Comments By Anonymous- "Help a Man Out?"

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "What Happens When You Stop Drinking. How Long to ...": 

hey now...been at this 'trying to get sober' thing for a while now...I am, I guess, what could be considered as a highly functional alcoholic. Professional employment, good family life, dogs...blah blah blah....at least 12 beers a day for the past 10 years, but now over the whole thing...it's just that I simply cannot...I quit for about 5 months and thought I had it licked...hell, even did an iron distance triathlon in the interim (exercise has been huge all my life). Now, as you can probably figure out, the wheels have fallen off...Naltrexone is in the house, but i'll be damned if I want to do it that way....needing a bit of strength, and would like to find a source to keep up with folks on a consistent basis (accountability works well for me). Did the AA thing but, even after months of meetings, never got comfortable with the whole thing....can somebody help a man out?? 

Hey, Man:

Here's me, someone who has been sober for over 3 years, helping you out. Are you ready?   If you sense a bit of bewilderment in my tone, I'm sorry.  You did a triathlon in the interim?  Great!  I'm happy for you. You've been doing triathlons with 12 packs for years, so good to switch out one for another in some respects. 

1. Get your nutrition right.  That's first.  Are you eating enough protein?

2. Don't expect the world to bow down at your efforts.  This is a big one.  You're not a model of ideal behavior because you've gotten sober.  You've simply corrected a major character flaw that most people don't have.  Don't pat yourself on the back for that.  You're basically just getting up to speed.

3. Don't expect bliss and perfection.  Bliss and perfection only happen when you're too drunk to know the difference

4.  Be sober now and expect that it won't be ideal.  The world has lots of details and stuff has been happening when you've been out drinking (not everyone has been out drinking like you).

5. Time to grow up, emotionally-speaking.  What they say about being "stuck" at the emotional age of when you started drinking is true.  You may have even gone backwards.  How do you "repair the dissonance?"  Time and effort and maddening amounts of self-doubt, and time and effort and not giving up.   

6. Stop thinking in terms of your whole life or everything, or everyone, or anything so blandly opaque and abstract.  

7.  Drop all your previous principles, in other words.  Expect to remold them slowly.