I’ve made some pretty big mistakes lately, but I’m coping surprisingly well.
It’s weird, I really thought going so many days at a time “cold turkey” would be a lot more difficult than it has been. Granted, if I had had money all this time I probably would have succumbed to temptation… but being broke has forced me to be sober and find other things to do, and honestly it has actually been pretty darn easy. No withdrawals to speak of, just a little difficulty sleeping which is easily fixed by just staying up super late and playing computer games or reading Cracked.com articles.
I’ve played a ton of Torchlight II, Final Fantasy VII, Half-Life 2, Escape Velocity Nova and tonight a game I like to call “Fighting my stupid jailbroken iPhone”, along with the old “waiting game” where I watch download progress bars for a couple hours at a time.
Despite the stress I’ve been under lately, what with being behind in rent and not knowing if I’ll get a job or a benefit in time to prevent myself from being kicked out on the street, I have coped surprisingly well I think.
I’ve come up with all sorts of things to distract myself. From writing myself notes to stick on the walls of my room, to spending a metric shit-ton of hours playing computer games, to reading and making daily lists of things I want/need to accomplish. I’m not out of the woods yet, but personally I’m pretty impressed with how well I’ve been doing so far.
As I said, though, I am not out of the woods yet. Today I was granted a benefit from Work & Income as well as a one-off, recoverable rent arrears payment and that has solved several things that I no longer need to stress about… but it means I have money coming in again, which is both good and bad news.
The good news is, I can pay my rent each week and buy a proper coffee every now and then. But the bad news is I can afford to drink, even if it is just once or twice a week. I mean, I know drinking on it’s own isn’t so bad. It’s just the way that I do it – alone and bored and to excess. And I am not yet at the point where I can just say no to myself for no other reason than I know that I shouldn’t. Right now I feel good about myself, I’m not gagging for a drink or anything like that. But I know that tomorrow when I go to the supermarket for foodstuffs and chewing gum and a paper, I’m going to have a tough time not buying alcohol. Scratch that, I seriously doubt that in the moment I’ll even give it a second thought. I’ll just buy wine and that will be that.
People often say that it’s best not to give up things you’re addicted to “cold turkey” because it can be damaging… which I guess makes sense to me in theory, but after experiencing now four straight days with no alcohol whatsoever, I’m starting to wonder if either A) that’s bullshit, or B) I was actually never “addicted”? I’m really not sure. What really worries me is the idea that if I was in fact not addicted to alcohol, then does that mean that the mistakes I made in the name of alcohol were actually made because some kind of fundamental character flaw I possess? I don’t know. I don’t really know how to define addiction. Alcoholism is seen as a disease by many many people these days, so who am I to question it? But… I wonder if we are just letting people use “alcoholism” as an excuse to do dumb shit and get away with it as long as they say that they’re sorry?
There has to be something to the idea of alcoholism, and to be fair I am known for overthinking things and being paranoid sometimes – my alcoholism may not be real, but my mental health issues certainly are – but I just can’t help but wonder if all of this could have been avoided.
Aside from all that, I have still been taking steps towards feeling better and more in control of my life. Making lists is one thing that really helps! Even if I don’t complete the whole list, just giving myself a set of tasks to complete and doing some of them really helps me to feel as though I’m getting a handle on things. Which is important to me because I feel like in the last six or eight months my life just somehow spun right-the-fuck out of control and it needed fixing.
Another thing I’ve done is cut my medication dose in half. While it was my decision to start taking medication for my depression and anxiety, the dosage was chosen by my doctor and I really feel as though it was wrong. I honestly think that taking so much was doing me more harm than good. So now instead of taking a 20mg tablet every day, I cut them in half. Luckily they’re tablets rather than capsules so it’s not too much of a hassle.
Now there is one thing that I must do right now though that will shape my very near future, and that is to eat some soup, take my pill and go to bed. Because it is 4:42am and the longer I put off sleep, the less productive my day will be. Or something like that. I’ve been at this computer for bloody hours today and I’m worried it might give me a rash or something.
Thanks for reading. ❤
drowning dry 
It is important to remember that there is a difference between alcohol dependence and abuse. When considering if you have an abuse problem try to remember the 4 Ls:
Liver – (health)
Livelihood – (loss of employment etc)
Love – (breakdown in family or intimate relationships)
Law – (legal problems)
If you are having a problem with two or more of those and still drinking then you probably have a problem, but that doesn’t mean you are dependent.
Physiological dependence is another thing all together and that is when it can be dangerous to actually stop drinking “cold turkey”…(it doesn’t sound like you there yet) and pharmacological maintenaince or detox is required to safely stop drinking.
And regarding being broke etc…some things can be a blessing without you even realising it until much later. Kind of like a divine intervention.
I remember when i was in the midst of my addiction i was so sad because i had no real friends or anyone that cared about me around me. I was very lonely. I look back on that loneliness now as a blessing. It would have been that much harder to recover from my addiction if there had been any other addicts in my life that i wanted to remain in my life. I am not sure i could have recovered if i had tried to keep in touch with addict “friends”.
When considering if you should buy that bottle of wine when you are next in the supermarket , have a think about the positives that can come from buying it, and then the negatives. Sometimes ambivalence can be cured just by weighing up the pros and cons.
🙂
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