Hi Nalanda,
I'm Snarly and I have 12 days today and fairly new to this forum.
Thank you for posting this topic and your very articulate post.
I read your post and all of the members responses. This topic seems to really have touched a lot of members - some amazing feedback.
I wasn't going to respond because I'm still raw from my latest slip and and even more physically devastating from a 10 day 24 hour a day bender.
This is not my first rodeo. I have been heavily abusing alcohol and other substances since High School. Let's just say I am not a spring chicken.
Since your post talks about making a conscious decision to START drinking I will share my longest sobriety period "lapse". Is it a lapse if is intentional? ...
I never really thought about an intentional lapse in that context before. Open to new ideas and this is a pretty good one to think about.
My longest period of continuous sobriety was 9 years. I was fully committed to AA - two regular meetings a week, sponsors, sponsored lots of folks, speaker circuit and was devoted to working the program. All good so far right?
So what happened? I got complacent. The short answer.
I was doing all this great stuff... and it got BORING.
All the folks I sponsored - annoying... can't they SHUT UP.
Meetings became same stuff.. different day.
No one for me to really talk to about the way I was feeling. I would not dare "share" this with my home meeting. Heck I was one of the elder statesmen in the room.
Are you sensing something yet?
Something ... had I shared would someone who was objective might have seen and let me in on in time to save my sobriety?
Would I have even listened if they did not a few years sobriety?
Even then, would someone have the courage to tell it to my face?
I made a conscious decision to drink. Maybe I had finally learned enough about myself to drink responsibly. After all I was almost a decade older.
My younger self was gone. I was me: a greatly improved me version 9.0 (get it 9 years - got to laugh when you can)
After a few months... I got to a really bad place quickly. Worse than me a decade earlier. Introducing new and greatly degraded version negative 1.0
So sitting there in a poor me mental fog it dawned on me... AV got me!
EGO.
It took me a couple of years to get past 60 days.
Now if you want to talk about "oops"lapses or even why did my friends spike my drinking or even Doctors prescribed pills which led to relapse... please feel free to post new threads.
I actually got a lot out of this exercise.
Thanks again for posting this fascinating topic.
Snarly