Since this is a Sobriety forum I have to believe it should be common place that people would come in here and discuss their trials and tribulations with their S/DoC.
In my naivete, I never took Warren's open discussion of his thoughts and fears as true indicators for a eventual return to drinking.
I actually felt you (Warren) were being honest and forthright. I suspected this honesty was from your heart and that made it pure. I thought you were using the forum as it was intended.
Now remember, this is all through my filter.
Everyone else here sees their sobriety a certain way and have a whole value system perceived in their mind that keeps them in check and safe. Our dashboards have our warning lights in different places.
Some people seem to be able to walk away from it and their example is admired, while others struggle every single day. Some people who walk calmly away are just plain lucky and not gifted or skilled at working a program.
My recent thoughts about wine with dinner were not a surprise to me. I knew they would come. I have lived in my flesh and heard the BS my brain can come up with for almost a half century. Plus, you have to factor in my countless attempts to get away from drinking for 30 years.
This time with the "wine thoughts" it was different, but no credit to myself. For me, my sobriety is mostly luck. Sure, I doing some good things like therapy and adding positive sober activities in my life, but who the hell knows what temptation lurks around the next corner.
As soon as I got those wine thoughts, it was like white blood cells on attack of some "infection" in my brain. I bombarded those fleeting thoughts with a million examples of why I quit in the first place.
I went on attack like no other time, remembering hang overs, championing my current fitness, the way I feel every morning, the progress of therapy. I mean it was like rapid fire.
When the dust settled from that moment, I felt so loved. I didn't feel fear or like I had some close call. I felt like there was a part of me that was actually coming to my own defense. It was a beautiful moment.
The AA folks call what I experienced Stinking Thinking, but I have no idea what they call how my brain went on attack.
I don't have the Time in Ranks in the Sobriety Army, and I have 30 year history of failure, so I can't give you real advice either. But I can say you do appear to have been mostly on the right track.
Like I said earlier, if there is a second slip then YOU MUST face the truth if you are to succeed.
I do wish you would look into counseling ... and get a real bulldog who won't let you get away with rationalizations (and other synonyms for BS).
You have accomplished a lot, but there is much more work to be done.
Even those of us who have made our decision to stop, moved on in positive ways will all return to the gates of hell we remember as temptation. It will happen, it always does.
But when it is happening everyday, what we are doing is not working. It's like we are at a carnival on the bumper cars. We get knocked hard and the car faces a whole other direction, but we hit the pedal and the car takes off in the new direction. It could be right into another car, into a blocked jam of a group of stalled cars or out into a clearing with a temporary feeling of freedom.
Even with all these options we still have our hands on a wheel and our feet on the pedal to keep making decisions until we find one that works for us.
I'm mostly rambling now because I care about you. Don't take any of our words in any other way here but from a very caring place.
You have been most excellent at reading our words of encouragement or even tough love at times and not thinking of it as an attack.
Every day here is a form of intervention.