LogFAQs > #966222944

Pepys Monster posted...

Did you have to stop hanging out with certain friends?

Yeah. There are some people I still won't go around because the only interest we had in each other was getting drunk together. After three or four "come have drinks with us!" "nah but we can go see a movie or something" "oh yeah for sure I'll hit you up *ghost*" conversations, the friendship shriveled up and are functionally over. I've also had some people say they miss the "old me." Those friendships died on the spot.

I've settled into a new normal with most people though and everything's pretty good. COVID-19 is really the only thing that's keeping me from fully re-integrating and doing all the things I'd like to do.

TheBrainbuster posted...

Do you remember the exact date 3 years ago that you stopped? What happened to cause you to stop?

Was it cold turkey?

The 30th is the first day I know for sure I didn't drink and it was cold turkey from that point on.

I don't think I can be too detailed but in short, the depressive effects of alcohol became unbearable and I almost made an extremely permanent choice the morning after my last night out partying. Freaked me the fuck out and I knew I had to change, and soon.

The_Creep_2020 posted...

Whats the hardest part of staying sober?

All the triggers, especially at first. It's not just the obvious things, like stressful situations, being around drinking buddies, seeing beer commercials, or hearing party songs, either. Really nonsensical things can become associated with the habit and there can be these Pavlovian reactions that have to be examined and altered.

The smell of Burger King, for example, triggered BAD cravings in me at first. I had eaten BK like once in the entire decade leading up to getting sober because it had become disgusting to me. The first time it happened, I was stuck in a car with someone eating it and I thought maybe the craving was because of irritability and being stressed by smelling something I didn't like, but subsequent instances in more favorable circumstances proved it was something deeper.

After a bit of analyzing the situation, it dawned on me that my favorite beer store was next to a BK and even though I never consciously made note of the smell, my addicted-ass brain sure did. It was background "noise" to me because I was 100% focused on the alcohol and nothing else mattered but a decade of that smell preceding alcohol consumption conditioned me without me even realizing it. That resulted in the smell becoming a very powerful trigger once the process wasn't completed. It was like my brain was blueballed by the BK smell.

There are lots of things like that, some I probably can't overcome and just have to work through, which required a robust coping system for life in general. I've been fortunate enough to develop that and can generally disarm any cravings that might arise without much issue. It's still something I'll probably have to be mindful of for the rest of my life.

Whats the most rewarding part of staying sober?

Knowing that no matter how crappy my life may seem at times or how awful I might feel, I'm at least not adding a whole other layer of unnecessary bullshit on top of it all with alcohol.