The Pink Cloud has gone, and as expected, reality comes down on me with full force.

What does that mean for me? Will I fall back into old habits? At the moment I am realizing that urges to substitute alcohol consumption or similar short-term rewarding habits try to get into my habitual system. Here is where it gets worse.

Reality can be an a*hole, but the consideration of getting back to where I was half a year ago is not negotiable, since I exactly know where I came from and where it will lead to.

The only way to get through this phase of “getting” or “being worse” is to master

1. Willpower to abstain from bad habits
2. Surfing the urges
3. Deconstructing the feelings
4. Building new and more sustainable habits
5. being self compassionate and open

The Willpower is definitely there. Or, the resilience to push it back and to adapt to the fact that drinking alcohol is nothing to take into consideration. Reframing and reaching out is very helpful in this process. Also, additional information sources like Podcasts, books, programs and coaching help very well.

Surfing the urges is a very helpful awareness technique to call back into my memory that the bad feelings of anxiety or hollowness are only temporarily. Plus:

Deconstructing the emotions helps to internalize the realization that going back to hazardous habits is not desirable and nothing to take into consideration.

Building new and more sustainable habits takes time, but taking one step at a time is a large part of my recovery process, and the structure of habits I have established over the day delivers Micro-rewards over the day helping me to sustain sobriety and building on better habits.

Being self compassionate is a great way to deal with shame and the feeling of failure in times when you don’t stick 100% to your habits. The rebuilding of my reward system is also pretty helpful, because it keeps me mindful of the process of building sustainable habits, monitoring my process and giving me alternatives to have rewards apart from sugar, doom scrolling, eating or alcohol. This will be, however, a different post.

All in all, I can sum up by saying: It had to get worse, I had to realize that, I dealt with it, now I am building up the new house. So, I have rock bottom already behind me, but the way up can be steep and difficult.

Until next time, keep up the faith in yourself and take one step at a time.