Not putting off the things you know you need to do. At least speaking for myself especially in early recovery or past attempts at getting sober a lot of anxiety was because in the back of my head I knew I was putting off responsibilities or procrastinating with certain tasks… for many reasons like fear or just being overwhelmed but I noticed the more I practiced just getting things done right away and facing the uncomfortable feelings then I had less baggage or things weighing me down. Looking back so many relapses I had so many things that were being put to the side or things I was procrastinating and now I realize if I would have took care of each problem or task as it came I probably would have been in a better head space and not made bad decisions or had melt downs.. or there would be no snow ball effect. I try to take care of problems or difficult tasks right away these days or basically not run away but I’m not perfect and still learning and growing.
Alcoholism and/or Drug Addiction is one of the ultimate expressions of selfishness. We own our own actions and decisions and are responsible for them. People who begin their story by stating ‘I drank too much because…’ and blame everyone else other than themselves are not seeing past their own selfishness. Also sobriety means not using any drugs or alcohol you are not prescribed. If I showed up here years ago saying I am not a drunk anymore, but am now a pothead instead, that isn’t sobriety. The person looking back at you in the mirror ultimately owns all of this…
2 years sober and my number one tip is “play it forward.”
One drink leads to two, leads to 6, leads to black out drunk, leads to drinking everyday, leads up shame, guilt, sickness and probably alcohol poisoning and early death.
I don’t have another recovery in me. So this one has to stick.
This is gonna sound really stupid, and slightly obvious but my advice is, ‘Don’t drink / [insert DOC].’
And yeah, it sounds silly and worthy of a thanksimcured subreddit, but over the past few years (which seems crazy to say) that I’ve been sober I kinda realised that life happens. Good days. Bad days. Tragedies. Happy things. Hardships. Depression. Anxiety (oh, fuck my anxiety, it gets pretty bad these days). Failures (many of them). Wins. You get the point. Shit happens. I used to drink to celebrate and drink to commiserate. It turned celebrations sour, and commiserations…. Well, by the time I’d wake up from a blackout whatever I had done during it made the reason to drink in the first place seem trivial, by comparison.
So yeah…. My advice after 1195 days of grateful sobriety is Don’t drink. Whatever happens. You already know alcohol or drugs will only make it ten times worse.
A friend in my men’s study group hit 45 years today (he got sober at 17), and we all said the same thing - don’t drink and don’t die and you’ll get to be an old timer.
