This is a story about my moderation journey. Every person and every story is different, but by listening to many different stories, doing a lot of reflection and practice, you can piece your own puzzle.

 

I joined MM1 almost two years ago. I didn't really know what to expect, and I felt confused by the strangely working list server, all the funny nick names, lot of jargon I didn't understand, *huge* number of posts. Also, the website is mentioning a "program", but I could nowhere find "the program", the steps. The only clear step I found was the 30 (30 consecutive days of abstinence). So I decided to do a 30 and order the RD book (Responsible Drinking by Frederick Rotgers, Marc F. Kern, and Rudy Hoeltzel).

Phase 1: Discovery

I started with my first 30. It wasn't as difficult as I imagined it to be, and I started learning a lot. I learned about hangover. Before, I thought a hangover is a state of mind and body with great distress: pain, headache, nausea, guilt... I knew those severe hangovers, they were just a part of my life as a binge drinker. But what I started to realize was that this was just a very extreme case of a hangover. Hangover can take subtler forms, so subtle in fact, that for a person with problematic drinking habits, this can become just a normal state of mind. Oh, I couldn't believe I spent years decapacitated! Bad moods, tiredness, slow mind, mild depression. This was one of the most important discoveries for me back then.

In addition, it was such an empowering, confidence and self-esteem boosting experience. Oh my, I can be this person. I can have life without alcohol. Hey, I wanted to be that person. I wanted to have this sharp focus, patience, this growing loving heart I started appearing under the haze of a continuous hangover... I am aware now this was a pre-taste of what life without alcohol can look like. It was very intense experience, and of course, it doesn't remain this way. You go back to living your life. Some days are better, some are worse. But this positive kick in the head was what I needed to understand the scale of my alcohol problem. My body and my mind were so grateful for this amazing gift I've given me.

Another big discovery was the story about tolerance. As I eventually started drinking, I started to discover the subtle effects of the first and the second drink. What - one drink? Who are you kidding?? I used to enter a bar and order two drinks at the same time (a large beer and a shot) to "get me started". But as I learned about moderation, I discovered all these until then for me hidden subtle positive effects of alcohol. And how you can come down from this mild alcohol high and feel completely okay! Again, what a discovery!

I also started to learn about triggers: situations and emotions that trigger my drinking. All this thinking and learning was providing a good base for future efforts.

Phase 2: Sailing into Moderation

The 30 was over, I read the book, and I thought I should simply try moderation. I was quite successful from the start. I followed BTB2 more or less. I had some days where I would go over the maximum of four, but I was generally very moderate. I still drank more on trips and vacations, but still much less than before. Getting tipsy from time to time wasn't worrying me. This went on for good 4-5 months of spring and early summer. I also started posting less and less to eventually quit the list almost completely. I felt confident.

At the same time, a known pattern was starting to appear. As the summer vacation period was approaching, the amount of work and stress was piling up. I was running against deadlines, feeling more and more exhausted, and couldn't wait for the summer to come.

Phase 3: The Creep

The summer was challenging. Something I only realized one year later is that summer in itself is the most difficult period for me, as there are so many triggers around. That summer was especially challenging. I had three trips scheduled with very little time in between. During the first trip, I was quite moderate, although I drank daily. I had 4-5 drinks on average. Coming back from that one, there was a only short time to prepare for the next trip, and I felt stressed. The next trip was overseas, where I attended a big international conference. The conference was great, I loved my stay there, but I did suffer from the jet leg, I felt lonely, so I simply used booze to cope.

During this trip, my average was double than during the previous one. I would get quite toasted every evening. I started drinking again to fight withdrawal (beer for lunch and similar things). But still it was less than what it used to be before. I didn't think that much about moderation - I just went with the flow. And the flow was taking me to higher numbers.

Finally, there was the last trip at the end of the summer. Again, there was very little time in between, I felt exhausted from my last trip. We went back to our home country, and we were supposed to entertain a couple of guests from abroad for a couple of days. I started drinking heavily from day one. The guests were a couple, and I had a history of getting drunk with him. We simply picked up where we left. I got really really hammered one evening. DW was very hurt. She didn't sleep the whole night. I woke up too after a couple of hours of drunk sleep to find her completely panicked. We spent the night having one of the most difficult conversations.

I continued drinking heavily for another couple of days, but I new I completely relapsed.

Phase 4: Confusion

I rejoined the MM list. After some harm reduction and licking my wounds with a help of the warm support from my MM friends, I decided to do another 30. I needed that. To recover, to re-evaluate what was
happening to me. To get back to the list and to try and pick up where I left. It did me good.

After this (second) 30, I went on a short business trip, and I had one of the worst WTFs of my life.

What was going on? I did another 30 - the third one that year. But I was aware 30 will not do it for me. I did a lot of thinking and soul searching. 

Major Insight 1: self esteem

During my soul searching, a dear MM friend slap me in the face with this:"I do not think it is over confidence that hurts you - I think it is a lack of self esteem that crushes you, and you dont trust your self and so you default to the other man the one you are sure about. Change takes courage we must stare ourselves down and see who we really are when all else is striped away"

This was completely counter intuitive. It felt very confronting and I didn't even understand what she meant. But I felt deeply there was
much truth in what she said to me. I took it to my heart.

This has been a turning point.

I gradually started to realize what was going on. I started to realize that indeed I wasn't really letting my self, trusting my self enough to have the well earned success. My inner critic was continuously badgering me, saying that - yes, you did well for a couple of months - but you haven't really changed. Wait until you hit a rough patch. This can not last. Yes, my inner critic, the one that thought for many years was helping me be better, was putting me down, and didn't let me have my well earned success.

Major Insight 2: absing does not teach moderation, you got to practice it

Second insight came from another wise MMer. He kept saying, to the list, and to me: "absing does not teach moderation", you got to drink to practice it. It takes focused practice and time to do it. Well, I realized that 2 30s didn't do it for me, so while doing the third 30, I thought hard about this. That's how the 30M got born (30 days of BTB drinking). I gather a couple of enthusiastic MMers, and we started the first 30M: 30 days of focused moderation practice, by the book.

Phase 5: Focused Practice

This was the turning point. But it took a while for me to get to it - even though there was always excellent advice about it flowing around. When I started doing my first 30M, it was difficult. First two weeks were okay, but then the "energy of change" kicked in. I had urges. I was feeling deprived when I would set my self limits. I was continuously negotiating with my self about whether I should break my commitment (what's that extra drink anyway? why shouldn't I have it...). It went on for weeks. And then, somewhere around day 52, it started to feel easier. By the day 60-70 I was convinced it got easier. On the day 100, I was ready to be taken off the roster. Around day 140 I was ready to take off my "training wheels" and stop obsessing about numbers.

I mean, it was still difficult in some situations. Like when I went on a business trip. Totally unexpected I had the strongest urge to drink on the airport, and once I was in the hotel. It took a lot of energy to fight that off.

But I trained my self to:

  • be much more aware of all the things that are going on inside me and around me. Awareness, in the beginning perceived as a nuisance (why can't I just relax and be like other naturally moderate drinkers) is a key skill. It is a skill that is used by natural moderate drinkers too.
  • uncover my hidden STOP button and clearly hear it signal and respond to it. I get it somewhere around 2nd, 3rd drink. My BAC goes up and my body says: enough. And I have no problem to listen to this. This is another skill natural moderators know very well. They are too in touch with their STOP button.

I never knew I would be able to train my self in these things. I didn't know these were so important either. But that's what happened,
by simply trying to persist in BTB drinking long enough.

And one more thing I need to add: I worked, very hard, on introducing a healthier life style. I improved my eating habits, I exercise, I
improved my self-esteem, I worked on my relationship, I worked on improving my social life, I worked on improving my self A LOT. One thing here is worth considering in more detail. It's the practice of self-esteem. I started to take more credit for my successes. I used the list a lot for this. Every time I did something good, a small step, I would come here and "brag" about it. I would listen to the
encouragements from people, and try to take them to my heart. I kept saying to my self: it's you doing this, no one else. It's all you.

This worked. I was persistent at my moderation practice, but at the same time, I made sure I took credit for every little change that I
would introduce. Because if you don't do that, you don't get to "own" the change. You must do this. If you your self don't believe it - it's almost like you haven't made that step. Or at least it puts you back a couple of inches.

Phase 6: Taking the training wheels off

Then, after a lot of practice, I decided to take my self trust to a next level. I decided to take my training wheels off, and stop
observing the BTB limits. It was a self trusting, self loving move. It didn't mean I became less vigilant. It meant I started to trust my
self more. At the same time, I stopped weighing my self on my scale. I just decided to do things that are good for me, for my body and my soul.

This worked too! All the hard work has paid off - I had my awareness, and I have my stop button, and I have my self observation, and
reflection... And now I had self trust on top of it.

My experience has been that rules were very very helpful in the practice phase. Once I felt I had enough practice (in my case ~6
months), I started feeling the rules having in the opposite effect (e.g. once I would have one drink, I felt let's go one, pity to waste
a "drinking" BTB day). So I decided to try without.

I was patient. For example, I saw my numbers creep up while I was on a trip. But I decided to stick to my "no training wheels" program for a little longer - despite some advices to act quickly to prevent the creep. The result was magnificent. I managed to really get to know my self better (once I allow my self to be my self, and not a person following rules). I learned to trust my self. And I think most importantly: I learn not to seek perfection. This was a great lesson in improvement of my self-esteem.

Now, I totally know this is a very thin line I'm walking. But the longer I walk it, the more confident I feel in some aspects. This also
teaches me that it's okay to see your life as a learning experience, and to accept you are never really "there".

Final point: I think that you can really let go of the rules once you really address the underlying issues that made you drink in the first place. To address those, I think it's important to fist learn how to moderate (otherwise, it's just too difficult to work on self growth while fighting a HO).

Phase 7: Finding a middle way

Over those months without training wheels I managed to really let go of BTB (I needed to do that, and in the beginning it was not easy). However, this had a side effect I did not expect. I kind of lost the reason not to drink. I found my self drinking 1 or 2 drinks more often than absing. I felt alcohol was gaining more importance in my life than I want it to have. Especially during more difficult times, when I felt I needed more than just a moderation momentum to keep me in check.

So I decided to try a middle way. Use BTB as a guideline, not a strict rule (BTW, this is how they are referred to by the RD book). I stepped on the 30M roster again for a couple of weeks. To regain that BTB mindset. It worked. I don't want to follow this strictly, but having the guideline helps a lot in having direction. I still found that I started to drink more than I want during my vacations. I will need to put together a MOP (my own plan) for those too.

This is where I'm at now with drinking. Doing a 30 (my forth one), enjoying my life without alcohol, and planning to re-adopt BTB as a guideline and make my own plan for vacations.

Phase 8: Life after drinking

Of course, the reason we do all of this is because we want to have a life without alcohol. I learned so much about myself and personal growth during my journey. So I started applying those lessons on other aspects of my life. Like, for example, last summer, I thought a lot and hard about my marriage. I promised my self I would do that. I brought a book "Highly Sensitive Person in Love", and it helped a lot to understand my marriage and my DW better (she is a very highly sensitive person (HSP), I am too, to lesser extent, and also a HSS - high sensation seeker). I also thought about and practiced acceptance, after learning about it on the list. I started to accept some things about my marriage, my DW, my self - my life. It feels like a big rock is falling off my chest. And DW and I seem to be falling in love again.

I have worked on work-related stress. This is a very pertinent issue for me, and it's at the root-cause of some of my drinking
patterns. I was reading (The Now Habit) and thinking and working hard on finding ways to learn how to find peace with my self and work. After a lot of searching I found a simple system that seems to work for me: the planning onion and focusing on the now. I will explain about the planning onion in a future post. Focusing on the now is very simple: every working day, I search for as many uninterrupted periods of work on highest priority items, lasting at least 1/2h - as I can find. I focus on what I can do now to move things forward. I focus on starting.

So the life continues, it's magical, lovely, and full, and I have MM - this wonderful community full of amazing people - to thank for much of this.

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1 Moderation Management (MM) is a behavioral change program and national (US) support group network for people concerned about their drinking and who desire to make positive lifestyle changes. MM empowers individuals to accept personal responsibility for choosing and maintaining their own path, whether moderation or abstinence. MM promotes early self-recognition of risky drinking behavior, when moderate drinking is a more easily achievable goal. More information on http://www.moderation.org/

2 BTB drinking - "by the book drinking: no more than 4 drinks for men (3 for women) per day, no more than 4 drinking days per week, and no more than 14 drinks for men (9 for women) per week. Standard drink: one 33cl beer (5% alcohol), one 1.5dl glass wine (12% alcohol), or 4.5cl of liquor (40% alcohol). These are of course guidelines, but if one finds themselves drinking regularly above these, they might be at risk of harmful drinking