intentionally?cata...

I'm on the road to abstinence finally. Physically I've been working towards it the past few weeks but the important thing to me is being mentally in the zone. I can't and will never be abstinent if the old grey matter isn't with me on the ride.   But it's been so fking hard. I am by no means over Pepe, I was working on getting used to life without Bob but then Pepe and then I've had a recent incident with death which I've not really disclosed on here but to be fair,has fking traumatised me for quite a while.   I just feel like death is bloody following me around like it did in the film Final Destination and it's been hard to snap out of it.  I need to cut myself some slack, I know I do. There'll always be an excuse to drink if I give myself an excuse.  And whilst that seems harsh given the losses I've accrued,  my alcoholic brain hasn't half used it as an excuse to play havoc.  I've decided mentally that enough is enough otherwise I'l...

Not been a good day today.  I've been a right wassock. Very sensitive and very vocal in my grievances.  A bit OTT if I say so myself. Bit aggy.  In truth I've been a messy pillarc. But I do understand why.  This was talked about when I attended  Intuitive Recovery in the past.  It focuses on the addictive part of the brain.Its classed as an " animal brain" because it lacks control and functions only on need(in my case alcohol) The thought process behind this, is that the other,stronger part of the brain is the human element , which should override the basic animal part of the brain.  Should. . So anyway, when you decide to get sober,, that part of the brain which has always enjoyed addiction, goes into a panic mode. Because deep down, you( as in both parts of the brain) know it's going to end.  It's a very weird psychological response. Some say it's like a "fight or flight " response. I liken it to Kubler Ross' 5 stages of grief. Anger,denial...

So I'm going to kick-start this blog off from the moment I disclosed the relapse. I'm leaving up the other posts as a time line of my past success, evidence sobriety does happen and for me, a reminder of the struggle and reward that comes with abstinence because that's the goal I've set. As an addict in relapse, I've been lucky to have so much love and support from friends near and far and family,for this I'm grateful because I have seen all too often the loneliness of addiction.  What I've found quite common when I relapse is that friends/family have been upset that I didn't tell them personally I relapsed. I think it's important to explain this from my point of view.  My not telling my nearest and dearest doesn't diminish my feelings for these people. Addiction and Relapse makes me feel extremely vulnerable so I just prefer to let everyone know at the same time that I'm a ridiculous drunk.  I don't want to go person to person to admit m...

I pressed the fuckit button on Tuesday night.  It's been a long time coming. No point focusing on what caused the fuckit button to be deployed. It's in the past. Whole heap of excuses if I wanted to give them out but every single one of them comes down to me picking that bottle up. Sure, triggers are there, but its my choice to make bad choices. The thing is,to talk about what enabling the fuckit button actually  achieved. Well ,it reminded me that for me, alcoholism is a learned behaviour.  I sat in the same spot on the couch in the same position with legs tucked under me, bottle at the side of the couch. In easy reach. Old behaviours  It wasn't even a nice evening. I was still lonely,upset, tired but with added bonus of being wankered! I could have reached out to my SMART friends. But there was no chance I'd ring them and chat with a glass in my hand. I love and respect them x But the thing about realpse prevention is do not focus on the negative One should not fee...

 It's been  while since I updated my Blog. In truth I was going to end it, seeing as I'd finished with the alcohol team and achieved sobriety.   Then I realised I needed to actually KEEP updating, due to being the maintenance zone of sobriety and that the support gained from the blogs is as imperative as it ever was if not more,  So I'm going to keep on keeping on.  I'm going to talk about Africa.  Firstly I was really annoyed Toto forgot to bless those there rains.  Secondly F U LOADSHEDDING!!! 👎 So down to the nitty gritty:  When I made the decision to take Disulfiram(Antabuse) before I went away to Africa, I went through a range of emotions and thoughts, highlighted below: 1: You don't need to take them  2:Have faith in yourself! 3: Take them 4:You're going to get pissed 5:nobody needs to know 6:nobody needs to know 7:nobody needs to know  And the fact that the recurring thought that I had was that "Nobody would ever know "if I ...