The Giving Up/ Cutting Down alcohol support thread - number 13

Honey_Bear

You're doing really well, Piggles. Keeping dry vibes heading your way Dizzy, and happier holiday vibes for you Barny.

17/31 please, Shaggy.

Sandypan

Greetings everyone,
Could i declare 14/28 for tonight please and i would love a cat swingng on the moon please Shaggydoo!
Did anybody see the George Best autopsy last night, so sad! Really makes you think!

Doshwaster

Barny1979 wrote: »

12/20 AFDs today, currently on holiday in Gdansk, lovely place, but feeling in a low place, not sure why though, may be the dark early nights.

Gdansk is a tough place for an AFD as there are so many good bars and beers there - especially on a cold, dark and wet night.

piggles1

Thanks Honey Bear I'm doing better than I thought but kep wanting to slip back into old ways but haven't. The thought never leaves you does it?!

Sandypan wrote: »

Did anybody see the George Best autopsy last night, so sad! Really makes you think!

No I missed that. Would have been good to watch, maybe I can get the catchup thing to work for it.

Hmph, just tried, it says my flash is out of date but it isn't I've never been able to get the videos on demand sites working at all, except bbc. That's annoying.

I managed another AFD yesterday Four in a row for the first time.

12/15 AFD please shaggy

debjay

14/22 for tonight please.

Barny1979

13/20 AFDs today

Dizzy_Imp

Thanks for the good wishes everyone...Still on, or rather back on flood alert, after a reprieve of 36 hours thanks to Storm Barney. Just had messages to both our mobiles and the landline from Flood Agency warning that the river is rising again. So is my anxiety lol. Prediction is 60cms lower than the high of Sunday, so it should be OK, but....

So clocking up 10/23 this evening

Chardonnay

piggles1 wrote: »

Thanks maman and chardonnay Yes I often wonder if what I say does help others reading it as well. The simplest explanation for OCD is having obsessions and compulsions. So for me, apart from the checking for safety thing, it was drawing lines on the bottle to not go over when I was drinking, having to have a certain glass, filled to a certain level, at a certain time, in a certain chair, like rituals with everything. But it's when the rituals take over it becomes bothersome.

To stop drinking with OCD for me means relinquishing all the clock watching and measuring but also the relaxation that comes from drinking. It's more difficult because I've ended up with loose hours that were previously about obsessing with the bottle, pouring out loads of little measures until I was relaxed after I'd drunk a lot.

It was almost as if wishing I wasn't such a slave to drink became another obsession that I held on to. Thinking 'I wish I didn't have to keep doing this drinking' and I used to trick myself and draw ambitious lines on the bottle that I'd then forget were at a level far less than I could have had. That worked to an extent.

But all the measuring and drawing lines probably clouded the actual issue which was knowing I needed to cut down. That's the thing with obesssional thinking, it's a way of avoiding the real issue which is right in front of you.

Since not drinking my OCD has got much worse in some ways because I'm not relaxed, but better in others because I have a clear head.

The trick with me seems to be to go to bed at 10pm which is early enough that the house doesn't feel like it's the scary middle of the night and make my checking really bad, but late enough to feel sleepy.

I've had two more AFDs weehee. So last week I only had 2.5 units. That's a big difference getting down to that from being a daily heavy drinker

11/15 AFD please shaggy

It sounds like you're doing really well Piggles. It's so hard with OCD as it changes all the time I think and you just tie yourself up in knots with it. My therapist is trying to make me think of it as a bully and that helps me. I know that I've spent far too much time letting that bully dictate what I can and can't do so now I'm trying to talk back to it. Not easy at all as you know! But you sound like you are doing your own therapy by cutting down on the drinking hence not using it to relax and making you deal with the thoughts with more of a clear head (do us OCD sufferers ever have a clear head?! )

Dizzy_Imp wrote: »

Thanks for the good wishes everyone...Still on, or rather back on flood alert, after a reprieve of 36 hours thanks to Storm Barney. Just had messages to both our mobiles and the landline from Flood Agency warning that the river is rising again. So is my anxiety lol. Prediction is 60cms lower than the high of Sunday, so it should be OK, but....

So clocking up 10/23 this evening

Ah fingers crossed Dizzy - must be a huge worry for you!

Two more days to add to my tally so I'm now on 9/17 please Shaggy.

satchmo1

13/21 AFDs for last night. Wasn't feeling great all day, but managed to rally in order to go to a meeting. I was flagging by the end of it as too many people waffled on and on and on.

Honey_Bear

Well done for hanging on in there, Satchmo.

piggles1 wrote: »

Thanks Honey Bear I'm doing better than I thought but kep wanting to slip back into old ways but haven't. The thought never leaves you does it?!

The good new is actually, sort of - Yes - the thoughts do leave you, the longer you go on not drinking. I've had a bit of a reprieve recently and realised that I've got a bit of a food intolerance thing going on which I'd always blamed on the booze. A year after quitting I was still feeling as beset by it as I was when I was drinking which really upset me. Anyway, now that I've worked out what the chronic lack of energy and lethargy were caused by, technically I could, I think give myself permission to have the occasional tipple. Except that I know, I absolutely know, that I'm a creature of habit and it wouldn't be long before I went back to sloshing it back in the same way as I used to. I don't want to live like that any more and if I hadn't already developed a serious problem around booze I was certainly on my way to doing so. So - no, I don't feel tempted to go back to drinking.

I might, very occasionally, want to be able to join in the convivial atmosphere by swigging on a glass or two of red but I don't mind just nixing the thought and having another B***$ B**e. I just like this life more.

As to the issues of watching catch up TV on a computer - I have all sorts of problems with my laptop and something like either flash or shockwave problems seem to be the issue. I have a feeling it's to do with old computers and operating systems but as long as I can get iplayer to work and the tube of U I'm not spending any more money updating my hardware so it can take the new software until I absolutely have to.

18/30 please, Shaggy.