Which is the slip?
p***enger
Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: NYC
Posts: 19,047
Which is the slip?
An AA meeting that ended up being all about relapses caught me wondering whether I slipped last January and got back on the wagon, or whether I slipped briefly into an illusion that I could stay sober. 40 years of drinking if you count from my first drunk. Then 1 year of mostly miserable abstinence. 3 weeks of drinking, then not yet 7 months sober now. Seven months feels like nothing tonight compared to the weight and the drag of my years under the bottle.
I know I should and I will just sit through this bad spell. I'll have a cup of tea. I put my hand up in the meeting and I'm back working on the steps in AA. I have my little pleasures, & I try to be of service to other alcoholics and to other people as well.
I need to remind myself that even if I could manage my drinking the way I did 10 years ago again (which I can't do), I was a daily drinker even then, and an alcoholic, and I never had a single good experience that wasn't dulled by alcohol. If I pick up again:
Goodbye to the relationships I've formed.
Goodbye to my husband enjoying my company for the first time in years.
Goodbye to helping anyone else along the way.
Goodbye to opportunity for growth.
Goodbye to gratitude and curiosity and smiling.
What would you be saying goodbye to?
I know I should and I will just sit through this bad spell. I'll have a cup of tea. I put my hand up in the meeting and I'm back working on the steps in AA. I have my little pleasures, & I try to be of service to other alcoholics and to other people as well.
I need to remind myself that even if I could manage my drinking the way I did 10 years ago again (which I can't do), I was a daily drinker even then, and an alcoholic, and I never had a single good experience that wasn't dulled by alcohol. If I pick up again:
Goodbye to the relationships I've formed.
Goodbye to my husband enjoying my company for the first time in years.
Goodbye to helping anyone else along the way.
Goodbye to opportunity for growth.
Goodbye to gratitude and curiosity and smiling.
What would you be saying goodbye to?
Marchia in Aeternum
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: Georgia
Posts: 11,094
What he^ said. I started here last March with a nice bout of sobriety. Let myself get derailed, fought it for a while, thought I was going to die, fought back from that, came back here.
Like you, cou, I had 40 years of drugs and drinking. I have no idea what a sober adult me is...IS. No idea what I am, who I am. I'm not dying anymore so I'm damn happy to be finding out.
Like you, cou, I had 40 years of drugs and drinking. I have no idea what a sober adult me is...IS. No idea what I am, who I am. I'm not dying anymore so I'm damn happy to be finding out.
voices ca**y
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: St. Paul Minnesota
Posts: 4,360
I'm going to quote Glinda the good witch .
"Home is knowing. Knowing your mind, knowing your heart, knowing your courage. If we know ourselves, we’re always home, anywhere."
So that. Drinking turned me into some strange angry caricature of a person. Who I was 18 months ago is not even close to who I am today. What exactly do you mean by bad spell? Many of my bad spells were followed by increased clarity. Have you noticed that? I had 10 drunkard years, 15 if you include messing around with alcohol and even 18 months later I still have bad spells followed by better understanding.
"Home is knowing. Knowing your mind, knowing your heart, knowing your courage. If we know ourselves, we’re always home, anywhere."
So that. Drinking turned me into some strange angry caricature of a person. Who I was 18 months ago is not even close to who I am today. What exactly do you mean by bad spell? Many of my bad spells were followed by increased clarity. Have you noticed that? I had 10 drunkard years, 15 if you include messing around with alcohol and even 18 months later I still have bad spells followed by better understanding.
p***enger
Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: NYC
Posts: 19,047
Originally Posted by silentrun 
I'm going to quote Glinda the good witch .
"Home is knowing. Knowing your mind, knowing your heart, knowing your courage. If we know ourselves, we’re always home, anywhere."
So that. Drinking turned me into some strange angry caricature of a person. Who I was 18 months ago is not even close to who I am today. What exactly do you mean by bad spell? Many of my bad spells were followed by increased clarity. Have you noticed that? I had 10 drunkard years, 15 if you include messing around with alcohol and even 18 months later I still have bad spells followed by better understanding.
"Home is knowing. Knowing your mind, knowing your heart, knowing your courage. If we know ourselves, we’re always home, anywhere."
So that. Drinking turned me into some strange angry caricature of a person. Who I was 18 months ago is not even close to who I am today. What exactly do you mean by bad spell? Many of my bad spells were followed by increased clarity. Have you noticed that? I had 10 drunkard years, 15 if you include messing around with alcohol and even 18 months later I still have bad spells followed by better understanding.
Never known myself. Thought I did, or other people thought I did, sometimes. I was deluded. Not sure I want to now.
I am always the same. If you knew me when I was 5 you would know me now. Anyone who thinks I've changed hasn't known me. Of course, I haven't known me (see above), but if you did, you would. If you know what I mean. Now & then.
Bad spells. Like cast by Circe. Which turned men to swine. Or Hecate. Just a run of rotten thinking. I'm trying to run faster than the thinking but I'm running in circles. I'm hoping to tire myself out enough running in circles so that I'll sleep.
voices ca**y
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: St. Paul Minnesota
Posts: 4,360
Ah what's wrong with Glinda? That was kind of a dirty move not telling Dorothy she had the power all along.
When I first got sober I felt like I was in some weird alternate reality were there was no booze. I wasn't sure how it was going to be. Now the drinking seems like the delusion and being without it feels real.
What you are describing sounds like what I call the brain spins. I would spin and spin until I figured out what all the spinning was about. It happened quite a bit.
When I first got sober I felt like I was in some weird alternate reality were there was no booze. I wasn't sure how it was going to be. Now the drinking seems like the delusion and being without it feels real.
What you are describing sounds like what I call the brain spins. I would spin and spin until I figured out what all the spinning was about. It happened quite a bit.
p***enger
Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: NYC
Posts: 19,047
All those witches are family and none of them can be trusted. They're only using Dorothy to get at one another.
Brain spins. 'bout right. Sometimes I close my eyes and they roll so far back in my skull I think when I open them again they'll all come up cherries.
Brain spins. 'bout right. Sometimes I close my eyes and they roll so far back in my skull I think when I open them again they'll all come up cherries.
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