Anyone here straight edge or non-drinking?

[gunslinger_burrito]

Disclaimer: This is another one of those "help me out internet bros" threads....


I'm gonna look like the black sheep here I think....

I quit drinking over the winter, didn't touch it for three months straight, and now that I've had a bit here and there, I fear that I'm already back on the road to drinking too much "accidentally" and too often. It doesn't treat me well. Sure, I have some cheap (read: not cheap for my wallet) fun while I'm doing it, and there's no other good way to socialize around here, but I just feel too crappy afterwards. The recuperation time eats into my creative time and takes away my focus and energy. This is important because after a day of work (soul-sucking blahblahblah) I need energy to be creative or else I feel like a worthless human being. I'd really like to ditch it for good, because no matter what I do, when I drink, I don't feel in control. I'm not a crazy or violent drunk or anything, but once I've had a few, I just keep going and going.... Then it's back to the list of gripes.

All that griping aside now, anyone out there have good tricks to keeping oneself off of the sauce? I was able to do it if I stayed creative, making art and music and practicing a ton, but I had no social life. I need a balance here and if anyone has some suggestions I'd be extremely grateful.

[sonidero]

Move here and we'll start a Doomgaze Bass band with dual Bass and dual Drum Machine and it'll be so complicated we'll have to stay sober to even play it...

[gunslinger_burrito]

Damn, dude. I'm pretty sure that if I knew I had a serious band, or even a band that was headed in that direction, it would do the trick.

Must....have....goallsssss.....

Do doomgazers like teddy bears?

Every time I see that word I think of final fantasy VI....

[sonidero]

Yeah have goals and break habits and I thought I was clever with Doomgaze but...

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/doomgaze

Seriously, MOVE HERE...

[tuffteef]

giving up the goofy goon can be tough
you gotta want to give it up and a good way is to like work out why you want to in black and white and replace it with something positive
some people choose music,sport,exercise
its a good way to take something your interested in that you thought you would maybe never get to do and give it a shot

[Derelict78]

Climb a mountain! As far as socially you could check out meetup.com and join a group or 3. Disc golf is fun and the are some cool courses in Co. Chess clubs, board game clubs, ect, ect, ect.

[tuffteef]

you could try to restore a motorcycle like i am or sweet vintage ride

[Doctor X]

All that griping aside now, anyone out there have good tricks to keeping oneself off of the sauce? I was able to do it if I stayed creative, making art and music and practicing a ton, but I had no social life. I need a balance here and if anyone has some suggestions I'd be extremely grateful.

not drinking/drugging doesn't mean no social life, you just have to find other people to have that social life with, people who's social life isn't based on drinking/drugging

[Deltaphoenix]

I haven't drank or got high for over 4 years. The only way that I know how is AA or NA ( I go to NA). It is different than people think, a group of people focused on a solution. I have seen people try other ways on their own, either they fail and drink/get high again or they are miserable. I am very happy with my life overall, sure I have rough days and life shows up and things suck/emotions happen, but I just have a lot of gratitude for the most part. There is also a built-in social network that I can access of people that are on the same path as me. Like anywhere, I had to find the people that i like.
Remember, you don't have to be a junky, lying in the gutter to go to a meeting. Emotional bottoms are good enough. I found so much positive energy, people wanting to help each other that I stayed. I had to get over the fact that a lot of people say God in the beginning, I have my own Higher Power that works for me.
If you do decided to give this a try, definitely go to several different meetings before deciding if this is for you because all of the meetings are not the same, the group that runs the meeting are different, a lot of the people that attend are different, there some around here that I don't go to because I generally do not like the meeting.
Holler if you want to know more (anybody that reads this too).

[Jwar]

I haven't had a drink in four years. It was not easy at first, but now I don't even think about it. Alcohol seems almost adolescent to me now, like it's something (at least for me) that was supposed be part of my growing up process and now that I have grown up, I don't need it. I have a wife. 3 girls, job, hobbies, and really don't have time for it anymore.

If I didn't have those things though, I'm not sure if I would have ever even had the motivation to quit. I decided that I didn't want my second child to ever see me drunk, and she hasn't. I quit three months before she was born and haven't drank since.

If you're serious about quitting you may want to look into a 12 step program. They seem lame, but they really do help.

[Jwar]

HAH! Who knew we'd both chime in at the same time. lol

[Deltaphoenix]

HAH! Who knew we'd both chime in at the same time. lol

[Josh Pelican]

I'm edge.

I tried the drinking thing once or twice in my life, but it's just not who I am. I don't like it. I used to smoke like a chimney (both cigarettes and weed), and had a dumb drug problem. I won't go into too many details, but I had to quit.

I stopped calling myself edge and after a while tried a drink or two. Gave it up pretty quick after that.

[warwick.hoy]

I don't consider myself and alcoholic by any means,...but I experienced about a year of being drunk a lot and running away from my problems. It was like a game. Let's see how many and how far I can get down before destroying my body and my relationships.

I was drinking pretty heavily but I also had a job that overworked/underpaid and encouraged being a drunk; like turn the other cheek when employees are getting hammered at work (example set by the owner of the restaurant himself). Drinking on the line was frowned upon from a liquor board standpoint but there wasn't any real company policy against it; or at least one that enforced. So after ten hours of working and drinking all through dinner service; I was driving home drunk after work,...often times with a "one for the road" in the car and neglecting my relationship quite badly; we were like two ships passing in the night, on completely divergent schedules.

I was using alcohol as a method of coping and it stopped being enjoyable to me. The health effects started getting more and more serious. Before when I could drink all night; go to bed and wake like nothing happened, I was noticing that even having one beer would give me the worst headache.

I see a lot of people in my line of work (food service) succumb to alcoholism because the work is so stressful, underpaid, and overtaxing. People too often turn to alcohol as their coping mechanism and that's just not a healthy way to cope. It prevents people from preforming at their best and it can destroy relationships (broad generalization admittedly).

So since last August; when I started a more normal-ish job (still food service but with a more manageable schedule) I've maybe had a few drinks here and there but not on the magnitude of that year on the line. Now that I'm in a management role; I have to set an example and being a drunk isn't the example I want to set. I don't care if people drink, but if you need to cope; turn to healthy relationships, pursue your hobbies and keep a journal (one of the best ways to quiet that internal dialogue IMO).

Am I straightedge? No,...I smoke hella pot and I do like microbrew/homebrew culture. I just feel like alcohol is too easy to escalate to out of control levels and I'd prefer to stay away from that. I may have a drink at a party sometime in the future but at this point but I'm still in somewhat of a healing process right now.

[Casavettes]

i try to look from the perspective, it's not the drugs or alcohol that is making me feel out of control, it's me. i understand if you're knee deep in whiskey coherence is no longer around but
when i stopped placing so much power into substances and more into myself, it really helped.

about 4 years ago i was arrested for a DWI. I was lucky that was all I got because I used to drive basically black out drunk. FUCKING STUPID and I try not to hate myself for it.
but now i'm able to go hang out, meet people at a bar and just chill with one drink and thats that
and i like to think it's because i can be my own worst enemy.

this frank zappa quote kind of says it better
“A drug is not bad. A drug is a chemical compound. The problem comes in when people who take drugs treat them like a license to behave like an asshole.”

just to clarify, i'm not calling anyone an asshole here