![]() ![]() Learned a lot more about him today then I had during our time in treatment. New people tend to get the focus in meetings and Jim was a great participant. It was nice to see a familiar face, and while we only overlapped for about 3 days in treatment, we had connected a few times in the dining room. A new member joined the group “Jim”, who was someone I actually met while in treatment myself. ![]() I like this approach and will take up the 1 year checkpoint plan. Having gone through many events/emotions/etc in a year’s time, I may find that at the time checkpoint I may actually decide to renew for another year. Hey for now – set a time goal, let’s say 1 year, and re-visit this question at the end of the year. This didn’t exactly make me feel any better about the root question – am I never going to have a drink again? She did though give me some good advice. The thought of walking away from a 2nd or 4th or 9th drink, especially when they were free is beyond the grasp of many alcoholics. I said yes to both, and she told me that people with a psychological problem with alcohol cannot. She said a few things that I found interesting – one being a question – could you understand or empathize with the situation where a social drinker could have a single drink and not want more, even when the drinks were free? Or could you understand how someone could set their drink down, move somewhere else in the room (or event space if at a party for example) and then later forget where they placed their drink. I wasn’t binging prior to going into treatment, so why would I be so fearful of the one drink turning into a binge cycle afterwards? Maybe I’m fooling myself but I told her – I really didn’t have a ‘problem’ – defining problem as a position where I would be unable to have just one or two drinks and would allow it to turn into a binge. ![]() In my discussion with the therapist I told her flat out that one of my concerns/issues is that I have a small feeling in the back of my mind that I can still be okay sometime in the future as a social drinker. I went into SSH as a preventative action because I was fearful of things getting out of hand as I had escalated into a couple of drinks daily and was afraid it would escalate. I define social as never having more than two drinks in a row, or even more than 4 or 5 drinks in a month max. I look back on my life and realize after coming of age (21+, as I never really did any drinking as a teen) I spent 20+ years as a social drinker. I ended up having an discussion with my new therapist Robin about some of my fears/concerns/insecurities regarding the future and what I should be expecting and planning for. Days go by without thinking about taking a drink – but the occasional situation pops-up where I see a particular TV ad, or think about future trips/vacations where I do think about a drink or more particularly about not drinking. OMG, the warm white wine and the warm Sam Adams were horrible. Even the really ‘smooth’ whisky – Bushmills was very harsh. Wow – I had no realized how horrible bourbon could taste. There was a really bad burning sensation when the various booze types hit my mouth. Swishing and spitting as part of the aversion therapy the next day was very eye opening. I had to calm down and when presented with the option of completely rescheduling or just continuing without the Sleepie and doing just the faradic. I was pretty upset to the point I was ready to just check out and forgo the rest of my stay and treatment. When I said during my 10 day stay, each morning before my sleepies that I was given a glass of water to take my medicine and that morning what I consumed was *far* less than I had then. The technician then said that I was unfortunately not going to be able to get my Sleepie done as there is zero tolerance for consumption of anything. In getting strapped down and prepared for my IV, I said the last time I had eaten was 10pm the night before, and for liquids I said I had about an ounce of water when I got up that morning as my mouth was very dry. In the recaps, you show up early in the morning (between 7am and 8am) and on the first day you do a sleepie and on the next day you do which ever aversion therapy was applicable.įor me – I did not get my sleepie treatment, which was very disappointing. One of the data points I remember from my initial stay at SSH was that those who completed their 30 day and 90 day recaps had a 12 or 15% higher rate of staying sober as compared to those who only did the initial 10 day program. ![]()
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