letsgowithJ

let's try this again...

I just wrote a post where I used the term "functional alcoholic", which I will never use again. The term itself creates some sort of gradation between alcoholics, and no matter how I tried to use it, I'm going to consider it a slur from here on out. Many of the responses were useful from yesterday to help me get to that point.

I tried to use it as an example of a concept I bounce around in my head. That term and many of the other concepts I included in my last post were said as self-conscious BS. In posting it, people attached to the BS, and said "hey that's BS!". Which I was hoping to avoid. So please be understanding that I am still evaluating whether an online forum can even be useful to my recovery.

Now, in actuality, most people posted very thoughtful posts, but the comments that I focused on are the 10% cantankerous ones. And I think even those comments come from a good place. Alchies love to use "tough love" and are over-active with the BS police persona...I might even say they're addicted to it...haha.

And look...do I have BS in my philosophy...sure, if not I wouldn't have relapsed. Also, I will own my mistake. I included a lot of my own backstory...which is both boring and probably not very useful to what I need feedback on.

PLEASE NOTE: MY OWN DEBATE ON WHETHER I CAN DRINK IS OVER. ITS BEEN OVER FOR YEARS. I CANNOT DABBLE. I AM NOT DEBATING REALLY ANYTHING WITH WHAT MY FUTURE RELATIONSHIP WITH ALCOHOL NEEDS TO BE. IT NEEDS TO BE ZERO AND THE MOTIVATIONS NEED TO COME FROM WITHIN.

Please do not make assumptions.

So here are the items I'm wrestling with now. I'd love to continue the conversation within a narrower frame.

1- If I just slipped up. Does that mean I've made no progress?

My pattern since 2012 has been to be sober for 3 months. Drink one night. Sober for a month. Drink one night...maybe some hair of the dog in the morning. Sober for 4 months. Relapse one night. and so on and so forth.

Is it OK to be proud of any of this? Is this progress--considering I used to be drunk 24/7? It feels like progress, is that just a lie? I find that a huge part of being able to make it stretches is to cut short the self-loathing. How many days to I beat the hell out of myself that I messed up? How useful is it when I've got kids to feed and money to make? Did anyone find themselves in this pattern and then really escape the gravitational pull. Because I feel really close. I get that it needs the constant attention and that it'll never just be done.

2- If I'm not miserable...does that mean I have no hope stay sober?

I'm happy. Truly. I messed up this past Thursday after about 100 days sober. I've got a little bit of the self loathing thing going on, kicking myself. But that will subside and I will be sober and happy.

Has anyone made it out of the cycle (see #1) from a happy place? (and by make it out of the cycle I mean make it longer than me--6 mo. to a year) If you have, please respond. If it took you 10 years of destroying everything...you could very easily be a premonition of what my story will be. I'm not better than you... but I'm also not asking for you to tell me all of the terrible things I'm going to do with absolute certainty.

Let's go with those two.