KDL

Lately I am hearing a lot from the voice in my head that says, "I could maybe someday drink again. I've learned my lesson this time and will be much more careful next time."

Someone at a meeting recently told me that the disease of alcoholism continues to progress, even if you stop drinking. She said that if an alcoholic relapses, they will re-enter the stage of alcoholism that they would have been in if they had never stopped drinking.

This thought, at this point, has been my most motivating deterrent. I wish I could say it was the fabulous experience of sobriety, but that wouldn't be honest unfortunately.

I know some people on here don't like to focus on past times, and prefer to focus on the positives ahead. But, if anyone has a relapse experience they would like to share, I think it would be helpful to me and others like me.

Right now I attribute my 62 days of sobriety to "immersion therapy." Listening and reading other alcoholic's stories constantly to convince my stubborn alcoholic voice that it is NOT RIGHT.

Thanks for all of the sharing on SR! K

MrsKing

No matter how long I'm sober, the second I start drinking, I'll not want to stop. I know that 100% and so I know that there's no point 'just having one' because I know ABSOLUTELY that 'just one' isn't in my drinking vocabulary and therefore push the thought to one side immediately. "Addiction talking" is what I usually think to myself when I get those thoughts... and just knowing that it's really not true that I can have one... or that one day I'll be able to drink again like a normal person... makes me feel stronger than that voice. I'm thinking rationally, it is not.

I stopped drinking for a month about a year ago, believing that it would 'cure' me. Needless to say, I ended up drinking the same (if not more) as I did before and that month did absolutely nothing... I was still the same drinker as I'd always been. And I always will be.

My aunt (another alcoholic) has managed to stay sober for years at a time... currently she is drinking up to 9 bottles of wine a day. Yes, 9. It doesn't matter how long she's sober for, she goes right back to where she was before.

Noro

When I've been sober for a while, I sometimes find myself once gain baffled by the notion that I can't just have a couple beers on the weekend and go about my business. It seems silly to me that that isn't an option. But a relapse will always end bad for me. I have an issue where I end up putting the idea in my head that someday I'll grow out of this. I long to be able to drink responsibly and moderately like all my friends can. But time after time, I'll have that first drink, and it makes me insatiably thirsty for another and another. Within days, my alcoholism is back, just as bad as I left it (if not worse).

I'm pulling myself out of a relapse now. I'm trying to find motivation. My health concerns should be enough but I'm still craving, and having these irrational idle thoughts that it's no big deal if I drink.

neferkamichael

KDL, 62 days? You are FANTASTIC. Congratulations.

doggonecarl

First of all, 62 days is awesome. Keep on keeping on!

I am not going to add a relapse story. There are plenty of relapse tales every day on this forum. Sadly.

Don't worry about some day. Just get through this day sober. String enough sober days together, work on the parts of your life that prompted you to drink and that voice will die.

RobbyRobot

Awesome going on your 62 days.

I've stopped drinking for many years, and if i drank again, my alcoholism illness would simply pick up where i left it, arrested and unempowered, back when. What would be the same, and quickly worse, would be my mental obsession because my alcoholic mind would be back online driving me to drink again and again. Not good.

I didn't just stop drinking, and wow, life is sweet. I stopped drinking and my life totally needed re-construction, my alcoholic mind needed to be changed out, my spiritual awareness needed to be kick-started, and I needed to keep doing the next right thing to not now ever ever get drunk again.

I can appreciate my alcoholism as an illness of mind, body, and spirit. No known cure exists. My alcoholism is in a coma, arrested, done, history, bye-bye. My illness is not progressing, not doing-pushups, not nipping at my heels, not doing anything. Its still with me, of course, but without alcohol its dead in the water. I no longer suffer from my alcoholism.

I'm an all new guy -- sans-alcohol, sober-minded, spiritual, -- my psyche and life are revolutionized. Its all good even when its not.

So, I hope you can see there is no upside to believing alcoholism as an illness continues just the same no matter if a person stops drinking -- and achieves an essential change in psyche and living life. There is no absolute need to suffer with alcoholism. We can do better.

oinobares

Hi KDL,

I'm only approaching forty days in another of a long series of attempts to stay sober, but here goes my thoughts. Perhaps some apply to you, perhaps not, but you raise an important topic!

I've relapsed twice at around the 90 day mark. When I honestly examine both cases, they are shockingly identical--the same creeping, insidious thoughts leading up to the drink (the mental relapse), the same almost automatic, devil-may-care attitude and insouciance (the denial). Both times I went into long benders that required benzo-assisted detox in the hospital to emerge from. Taking that first drink seemed at the time like the most harmless thing in the world. I felt great, healthy, invincible. Some say "feelings aren't facts"--I don't know if that is the case, but my feelings were a symptom of denial and complete delusion. I should have been paying attention to what I "know" not what I "felt." What I know from painful experience over the last 5 or so years is that my drinking episodes are marked first and foremost by complete and total unpredictability--there is no longer any sense in which I am in control of how much I drink. It is impossible to give a forecast. If I keep this primary fact in mind I feel stronger in my sobriety, and a healthy fear of taking that first drink is present. I still sometimes "feel" like I could get through a discrete, limited social event having one or two drinks, if I "prepared" myself. But I *know* that the reality is total powerlessness and unpredictability. Those feelings of "just maybe" are deadly for me.

This time around, attending AA meetings everyday and working the program with a sponsor, I think I'm on more solid ground to avoid the "just maybe." It is really "one day at a time" for this alcoholic, since I absolutely cannot say, as some others can, "I will not drink ever again in my life." I know that if I take a drink today it is virtually certain that I will end up in a world of utter agony and suffering. So I won't pick up today. I can no more predict the future than I can predict my drinking.

What I cherish about sobriety is the ability to maintain myself as a competent adult: I can be reliable, available, responsible, in control of my actions. I know that I forefeit that personal predictability if I drink. Frequently reflecting on and deepening that knowledge, that ideal, helps me avoid taking that first drink. The world is chaotic enough without adding my own chaos to it.

Best wishes to you!

DAB

At age 43, I have stopped drinking many times only to relapse.
My longest stint at sobriety was a little over a year.
I would become bored with my sobriety, complacent.
I started out trying to control it. I would always end up sneaking more than the limits I set for myself. I don't agree that you alcoholism progresses even when you're not drinking, because each time I'd start again, I wasn't any worse that when I'd left off.
This time I have been sober 8 1/2 months, going to at least one AA meeting every week. The main thing I have learned this time that I couldn't figure out before was this...
When I try to control my drinking I can't enjoy it, and when I enjoy my drinking I can't control it.
When I would try and have just 2 or 3, all I can think about is how I would love to have more. It didn't matter where I was or what I was doing, having more was all I could think about.
When I'd drink to enjoy it, I always had at least six beers. If it was a weekend, special occasion like a holiday or concert I would push that up to 9 or more.
What I do now to not become complacent is I push myself to the limit of what I can do sober physically. I lift weights, go running, and go biking. I know that I could never be in this good of shape and keep up physically if I were still drinking.

KDL

"When I try to control my drinking I can't enjoy it, and when I enjoy my drinking I can't control it."

True statement DAB. The reality is this "recovery stuff" has made my drinking much less fun.

I can't unknow what I now know to be true.

KDL

"What I cherish about sobriety is the ability to maintain myself as a competent adult: I can be reliable, available, responsible, in control of my actions. I know that I forefeit that personal predictability if I drink. Frequently reflecting on and deepening that knowledge, that ideal, helps me avoid taking that first drink. The world is chaotic enough without adding my own chaos to it."

Oinobares- Thanks for that reminder.

One strange realization that I have had since being sober is that I allowed myself to be OK with the fact that I routinely put myself in a position of having no control. In virtually every other area of my life lack of control and personal responsibility would be completely unacceptable. WHY would I allow myself to relinquish that for alcohol?

Now I feel like since I have the clarity to see what alcohol has done/ will do to me, it would be incredibly irresponsible to put myself and others in harm's way if I drink. I'm hugely fortunate that there were no horrible outcomes for others because of my drinking.

tomsteve

for me, a relapse starts with my thinking goin in a backwards direction and ends with a drink. i havent gotten to the point of drinking, but have experienced mental, emotional, and spiritual regression. came pretty close to drinking.

keithj

This thinking is termed as 'the great obsession' in AA's literature. It goes on to say that the 'delusion that I am like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed.'

It took me a long time for that delusion to get sufficiently smashed to the point where I knew exactly what was going to happen to me the next time I picked up a drink. And I knew equally clearly that I would pick it up any way.

Maybe a definition of real-deal alcoholism is 'the absolute inability to learn from one's lessons where alcohol is concerned.'

KDL

"Maybe a definition of real-deal alcoholism is 'the absolute inability to learn from one's lessons where alcohol is concerned."

Powerful statement Keith!

SDSurfn

This is a powerful and informative thread. I needed to read this today.

Thanks to all for your thoughts.

-SD

VDawg

I went 90 days sober and was feeling happier and more productive than ever in my life. Unfortunately, I used boredom and loneliness as an excuse to give alcohol another opportunity. I figured this time around I will control my drinking, since I did not want to have those negative feelings I endured during my drinking days. First time around, I had a few drinks and had a great time. I tried drinking again this Monday and relapsed big time. I lost control and ended up getting a blackout. The following three days, I felt severely depressed and unmotivated at work. Is just not worth it for me to drink