* Denial and the struggle for control

* Can positive motivation lead to surrender?

* Hitting bottom as a method of release

* Discovering willingness and massive action as a means to sobriety

* The reward for surrender

I have written in the past about how to stop drinking, but I wanted to take a closer look at the mechanics of breaking through to sobriety. It is one thing to be living a great life in recovery, but how do we actually get there? This is the great struggle of the newcomer to recovery, and it is this attempt to cross the barrier that keeps so many alcoholics stuck in a miserable state of being.

Denial and the struggle for control

Photo by Panoramas

Denial is all about trying to stay on the hamster wheel and appear somewhat normal. The alcoholic tries to maintain and stay somewhat happy through being self medicated all the time. This becomes a difficult balancing act because the alcoholic will realize that they cannot really enjoy themselves with their drinking unless they let lose completely and drink as much as they want. But at the same time, they know that they have a tendency to get into trouble when they do so, and so they struggle to restrict their drinking in order to maintain control.

This struggle for control plays a central role in the life of the alcoholic and it cannot be overcome without complete surrender. The surrender is defined by the absence of this struggle for control. Once this is dropped, then recovery can begin. But if the alcoholic is still trying to maintain this struggle, then they are not ready to stop drinking. Until they do let go of this great struggle, they are still trapped in denial, believing that they might somehow both enjoy and control their drinking at the same time.

Surrender happens when the alcoholic transcends this struggle for control and accepts the idea that they could abstain from alcohol entirely.

This is not so much an action step. It is sort of like the opposite of action. Surrender is a release. The alcoholic is letting go of something.

Can positive motivation lead to surrender?

Let’s say that an alcoholic loves to paint and is quite talented at it. They have a dream of making beautiful paintings and maybe teaching art to children, or something similar. Could this become positive motivation for that person to help them to stop drinking?

No it cannot. The true alcoholic is locked in an epic struggle with their need to self medicate with drinking. Their need to drink replaced their true dreams a long time ago. It is true that they can one day get sober and get those dreams back and accomplish great things, but when they are still trapped in addiction, they have pushed their dreams a long ways back.

Think about it. How could an alcoholic drink for several years on end, while not chasing their true passion? The only way to do it is to push those dreams and aspirations to the side. They have done it for a long time. Yes, the dreams and the positive motivators are still there. They can even be named out loud. But they are not a driving force in the life of the alcoholic unless the person becomes sober.

In other words, those dreams do not serve as positive motivation for sobriety. They cannot be used as inspiration to motivate someone to quit drinking. This is not the path to surrender.

Hitting bottom as a method of surrender

If our dreams are not enough to motivate us to get sober, then what is?

Misery.

As sad as that may be to contemplate, it is the truth. We are motivated by pain. When the alcoholic becomes miserable enough, they can become motivated to make real change in their life.

I wish it were different. I wish you could reawaken the dreams in a struggling alcoholic and thus motivate them to get sober. But that is not what I experienced, and that is not what I observe in others.

Instead, think carefully about the moment of surrender, and how a struggling alcoholic actually stops drinking. It is not a moment of positive action. Instead, it is a release. They are letting go of the need to control. They decide to stop fighting.

In this moment, the person is broken down. They have lost the will to keep fighting, to control their drinking. This does not happen when they have built up enough strength. It happens when they have been fully broken down. Their spirit is broken and they surrender to their drinking. They let go of the struggle. This is where recovery starts.

If you talk with recovering alcoholics who have successfully stopped drinking, they will explain that this moment of surrender only occurred at their lowest point. They were broken down in spirit and they were miserable with their lives. They did not really want to go on living this way.

If you want to help someone surrender to alcoholism, then do not help them to avoid this state of being. Let them find the misery that will motivate them to change.

Sad but true. The alcoholic is motivated mostly by pain (and the avoidance thereof).

Discovering willingness and massive action as a means to sobriety

It always seems to come back to this: the key to recovery is massive action. Anything less will result in substandard results and eventual relapse.

Another way to put it is to say that what we really need in recovery is drastic action. People are not willing to get drastic unless they have fully surrendered to the disease.

When you surrender to your addiction, it is a great release. You let go of the struggle to control your drinking. It is a tremendous relief and it frees up a lot of mental energy. The alcoholic is both at peace with themselves and ready to take new action. It is like emptying yourself out so that you can start to fill it back up with something. You have to let go of everything in order to reach this state of willingness.

Surrender must be absolute. If you are still hanging on to a shred of your old life, then you are hanging on to the whole thing.

This was evidenced in my own struggle with alcoholism when the counselors and the therapists suggested I go to long term rehab. I was not willing to do so at the time and I returned to drinking. I was on the brink of surrender but for some reason I did not take the full plunge at that time. I was hanging on to some part of my old life. Thus, I did not recover.

Later on, after experiencing much more misery and pain in my life, I was able to see the solution. I needed long term rehab (not every alcoholic will need this path, but it was clearly what I needed in order to recover). I fought to control my drinking up until this point, and I had resisted the idea of living in long term treatment as well. All part of my denial. All part of staying stuck in addiction.

I had to let go of my resistance. I had to let go of the resistance to go to long term rehab. And to be honest, this was not a positive action on my part. It happened because I was broken down to a point of misery. It happened out of desperation. This is the path to surrender.

It was through misery that I became willing to take massive action. It was out of desperation that I was willing to get drastic.

The reward for surrender

No alcoholic who is still drinking would possibly believe this, but the reward for total surrender is complete freedom. You can tell them this, and try to convince them of it, but they will either not believe it, or they will not care, or both.

Freedom is the outcome. It happens quickly after you surrender and then take action. This is completely baffling to the alcoholic, who fights and struggles to keep themselves trapped in their own prison. It is difficult for the alcoholic to see how they can surrender completely and gain total freedom.

It goes like this:

1) The alcoholic is miserable. They realize that drinking no longer brings them joy, or even happiness. They surrender.

2) In their surrender, they give up the struggle to control and enjoy their drinking. They take the advice of others and avoid alcohol altogether. They embrace abstinence.

3) They are still miserable. They are told that massive action will rebuild their life and bring them happiness.

4) They commit to massive action. This may or may not include a formal program of recovery. The key is in the action, not in the program itself.

5) The alcoholic follows through with new, positive action in their life. They do this out of their surrender, because their spirit was broken. They do it even without faith in the results. They do it out of misery; out of desperation.

6) Before they know it, they have changed their life, and have found freedom from drinking. Their life gets a little better every day as they walk a new path in recovery.� At some point, they realize that they have attained joy and happiness in sobriety.

Recovery is freedom from addiction. It is born out of misery and desperation and it follows from taking massive action.

Recommended Reading

• Overcoming Addiction
• Stop Alcoholism and Start Creating a New Life
• Overcoming Alcoholism All By Yourself – Is it Possible?
• How to Stop Drinking Alcohol Even When You Really Enjoy it
• Holistic Addiction Treatment Center

* The major problem with quitting drinking on your own

* Establishing a baseline of sobriety

* Transitioning to long term recovery and healthy living

* Reaching out to help others but still “on your own”

* Establishing a solid foundation of recovery that is not dependent on social networking

The major problem with quitting drinking on your own

Now I have obviously written about how to stop drinking before and if you go back and read that article you will notice that one of the key elements that I push is that you need to ask for help. This sort of implies that you cannot quit drinking on your own and that you need help in order to do so.� But is this really true?

As I progress in my recovery, I get to watch other people recover and I also observe my own journey through sobriety. What I am noticing is that depending on other people to maintain your own recovery is not necessarily a healthy thing. I see many, many people relapse who are depending on the social aspect of traditional recovery programs to keep them sober.

At the same time, I have basically formed my own path in recovery and do not rely on group therapy or meetings in order to maintain my sobriety. In fact I have probably been to less than 5 AA meetings over the last 6 years.

Now the problem with quitting drinking on your own is that this is a thinking disease…..our mind is messed up and we our in a battle with ourselves to try and control our own drinking. Our mind created the problem of addiction and now we are trying to solve that problem with the same mind that created it.

I believe it was Einstein who first said that “you cannot solve a problem at the same level that it was created at.” You have to go up a level or two in order to really change your life if you are currently trapped in a cycle of addiction.

Now this does not mean that you cannot solve your problem without asking others for help and direction. However, it does indicate a few things:

1) You are not going to cure your drinking by sitting around and thinking about it. It takes more than that. It takes action.

2) You do not have to depend on other people for your sobriety, but you should not immediately discard any and all connections with others in recovery. There is still value in the idea of support, but not to the point of developing dependency. You can still interact with others in recovery without “needing” them for your continued success. More on this later.

3) You cannot solve your problem with compromise and moderation. If you make a commitment to yourself it has to be black and white. That means an abstinence based program. If you want to learn how to control your drinking then you will have to look elsewhere.

My recovery is somewhat unique in that I have very little social support in the traditional sense (such as daily meetings). I don’t call my sponsor very often and I don’t attend 12 step meetings. And the bottom line is that I am still growing in my recovery and living an awesome life, without depending on other people to help keep me sober. I have also observed this happening in other people that I know in recovery, and of course we share some similarities in our approach.

On the other hand, I am not a complete island and I do have connections with others in recovery. But, these are not dependencies.

So here are some of the details on “recovering on your own”:

Establishing a baseline of sobriety

Can you get sober and detox on your own? Yes and no.

Your first step in recovery is to get detoxed. You have to get clean from all drugs and alcohol before you can start on your path of recovery. I mentioned before that this is an abstinence based approach. The idea is that you are going to stay drug and alcohol free. There are other approaches but I have not had any success with them so if you want to learn to moderate you are on your own! My technique is to abstain entirely.

So can you stop drinking without any help at all and get sober? Yes it is possible, but you have to be careful. For one thing, realize that alcohol withdrawal can be dangerous. This will depend on how physically addicted to alcohol you are and how long you’ve been drinking and so on. If you shake badly when you stop drinking suddenly then you probably need medical supervision for this leg of your journey.

If this is the case then do not try and taper yourself down from alcohol….instead, go check into a detox center. It will only take 3 to 5 days at the most and you can walk out of there being completely detoxed and drug free. If your goal is really to quit on your own then you can still do so, but you might need help in order to get through the medical portion of detox. There is no shame in going to rehab and you will not have to go to any groups or meetings while you are in detox. Get in, get sober, and get out.

Now obviously if you go home after a few days in a detox center and start drinking again, even just a little, then it was all for nothing and you will be right back on the roller coaster. Remember that this is an abstinence based plan. You are trying to establish a baseline of sobriety and that means you need to abstain from alcohol and other drugs.

Now if you really want to do this on your own then you need to take action during this first week or two of sobriety. Essentially you need to figure out how to live a new life without drinking. There are a number of things you should consider, such as:

1) Avoiding old hangouts where you drank or used drugs.

2) Avoiding certain people who you drank or used drugs with.

3) Establishing some new healthy routines of distraction, such as exercise, long walks each day, and so on.

4) Keeping busy and being responsible, for example by working a new job, or picking up your hours at an old job. Being reliable, dependable, and on time.

5) If you have any religious background, you might try reconnecting with that. This works for some people and not for others. It is just another option.

6) Find a method of meditation - this can be really broad and open. For example, I run long distances several times each week, and this is absolutely a meditative experience for me. You might sit on the couch and do breathing exercises. It really does not matter much, as long as you find something that works for you. A method of de-stressing your mind.

7) Finding a way to help others - this is especially helpful if the people you are helping are in recovery. Now this does not mean that you still cannot “quit on your own.” You can reach out without becoming dependent on others.

8) Forgive yourself and forgive others. This is a critical component, one that is basically borrowed right from a 12 step program. If you are constantly beating yourself up over your past and over your addiction, then it is difficult to move forward in recovery. Likewise, if you resent others in your past and hang on to massive anger towards them, then this will poison your efforts at recovery. The only way to move forward is to make peace with this idea and forgive others. There are many ways to do this but they deserve their own article.

Transitioning to long term recovery and healthy living

If you do all of those suggestions listed above, and do them every day for the first few months of your recovery, then you can slowly start to build a new life for yourself. Do not expect miracles at first and do not expect it to happen fast. It will come slowly over time. This is a good thing. If it happened over night then it would not be stable. You are building a long term, stable life in recovery. It takes time. It takes work. Expect this.

I personally believe that networking with others and helping others in recovery is a lot more important in early recovery than it is in long term sobriety. If you are going to help other people, then do it right off the bat when you first get sober. As you stay sober for longer, it becomes less critical as the focus shifts to personal growth.

The transition to long term recovery is about holistic growth. In the early stages of sobriety, your goal is simply to not drink each day. That is your daily goal. “I will make it through today without drinking or using drugs.” At first, that is enough. If you can conquer each day sober then you are doing good.

But after a while, that is no longer enough. Why? Because you start to take it for granted. Everyone will do this after a certain amount of time. Maybe it will take 90 days, or maybe it will take 9 years. But at some point, you will become used to not drinking and it will no longer be the miracle for you that it once was. It is at this point that you need to have something more in your recovery in order to keep you sober. That “something more” is holistic growth. It is personal growth. It is you, challenging yourself to keep growing as a person. Without this element, you will eventually relapse back to drinking.

Now for some people this “something else” is a reliance on a higher power and building a relationship with that higher power. If so then that is fine….realize that this is another possible path to a life of holistic growth. If you have a strong relationship with God then you will naturally push yourself to grow in a holistic manner. You will take better care of yourself, you will emphasize your talents in order to better serve God, and so on. You can reach the same success in recovery via different paths. You can push yourself to grow holistically and do great in recovery. You could also cultivate that relationship with a higher power and achieve the same results.

In particular, I would emphasize these things in your transition to long term recovery:

1) Holistic growth – look for multiple areas of your life in which you can grow. In other words, don’t neglect exercise and fitness. Also, consider relationships and emotional health too. Holistic means you are looking at the whole of your life. There are multiple areas in which you can become a better person. Find them and work on them.

2) Self esteem – if you can boost your “real” self esteem through accomplishing goals and taking good care of yourself, then this will help your recovery immensely. You will not relapse if you value yourself and your life highly enough.

3) Personal growth & learning - if you push yourself to grow further, make sure there is an emphasis on learning. Without this you will tend to stagnate. Always be learning….always be in “growth” mode.

Reaching out to help others but still “on your own”

You want to quit drinking on your own. Is it possible to interact with other people and still be independent?

Of course it is. You don’t have to go to 20 AA meetings each week and have a sponsor and become a sponsor yourself in order to stay sober. Some people will of course do that, and this is fine if that works for you. But just understand that you can have an awesome recovery by simply reaching out to just one or two other people on a regular basis. There is meaning in nearly any interaction. If you can help someone else consistently, then it will really enhance your recovery.

For example, I work in a detox center, and I also interact with readers here on the Spiritual River on a daily basis. Neither of these things involves the 12 step programs. I am interacting with others, helping them in some cases, and in other cases I am receiving help from them as well. These are “recovery related” interactions.

You need these interactions in order to be successful in� recovery. You will not depend on them, and they will become less important the longer you stay sober. But I think early on, you need some interaction with others in recovery.

You don’t necessarily have to find them in 12 step programs, but you have to find these connections somewhere. Also, you do not need a lot of them. Quality over quantity in this case. You can still recover on your own without becoming dependent on meetings or a fellowship.

Establishing a solid foundation of recovery that is not dependent on social networking

So what is important in early recovery is establishing the foundation. This takes action.

Really it is all about action. If you want to quit drinking then you have to take massive action, and it also has to be sustainable action.

Take some of the suggestions from this article and apply them in your life. If you do so every single day then you are on the right track. Even then, some will relapse. It is a tough road. And, you are increasing the difficulty slightly by insisting that you quit drinking by yourself. But it can still be done, you just have to put in the footwork.

Remember that in order to get results you need to make a massive effort. If you just try “pretty hard” you are going to fail for sure. This requires a massive effort on your part. It will likely be the hardest thing you have ever done, actually. So make a commitment to yourself that you will not drink today, no matter what. You have to make that commitment over and over again, every single day. Then, you have to follow through with the suggestions and take action every day to make it happen. Sitting on the couch won’t cut it. Get active, do the work, and find some new healthy routines in your life. Push yourself to grow holistically and challenge yourself to do more and more each day. It is only through this momentum and this positive action that you can recover on your own.

Special note: discussion for this topic has been moved to the forums.� It just takes a second to register.� Thanks!

Recommended Reading

• Overcoming Addiction
• Stop Alcoholism and Start Creating a New Life
• The True Nature of Surrender in Quitting Booze
• How to Stop Drinking Alcohol Even When You Really Enjoy it
• Holistic Addiction Treatment Center

“How can I stop drinking alcohol even though I really enjoy it?”

That’s a good question.  For someone so young to be asking this question is a bit alarming but not too surprising I suppose.  It sounds like you know that you are headed for trouble with your drinking and you can obviously see the signs that it is developing into a problem for you (or at least could become a big problem).

If you are already recognizing this deterioration then you should take action as soon as possible and try to stop.  Unfortunately, I don’t think many people have the ability to do this when things are going relatively well with their drinking.  In other words, no one really quits drinking when things are going good.  The only people who can successfully quit drinking are those who have been beat up enough by the disease of alcoholism that they have become willing to surrender.

You mention in your question that you “really enjoy it.”  Quitting drinking is hard, even when you are at the stage where alcohol pretty much makes you miserable.  If you are still enjoying alcohol and having fun with your drinking, then it is going to be next to impossible to make a real change in your life.  This becomes especially difficult if you are younger and have a social network of people in your life that you typically drink with.

I am not sure if it is possible to be motivated without reaching that miserable point of surrender.  Pretty much everyone that I have spoke with who has significant time sober has said that they were miserable when they finally quit drinking.  So it seems like it is a prerequisite to reach the necessary level of surrender.

But perhaps it is not.  And in a case like yours, I don’t think that it matters, as attempting to quit drinking at this point will benefit you regardless.  Even if you try to stop drinking and fail at this point, I think that is a much better path for you than just to continue on blindly drinking away.  Here is why:

1) If you try to stop drinking now you might very well succeed – this would be a huge bonus in that you could potentially avoid massive amounts of pain and heartache in your life and the lives of your friends and family members.  Manage to quit now and you will avoid a ton of pain.  This alone makes it worth attempting.

2) If you try to stop drinking and fail you will learn – this is still useful because you will be in the learning process if you try to stop drinking at this point.  If you just resign yourself to continue on with drinking then you will learn nothing, you will not grow in any way.  But realize that many people struggle for years and years to try and quit.  That is because learning how to live a new of life is a learning process.  Better to get started learning right now.

3) If you try to stop drinking and fail you will at least have support – if you get involved with trying to quit drinking it is likely that you will be introduced to programs that can help you.  This will offer you support that can help you in the future as well, regardless of whether or not you stay sober.  In other words, as long as you try to stop drinking now, you will be working on building a network of support; a network of positive people in your life.

It is very wise of you to foresee these problems with alcohol and wonder about taking action to stop drinking.  The key now is to actually take action and do everything you can to actually quit.  Your life will be so much better if you can pull this off.

This is not just “in the long run” either….your life will start improving immediately in this case, even though you will probably experience an emotional loss over the lack of “partying” in your life.  If you can get past that loss then you will start reaping the benefits of a life lived sober.  Take the initiative now and find a way to change your life for the better.  Learn more about how to stop drinking if you want specific strategies and approaches you can take.

Recommended Reading

• Overcoming Addiction
• The True Nature of Surrender in Quitting Booze
• Overcoming Alcoholism All By Yourself – Is it Possible?
• Holistic Addiction Treatment Center