I have some questions for you Lt's

[Ids]

Hi all,

I am new to this site. I have been trying to quit drinking for almost two years now, with no success. I can do a few days and then the urges begin and even though I know it is ruining my health and I can't function at a job when I begin my day with a half pint of vodka, I feel an overwhelming compulsion to go to the store and get my fix.

How did you guys do it?

Ids

[xtexan]

I have some questions for you Lt's

Hi Ids:

How do some of us do it? I guess that question can be answered with the riddle, ?How do you eat an elephant????Answer: One bite at a time.

You start with one day. One hour, and keep doing those things that help you.

In my case, I have to do a very wide spectrum of nutritional supplements. Everyday. I use multi-vitamins, and some days, herbal relaxants. Other days, GABA, glutamine, kudzu, 5-HTP, L-theanine, phenibut, and a lot of others in sort of a sequential order. It?s a bit different than the MWO program, but after almost a year, I have made adjustments that work for me.

Exercise. Cardio, weights, stretching, calisthenics. Running some days, bicycling others. Upper body weights some days, and lower body the other days. Pull-ups, push-ups, sit-ups. Indoor bicycle and outdoor bicycle. Jump rope. I mix it up, and do different things on different days to abate any sense of routine and boredom. The important thing is the get all the systems of the body pushed beyond their usual levels, to move things around.

Mental. Read positive books. Listen to positive audio programs. Self-help. Self-esteem. Engage in a mind-challenging hobby. I like to do flight simulations, because it engages just about all of the mental skills, and hand-eye coordination. Reading and posting this forum!

Psychological. Hypnosis CD?s or audio programs. Subliminal tapes and CD?s. Paraliminal tapes and CD?s. Brain wave synchronization programs and light/sound synchronization machine. Reading and posting on this forum!!

Emotional. Self-analysis. Neuro-linguistic programming. More books and meditation. Again, mixing it up, and doing different things at different times. Read this forum!
St. Johns Wort, 5-HTP, melatonin.

Food. Lots more fresh vegetables. I started eating more salads, and vegetables. 100% whole grain bread and rice. Protein powders. More fish and chicken, and less red meat.
Less fatty foods by far.

Detoxification of the internal systems. Fiber supplements, and bentonite liquid. Also, some GI tract cleansing best not gone into detail on.

Lets see what else. I am currently looking at starting Tai-Chi, and have practiced yoga in the past. Also looking at a system called the five Tibetan rites, which is a series of five exercises that are a mix of yoga, stretching, and calisthenics.

When a wave of stress or anxiety hits, I clobber it. Brain wave machine, valerian root, passion flower extract, GABA, phenibut, l-theanine, and nerve calming herbal supplements.

Day after day, I keep working on improvement. I keep after it, hour to hour sometimes. Anything, but drinking that booze!

It takes dedication, and time, but it can be done. I don?t believe anyone is a hopeless case, because I believed I was for a very long time.

After a while, the urges to drink get replaced by other things. Urges to exercise, read, do hobbies, meditate. It takes time, but soon a new person begins to form, that is a strong sober person, and the drinking person loses strength. I can tell you sometimes the drinking person rests for a while, and then tries to attack again. If the sober person is prepared, and has not become complacent, then they can fight off the drinking person every time I believe. It is at the core of your being where this all resides.

That?s how I do it.

Be well.

Neil

[irishlady]

I have some questions for you Lt's

Hello Ids,

I couldn't agree with Neil more, and I love the analogy of eating an elephant. So you want to stop drinking,
well just having that thought is your first bite of the elephant, but it's such a huge animal you are going to have to do a lot of work to eat it all.
Like Neil I take quite a lot of vitamins and supplements on a daily basis, but I don't take any meds such as Topax etc., as I don't want to put any more drugs into my body.
Exercise is important, I do a lot of walking in all sorts of weather and it really clears the mind.
Diet, eat as healthily as you can, although at the moment I am having big sugar cravings and eating lots of chocolate and cakes, but as long as it's not alcohol I don't care for now as I can deal with it later.
Try and gather together as many distraction techniques as you can, I tend to use things like, jigsaw puzzles, knitting, reading, even kids puzzle books. I have had this computer for only 6 months so I am still getting used to using it but I have found some very good games sites and I download and play lots of puzzle games.
As to the emotional and psychological side of things, I do a lot of meditation, sometimes for only 15 minutes or so sometimes for longer. It takes practice but is worth the effort. There are times when I have meditated and gone as far back as my childhood to find reasons as to why I am the kind of person I am and why I have this compulsion to drink, and now it is finally paying off, and I can more easily deal with the cravings.
Remember, a craving for alcohol will NOT kill you, if you are prepared and you have made yourself strong enough you can ride out your cravings, but giving in to them, well that can kill you.
You say you have been trying to give up for 2 years , well I am 59 years old and I have been trying on and off for about 10 years to stop drinking but wanting to stop isn't enough, as Neil has said, it's a long journey
and if you are an alcoholic I believe it is a neverending one, but it's such a rewarding adventure and to be able to say to someone " no thanks, I dont' want a drink, " and mean it makes it all worthwile.

Well I wish you all the luck in the world, there are plenty of people here willing to help you on your journey
but only you can do it for yourself.

Take care Ids

Louise.

[capto]

I have some questions for you Lt's

Xtxan and Irishlady,

As a relative newbie, I really appreciate the detail and candor you shared with Ids and us on how you are doing it. I think so often, many of us think most of you are having a fairly easy go at taking supplements, hypno, exercise, and maybe topomax if you can get it.

Both of you have enlightened me. And Neil, I am in awe of your discipline!

Capto

[mikeupnorth]

I have some questions for you Lt's

Dear Ids and Capto,

I agree wholeheartedly with everything Neil and Louise wrote. It does take dedication. It takes patience. It requires that you take things one step at a time.

None of us does this thing 100% the same way but I think you will notice some common threads. One is commitment. The people who succeed at staying sober make a solid decision and commit themselves to it; they let go of that lingering hope that they might someday be able to drink moderately. They commit themselves to do whatever it takes to stay sober and put it first in their lives. [Sometimes down the road you may find yourself hanging on by your fingernails, but you just don't let go...]

Another thing that happens to enable people to be successful in sobriety, I think, is changing the way they think about alcohol. If a person is going to quit doing something they love, they have to change their mind about loving it. I had to get it through my thick skull that alcohol was simply not doing anything for me. It wasn't making me relaxed: it was causing me anxiety. It didn't relieve stress: it caused depression. It didn't help me socialize: it made me isolated. It isn't something that tastes good or is appealing in any way: it is nasty, like diesel fuel. I was finally able to turn these things around in my brain and it really helped me to stop wanting to drink. I don't think anyone can continue to think of alcohol in a positive light and stay sober in the long-term. If they do they will always feel deprived.

Neil and Louise both touched on this, but being successful at quitting drinking requires that you do something besides simply not drinking. In the beginning this means finding something to do with your time to distract yourself, like doing jigsaw puzzles or going to a movie with a friend. It's important not to have free time to think too much. In the longer term, it means re-framing the way we live our lives, finding new ways to cope with stress, exploring new ways to have fun without alcohol, etc.

Some of the particulars of my program are taking a multivitamin, an extra amino acid supplement, kudzu root, Topamax, doing hypnotherapy, and spending quite a bit of time reading and posting on this board. I'm now doing some new meditations on finding my inner guide, exploring my creative self, etc.

While the supplements and medication helped with the physical cravings, I can't stress enough that it still requires a daily decision on my part, and a commitment to live a certain way. I used alcohol as a way to cope (or NOT cope) for such a long time, that I'm now having to face a lot of feelings that I didn't realize I even had. It's quite an adjustment, let me tell you. Now my goal is to learn new ways to live, so that I can enjoy the second half of my life -- and enjoy it without the scourge of alcohol. And I want to be as strong as possible so that when the time comes I can face down the monster (temptation, cravings, the voice that will tell me I have this thing beat). It's not a matter of if it will come, I'm sure of that. It's a matter of when.

The bottom line is that it isn't easy. But it's not all that hard either, if you really (finally) make up your mind that it's what you want to do. It's the making up your mind that is the hardest part -- at least from my experience.

All the best ~

Mike

[Olly]

I have some questions for you Lt's

Thanks Mike, another great post. You mentioned "exploring other ways to have fun without alcohol" which touched on the lingering core of my thoughts lately. I can envision ways to "have fun without alcohol" in various situations (especially "active" things, time with my daughter, putting up the Christmas tree, etc)
but, I'm struggling with what I'm going to do with myself this year at Christmas during those marathon family meals... of which our Christmas tradition revolves around. (there's no football, there's no tv, it's traditional euro style with spending hours sitting around the dinner table together and in a language I don't entirely understand which makes me alittle uncomfortable to start)

I guess that may be when I'll be "hanging by my fingernails." Whereas there was always that glass of wine or two or three to get me through those long sessions with a (perhaps false) sense of "happy," this year I'll be feeling my true feelings and at the moment I just can't imagine they will be anything close to "happy". Guess I'll just have to be okay with being polite...

olly