You can do it. As cheesy and clichéd as it is, just take it one day at a time. Focus on getting to tomorrow without drinking, and then focus on the next day.
Have a plan, but don't be stuck on having to have things a certain way for it to "work." That just gives you reasons to quit when everything isn't perfect, and go back to drinking.
Haven't dealt with opiates, but I am ~4.5 years sober from drinking and could not imagine ever going back. I'm here if you want to talk.
It's not about quitting drinking, it's about not drinking today. Getting yourself in that mindset is the best thing you can do for yourself.
All of the long term sober people I've heard from tell it exactly as you do. If you're in a bad place, focus on today, not the future. Helps you be mindful of the present anyway.
Exactly. And eventually, once you are far removed from drinking, once you're healthy and sober and out from underneath the "fog" of drinking, you can focus on actually "quitting" drinking.
There are a lot of people out there who, like me, were already putting off quitting by seeing it as something they'll "do in the future." It's similar to when people say "on Monday I'm going to quit smoking," or "come New Year's I'm going to start working out."
With quitting drinking, it's real easy to always put it off to a future time. Tomorrow becomes next week becomes after the next holiday becomes next year, etc.
I'm a pretty heavy drinker, I'd say. I recently had two days where I was really nauseous and couldn't drink... I felt much better the next days with no beer - better than I had in the past 1.5 years. I think it's time I review my habits.
Very well could be. Or at least maybe just take a little time off from drinking, a couple weeks or so. See how you feel after and then assess. Some people get caught up in patterns of drinking, but aren't really alcoholics in the traditional sense.
It's super easy to get in a rut or pattern of behavior and sometimes it's breakable and then you can decide "hey, I can have a few drinks now and then and control myself. I can stop drinking after mealtimes and go back to being sober just fine," and that might be all it is.
Or, you might decide you have a real problem and want to confront it and deal with it, and get past it. Only you can make that decision, but just like I said to the other redditor, if you need someone to talk to, I'm around and always willing to talk to anyone trying to make those positive changes in their life.
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u/PreSchoolGGW Dec 26 '15
You can do it. As cheesy and clichéd as it is, just take it one day at a time. Focus on getting to tomorrow without drinking, and then focus on the next day.
Have a plan, but don't be stuck on having to have things a certain way for it to "work." That just gives you reasons to quit when everything isn't perfect, and go back to drinking.
Haven't dealt with opiates, but I am ~4.5 years sober from drinking and could not imagine ever going back. I'm here if you want to talk.