Sudz No More

I have found during my time as a member here that day ones and taper downs Are much too prevalent. I read through most of these threads about starting recovery and remember how I was much the same way.

What is rarely mentioned or emphasized by us other members is the much more important and difficult task of sustained recovery. I have found in my own attempts that quitting is easy but staying quit, that is the monumental task we will all fight for the rest of our lives.

The moment anyone can realize that the true goal is not day one but day forever is the moment they may truly recover.

So I ask that all day ones and taper downers try to never forget how detailed they were in those first few weeks that they began trying. All those great steps you took to assure success and how easily they are forgotten when staring at a ready glass of your favorite poison.

To renewed strength and determination for all still struggling with addiction and may this be your last day one.

SSIL75

Funny I just responded to someone in newcomer's with this exact sentiment! (or, I tried to capture it). We are of the same mind tonight.

Bikeguy

Well said Sudz, well said.

Dano1975

I agree Sudz, except that I think "one day at a time" can be a good tool, sometimes when times are really hard it's alot easier and your chance of success is much higher if you can break that monumental task up into bite-size pieces.

Terminally Unique

I don't believe that recovery is a monumental task or a life-long struggle, not if you decide to finally quit once and forever. People do tend to "forget" why they quit in the first place, and that can throw them off, but otherwise, like anything else in life, it gets easier with practice.

Sudz No More

My sentiments as well

Dee74

My thoughts today are very different to the first day I logged on here.

Then I was just looking to get a few days sober - even that modest goal seemed a monumental task because it had been beyond me for 15 years of trying.....

Now 4 and a half years on, I'm genuinely comfortable with being sober and expect to keep living this way for as long as I'm breathing - but I had to get from there to here first....

I'm glad I found the support empathy and understanding here that I did back in 2007

D

babycat

I hear ya. For me, I always hated when I would return to AA and be congratulated cuz I always felt like I was going to **** up in a week. And I would.
I can easily quit for a time, but I always seem to go back.

Terminally Unique

I just remember for so long thinking that it was too difficult to quit, and just resigning myself to my dismal fate, but never quite hitting that elusive bottom. No, I'm not going to be telling people that quitting is too difficult, or a monumental, life-long struggle, because they already believe that.

SSIL75

I don't know that I was afraid it would be too difficult as much as I didn't believe it would be worth it. I thought... all this hard work and effort and changing myself into some meetingaholic wild eyed 'saved' person. I didn't want it! I didn't want THAT.

Of course it's not like that at all. My perception was all wrong.

onlythetruth

Another sentiment I'd like to embroider and hang on my wall!

I absolutely do not find recovery to be a "task" or a "struggle" and I think it is a mistake to spread the idea that it is that way. The reality is that the initial phase where we get used to living without our DOC is difficult, but after that we're left with living our lives, which is no more or less difficult for us than it is for people who have never had an addiction.

langkah

I'm still not sure what to make of the guaranteed eternally sober during the time they are around.

When I was getting sober there was a guy around who managed a drug store who couldn't speak without telling all repeatedly and at length how guaranteed eternally sober he was and would always be. I'm not quite sure how he knew that with such certainty at just a year or two, but it turned out he was completely correct up to a point.

I suppose it was a type of encouraging self-talk more than wanting to appear weller than others. High hopes of the continuing reality of his lifelong condition being special and different than other alcoholics and desiring to rise beyond his alcoholism to the point where it would no longer be there at all, that it would be somehow all be wished away.

At one point towards the end he announced he was no longer alcoholic and would thereafter come around just to correct the errors in understanding of the 30-40 year sober people, to unselfishly educate and inform them.

I noticed the old members seemed much nicer to him than they were to me, but at the time I didn't know why that was so.

WakeUp

This is why it's important to have a program of recovery. SOME type of program, ANY type of program, nobody cares which program it is, but HAVE A PROGRAM AND FOLLOW IT!

That's all.

Ranger

It is a recovery tool, Langkah. No more, no less. While staunch declaratives don't float my boat, this approach works for some and that is a good thing.

With that said, I think we should be mindful that putting on an air of "true" or "better" sobriety is every bit as offputting as pushing the concept of "true" alcoholism.

Ranger

With all due respect, this might be your truth but I believe it is dangerous to peddle the idea this is true of all alcoholics.

Many alcoholics drank from adolescence through the point of adulthood at which we stopped.

Firstly, an addict if this nature typically "wakes up" to a mindfield of issues left behind by his/her years of using.

Secondly, such an addict is poorly suited to addres these and many other "life" issues because his/her use of a chemical crutch has stunted emotional maturity and development of effective coping mechanisms.

onlythetruth

I drank from adolescence through the point of adulthood myself. 25 years, age 13 to 38.

And I stand by my comment. My job brings me in constant, continual contact with people of all stripes, and they all have problems, and problems handling their problems, whether or not they have a history of addiction.

Life is difficult for pretty much everyone.

flyawayfromhere

I sure am glad I don't have to believe this about my sobriety anymore. lol
Turns out when you stop convincing yourself that alcohol is your "coping method," you go back to the ones you already instinctively have.

Ranger

I'd never argue differently. My only point is that coming out of the alcoholic fog, the non-addicted are generally better suited to deal with life's difficulties than those who've spent decades consumed by self-gratification and valuing their next drunk above all else.

Ranger

Good for you. But, where I come from, the notion of "instinctual coping skills" is at-odds with myriad realities such as the fact a person who is subjected to violence as as a child has a tremendously higher propensity towards becoming violent adults.

SixStringZen

Agreed....
If it's a lifetime of struggle, you're doing it wrong...