{"id":1100,"date":"2025-07-03T17:24:02","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T16:24:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sober.ie\/?p=1100"},"modified":"2025-07-03T17:24:02","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T16:24:02","slug":"learning-to-say-no","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sober.ie\/index.php\/2025\/07\/03\/learning-to-say-no\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning to say No"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading Time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I have often been jealous of others who have the ability to say no to themselves and no to others. For as long as I remember it&#8217;s a trait I had, both in sobriety and addiction. I know that in order to keep what I have today I need to learn to say no. I need to learn about setting boundaries too and sticking to them. I\u2019ve always been a yes man and it\u2019s time to understand why. I don\u2019t love myself and would have low self esteem. If I wasn\u2019t sharing a room with twelve others in residential treatment I probably wouldn\u2019t even shower. At present I struggle to even brush my teeth. My Mother never learned to say no to me until recently she is getting slightly better at it, maybe I inherited this trait from her a bit. When I\u2019m drunk I\u2019m guilty of not accepting no as an answer too. I can be demanding at times. A gambling trait I have is perfectionism too. When I want things to be perfect the word \u2018no\u2019 just isn\u2019t in my vocabulary.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Another thing I\u2019m guilty of is people pleasing. I would give my last can of cider away rather than create a conflict. I think what it comes down to is maturity for me. I never gave myself an opportunity to mature, build self esteem or to have confidence in myself. I could also do with learning to respect my body &amp; mind. Some days I can barely look at myself in the mirror. In Cuan Mhuire they teach you to say \u201cI am good, I was always good. God made me good.\u201d Slowly day by day I\u2019m allowing this to seep in. I\u2019m learning there is good in everybody too and having the ability to say no may allow people to respect me more too.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Today I am happy to say I can say no, no to answering my door and no to alcohol &amp; gambling. I still live in flight mode however and avoid saying no wherever possible. Again, a lot of it comes down to priorities. As AC Trish Mullins once said to me \u2018One of the biggest problems with people in addiction is they have their priorities wrong\u2019. I too still have my priorities wrong. I still need to start putting myself first. I truly hope the day comes where I value myself as I value others. I deserve to be valued just as everybody else, when I was homeless I would often come off the footpath in order for a dog to safely navigate on the path. That\u2019s how belittling homelessness can be. I have been told in the past about how inferior I feel, it\u2019s an area I need to work on. If I loved myself more I think I\u2019d build confidence in saying no to others. I still people please. Today the Housing First team are enjoying pastries from Magpie which I bought for them as a \u2018Thank You\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Another reason I inherited the ability to say no is through my lifetime in hospitality. In my time in Dubai I was trained to delete the word no from the dictionary. Everything is possible, there are other ways to say no however. These days I have a warning letter from my accommodation that I can show to people who are trying to get anything off me. Be it a can, a bed for the night or even just a chat. Today I realise I have the right to walk away from these situations.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading Time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span>I have often been jealous of others who have the ability to say no to themselves and no to others. For as long as I remember it&#8217;s a trait I had, both in sobriety and addiction. I know that in order to keep what I have today I need to ...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":920,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-addiction","category-reflections"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Learning to say No - Sober.ie V1.3<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Today I am happy to say I can say no, no to answering my door and no to alcohol &amp; gambling. I still live in flight mode however.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sober.ie\/index.php\/2025\/06\/11\/learning-to-say-no\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Learning to say No - Sober.ie V1.3\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Today I am happy to say I can say no, no to answering my door and no to alcohol &amp; gambling. 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