JeffreyAK

That's exactly how it went for me, too. I remember my first solemn promise, it was to not drink for the next two months, the duration of my outpatient program, and evaluate where I was then. Forever was waaay too big, just getting through the days of anxiety and depression was enough, and my longest previous stretch had been 9 days in a period where I hadn't gotten so pickled, so 60 days seemed huge enough. Then I moved it back, 3 months, to my birthday. Then, it was through the summer. But before I had gone 6 weeks sober, it was forever and I knew it. I remember my wife saying, "Well I'm sure once you've been sober for long enough you'll be able to drink again" (her co-dependence was talking), and I said, "No, this is forever, I'm done with drinking permanently". And I was.

Solemn vows have a place, I think, early in sobriety, and perhaps that's where the value of an "unbreakable promise" lies, adding weight to a decision that part of you really doesn't want to make, or wishes it didn't have to make. But I can't imagine going through the rest of my sober life not drinking just because of a promise I made to myself years before, that's an emotionless logical sort of path a computer might take, but I can't. I don't drink, and won't ever drink again, because I don't wish to and because I know that no matter what happens, good or bad, I will quickly turn it all to ashes if I were to start drinking again. And if I ever waver, I can think back to where drinking led me in 2010, and remember what it was like. It was hell, and for me alcohol is forever closely tied to that hell, so there's a very strong revulsion factor that I don't think I'll ever lose.