Aug 21 2008
Dealing With The Mental Obsession To Drink In Recovery
The Early Days Of Recovery
The voice in your head says “wouldn’t it be great to have a beer when it’s so hot outside? You know how much you like the smell and taste of a freshly cracked open beer…”; the voice can be relentless…”you know you usually have a couple drinks of scotch when you relax at night on the patio…”. And so it goes, the mind games of early recovery and that incessant voice reminding you how great it was/is to drink.
This usually happens in your first few days and perhaps weeks of early recovery, and is part of the reason why these days are the toughest to endure. If you give these voices any serious thought then chances are your decision to stop drinking, your withdrawal and subsequent initial treatment has been fairly straight forward with no real pain and sweat involved. There is a saying frequently used by the A.A. old timers and is based on tough withdrawal from alcohol and it goes “I never want to get sober again”. In other words, getting dry was so difficult and the suffering so intense you never want to go through it again and so not drinking is a fundamental conclusion, at least while the physical withdrawal symptoms subside.
Mental obsession to drink can be as troubling as a physical impulse and therefore you need to combat the compulsion with mental weaponry. It has been said that by admitting the fact you are a problem drinker/alcoholic, the decision not to drink anymore is an easier one to make. You know that alcohol is not good for you and it makes you do things you regret, yet those voices will not let up. Understanding why this obsession is happening is important to controlling your urges. Acceptance is good when combined with the discipline to counter the voices with reasons why you stopped drinking in the first place.
There must have been a motivating factor or two that made you decide to stop, so remind yourself of these reasons continuously when the disturbing voices start up. Those same voices were with you when you drank, they just used to remind you when it was time for a drink, when it was time to cut loose and relax with your alcohol. Your decision to stop drinking now means the voices are going to urge you to return to your drinking behavior because that was their role in your previous life. They need to be retrained.
You need to change the mantra so to speak and give a new message to the voice. Acknowledge that the voice is going to be with you for a long time, by giving it a new message, a message of hope for the future; you will begin to receive positive mental sound bites that will aid in your recovery process. Now is the time to sew the seeds of a more powerful and fulfilling message in your minds voice that will sustain you rather than “drive you to drink!”
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