Less Alcohol- June 2018- One Day at a Time
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Terebynthia wrote: »
Having introduced myself, does anyone have any motivational websites / apps that do the same sort of thing for drinking in moderation?
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@donimfp and others here who are interested in the idea of "brewing" ice tea in the refrigerator. I tried it, and it's great. Wanted to pass on that I have a 750 ml Camelbak water bottler that I wasn't using all that much (I usually use a smaller one), so I threw two herbal tea bags in there, added filtered water from the front of my refrigerator and left it overnight. Drinking it now and it's really good and in a convenient to-go bottle.3
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Hi Everyone! Last night I went to an outdoor concert with one of my fav singers. Before the concert, we went to a trendy , delicious restaurant. I had a cocktail which seemed quite weak, but that's a good thing. Then at the concert bought two waters for the show. For me, I am easily influenced by who I go places with. My friend last night is a moderate drinker, the kind who never drinks at home. So, we had a drink and then water which was refreshing. Slept well, woke up happy.
I think back to a concert last summer where I went with my party friends. We were drunk by the time FGL band came on, I lost my friends in the crowd and didn't see them til the concert was over; I also remember watching the band with one eye closed because everything was blurry. And after the show we couldnt find our car.
That's the difference between where I am now compared to a year ago. BIG difference in my state of mind. I like the new me! The old me was a mess! Xo14 -
I downloaded the EasyQuitDrinking app yesterday, there are many similar apps out there. I like the health stats page, showing things such as how your blood alcohol level is improving, along with cell regeneration, liver health, mental health etc. Also how much money you've saved and how many hours/days of lifetime you've regained.
I find it motivating, as I don't want to reset those numbers back zero and have to start again! It's a game and a challenge, which I find better than viewing it as a struggle.
Thank you for sharing this app. I just downloaded it now & think it will definitely give me a boost when I am tempted to imbibe. I have committed to be AF for the month of June, but realize from past experience of being AF for limited time frames & then intentionally falling/jumping off the wagon when the due date is up, I HAVE A PROBLEM with moderating my alcohol consumption long term. I would LOVE to be able to have a standard glass of wine each evening with dinner BUT been there tried that, & it doesn't work for me. I just pick up the daily/pretty much daily habit of drinking beginning with "one" drink & graduating to 3 or 4, then get into the dependency realm....AGAIN! And the kicker IS: I feel SO much better when I do NOT drink! It's my "evil twin" who likes to sabotage my success
I'm hoping this app will give me the boost I need to gauge my progress so that I do not want to fall off the wagon after June...but for now my goal is June 30!! Actually, my short-term goal is TODAY!!! I can do anything for a 24-hour period. Right? 6 days in....WOOHOO!! You GO girl!!
Much success to y'all!!7 -
Welp I had 2 coconut rums last night..... Lost my job so I did not cope in the bestest of ways.... But today is a new day! No drinking for the rest of the week! How are y'all doing this morning with your goals?9
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Terebynthia wrote: »
Having introduced myself, does anyone have any motivational websites / apps that do the same sort of thing for drinking in moderation?
Thanks! I'll check it out.2 -
It has been 10 days and I have had 1/2 glass white sangria. I have laid off the beer which I LOVE. We will see how long this lasts. We are having a Belmont party here on Saturday so it will be a challenge.6
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@lorrainequiche59, we share the same evil twin! Everything you said is ditto for me.
Today is Day 6 and begins 3 days of alcohol-soaked events. Tonight we are being treated to dinner at a wonderful restaurant where I normally begin with a martini and go on from there. I won't be drinking. Tomorrow, I'm the designated driver for my mom's birthday gift of a vodka distillery tour--just Mom and my sister and me. There are some good vodkas around here--Tito's, Deep Eddy, Dripping Springs--but the fact that I'm driving will be my saving grace. Friday night I'm invited to a "Whine and Wine" party--all women and always a lot of fun. I've already included in my e-vite RSVP that I'm doing an alcohol-free June but promise to contribute my share of "whine." That way, I've "announced" already that I won't be drinking. I figure if I can make it to day 9 AF, I'll have cause to celebrate.11 -
For those of a certain age that loved David Cassidy.......this is heartbreaking.
https://people.com/tv/david-cassidys-never-had-dementia/3 -
For those of a certain age that loved David Cassidy.......this is heartbreaking.
https://people.com/tv/david-cassidys-never-had-dementia/
This is so sad3 -
On the beast/reptilian mind front. You may already know this, but there are several people who have websites on binge eating that use this theory: Kathryn Hansen, Amy Johnson, Fernanda on the Life on Tellus website, etc. The only reason that I mention these is that some of the ideas there are applicable to urges to drink (a lot) of alcohol. Life on Tellus has a free download called Let Me Talk You Out of It. It's a short meditation, and I've used it a few times and like it. I also saw this meditation on YouTube, A Meditation for Binge Eaters, which is longer but also useful, I thought.
All of these subscribe to the theory that your lower brain is what's urging you to follow harmful impulses, whether that's binge eating or drinking to excess. Doesn't really matter. Your higher brain can be trained to "dismiss" those urges and the urges will, in fact, fade if you practice that enough. The meditations help to bring you back to the present moment and let those urges float by without your acting on them.
Very interesting ideas and I've been pondering them for sometime. Lately, meditation has been helping me, both on the eating and drinking front.6 -
AF today, day 2, been sat in the bar drinking sparkling water and lemon on my last night in the desert. Good to know that when I get on the bus tomorrow morning at 5 am for the airport, my head is going to feel great.
So many people have missed that bus due to drinking the night before and it causes huge problems and expense. I've got on it in the past feeling like death warmed up and it makes a long day of travelling so much worse.9 -
For those of a certain age that loved David Cassidy.......this is heartbreaking.
https://people.com/tv/david-cassidys-never-had-dementia/
I loved David Cassidy. I was a little girl, but I still loved him. I think he had alot of demons chasing him. Very sad.
"I think I love you, so what am I so afraid of?"5 -
Here is David Cassidy in his own words. Do you want this to be you? I don't want this to be me. He will never know it but he is giving some one (probably many people) a GIFT from beyond the grave with this recording.
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/david-cassidy-talks-alcoholism-dementia-in-last-session-clip-w5211714 -
His voice is heartbreaking.
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This is why I believe Rational Recovery is the only program for anyone concerned about their drinking. If you're in a Moderation Management program they may not speak about their founder and AA has a statistical rating of less than 1% of people who start and stay sober for life. I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade, but I'm 64 and I have played all the mind games I see posted here and I do not want you young people to suffer a lifetime like I did before finding a very simple solution. My addictive voice is instantly recognizable to me and I tell it to go straight to hell and then I drive to my grandchildren's house and pray that a cop pulls me over. Quit rationalizing your drinking, if you're on this topic, you've got a problem and it ain't gonna get better as long as you let your Beast make decisions that you pay the consequences for. And if you're really serious about losing weight for christ's sake alcohol turns to sugar! Ago youngsters the old man has had his say and I wish you the best.
AUDREY CONN/TWITTER
STRUGGLE
Addiction, Drunk Driving, and Suicide: The Struggles of Audrey Conn, Founder of ‘Moderation Management’
Audrey Conn founded Moderation Management as an alternative to A.A. In December, almost 15 years after killing a father and daughter while drunk driving, Conn killed herself
A few days before Christmas, in a Portland suburb, Audrey Conn committed suicide in her mother’s house. Her death, like her life, was immediately seen as something larger in a vituperative debate over whether all problem drinkers need to entirely abstain. Conn, 56, was a founder of Moderation Management, a behavioral program for non-dependent drinkers who seek to change their habits.
She came into national headlines in 2000 after a tragic accident. In January of that year, Conn, who then used her once-married name, Kishline, announced to MM members that moderation wasn’t working for her, and that she was leaving the group to attend Alcoholics Anonymous and other abstinence-based programs
Two months later, with a blood alcohol level three times the legal limit, Conn drove the wrong way down a highway in Washington State. She plowed into an oncoming car, killing Danny Davis and his 12-year-old daughter, LaShell.
The story ignited a huge controversy. Omitting the fact that Conn/Kishline had been attending AA at the time of her accident, prominent abstinence-only proponents used the tragedy to attack moderation. The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD), which is widely considered A.A.’s mouthpiece (A.A. does not comment publicly on what it calls “outside issues”), released a statement that said the incident “provides a harsh lesson for all of society, especially those individuals who collude with the media to continually question abstinence-based treatment for problems related to alcohol and other drugs.” Journalists seized on the news, and condemnatory articles and television segments followed.
What those stories failed to capture was the complexity of those who struggle with “alcohol use disorder,” the clinical term the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the 2013 DSM-V, uses for risky drinking. It denotes a spectrum, from mild to moderate to severe, and replaces the DSM-III’s term “alcohol abuse” and “alcohol dependence.” (Those terms, published in 1980, replaced the much older “alcoholism.”)
Like many women who drink riskily, Conn also struggled with depression, said Dr. Marc Kern, a psychologist at Addiction Alternatives, a substance and alcohol use treatment center in Los Angeles. He was a friend and colleague, and is board chairman of Moderation Management.
Conn, Kern said, didn’t identify with the A.A.’s embrace of the disease theory of alcoholism, which can loosely be described as this: drinkers who can’t control their consumption have a brain disease that, if not halted by abstinence, will continue to worsen.
“Audrey had the courage to say, ‘One size doesn’t fit all,’” Kern said. Conn sought to address the disparity between programs for severely alcohol-dependent people and those in the milder stages of problem drinking. The National Institutes for Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism estimate that of the 18 million Americans with AUD, about 15 percent are in the severely dependent range. (For the severely dependent, abstinence is typically considered the best route to recovery.
In the early 1990s, when Conn was trying to change her own drinking habits, there was little help available outside abstinence-only programs designed for the severely dependent. Like other unhealthy behaviors, risky drinking is more easily addressed when the problem is mild.
Conn, her friends say, had tried A.A.’s 12-step program, which was founded in 1935 when knowledge of neurology was in its infancy. Its tenets include declaring one’s powerlessness over alcohol, accepting the aid of a higher power in maintaining abstinence, and relinquishing one’s ego. Conn found herself at odds with A.A., and contacted prominent researchers who had published numerous peer-reviewed studies that proved the ability of many problem drinkers to cut back. (In the intervening years, such studies have continued to mount.) With their help, Conn developed the program by setting moderate drinking guidelines and limits, drink monitoring exercises, goal-setting techniques, and strategies for identifying triggers.
During her three-year prison stay, LaShell’s mother and Danny’s ex-wife, Sheryl Maloy-Davis, a devout Christian, approached Conn with forgiveness, and in 2007, the two women published a book about their experiences called “Face to Face.” Maloy-Davis, 50, said this week from her home in central Washington that she made a decision for her two surviving sons not to let bitterness consume her. “I told Audrey I forgave her, but she always had such a hard time accepting that,” Maloy-Davis said.
After prison, Conn struggled with guilt, shame, and, as a convicted felon, the inability to find employment, Kern says. She also continued to battle alcohol. “She really wanted to be able to not drink but it had a hold of her,” Maloy-Davis said.
Conn attended A.A. daily for the past several years, Maloy-Davis said, but fell off the wagon repeatedly. That, in turn, compounded her guilt. “She knew the damage she’d done with her drinking and knew what her choices had done to others but couldn’t fix it like she would liked to have,” Maloy-Davis said.
Conn’s social media posts reveal sharp shifts in mood. Women with alcohol use disorder are twice as likely as men to be diagnosed with anxiety and depressive disorders. They’re also more likely to self-medicate unpleasant feelings with alcohol. In A.A., such conditions are considered “outside issues.”
“A.A. tells you, ‘Don’t drink, don’t think, come to meetings, and you’ll be fine,’” said Dr. Andrew Tatarsky, a Manhattan psychologist who is also an MM board member. “The problem is the drinking, the cure is abstinence, and the program is the way.” While many people find benefits from the mutual support and camaraderie A.A. offers, he said, it doesn’t address the complex emotional issues that drive so many people to excess drinking in the first place.
Holding abstinence as an ideal—which is reinforced by A.A., the vast majority of U.S. treatment centers, and the broader culture—can help contribute to a desperate cycle of shame, guilt, and an escalation of drinking or substance use, Tatarsky said. “In A.A. there is a tendency to blame the person who keeps drinking,” he said. “If they were just following the program, they wouldn’t be drinking.”
Scott Stern, a Manhattan psychotherapist who was a friend of Conn’s, said her death highlights the need for a variety of scientifically proven treatment options, including FDA-approved pharmacological treatments, such as naltrexone and acomprosate, that have been shown to help reduce cravings and curb drinking. Others, such as topirimate and varencicline, have been found to help reduce drinking as well but are currently used off-label to treat AUD.
It is important to note that the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration lists MM, in conjunction with a web-based program called moderatedrinking.com, in its national registry of evidence-based treatment programs. A.A. is not included.
While neither MM nor A.A. worked for Conn means only one thing: they didn’t work for Conn, Stern said. “There’s a spectrum,” Stern said. “It’s not that you’re either this or that. What this tells us is that we should put more effort into creating more choices.”6 -
@lorrainequiche59, we share the same evil twin! Everything you said is ditto for me.
Today is Day 6 and begins 3 days of alcohol-soaked events. Tonight we are being treated to dinner at a wonderful restaurant where I normally begin with a martini and go on from there. I won't be drinking. Tomorrow, I'm the designated driver for my mom's birthday gift of a vodka distillery tour--just Mom and my sister and me. There are some good vodkas around here--Tito's, Deep Eddy, Dripping Springs--but the fact that I'm driving will be my saving grace. Friday night I'm invited to a "Whine and Wine" party--all women and always a lot of fun. I've already included in my e-vite RSVP that I'm doing an alcohol-free June but promise to contribute my share of "whine." That way, I've "announced" already that I won't be drinking. I figure if I can make it to day 9 AF, I'll have cause to celebrate.
YOU CAN DO THIS!! YOU GO GIRL!!!!!!! Please share your success at the end of the "sober" weekend. Sending positive vibes your way4
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