The day after the day you stopped

So far we have established two or three important matters that anyone wanting to recover from a drinking problem needs to know. In summary they are:

1. Stopping drinking is not that hard. You just need to not start again. And the only day you can do this is today. 
2. Problem drinking has two sides to it - the physical and the psychological.  
3. The psychological aspect of addiction to alcohol is basically a spiritual imbalance - it involves a search for spiritual experience, for something 'special' beyond the ordinary, and if we cannot find this experience we are likely to return to the god-substitute - alcohol - that we were so attached to before. 

But there are a few practical matters to deal with before we go further into the psychological.  

Health 

Don't worry about cravings, they are temporary. Alcohol will take about three days to clear your system, and after that you will not experience unbearable physical craving. If you have been a heavy drinker you may experience withdrawal symptoms, which can make you feel pretty awful. Strictly speaking you drank in order to get rid of these withdrawal symptoms! A hair of the dog . . . . Now that option is not available to you, and you need to be patient until these symptoms pass, which they will. Don't hesitate to go and see your doctor if necessary, but the best cure is to adopt a healthier lifestyle as soon as possible, with good food, fresh air and plenty of sleep. Take a multi-vitamin each day - this will ensure that your system has the necessary building blocks to begin to repair the damage done by alcohol. And drink plenty of non-alcoholic drinks. Alcohol (which you claimed to drink from thirst, if you recall!) is actually very dehydrating, and often it is the dehydration that makes you feel really awful. And wait for better days, which will come soon.  

Friends and family

What will I tell people? What about the places I usually drink, and the works outing and the bottles in the fridge at home?  

You won't have to tell people you are sober, first of all! They will notice. You don't have to tell anybody anything, but you do have to respond to offers of drinks, because that is unavoidable in some situations. Actually all you need do is say, "No, thanks, but I'll have a coke."  Ignore all comments. It's none of their business! Resist the urge to describe in detail your conversion to sanity! There is something about getting drawn into drinking conversations which is bad for you - it gives the other fellow a foot in the door of the attempt to convince you otherwise, and you don't want that. People who have never denied themselves anything in their lives suddenly become experts when faced with someone trying to help themselves. They are also experts on which alcohol is good for you and which isn't. Steer clear - they don't know! It's all C2H6O, however fancilly bottled and labelled. State what you want and what you don't want, and say nothing more for now. 

It's a good idea to avoid promises of change, especially with your closest family and friends. They have heard it all before, and they are not going to believe you anyway. They will need to see it with their own eyes, and that may take time. Just get on with your life, and say as little as possible until sufficient time has passed for you to have thought through what you do want to say about your past. 

It is wise to avoid drinking places and situations for the time being. Some outings are about seeing people or things, and some are about drinking. You know by now which is which. Steer clear of the drinking places and situations. 

Support

You may want to think about joining a support or self-help group - it is far easier than doing it on your own. AA is the best of the bunch but there are other alternatives. You may feel that AA is intended for people somewhat beneath your social or intellectual standing, or for people with far more serious problems than you. In some groups this may be true, but there are many groups, so shop around, and find one which suits you, has an ethos you like. Later you will learn that the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker all have a lot to teach your highness on the subject of staying sober! And that they all have the same problem, including you. For now, find a congenial group. 

An interesting thing about AA is that if it catches on with you it will become numinous - but in the positive manner of the numinous, and not the negative. In other words, it will become a good god-substitute, one which readily replaces alcohol and the drinking culture with a staying sober culture. Very neat! You will find friends and all kinds of help with life problems. Even if you don't like it much, it can do all that is necessary to give you a helping hand over the first few months of sobriety.  

Be wary of groups that claim to teach you how to control your drinking. People who have to control their drinking are already in a shaky position, are they not? If someone told you how to control your intake of rice pudding, would you not wonder why you would want to do that, when it would be relatively simple to stop eating rice pudding? Being a controlled anything is a fairly desperate plight, to be avoided. (Compulsive eaters be patient, your turn will come in this series of posts!)

You might think about counselling or psychotherapy later on in recovery. It will help with the psychological side of recovery. But again, be wary of well-intentioned practitioners who know nothing about it, and try to encourage you to drink in moderation. The fact all these approaches have to confront is that ethyl alcohol is addictive, and this is true for all drinkers, regardless of how 'normal' their drinking is. Which means it is easily overdone, and this is a fact of life. Why would you, a self-acknowledged problem drinker, choose to go on taking in a substance which is known to be addictive and reacts badly with your system, when you could live far more happily and well without it? What are we trying to achieve here?

Problems other than alcohol    

You may already have realised that you have other addictions than alcohol. The addiction is in the person, as I have tried to show, as well as the substance. (It may indeed be rice pudding.) The best advice for now is to concentrate on dealing with the drinking problem. Do not try to solve all your life problems at once. This is equally true of your psychological problems. They will take time and patience, but just for today it will pay to concentrate on not starting drinking again. You will almost certainly have relationship problems, and these will need attention over time. But you are going to be amazed at how much your relationships improve just by being sober in them! 

The picture above is of what is called the Maharic Seal, used by some spiritually-minded energy groups to help encourage a sense of self-protection - that, with its aid, you may go into the world and not be afraid. You can find ideas about how to use it on YouTube.