I remember doing a year by myself when i was 28, it was always a year i tried to get back and could never understand why it was so good! Never dawned on me that it was the lack of alcohol that made it better than real out there active alcoholism!
Anyways i remember, that year, i must have drunk say about 3 times...each time was just one or two drinks...BUT that was just enough and with just enough frequency to ensure that i never forgot about drinking, it was always with me even though i wasn't doing it...it's like some unconscious thing that when i got too comfortable or heppy, i would go off and administer some booze out of some kind of perverse pleasure of me suffering?!
Of course i later, last year, in AA learned that all the time i had been as sick as hell and that i am alcoholic which was such a relief...i mean if you are not an alcoholic and you have done what we have done then you are just plain crazy, right? No sane person would have done all this to themselves?!
Point is, and this isn't another AA thing, is that i needed to change myself fundamentally to be able to live free and to have the opportunity to be happy, i couldn't just put down the glass and be myself because myself was the reason i drank in the first place...i mean thats so obvious isn't it now?!
I love the pink cloud bit, i took time off to get sober last year and didn't work so my days involved lying on my bed, eating, gym, going to meetings and step work...social occasions with AA, lots of coffees with new friends, walks around town etc...all before finishing the steps of AA btw! I was thinking last week why is it when i listen to the same song i used to love listening to on my bed last year (Breeders - Cannonball) why is it i am not so 'happy' now...well here is why, cos i am working now, i have responsibilities, i am part of life and society and i am well, in other words i am not lying daydreaming about meeting Kim Deal (lead singer Breeders) at some rock concert (never been to one in real life btw?!) in America (went 17 years ago) with a crap load of cash and everyone saying what a great guy that cliff is, much the same sort of day dream that i have 'enjoyed' since 17...this is my experience with the pink cloud...
My sponsor said to me the pink cloud may last a few months may last a lifetime but eventually reality will set in, the novelty of sobriety will wear off and it will be you by yourself dealing with life again (obviously you can have support through groups etc still)...he also said that when that happens if you have done enough work on yourself you will be ok, if you haven't you will be in trouble and this made so much sense to me...always i would get some time without drink under my belt and go back to it...everything would go great, work, finances, hobbies etc then why not have one and off to the races again!
I've said this before but we had a meeting last year and we were sharing about how we would have been able to get this sooner and get, in this case, into AA quicker...the only thing that myself would have listened to in 2000 standing on the cliff (no pun intended), looking over the bay of Gibraltar thinking i am in deep poo here, is maybe not to try and control the drinking and by this i mean, just for me this is, to get out there and get on with it or get help, stop screwing around wasting time trying to fix yourself because that is just what you will be doing...wasting years of your life in limbo...
I hope you get to somewhere, be it AA or some other sort of support that can help you through this and guide you to being sober as you want to be not just abstaining...6 months is great and if you can just muster the willingness to believe in some sort of support 100% and do what they say without question you don't have to go back out there...it took a lot more drinking for me to finally be able to admit i don't know what is best for me and i DO need help:-)
I guess if we knew how to get people like us to see that they dont know best for themselves at that point on their lives we could save people a load of pain, the glaring evidence that was in front of me for all those years that i just dont know whats good for me, sitting broke at my mums house looking for another job to start again at mid thirty still saying what the **** do they know, im off to the liquor store, if i buy just 2 bottles of wine tonight and just 4 beers and eat before i go to bed, thats ok...pure insanity!
Long post?!