Hey everyone, I'm Terry G. You're watching an Alcohol Free Life Channel where we're learning to live sober one day at a time. If you can take a second, can you please subscribe to my channel? I really appreciate it. And if you got another second, can you please hit that like button? I appreciate that too. What I'm going to talk about today is the part two in the two-part series of being a dry drunk. And what I'm going to talk about, how do you get out of being a dry drunk? This video is dedicated to a buddy of my Liza in Canada, he lives in Canada, Ontario. He's a long time listener of my channel. His name is Peter B. And he asked me, how do you stop being a dry drunk? Well, that's a good question because a lot of us don't think we are dry drunk when we quit the booze. And if you're an alcoholic like me and you suffer from alcoholism, being a dry drunk is very, very common. The phrase was coined in the 1970s and it refers to somebody who doesn't do anything about their lifestyle after they quit drinking. That's basically what it is. So if you're feeling angry, discontent, depressed, mood swings, you've shut down, you're isolating, you're feeling, you know, separated from mankind sort of thing and you're just, you know, you're upset at your wife, your kids, everybody, everything in the world is gone to shit because you stop booze. 100% I guarantee it that you are suffering from being a dry drunk. You really are. Alcoholism is a real disease. It's a real mental illness. It affects us mentally, physically and emotionally. It really does. It's a real thing. There's still a lot of people out there who believe that being a drunk is just a bad habit. It's weak wills. It's not something of a disease or an illness oriented. It's just people are messed up. It's a bad childhood. That's why they're alcoholists. It's just drinking because they're losers, but that's not true. Alcoholism is a bona fide disease. It's bona fide. And let me tell you, when you quit alcohol, the alcoholism still progresses. You are still suffering from untreated alcoholism or being a dry drunk. That's basically what's going on here. So let me just tell you how you kind of fix the issue. Okay. For myself, when I was a dry drunk and sometimes I can revert to being a dry drunk, basically what it is, unwillingness to change or the ignorance of not knowing that you're an alcoholic or you think that booze is your problem. If you quit the alcohol, life should get better. And you know something I did that too. I thought if I quit alcohol, life would get better. And it kind of did get better financially. It got better. I started eating a little better. Those kind of things. But when it came to my emotions and my coping abilities with life, it got a whole lot worse. And that's where it really affects an alcoholic who does nothing about their disease, who doesn't treat their alcoholism or doesn't believe that they have any issues or any problems because of alcohol. When we drank or when I drank, I developed coping mechanisms. I didn't deal with my feelings at all. I just drank them and suppressed them or didn't identify them at all. I never grieved anything. I never stood up for myself. I was kind of like a walk-in, talking alcoholic. I never really gave a damn about anything. I only about the booze and how could I get more booze to cope with the miserable life that I had because I used alcohol to cope with my miserable life. So what are you supposed to do if you're a dry drunk? What are you supposed to do? First of all, I would just say to yourself that I need to do something about my life, become aware of what is going on. Just become aware of your condition. Don't worry about putting a title to it. Just become aware that you're not coping properly without the booze. And maybe that you should seek some outside help with your issues. And that was the biggest thing that I ever did and that was my number one step. First of all, I went to see a counselor and a therapist about the way I was acting out in my life. I was very behavioral. I caused a lot of people, a lot of grief. I became very abusive in that dry drunk state. So I went to see a therapist and I started working on my issues, childhood issues, emotional issues, whatever it may be, but just the way I felt about myself in the world around me. And I started to change the way I looked at things in the way I handled things because I didn't handle stress that grade either. I was always panicky feeling anxiety when it came to stress. I tell you, booze, seeped into every nook and cranny of my life. It had helped me along for many, many years. And without it, man, oh man, did the floodgates, BS get released when I wasn't drinking. So go into a therapist or a counselor, somebody you can trust and talk to and tell them what is going on in your life. That's a really great start. Another one is join a recovery program. There's all kinds of secular groups. There's smart recovery. There's AA. There's all kinds of help out there that you can do and you can go to and seek help with like-minded people. You can go to your workplace and talk to your employment assistant program about what is going on. The thing is, if we don't start changing our lives and getting help, we will remain a dry drunk. So, variety will not be any fun. It won't be. You know, we still carry the same behaviors in the same coping mechanisms. That's why we have to start changing. Just stopping drinking and carrying on the same behaviors, the same way you think, the same coping mechanisms is just going to cause you a bunch of grief. So change, we must when we quit booze. Change, we must. Alcoholism and I've repeated it again just saying this. Alcoholism is a disease. No more different than cancer, diabetes or whatever. If it goes on treat it, it gets worse. And just because we quit drinking, does it mean the alcoholism stops? It really does. We've seen people, I don't know if you've seen people, but I've seen people drink heavily, quit drinking and became a bunch of miserable SOBs. And that's what it is. We need to change our behavior. Change the way we cope. Change the way we think. Change the way we feel the situations. Deal with our past. Deal with things that make us angry. Deal with things that make us hurt. Feel hurt or hurt us in the past. Those kinds of things. And I guarantee it, you will feel eventually joyous, happy and free off the booze. You really will. So if you're not prepared to do anything after you quit drinking, if you're bona fide alcoholic, good luck to you because your life will probably become very miserable. And you probably have that brutal cycle of constantly relapsing, relapsing, relapsing, relapsing. The things that we did because we drank is not really, we're not really responsible for that because it's a disease, like I said, it's an illness. But we are responsible when we quit the bottle and move forward in our lives. We're responsible for our lives then. The way we act, the way we feel, in the way we behave towards others and people places and things. We're responsible for that. So you can't blame other people for your state of being. You can't when it comes to booze. We need to change. We need to change sooner than later. Join in AA program. Join smart recovery. A secular group. Go to counselors. Go see your medical doctor. Do something. But don't sit there and rot and be living despair. Feel like a victim. Feel hopeless. Feel angry. Blame in the world for your state of well-being. Okay. My name is Terry G. Like I said before, this is an alcohol free life channel. We're willing to live sober one day at a time. If you can take a second, can you please subscribe to my channel. Hit that like button. And like I always say, we are not we're in this together. We're in this together. Together we can grow and become stronger and better human beings one day at a time. We sure can. We sure can. See you next week. Thanks a lot for stopping by. God bless. Stay sober and stay safe and look at that. It's beautiful. That's the off the grid cottage today. It's really gloomy. You can probably hear the the generators going. There's no sun to run my solar so you can hear some generators going in the distance. But you know, surprise is good. It really is. It really really is. There's no life like it. Ciao for now and I'll see you later. Ciao for now. Bye bye.