SparklingSeven

So I am 10 and-a-half months sober and still struggling sometmes.

Last week in my mind I had crossed the line - there was no two ways about it. I was going to drink again, no question. I can't quite remember how it got started but I do know I fed the thought and let it snowball - just for Christmas then stop again in the new year - just like that!

I spent 4 or 5 days of hell with a fevered ape on my back constanly goading me to get booze and get wasted. A really miserable time.

I was so adamant that I would not even post to ask for help - I had decided I was beyond any assistance I was so sure.

The only thing that stopped me was my wife. We have a system in place where she is - if you like, my higher power - she was left to decide if I should drink or not. In my mind when I broached the subject with her she would agree that it was a wonderful idea and we should both get drunk together...WRONG!!

What a massive reality check when I came out of my deluded head and back reality - a real shock.

So I managed to get myself straight and back on track, but it took an almighty effort and was such an awful scary time it left me feeling ill!

Then today I got the idea again, but instead of feeding it I went straight to her and within an hour things were better again.

I feel sad at myself because with 10 months I should be able to sort myself out - not have to go running to others?? But then to contradict myself - of course I need others - being an alcoholic and powerless over it?

Will I have to on my guard for the rest of my life? Suppose I had been hoping that the urge would go away and I could just forget about it. I suppose that is a bit naive? I don't know...

Still I am sitting typing this on a Saturday night, alcohol free so I must be doing something right?

Just feel shaken and scared by the whole thing. I don't want to go back to the dark place.

Sorry for rambling.

Stu.

ANGELINA243

Glad you posted. I'm glad you didn't drink. Telling others those kinds of thoughts are very important--especially if we really want to stay sober. Recovery is a process. Its not so much a matter of "if" those thoughts come to us..but "when" they do>there is a solution. We can reach out to others for help. We don't have to suffer alone in silence. We do recover.

RobbyRobot

Hi Stu,

No, a sober living alcoholic does not have to be on guard for the rest of their lives. They can choose to be, but it is not required. The whole point of living a sober life is not about stopping drinking but about living with the alcoholism stopped so that a new you can go forward sober and happy confident that your alcoholism is stopped.

I haven't struggled with alcoholism for many years now. That was promised to me and that is the way of it for me. Some alcoholics choose to have the struggle for what ever reason. Alcoholism is a strange and cunning illness has been my experience. Many alcoholics don't stop for good and all. Others do stop cold and done with that and those alcoholics only continue to suffer if they choose to be on guard, when there is absolutely no reason to be on guard, IMO.

If sobriety only meant not drinking, well, I would have just never stayed sober, you know. My sobriety is not at war with my alcoholism. The fight is over. My alcoholism lost and my sobriety won. That makes me a winner!

Best Wishes with your sobriety and may you end your own private war ASAP.

Rob

NEOMARXIST

Hey man. Thanks for posting. It indeed can be very scary at times when your mind is running riot and you begin to bargain with yourself. I often referred/refer to it as mind-battles and it often happens when I'm off balance. I think reaching out is crucial mate, as you found out by talking it over with your wife.

It is very, very scary as the reality of how you're only ever one drink away comes flooding back and then the reality of how your life would be destroyed and your sober time too. The thoughts of what could happen are scary and it can really wear you out mentally.

I guess this is the importance of 'just for today' in these situations. Make sure you don't pick up 'just for today' and when the madness passes then you will be so grateful, I know I was.

I think as an alcoholic then there will always be times when the possibility of taking a drink flickers into your mind. Alkies drink after 20+ years sober so its always a possibility if you neglect recovery.

It will always be a daily reprieve for this alkie, any more than that and my alkie head just gets too much ammunition.

Coming through these difficulties will help you in your recovery mate and strengthen you. They do lessen in intensity to be honest and it becomes more a case of just feeling bored or whatever rather than wanting to drink, if you know what I mean. The obsession to drink is gone but it's just uneasy feelings that you're left with and have to negotiate rather than a compulsion to use booze.

You did the right things mate in reaching out to your wife, also share it on SR when you're in the mad thoughts and they will lose there power. The alkie mind is insidious and I know I will be an alkie till the day I die, but that needn't be a bad thing providing I do the right things. I don't suffer from a drinking problem anymore but it's living that is my challenge. Like anything theres good days and bad days but the good days outnumber the bad days 95%. All of my problems are in my head and I can let it get to me if I let it but I am who I am, I think I'm happiest when I'm doing what I'm doing and not thinking about what evrybody else is doing and what I ain't doing. I think this is the importance of 'keep it simple' as I can overthink myself into oblivion! ha-ha. Nothing to do with booze but rather my mental health/mind.

Also mate don' be too hard on yourself as this will be your first Christmas in recovery so it's only natural to be abit of a mind f*ck mate, living in England with all of the booze in your face on TV, Supermarkets, eveywhere!! Just take it 'one day at a time' an know that when you get through it you'll be so grateful you didn;t drink and throw away your sobriety.

Peace

Paraffinalien

Thx for the post, I indentify heavily with the thinking.

I stopped drinking and expected life to get easier on a day by day basis. I was sooo wrong, after the novelty of being sober had worn off i started to feel really low, i had self esteem issues, restlessness, I could always sense the impending doom and had a lot of guilt and shame about myself. I thank god that i found out that these were all symptoms of my alcohloism.

This kind of thinking led me to the insanity of picking up the first drink.

Dee74

This has been a topic here recently.

Good for you for reaching out Chops, thats a skill many of us have difficulty with.

It's been 4 years for me - almost. I still work on myself and my life everyday - I still never take it for granted that I've had 4 years sober.

I'm not quaking in my boots thinking of the alcoholic bogeyman tho.

I've worked hard and I've grown a lot - I'm still an alcoholic but I'm not the same alcoholic I was.

It's like playing guitar for me.

I spent a lot of years practicing. I did it in the beginning to learn, to get better - now I do it because I want to - I don't *need* to think about it or practice every day, but I often do, and I know I'll have the chops (no pun intended) there when I need them.

It's not an effort - usually.

Whenever I felt like drinking, tho, I've always tore the desire to pieces, dissected it, Chops. Yes I'm an alcoholic, but sometimes there are other factors involved too.

Sometimes it's just about isolating those factors - stress, boredom, fear - whatever...and sometimes it's about going back to basics and getting out that metaphorical scales book and practicing the basics.

D

AmericanGirl

Hey Stu

I'm a little behind you (just about to hit 8 months) but I will tell you what I tell myself . . . I was drinking for many years, and daily for at least the last five, and it's going to take quite awhile to feel completely normal without it simply because of the proportions of that experience. This last Thanksgiving was the first Thanksgiving I've gone without wine since I was 12 years old. Of course it feels weird! Things have gotten easier as time goes on and I suspect they will get easier still, but at this point, my past drinking life is still, proportionally, far bigger than my new sober one.

I think it's great that you're posting here right now and I'm glad you wife helped. It can really help to keep an outside perspective around when things get crazy in our heads. I know it can be frustrating to consider the long haul, so I try to focus on the present or the near future. I'm happy to have SR part of my daily life . . . I find it very rewarding, both for how it helps me and how I can be there for others (I hope!). So, working on recovery and paying attention to it, to me, is time well spent.

topspin

"Still I am sitting typing this on a Saturday night, alcohol free so I must be doing something right?"

Stu, You ARE doing something right !!
I have to believe overcoming this madness will not only leave you stronger in sobriety going forward, but has helped the rest of us here.

Thanks for reaching out; ....and thanks for sharing your success !!

aasharon90

Hi Im Sharon and Im an
Alcoholic.

At 20 yrs. you'd think
I would have my program
to a "T" and be cured.

However thru our AA recovery
program, I know I will never
be cured and if I didnt have a
program to guide me along
the way, i would surely be
drunk, crazy or dead by now.

At 20 yrs, I still get aggrivated
and po'd with people, places
and things. All those things
ruffle my feathers and get me
restless, irritable and discontent.

Before, a drink would numb
those feelings, but when i sobered
up the problem would still
be there.

So to find relief in place of
a drinking, i fall back on all
the teachings Ive learned
in recovery over the past
20 yrs.

All those teachings are
heathy ones to live by
day after day and keep
be sane, happy and definitely
sober.

Today for me, i don't want
my misery to be refunded
to me because a sober
life is a "Wonderful Life."

HideorSeek

Thanks for posting Chops and ditto to all who said you are a winner! As you know, Alcoholism thrives in isolation and I think that it's great that you have been honest here and that you spoke with your wife.

I have been sober for almost 19 months and my experience is that usually I no longer consider drinking...or not drinking. I'm not on that moment to moment see-saw...to drink or not to drink....on a daily basis. I don't care one way or another whether I'm around alcohol, whether people are drinking around me....but I do a lot of spiritual reading and work, attend AA and come here. These are important b/c they remind me of where I have been and allow me to be a part of a recovery community.

What I have found is that sometimes I still do get an urge "out of the blue"....which I then look at to figure out why. Inevitably it is when I feel threatened emotionally. Basically, I think it's a knee jerk reaction to the deep seated reasons I drank to begin with. Thank God, I can now begin look at these moments with curiosity....and respond. When I was drinking, I dealt with emotional discomfort impulsively and drank. Recovery is teaching me to step back, look at the situation and respond...almost like I am looking at someone else entirely. This seems to me as what you have done. You felt this "feeling", examined it, discussed it and, most importantly, waited it out. One of the most critical recovery phrases for me is "This too shall pass". Before, I could never have had that perspective and it kept me active for a long, long time.

lionchaser

pg 84-85 Big Book

"And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone---even alcohol. For by this time sanity willl have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it like a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miralce of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as thought we had been placed in a position of neutrality-- safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is our experience. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition."



The OBSESSION to drink was removed for me when I quit living in FEAR and began living in FAITH.

tooling

I'm just over 4 months sober and tonight, Saturday night like you, felt the urge to get drunk.

It's not like we are alone with these feelings. At my work place so many of them get drinks on the weekends and they start to say things like, "I need a drink."

I 'think' this also but we've come too far to turn around now.

I hope you feel released from the chains of booze. If you look around when you are out and hear people talking many of them are captive to it yet.

onlythetruth

I haven't felt "on guard" for years, so if you're anything like me, no, you won't have to be "on guard" for the rest of your life.

The way I see it is that there's a "point A" where we're drinking and miserable, and a "point B" where we're truly comfortable without alcohol in our lives.

The space between point A and point B is difficult, but it isn't infinite. It seems to take different people different amounts of time to feel comfortable. For me, it was a couple of years; I definitely wasn't out of the woods at 10 months.

The thing that I view as truly hopeful, and HUGE for you is that you didn't drink--as bad as you felt, you didn't drink! This means you've learned an important lesson, a lesson that we all have to face at one time or another:

There will be pain, but it will not kill you.

OTT

GreenAces

I don't know if it's going to be an effort for the rest of my life... Do I think I need AA for the rest of my life?? Probably so.. Simply because I made a commitment to carry on the message and I am only human so I am going to go through slumps and just like anything in life when you practice something long enough the effort goes away and things seem to be second nature.. Just as I predict the steps and principles of AA will be for me.

LaFemme

Thanks so much for the honest post and the helpful replies! Great reading tonight:-)

artsoul

I agree with LaFemme - great thread! Thanks!

SparklingSeven

Thank-you all for taking the time to reply!

It means a lot that folks I don't know are out there rooting for me and that we are all in the same boat.

Much respect my sober friends!

Stu.

FBL

Thanks for the honest and sincere post, Chopper!

I felt like that a lot, especially for the first year. Now, at nearly 18 months sober, I don't even give drinking a second thought. I've been to weddings, birthday parties, holiday gatherings, sporting events, even to the bar a few times. It's just no longer an option.