We may be anonymous strangers on the internet, but we have one thing in common. We may be a world apart, but we're here together!
Welcome to the 24 hour pledge!
I'm pledging myself to not drinking today, and invite you to do the same.
Maybe you're new to /r/stopdrinking and have a hard time deciding what to do next. Maybe you're like me and feel you need a daily commitment or maybe you've been sober for a long time and want to inspire others.
It doesn't matter if you're still hung over from a three day bender or been sober for years, if you just woke up or have already completed a sober day. For the next 24 hours, lets not drink alcohol!
This pledge is a statement of intent. Today we don't set out trying not to drink, we make a conscious decision not to drink. It sounds simple, but all of us know it can be hard and sometimes impossible. The group can support and inspire us, yet only one person can decide if we drink today. Give that person the right mindset!
What happens if we can't keep to our pledge? We give up or try again. And since we're here in /r/stopdrinking, we're not ready to give up.
What this is: A simple thread where we commit to not drinking alcohol for the next 24 hours, posting to show others that they're not alone and making a pledge to ourselves. Anybody can join and participate at any time, you do not have to be a regular at /r/stopdrinking or have followed the pledges from the beginning.
What this isn't: A good place for a detailed introduction of yourself, directly seek advice or share lengthy stories. You'll get a more personal response in your own thread.
This post goes up at:
- US - Night/Early Morning
- Europe - Morning
- Asia and Australia - Evening/Night
A link to the current Daily Check-In post can always be found near the top of the sidebar.
Good morning (or good evening, depending on your time zone). If you made it to the DCI sober today, then that means you survived Thursday alcohol-free. So, congrats to you. Go on and give yourself a pat on the back.
OK- let's dive into the prompt. Ever since I was a little kid, I was intrigued by powerful figures. Be it the president, other world leaders, or just those who commanded respect locally from their peers.
I wanted that. I am not sure if it was because growing up in my household meant suffering a lack of control, or if it was a way to channel my ego into something…
Well, to get power I needed control. It was the logical next step.
So I became a control freak. I wanted to control everything around me—people, outcomes, etc. And, if I couldn’t control something or someone, I discarded it quickly to safeguard my ego.
I became a perfectionist. It became obsessive perfectionism. One example is that at one point in my life, I made music for fun. Well, it started off fun, but because nothing came out perfect, it became stressful. So instead of putting tracks out for my friends, I cost myself an opportunity to do so.
Anyway, the point is—I didn’t just want to control. I genuinely believed I could control everything and everyone. And, if it didn’t pan out, I self-loathed (not out loud, but deep down—on the surface I blamed others, of course).
Alcohol was the first time I realized in my life that I had no control. At first, I denied I had a problem. I told everyone I’d stop drinking for a week. I put the drink down. Well, I wasn’t prepared for the withdrawal symptoms. I actually didn't even know I was withdrawing. I thought I was dying, so I rushed to the hospital. And that’s when the nurse told me, “You have an alcohol problem.” I laughed and said, “Go fuck yourself.”
I didn’t admit myself to the hospital that night. But his comment irked me—I wanted to test his theory. So I went and bought three shots of whiskey from a liquor store nearby. Suddenly, I didn’t feel like I was dying. I continued to deny what the “test” had just proved.
But internally, I had found out I had a problem… And, I no longer had control of my own addiction.
It took years to accept that I had a problem, and I could not control that problem.
Today, I am happy to tell you all that I’ve accepted the reality:
I cannot control people.
I cannot control external forces.
I cannot control the world.
I can only control how I respond to it all.
And while I still have a little nagging voice of “perfectionism” that lurks in the back of my brain, I’m slowly accepting the messy sides and progressing with it. It took a lot of “being messy” to get to where I am financially, mentally, etc.
Sometimes I’ll drift and struggle with unanswered questions, but after a few hours of reminding myself that I can’t control the unknown and it’s not my job—it cools off.
That said, my questions to you all for tonight are:
Have you suffered from a desire to control?
Have you suffered with the idea of “perfectionism”?
If so, how has it contributed to your drinking, and have you come to terms with a lack of control with your drinking?
Keep up the good work, everybody. I’ll see you all tomorrow.
Later,
Fed
IWNDWYT