I was looking back at one of my posts....I Need To Remember....and thinking about Remembering vs Recovery. I thought, 'remembering isn't what I need to do, recovery is what I need'. Then, in thinking about recovery, I feel a little more in control and focused and happier.....but without the remembering.....simply recovering could lead me back to drinking. I may think that I've got such a handle on myself that I can handle the drink. That has happened before. Telling myself the my 'self' was...

Whenever I quit drinking I get those awful drinking dreams. The ones where you wake up totally terrified and wonder 'OMG...did I drink last night? Because I usually blackout, those thoughts are not easily quashed. I have to sit and think and think about it. Of coarse, the way I feel usually is a dead give-away because I don't have a hangover so I know I didn't drink.
But last night was different....and AWFUL!
I had the worst drinking dream EVER. Before going to bed I read a post about...

So I've decided that if I have to live a lifetime of trying, that is better than giving up. If I give up, then I will live the rest of my days as a drunk. Not only will I live those days in misery, but so will all my loved ones. I know this from experience. My Mother's drinking has touched all of us. All of us deal with it each day. Even though we may not speak to her each day, we live with the wonder if each phone call is THAT phone call telling us she is dead. We wonder if she's ok today....

In my desperation to stay quit....I've been giving a LOT of thought to why I drink and what makes me pick up. For the most part, the everyday...day to day....feelings that I have about not drinking is fear. I am afraid of feeling like an outsider when others are drinking around me. I use the drink to escape reality or to pick me up. The last bought of sobriety I had was nine months. And I've been thinking a lot about why I picked up after such a long time of sobriety. I fought SO hard to...

I can't believe I drank last night! After spending the day remembering all my bottoms....I picked up a drink. I am dumbfounded over that. My auto-pilot turned on....and that was it. I begged myself NOT to pick up that drink, I told myself all those things you need to deter yourself from drinking, and yet......my auto-pilot just tuned out my logical voice and drank. I had 5 days.
THANKFULLY about 5 minutes after picking up my drink, I ran to the bathroom and brought it all up. I didn't...