How do people who stopped drinking? Former alcoholics

Stopping drinking, former alcoholics experience a feeling of discomfort, the result of confrontation which can easily become another breakdown and a return to the previous dependent state. Without any doubt, alcoholism is a disease. So how do people who quit drinking manage to find an adequate substitute for alcohol and again feel themselves a full-fledged person?

What problems do ex-alcoholics face?

People who quit drinking often have to overcome the same number of problems. However, having a clear idea of the difficulties to be expected, one can properly prepare one's own consciousness for the future.

All the problems with which people who are thrown to drink face to face can be divided into the following categories:

1. The real problems created by alcohol - are related to the physiology of a person, the perception of changes in the body. Usually the more "experience" of a drinking person, the worse his state of health. Eliminate the trouble of this nature can be, to suffer until the desired changes or seriously working to restore their own healthy state of health.
2. Masked problems - concern the emotional sphere of an alcohol-dependent person. With many of them, those who stopped drinking personality are met for the first time in many years, since alcohol is an excellent distraction from reality.

Depressive states

The state of despondency is a completely normal reaction of consciousness to objective reality. However, each person in his own way tries to find a way out of this situation. Many of us prefer home alcoholism as a solution.

People who quit drinking need to learn how to resist the attacks of melancholy. An excellent distraction during rehabilitation is open air walks, exercise with your own body and physical exercises. At the same time, yoga is able to strengthen the spirit and body.

What other rational ways to exit the pathological state are preferred by people who quit drinking? First of all, it is a regular visit to a psychoanalyst, a treating doctor, or regular conversations with non-drinking friends. In general, to get out of a depressed state when you give up alcohol, it is very important to take yourself, benefit others, do good deeds, and look for ways to express yourself.

Attacks of anger and increased irritability

Treatment of patients with alcoholism always causes frequent attacks of unreasonable angry conditions in the latter. Often the roots of such a problem lie in a deep childhood and come out as soon as the brain returns the ability to perceive objective reality.

A huge benefit in overcoming anger and increasing self-control for people who say goodbye to the systematic use of alcohol, is group therapy and psychoanalysis sessions.

The cause of negative emotional well-being can serve as special biochemical reactions in the body. For example, excessive consumption of caffeine or overeating becomes one of the most common causes of the emergence of angry conditions when giving up alcohol. Bring yourself back to most of the previously dependent people is helped by a significant reduction in diet, special diets, and a temporary cessation of caffeine and fatty foods.

Sleep disturbance

Alcoholics, ex-dependent people, as a rule, do not feel a proper rest after sleep, which they need much more than non-drinkers. On arrival to a normal stable state requires a lot of time and patience.

What is the most frequent manifestation of sleep disturbances? Often a real problem for a person who stops drinking is permanent insomnia, difficulty with waking in the morning, lack of dreams or regular nightmares. In the presence of nightmarish dreams strikes their realism. And their plot is often tied to drunkenness.

To bring your own sleep back to normal, many people who stop drinking drink on evening physical activity, which leads to natural fatigue and, accordingly, makes you sleep more tightly. Performing a warm-up in the morning gives the opportunity to charge the body with energy and quickly move away from a drowsy state.

Family problems

People who refuse to regularly drink alcohol, face another pressing problem. A sharp change in one's own way of life often leads to an inadequate perception of change on the part of loved ones. As a matter of fact, the persons who have stopped to drink, become in the eyes of relatives absolutely other people, sometimes strangers and difficult for understanding.

To reduce the heat and reduce all kinds of friction in the family helps active communication with loved ones. Forming the image of a non-drinking person takes time to get family members addicted to the new "I". To come to an agreement can help visit a family consultation, a society of anonymous alcoholics, groups on the establishment of healthy relationships in the family.

Change the familiar circle of communication

Refusal of alcoholic beverages is expected to lead to changes in the perception of others and causes problems with relations. As in the previous case, the former dependent person has to adapt his comrades to a new, non-drinking image of himself. In this case, each comrade often manifests a different, sometimes rather inadequate reaction to what is happening.

The only rational solution may be to withhold from communication with friends who show support in the aspirations of the former dependent. The comrades who provoke the restoration of dependence are not true friends. Therefore, the former dependents try to separate the "well-wishers" from other persons.

Digestive Disorders

As soon as a person begins to acquaint others with the story of "how I stopped drinking", the physical problems immediately come to replace the actual psychological problems . In this situation, digestive disorders are quite an adequate response of the body to changes. Such processes are always felt on the physical level when parting with an old addiction, whether it's caffeine, sweet, nicotine or alcohol.

Digestive problems are an integral part of the recovery process. To ease the discomfort until a complete reorganization of the body, many people who quit drinking help a diet based on cereals, legumes, fresh fruits and vegetables, any food rich in coarse fibers.

Difficult thinking

After a complete and irrevocable abandonment of alcohol, a person has to endure problems concerning the confusion of thinking. Sometimes the consequence of a sharp refusal from alcohol are hallucinations, an unclear expression of one's own thoughts.

How do former addicts manage to cope with such troubles? The most effective help in this case can be exercise, diet, refusal of other addictions, for example, nicotine, sweets. Also come in agreement with your own mind is able to help yoga, massage sessions, fitness and gymnastics, manual therapy.

Stressful situations

Once a person seems to have completely managed to say goodbye to alcohol, often there are major troubles or fatal misfortunes that can make you lose your drink again. After all, before in such situations, it was only possible to get drunk.

Probably, the negative emotional state against the background of problems coming from all sides is the greatest obstacle for former alcoholics. But if one manages to heal a wound in the shower without alcohol once, then for certain it will be possible to repeat this again not once in the future. Over time, a consistent movement towards overcoming obstacles only tempers the former dependent and makes them feel their own strength.

If people who stop drinking drink again by solving problems by consuming alcohol, this often only worsens the situation even more, in spite of all the sadness of the circumstances.

The fight against stereotypes

Quite often, people who drink in the past have to find themselves in situations when it is almost impossible to abandon the behavioral stereotype accepted in society. A vivid example is the organization of a solemn feast on the occasion of an important event in the family of a former dependent person. What should a former alcoholic do if necessary to participate in the feast?

In reality, for a person who has found an effective way to stop drinking and has already managed to part with an addiction forever, nothing terrible will happen. Parting with a passion for alcohol can easily apply the principle of adequate replacement, using as an alternative to soft drinks.

Naturally, the replacement principle fully justified itself, it is not enough just to drink juice instead of wine, and mineral water instead of vodka. A whole mass of secondary attributes is important. So, it is absolutely not recommended to pour water into glasses for vodka, and fizzy drinks in glasses for wine. This minor trifle creates in the picture of the former dependent person something similar to imitation of alcohol consumption, which is simply unacceptable.

There are a number of rules that can be applied as a simple pattern of behavior of a former drinking person during a feast:

• When others drink wine, it is worth using a different type of glass or a completely different glass, previously filling it with a drink that differs sharply from wine by its smell, color and taste;
• If the main alcoholic drink on the table is vodka, it is better to use as a substitute a sweet, colored carbonated drink, pouring it into anything, just not in a glass;
• If present drink beer from large glass mugs or wine glasses, preference should be given to mineral or sweet, colorless water, absorbing it directly from the neck of the bottle.

Society of Anonymous Alcoholics

Often an effective obstacle to returning to a harmful habit is visiting meetings of anonymous alcoholics. Members of such organizations receive psychological help and themselves provide support to others on a peer-to-peer basis.

As the leader in the meetings, the club of anonymous alcoholics can attract a minister of the church, a professional psychologist, a psychotherapist, an expert in narcology. However, no matter how the therapy is organized, the main principle here remains the provision of mutual support from the members of the club.

Almost every club of anonymous alcoholics acts according to a program consisting of successive steps towards recovery. The main points of such programs are based on the following:

• Recognizing oneself as a dependent, unhealthy person;
• Entrusting the result to the hands of one's own spiritual power;
• The adoption of firm intentions to fully and completely compensate for damage previously caused due to dependence, close and surrounding;
• Self-analysis and the search for reserves for personal growth;
• Reporting ideas and own conclusions to other members of the community.

How do those who quit drinking manage to resist breakdowns?

Even in front of a person who regularly issues stories "how I stopped drinking", the danger of making a breakdown is hidden. What should the former addict do if he decided to drink again? The only way out in this situation is to go all the way to recovery first, a full return to a sober life.

In the end, do not hurt yourself with a constant sense of guilt for making a breakdown. Many former alcoholics consider such situations from the point of view of acquiring useful experience, which simply allows to exclude negative moments from the personal program of recovery.

Finally

How to stop drinking for free and forever part with an addiction? Each person finds his own, individual way of solving this issue. Ideal can be called only the system of getting rid of alcohol dependence, which does not force to look for a substitute for alcohol, does not require changes in the stereotypes of behavior.

To achieve the state of complete renunciation of alcohol, most former dependents are helped by parting with life yesterday, by feelings of their own defectiveness, by convictions in the inability to achieve more. All this requires full awareness of all the advantages of a sober life, as well as orientation to a bright, successful future that promises a world without alcohol.