A Coping Skill is in Order.

     We all have stress in our lives. This is a fact. One coping skill that I'm starting today is a blog/journal.  Taking a nap is on the list but I've been doing far too much of that lately and I think the culprit is depression.  If you can access this off a computer than you can surely find a list of coping skills.  They're very easy to search out using a search engine like Google.
   
     I was at my wit's end a few days ago with my depression.  I found a suggestion off the internet that I liked very much. It was to change up your routine.  Typically I sit at the computer all day growing more bored as time wears on.  I decided to drag myself out of my computer chair and to read which is also another coping skill. I was surprised how quickly it worked despite personally not being much of a reader.

     I would very much like to become a writer but that takes work and more work!  I read about fifteen pages out of a "how to" book and just before my head imploded I set it down and was feeling better.  Writing a novel is apparently not an easy thing to do.  One of the tips in the book is to keep a journal. Look at me multitask!

 
     I find this to be very soothing.  I tend to bottle things up from my years of alcoholism.  I've relapsed about seven times in as many months until I typically pass out believing that I have my old tolerance.  I really want to quit and luckily pour whatever I have remaining down the drain the next day.  Seven months ago I would have rolled out of bed and found the first open beer I could find.  I quit the first week of June in 2010 but that's definitely not my date of sobriety.  Unfortunately if you don't quit for good, drinking once a month or occasionally tricks your body into thinking it is getting more of the substance eventually, and never fully begins the healing process.

     I've had quite a bit of time away now from daily drinking but that doesn't make me sober by any stretch of the imagination.  I nearly went out to get a six-pack today.  There are good and bad days and believe me, today is a bad one!  I was forced to reach into my "toolbox" (where you keep your coping skills) and decided that this would be a good place to start.  Addictions are incredibly hard to deal with and especially when you have a mental illness (Dual-Diagnosis).  Success breeds success and taking these first steps in creating a blog will hopefully get the ball rolling.  Like everything else it will just take discipline.