both?

I don’t want to second-guess your therapist, but I wonder if she’s thinking short-term vs long-term? Unless you have a trip planned or an upcoming wedding in your immediate future, a sudden urge to drink is a more immediate thing to need to have a plan for than something which is a way in the future, after you’ve got a good long stretch of sobriety under your belt.

Bear in mind that this lack of urges can change. I did dry January in 2022, and thought “this is great, no cravings, nothing.” By March I was drinking as much as I had been before I did dry January, and this is quite common.

So when I stopped again in May 2022, I recognised that I needed to spend some time building sober supports and scaffolding, so that when cravings arrived, I had tools to deal with them.

Everyone’s different. Some people find the “recovery” model helpful, some people don’t. Some people find the AA model helpful, but I gave many years of my life to a “higher power” as a lay member of a religious order, and so I don’t find that model helpful, and the people who say things like “but this doorknob could be your Higher Power” just make me laugh. I’m glad the AA model is there for people who find it helpful, but I’m not one of those people.

I drank too much, I got to the point where I decided that I didn’t want to do it any more, so I don’t. I dug into the science behind addiction, about what alcohol really does to you, and read books by people who modelled the sober life I wanted, eg “Sunshine Warm Sober”. And now I mostly don’t think about it, I just don’t drink.

Congratulations!

Good idea. May I suggest that you replace them with interesting non-alcoholic drinks? In my early days, I found my biggest temptation was “there’s nothing to drink and water is boring,” so I made sure I always had something interesting in.

welcome, we’re glad to have you here. There’s lots of resources in the various pinned posts. I view it a bit like scaffolding. You’re building a new thing, and you need structure and support to get you there. But everyone’s building a new thing that’s unique to them, so will need a unique scaffold of support. There’s no one way to achieve sobriety.

congratulations!

congratulations!

congratulations!

Welcome, we’re glad to have you here 🙂

I’m a great believer for having a plan for difficult days, so what’s your plan? Who knows you aren’t drinking? I found it was easier not to drink if people knew in advance.

Can you make sure there’ll be nice non-alcoholic drinks (take your own, if necessary)?

Are you prepared to leave if it gets hard? I was dreading my first work Christmas party after I stopped. I wasn’t sure what AF drinks options there would be, and forced socialisation with people I wouldn’t choose to socialise with is not my forte. So I told myself I could stay until I’d eaten and then I could bugger off.

My top tips for surviving parties:

1. Get there under your own steam (bonus points if it’s by a method you can’t drink with, e.g. driving or cycling).

2. Don’t offer lifts to anyone, that way you can leave on your own timetable, not theirs. If you have a partner, get them onside so they will leave if you say “honey we need to go now.”

3. Set yourself a curfew (leave after you’ve eaten, for example). You can stay later if you find you’re having fun, but having that “I only have to stick it out until then,” at the back of your mind is really helpful.

4. Get an alcohol-free drink in your hand as soon as you arrive, mentally setting your “tone” for the event. If you’re worried there won’t be anything AF, or the AF options will be childish (I never drank Coke when I was a child, why are you offering it as the only option to a grown adult?), take your own.

5. If your partner isn’t present, have them on standby to send you an emergency “get home now, [insert plausible but not overly dramatic excuse here, no deaths or explosions or you’ll be dealing with concerned enquiries for days]” message. If you don’t have a partner, or helpful friend, reach out to someone here, I can make up “the dog’s got diarrhoea/the kids have just started vomiting, please can you get home?” excuses with the best of them.

6. Take time to check in on yourself somewhere quiet, every hour or so. Do some box breathing (in for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four), and just recombobulate yourself.

7. Don’t tangle yourself up in long goodbyes, just slip away, like a little ghost. 👻 You can always send the host a thank you message the next day “sorry I left without saying goodbye, but you were too busy being fabulous and I didn’t want to interrupt, I had a great time, thank you!”

8. Remember it’s a Christmas party, not a hostage situation. You can just leave.

You stopped drinking three years ago but you want to stop drinking? Which is it?

I personally wouldn’t hang out with people who were drinking, because I find navigating drunk conversation gets kind of boring after a while, I would hang out with people who model the behaviour I want to display. This means I tend to hang out in spaces that talk about reading, sewing, crochet, or long-distance walking, spaces where neither alcohol or not drinking are the subject. if people do start talking about sewing and drinking, I drop out of that part of the conversation.

One thing I will add is that when I stopped, I initially found it very difficult to be around people who were drinking. It’s hard to hold a conversation when you’re sober and they aren’t, which is kind of boring for the sober person. Depending on who I was with, I was on edge about whether they’d forget I wasn’t drinking and offer me something.

Could you and your family commit to not drinking while he’s staying with you?

There’s various pinned posts on here that offer help and advice, it might be worth having a read through those.

drinking to get some sleep isn’t necessarily a good strategy. Alcohol consumption stops you going to deep sleep, because your body prioritises getting this toxic substance out of you, and of course if you drink enough you’re not actually sleeping, you’ve just passed out.

Recovering from prolonged alcohol consumption takes time. Your body starts to anticipate your drinking, and starts ramping up the production of hormones and other things in advance (“oh, it’s nearly 6pm, here we go,”) and then if you don’t drink, there’s a “WTF am I supposed to do with all this?” moment, when it realises you’re metaphorically all dressed up and nowhere to go.

I’ve posted some stuff about sleep hygiene before, it’s one of the pinned posts. I appreciate that not all of it will be possible for you if you’re in a residential programme and therefore not in full control of your surroundings, but there’s things like coming off your phone, going to bed at a set time, that are all achievable and start giving your body sleep cues to help you get restful sleep.

I like a sparkling tea, especially for a celebration. There’s a few good NA beers like Lucky Saint. Herbal tea as we move into this cold weather.

You can do it!

Do you have some good NA drinks ready for the weekend?

Hello, and welcome, we’re glad to have you here.

The board is about not drinking alcohol. That said:

1. 4 weeks without caffeine is a huge achievement and I couldn’t do it.
2. There doesn’t seem to be a specific “caffeine free” board
3. I’m not going to pop round your house to make sure that when you make the IWNDWYT pledge you’re not sneaking a C in there to make it I Will Not Drink Caffeine With You Today.

Congratulations on 4 weeks!

Woohoo!

Congratulations! I’ll hit that milestone next month.