Hi Stew,
I've been through what you described more times than I care to admit. I knew I was not able to take a drink without taking another from the 1st time I drank after 2.5 years sober. Too bad that wasn't enough. Even the time I got 7 years .... I drank a gain and worse than before. My last drink was after 6 months sober (the first month in the hospital in intensive care) for 1 week.... That one week took me back to the same place I was at upon entering the hospital the last time and I don't remember any of my time there.
What I think changed for me (even though I was to drink that one week more) was when I realized that I wasn't going to get the relief of dying.....I would come out more physically and mentally destroyed than before ... that it would get worse and worse and still I would have to live with the severe consequences of drinking.
I had no idea in 1985 when I got sober the first time just how hard and long the journey would be. And though I was arrogant and really smart, and all that other stuff ....
I kept getting back up. People still told me to get back up. People helped me get back up. People like family, work, AA, Treatment, hospitals, and SR (10 treatments, a dozen detoxes, numerous hospital trips and numberless times of being babysat through days one, two and three). .
I have 14 months now, after all those years, and all those lost sobrieties. I feel good about where I am headed in sobriety today. I have pieced together a sobriety support tool box that works for me. I can never know the future and whether or not I will stay sober the rest of my life ..... But I am sober today with a good chance at tomorrow. I don't think about how to get a drink or how to stay away from a drink everyday. I am no longer obsessed with drinking in that horrible way I was for so long.
Keep getting up no matter what, and that includes no matter what others may say.
I hope you can start to put together a tool kit that will support you to sobriety and beyond.
