Replacing Alcohol

How to fill up life.

I quit alcohol cold turkey because I had a shocking incident that I don’t want to experience ever again.

Before that, I had breaks from alcohol countless times. Nevertheless, I never thought about quitting forever.

Because I made use of the booze in different situations, I thought it was actually helping me.

I used alcohol for the following things:

Escaping boredom: It is like magic, you can sit there feeling totally bored and slightly sad. After taking this enchanting drink, all of a sudden you find yourself in the middle of nightlife laughing out loud and talking to people.

Avoiding pain: Problems at work? Problems with people? There was a solution, I just needed to drink this magical beverage and the issues were gone for a while. Just turn the techno music louder and everything is fine!

This time it was different, I knew I had to stop completely to avoid horrible stuff happening again.

I had to learn to replace the feelings and situations that were linked to drinking.

Here are the strategies to replace alcohol that helped me:

Let’s look at replacing the “fun” part of alcohol first:

1. Being active: Staying outside, learning, visiting friends are all activities that helped me to acknowledge it is possible to have fun without alcohol.
2. Planing my day: I make some plan for the next day at the evening to avoid boredom and have a mission.
3. Avoid big night outs: I just said no to almost all parties, especially when I knew there will be a lot of drinking involved. If I had to go to some social activity I made an exit plan.

Now let’s look at replacing alcohol as a coping strategy against pain.

1. Avoiding toxic people. For me, there are two kinds of people. The first group is giving me energy, the second is just taking my energy. I try to avoid the latter at all costs. There is enough space on this earth to go parted ways.
2. It is not possible to avoid toxic people? I keep the conversations short or just say when I am not interested in talking gossip. I think about it like that: People feel they have the right to talk about anything to you? I feel like I have the right to turn around and go. That helps me to avoid social pain and random thoughts.
3. Getting over myself: Feeling some hard feelings? I am not the center of the world and these feelings will go away without alcohol. It helps to not take yourself too seriously. I had this picture in my mind: What if I would be a little grain of sand in the desert? I could be on top, I could be buried deep, I could be in the water. One thing is certain, I am just a little piece of the whole in the universe and nobody cares, so why should I?

Conclusion:

Like so often, all the worries and the fear was a lie. It is possible to replace all the things I used alcohol for with way more beautiful and productive behavior. If I can do it, you can do it to. Lets goo!

More of my stories:

1. How I Quit Alcohol / The Point I Decided To Quit (My first story)
2. 6 Month Of Sobriety
3. Beer Got Me Again
4. I Will Never Drink Again