northend79

I've been sober for a few months with a pretty epic slip up last month ( I posted about it). Anyhow, the last time I stopped drinking was because I had basically hit rock bottom, and really had not other choice.

I wasn't drinking but had never flipped my mind over to recovery mode. I just didn't drink. Still thought about it, missed it, wanted to do it.


Then last month happened, and I couldn't be in denial anymore. Also, something else changed, I still can't pinpoint what, but I know I didn't want to drink.


Anyhow, yesterday, I hung with friends who are drinkers. I conciously made the decision to drink. I was coming of an overnight stretch of work, and one thing I've learned, is when I'm overtired, I make poor decisions.


I was with people I trust, my child was away, and I don't have to work again until Friday. I drank, and didn't enjoy myself.

This morning, my head and bank account are suffering.

I am not trying to justify with myself why it's okay I did that yesterday. I know it was wrong. I don't plan to do it again. Totally different mind frame then the other times I've drank while trying to recover.

I feel like I've finally gotten control over my drinking, by having another slip up yesterday.

Does that make sense? That now I can really truly see how it's not working for me to drink anymore? Or am I just playing head games with myself, and don't want to admit that I am really having a hard time with this.

JackNWA

I'm not sure anyone can answer your questions other than you. But since you "decided" to drink, and made a choice to do so, what do you plan to do differently next time? Speaking only for me, I had lost my "choice" in drinking. I had to fully understand and accept that I had lost the power of choice. I was no longer in control. Once I did that, i was on my way to recovery.

doggonecarl

As was posted previously, that is really your call to make. Only you have insight into your own brain. But it is amazing what influence alcohol will have on our brains, or as I've read before, the "booze brain." It can convince us that THIS TIME, we can handle it, THIS TIME is different, THIS TIME is the LAST time you'll slip if you only drink this LAST time.

That may be the head game you refer to. While I promised myself I'd quit countless times, I only really meant it, truely meant it once, this past August, and I slipped two weeks later. Like you, I learned something, that I really had a problem and my attempt at recovery was much stronger after the relapse. But you've shown me something in your post. That none of us, no matter what we say we learned, are impervious to the lure of alcohol.

Lushwell

[b]

endzoner

actions speak louder then words North ..

just a simple suggestion that you go back an re-read your posts ffrom the past and see what simularitys you have in them as Now .

If your truly ready to grab the bull by the horns and work the recovery program , then what is it your going to do differantly then the last several times that youve relapsed . Whats gonna happen the next time your child is away and you gotta day off the next ?
Mite wanna say goodbye to those so called friends you say you trust , if they truly were your friends , they would of told you go home or not asked you there in the first place
Its often said that we plan the drink way before the event even takes place or that we know the door is open to the idea of doing so , Stop listening to that mind of yours its not yours right now , it belongs to the drink and WILL convince you each time like the others that you can do this , you can have a drink .. you will be fine , your not a alki blah blah blah .. we all been there . we know how it works , but now many work a diff thinkin program .. what are you gonna work ????

fdsajkll

i am..how do i make a new post.. i just slipped up and i love the way i feel drunk better than i do sober.. why is that??

who am i drunk that i like to forget why i am sober?
why am i more happier when i am drunk?
why do i like being drunk (other than addiction, i know i like the feeling)?
what am i scared to feel sober... that i love to feel when i am wasted?
and again... why do i love being soo drunk at the cost of waking up tomorrow and know wha ti do is wrong, depression and utterly wrong.. how come right now it feels so absolutely and utterly sexxua and rright. Like and instinct i shouldn't/can't resist?

why is this addiction feel so right,.... right now... yet so wrong later??

rws177

anyone ever glad they slipped up?

I can't really say I am glad that I slipped up the last time but did use it as a tool. After three months sober I took a drink and proceeded to drink for 3 days straight. Then I went hunting several days later (sober) and while sitting in a tree alone with my thoughts I reflected on what had happened and why I drank. I came to the conclusion that I thought I was “cured” but proved that wrong since I could not have just one drink. Yes, I regret that brief relapse but thankful that it could be used as a tool to prove that I am in fact an alcoholic and cannot drink at all.

Justfor1

I use to think that the last time I drank had to be some sort of horrible rock bottom epic incident. The truth is the last day I drank I only managed to drink a few bottles of cheap beer. I had plenty of rock bottom moments that looking back all added up to my decision to quit.

sailorjohn

No, it makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.

However I do remember that alcoholic mindset, still able to remember the last drink I had and the 1st drink I had when I went on that 5 year road trip.

And what I was thinking when I decided it would be a good idea.

Kjell

It's never good if I'm drinking, never.

However, what you do with what you did is up to you. You can make it a positive.

I had to change who I was or the same me will drink again. Maybe this is true with you too?

"to thy own self be true"

Kjell

omegasupreme

Might I suggest reading Chapter 3 from the beautiful Big Book.

Untoxicated

To be truthful, it sounds like nothing more than rationalization.

^This, you nailed it.

All the best,
Untox

CarolD

No I was never glad when I returned to drinking.
It always made me feel depressed and a failure.

At least you got your child safely out of the situation.
That was a good idea...

Here are excerpts from the book that convinced me to quit

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...influence.html

Hope this is your time for recovery North...living sober is so worthwhile.

RobbyRobot

All you have shared makes sense to an alcoholic minded person. When I was active with my drinking I had similar experiences and like you i tried to get my head around what had actually happened to get me from not drinking back to drinking again. Now I know it was my alcoholism, but back then I blamed myself for slipping up and ignored my true alcoholism in action. My trying to make it into a good thing just showed how much i was living a lie and living in alcoholic despair. I thought i was also in a totally different frame of mind too while taking full responsibility for my drinking. Not. What I 've since learned is that i was really only seeing honestly how alcoholic my mind had become in satisfying it's hunger for alcohol -- like it had its own purpose and i was only going along for the ride. I was not really ever in control in any "real" way. It was all just an elaborate complicated justification to have another drink, was my experience in similar circumstances as you have shared.

Rob

Isaiah

A very qualified "sort of" would be my answer.

My last drink did call it to my attention that I hadn't been working on my recovery. It did get my focus back and I feel the past two months I've been putting more in than I was the two months prior. However, I think drinking is the last and most undesirable way to get one's head back into the game.

But no, I don't think a post-drink revelation is itself the good change. The good change is the honest effort you put in after it happens. Having good intentions for sobriety is the start of it, but it's the actually sticking to one's program and making the changes that I think is the heart of it all.

Nyte Byrd

As I have shared in a previous post, until I learned in sobriety, that relapse is merely a regression of the way on thinks, and the drink or the drug comes 'after' the relapse, I realized that in 1984 and 1985, when I kept going back out, I wasn't really 'relapsing'. I never had a change in thinking at all. I never actually had a recovery to relapse from. I just kept using intermittently, in between attending sparse meetings, fooling myself into 'thinking' my way into why I was different, and why these meetings weren't going to work for 'me'. I suffered from 'terminal uniqueness', the unwritten number two offender of alcoholics.

The only ones who benefitted from my 'so-called' relapses were others who were wise enough to learn from my own mistakes. Because I sure didn't at that time.

Today, I have the ability to learn from others and don't always have to learn from my own and make mistakes more than once. Today I can avoid making the same ones twice. Today, too many have convinced me by going back out themselves, and coming back and convincing me that nothing ever seems to get better in their lives when they do.

I have only one way out of this gig. The day, someone does go back and uses or drinks again, and tells me their life has improved. Cause I wanna party with that dude.

But it's been 23 years now, and he or she ain't showed up yet.

Contrary to what anyone may have heard...relapse is NOT a necessary part of recovery. If you stick around long enough and listen.....others will prove that to you with their own testimony for you.

least

I slipped up too many times to remember and was never glad that I did. I know what will happen if I drink again and don't need to do it to 'remind myself' of the consequences. I only have to remember how sick I was a year ago and how much I never want to drink again.

Zencat

No, I was never glad that I slipped/relapsed. I was however able to learn from my relapses. After the slip and a return to recovery, I was able to see what positive changes I needed to do in my recovery program. By gaining more important insight into my illness would be the 'glad' moment if there was any.

Nyte Byrd

And that's the best thing anyone can do who does go back out and return.....and do the 'return' part as quickly as possibly.

I know for some, how difficult it is, because they feel they let others down, until they realize it is really themself they let down that matters.

I have seen too many people who do go back out and 'stay' back out too long and even some who come back and spend too much time trying to figure out 'what went wrong'....when there really wasn't much to figure out.

They simply decided to drink again. They had some 'condition' on their sobriety. So, best thing to do is, get back up, wipe off your knees, and continue on with the 'trudging' with the rest of the crowd.

Oh, I know what some will say. How they stopped going to meetings....how they stopped calling their sponsors.....but I think what happens first that you 'don't hear' them say is.....

how they lost their 'willingness to listen'.

Sometimes people in the rooms forget that 'more shall be revealed. They begin to think that there is nothing in the rooms they haven't heard that ain't been said.

Translation? They begin to become unteachable all over again as they were before they stepped foot in the door.

I only pray I keep mine and am thankful I still at least have it today. Thanks for your insightful share.

pinkfirefly

yea. that makes sense to me. you are realizing that the drinking is turning on you and its really not helping, its only hurting you. sometimes we need those slip ups, those moments to learn and do something about our problems. i understand where your coming from. i have experienced the same. given in to the drinking, and then realized that it didn't help me like I thought i would. i felt so betrayed, but i learned something. good luck to you.