Originally Posted by
ed2715 Hi, Caprice. I wanted to write and say good luck to you. I also do not want to “count days” of sobriety. I want sobriety to be a natural outcome of the days I do remain sober that leads to health, contentment, and wellbeing.
I became anorexic at age eighteen and then quickly turned to bulimia and alcohol. I used food and alcohol in a negative way for more than a decade before I finally settled on alcohol as my solution-in-chief.
I am not equating your situation with mine. For me, things (an inner tension) start to build up after a period of time of not drinking. I allow myself to drink, thus relieving the tension. I say to myself that it is a small blip in the general forward direction toward total sobriety, and I will move forward from that point. After all, relapse is common when one is attempting to get sober, is it not?
But in my heart of hearts, I know that I have not come up with a good plan for staying sober, have not dealt successfully with the underlying causes of my drinking, and I am making excuses for my relapses. For me, it has occurred too many times to accept my own excuses. I hope you will be able to get to another 41 days and more, but who is counting, right?
I wish you all the best.
Hi ed,
I absolutely can relate. Very similar for me and is not unheard of with people who have eating disorders. It's a life long struggle and creeps up on you even years later. For me too the tension was unbearable, I puked that week and then instead of returning to that hell made the conscioys decision to sooner relieve the tension and unease with allowing myself to drink. If i had to compare both diseases, an eating disorder is much harder to deal with - you need to eat. It's also psychiatric illness which I had been hospitalized and treated for (both anorexia and bulimia). Only in my mid 20s though i switched it to alcohol. But when i "quit" drinking for that stretch, it presented itself again. At first i was ok with it because it wasn't alcohol but I need to deal with that too and probably will have to until the day I die. Alcohol wasn't the solution and even if those feelings return and I do not feel any better simply because I'm sober for some time at least I'm not making my life worse by drinking.
I do have to confront both issues though and not interchange them.
Best luck to you, it is exceptionally hard to deal with both and I hope you never give up and forgive yourself if along the way you relapse. As long as you continue trying and work on it with professional and sometimes medical help.