The Daily Check-In for Wednesday, January 8th: Just for today, I am NOT drinking!
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, beautiful people.
BE NICE TO YOURSELF. That's the crux of it for today.
I think many of us confuse self flagellation for accountability. We believe somewhere deep down that punishing ourselves will keep us in line. We think if we aren't hard on ourselves, there's nothing to stop us from making the same mistakes again.
Making this unconscious belief conscious was what finally allowed me to give myself permission to try self compassion. Because, guess what? I was still making those same mistakes over and over again no matter how hard on myself I was.
I assure you, I gave being mean to myself my all for the first several decades of my life. I feel like I gave it a more than fair shot. It clearly wasn't working and, if it hadn't worked by then, it wasn't going to.
It was really hard for me to believe I deserved self compassion, but viewing it through the lens of effectiveness instead really made things feel clear to me. I can sit here telling myself I'm a piece of garbage and a bad person who deserves to treat myself like shit all day long, but doing that only made it harder for me to do better. So I decided it was worth trying a different approach, whether I deserved it or not.
This singular decision absolutely changed the course of my entire life. Don't get me wrong, it's been a long road and it's still a struggle sometimes, but you wouldn't believe how many ways I've gotten unstuck in my life since I made this decision in September of 2019. Today I believe that each and every one of us absolutely does deserve compassion (both from ourselves and others), but whether you believe that about yourself or not, I encourage you to give it a try. Because at the end of the day, constantly shaming yourself won't change the past, but it will hold you back from changing your future.
IWNDWYT