Hey Stevie, I am very sorry for your loss. And I’m proud of you because you want to become sober despite the pain.
For starters, I highly recommend checking in daily to maintain focus, because then you will be more aware of your addiction and it will have a lot more struggles to creep up on you.
Here’s a link to a thread where you can check in daily.
It is also a good idea to find hobbies to fill the time you usually drink. There are lots of advantages to hobbies. They can improve both mental and physical health.
Activities like cycling, dancing, running, walking, swimming and working out are great to improve physical health.
Hobbies like drawing, writing, reading, crafts and mindfulness are great for improving mental health.
And of course, some hobbies are simply fun to do.
Mindfulness is also very useful for getting over guilt and shame. With mindfulness you learn not to pay a lot of attention to negative thoughts. It also helps you to get a better concentration.
Giving your addiction a name is very useful too. I named my addiction Brutus. Doing so helped me become more aware of my addiction and I know better what I’m fighting.
I also recommend reading on this forum a lot since there are lots of people on here with similar experiences. You can read how they dealt with those experiences and you will feel that you are not in this alone.
If I think about not gaming for the rest of my life, it scares me. But if I think I won’t game for today, the burden will be much smaller.
Don’t listen to your mind. Over time your mind has become a dick trying to kill you. By being sober your mind will be a dick less and less, but it will always be a dick.
If you ever have cravings play the tape. By this, I mean fast forward and predict what happens if you relapse. Will you be happy and jolly and dancing around the room or will you hate yourself and be filled with guilt, shame and self-disgust?
Your mind will tell you that you can drink just one glass of booze. That is BULLSHIT. You can not. Your mind is trying to kill you at such moments.
The past is something you can’t change, but you can however shape the future. You must never forget the past since it contains many life lessons and it tells you the mistakes you made so you won’t repeat them.
I hope this helps you.
I wish you good luck on your journey.
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