Some of you may have noticed me flitting around here. I haven’t taken the time to write up my story yet except for a brief post in the Introduction thread. Well let it be known I am an avid social dancer. It is fantastic and I dance between 2-7 days a week. I won’t evangelise here and attempt to get everyone to dance - but everyone should.
I am at 18 days. I am going to a lesson tonight and the second half is a social dance where alcohol will be available. When I go to this particular event I usually have 1-3 drinks (of fairly strong IPA). I have stayed sober in the past but not frequently. Note: I wasn’t trying back then. There are few folks who tease non-drinkers there as well.
I really need to be able to keep dancing for this life change to work. There’s a whole weekend long dance event starting tomorrow that I have paid for well in advance so tonight is a deliberate trial run.
I am pretty sure I got this. My motivation is strong. I will use the “early morning meeting” excuse if asked and I will leave earlier than usual. I will have a nice Chai tea and a muffin (it’s in a cafe).
Also I tried to use the SMART disarm tool so I have a name for my temptation. I call him the “Candyman” and I refuse to say his name out loud and let him get his hooks into me. Haha!
Uh oh. I just heard a little bit of wavering in my head. I just heard my neighbour putting out their garbage and I had the passing thought: “I better put out the garbage now because I won’t remember when I get back - I will be drunk.”
Breathing. It’s just a thought. It’s not going to happen! I should still put out the garbage now though so I don’t have to put it out at 11 pm.
Challenges are what you make of them. Stay strong and you will make good decisions. You can’t tell me you developed a problem because somone else encouraged it, so someone giving you a hard time for not drinking should have zero effect. My favorite line when someone says i should drink is “fuck off” and it seems to be quite effective, though not for everybody’s use. Good luck.
@sober Thanks for the tough talk! I am not too worried about the people teasing me. I know it’s only my own social anxiety telling me that people care whether I am drinking or not.
Well here goes. I have a plan to have a good time. Like duh: It’s dancing to awesome music with my favourite dance group. How is that so bad? Why so anxious right?
The first part is questioning your urges and the second is actively answering them as if they were coming from an enemy. Kind of like what @Sober recommended except telling it to yourself personified as an enemy.
Well I made it. There wasn’t really a whole lot of uncertainty in me about it or I wouldn’t have gone. I got some odd glances as well as a sad look when I turned down a guy’s offer of a drink. There’s also an after-dance party with this group tomorrow and I had to turn that invitation down. It will pretty much be just a drinking binge.
More importantly I got back out there. Inside though I was struggling with shutting off my ego and just letting the dance take me away. For that reason I sometimes felt some sad twinges of missing the alcohol. I think I need to work on some kind of meditation or something to quiet that inner voice. Anyway thanks everyone!
OK. One more after action report. I am awake now and I am appreciating the lack of headache, bloating and dehydration. I am down 0.6 pounds today. My muscles feel good like after a workout and not that kind of dragging feeling they would have if the alcohol was stopping my body from repairing them. I even got my garbage out on time and got to work 15 minutes early.
Nice job @LeilaBird. What you described would tempt me as well. I drank by myself too, but social events where I could drink and drink were always something I looked forward to. I don’t think that way now, but it used to be the only thing that I lived for, the only reason to do all the boring, mundane things in my life, because there was a promise of alcohol at the end.
