The Daily Check-In for Monday, January 29th: Just for today, I am NOT drinking!
We may be anonymous strangers on the internet, but we have one thing in common. We may be a world apart, but we're here together!
Welcome to the 24 hour pledge!
I'm pledging myself to not drinking today, and invite you to do the same.
Maybe you're new to /r/stopdrinking and have a hard time deciding what to do next. Maybe you're like me and feel you need a daily commitment or maybe you've been sober for a long time and want to inspire others.
It doesn't matter if you're still hung over from a three day bender or been sober for years, if you just woke up or have already completed a sober day. For the next 24 hours, lets not drink alcohol!
This pledge is a statement of intent. Today we don't set out trying not to drink, we make a conscious decision not to drink. It sounds simple, but all of us know it can be hard and sometimes impossible. The group can support and inspire us, yet only one person can decide if we drink today. Give that person the right mindset!
What happens if we can't keep to our pledge? We give up or try again. And since we're here in /r/stopdrinking, we're not ready to give up.
What this is: A simple thread where we commit to not drinking alcohol for the next 24 hours, posting to show others that they're not alone and making a pledge to ourselves. Anybody can join and participate at any time, you do not have to be a regular at /r/stopdrinking or have followed the pledges from the beginning.
What this isn't: A good place for a detailed introduction of yourself, directly seek advice or share lengthy stories. You'll get a more personal response in your own thread.
This post goes up at:
- US - Night/Early Morning
- Europe - Morning
- Asia and Australia - Evening/Night
A link to the current Daily Check-In post can always be found near the top of the sidebar.
Greetings friends and fellow warriors! I loved reading your thoughts on sharing yesterday, and thank you to u/shineonme4ever for helping me get the DCI formatting figured out :)
Today I want to talk about moderation. Moderation did not work at all for me, but it was a 100% necessary step in finally kicking booze to the curb for good.
When I was in college and in my 20s I drank with wild abandon. It was a big part of my identity and how I made friends. Drinking started to take a bigger toll in my 30s but I felt like I didn’t have an “official” drinking problem since I was working full time, going to the gym, in a good relationship, etc.
Once I hit my 40s it was undeniable that hangovers were becoming intolerably bad, and I also started to feel a new level of shame when I’d puke or black out from drinking. So I started the painful chore of moderating. It was depressing and made me feel like I was on probation or something.
As a result, my mental energy became fixated on when and how much I’d allow myself to drink. I did all kinds of rationalization and calculation to try and find a daily allotment I’d be satisfied with, but of course that amount doesn’t exist. I was miserable moderating and I’d still have the occasional unplanned binge-drinking episode that left me feeling shitty, shameful and powerless.
I looked at lots of before and after photos online, lurked hard on this sub, and had a lot of day ones (and non-drinking streaks of various lengths) before I finally reached a point where hopping on and off the wagon got too exhausting to be worth it. I wanted that space in my head back!
In my experience, the daily discipline of making a decision not to drink, and breathing through the acute stress of triggering situations as they come up, has been more manageable and rewarding than grappling with the chronic stress of trying to moderate (I say trying because out-of-control drinking inevitably recurred when alcohol was at all a part of my life).
Now there are fewer decisions to make, and more mental energy available for other areas of my life.
Do you have any thoughts on moderation that you would share with your past self, or with someone who’s struggling with moderation?
493 days and IWNDWYT!