Day 40: May 10, 2024

Day 40: May 10, 2024

What are My Thoughts Today?

Stress was probably my biggest drinking trigger outside of socializing. I don't know why, but at a certain stress threshold, my mind would turn automatically to drinking. I would start fantasizing about how good I would feel when I got to drink later that night and how I just had to get to that moment. It was a lighthouse, but instead of getting me to safety it was guiding me towards a rocky catastrophe!

Again I keep thinking about how alcohol really is just a drug, but we have glamorized it and normalized it so much in society that we can't even see it that way anymore. It's been a drug for the 5,000 years that it's been around human civilization. It never really was anything but a drug. And yet we all grew to love it so we can't face the truth. The concept of alcohol being a dressed-up drug makes me a little sad, but it also helps me to understand why alcohol has had such a huge pull in my psyche, why the desire to drink can be triggered so easily.

I choose to use the word drug in this sentence because it helps me to recognize the alcohol is not my friend. There is no silver lining to drinking. Realistically, it is a dark force that is designed to get people drunk (high) and does not serve the human race. But our culture has idolized alcohol so much that it's so hard to see it that way! It feels like a perception filter was been placed over my eyes for these last 20 years and it's just now starting to fade.

This doesn't mean that anyone who drinks is a bad person, it means that we are susceptible to getting addicted to drugs because we are human beings. There's really no moral element at play. If hard drugs were glamorized in the same way or used at virtually every social function, probably we'd all do those too and not even question ourselves at first.

Somehow alcohol snuck in under the radar societally, and thus we have been trapped in 5,000 years of grappling with it (the first mead, wine & beers we're found in tombs around 5,000 years ago). And don't try to tell me people didn't struggle with drinking 5,000 years ago! I'm sure they did. The fact that royalty put alcohol in their tombs, alongside gold and valuables, says how large a mental space alcohol took up in the human psyche even way back then!

Total Number of Drinks since April 1st: 2

My Why: To gain mental self-mastery and break free from addictive substances like alcohol.

What's One Awesome Thing that Happened Yesterday because I Chose Not to Drink? I did have one glass of wine yesterday, but I did so mindfully. I did not regret anything other than an elevated heart rate because I did not have more than one and it did not seem to impact my night socially at least because I drank it very, very slowly.

Daily Affirmations:
1) I enjoy freedom from alcohol.
2) I choose to live mindfully.
3) I respect and honor myself.
4) I am worthy of love and care.
5) I give myself patience to heal.
6) I have compassion for others.
7) I create beauty all around me.