midnightapt

I've been sober for over two years. My life has improved quite a bit in that time. I used to think it was due to me quitting drinking, but I'm starting to feel like I would be where I'm at today regardless if I was drinking or not (both professionally and in personal relationships).

This is truly the first time I have ever been tempted to drink in the 2+ years since I quit. Part of me just wants to walk over to the store and buy a bottle of whiskey. The same part of me feels like I have outgrown all the dumb drunk **** I did in college, and that I'm mature enough to drink now.

I also haven't had sex in the 2+ years I have been sober. I guess I also think if I start drinking again, I'll meet more girls at social gatherings, and start hooking up again.

Thanks for listening, I needed to vent this.

Dee74

I think you know deep down the drinking you did in the past wasn't simply down to immaturity....I think you also know, deep down, that alcohol's not really the answer here...maybe you sense the real answer is long complicated and not that easy?

If your life's not all you want it to be - why not?

I think not drinking for 2 years is great - but most of us need more work than that to be truly happy and fulfilled.

What changes or improvements have you made besides not drinking midnightapt?

D

AcceptingChange

great post midnight. Life gets lonely and frustrating for all of us.
If you're thinking that doing the stuff you used to do is the answer, then consider all the options. Don't have a one item list that says "Use body & mind destroying chemicals". Include lots of things on your list, things that will challenge you as a man, like
- start training for a triathalon
- volunteer at the local halfway house
- volunteer on the suicide hotline
- open an account on Match.com and set up some dates
- change your schedule so you wake up at 4am and exercise

Don't bother with the guaranteed to fail disaster of drinking. It will not solve your problems, it will not make you more appealing to women, it won't do anything except make you despise yourself in the morning, despise yourself because you'll be sick and hungover, and because you threw away two years of sobriety just to accomplish a two hour sensation followed by a multiday sickness. Believe us, it still doesn't work.

deeker

Thanks for venting. Try not to forget the reason you stopped drinking in the 1st place. It had to be pretty bad right?

CharlieNoogan

I agree with deeker... Memory fades over time and the alcoholic voice becomes stronger and stronger unless you continue to work your program. AA has been helping me with this.

In fact, a 60 year old woman with several years of sobriety shared in a meeting tonight that she went back out on Friday. Started drinking "a bit" of vodka at work to deal with some arthritis pain. Got in the car to drive home, and got pulled over and arrested for DWI. Her pain just broke my heart.

Don't make the same mistake. We are here because we cannot handle ANY alcohol.

Che

I don't think you're gonna meet girls drinking a bottle of whiskey at home by yourself lol.

If you have to ask this question, you probably haven't overcome your obsession with alcohol. I don't want to say you can't drink responsibly, because that's exactly the thought pattern that creates the excuse to drink to excess, but what I mean is I think you're gonna tell yourself 'I can't drink responsibly' after one drink and trick yourself. If that makes sense.

krazynoklahoma

i went back out after 3 years sober thinking that maybe i never had a problem. Boy was i wrong I discovered that i am still an alcoholic. i remember my former sponcer told me that while your not drinking the monster of alcoholism is doing pushups getting stronger and just waiting for u to mess up. so try think about how it was when u were drinking ( my mind didnt want me to remember so i just took off like i had never stopped) maybe remember the trouble it caused will help u to not pick up.

instant

Sounds like you are looking for change and development in your life.

Drinking never made me a magnet for the opposite sex. (unfortunate, and not what I predicted......or wanted....................but true nevertheless)

My use of alcohol and the way I was with it- drove people away

dabrewsky

Thanks for sharing... Please do not take that 1st drink, think of it as a story, after that drink, what's next, then what happens, and so on and so on..picture that last drink you had before sobering up...The feeling, the emptiness, the Surrender. You can do it...one day at a time.

SparklingSeven

I was sober for just over a year on two occasions and ended up having similar thoughts to you friend! It took me two and a half years of evil, destructive crazy drinking to finally get off it.

I don't have any great advice as to how not to go back on it, but just please don't go down the road I did! I could have saved myself a whole lot of trouble and mysery if I'd just stayed stopped and not given "normal" drinking another try.

Please listen to the advice these good people are giving.

Hang in there! These thoughts will pass.

Stu.

TDInstall

Yea, I understand this feeling.

I didn't think it would hit me, but it has. I suppose I would say that I am now over the honeymoon period of sobriety, where I was running on adrenaline / survival mode, and now the future is setting in.

It hurts.

dabrewsky

1st time in a long time we feel..."Really" feel... I call it babysteps...alot of times i still feel like a toddler crying, but theres 3 words on life, IT goes ON.

Miggie

Think about what sex means to you. Are you, a good sober man going to degrade yourself and another human by drinking and all that ugly, useless stuff? Why chuck your dignity and someone else's by using them? You won't feel better.

SNST

I have to say I can relate to what your saying Midnight, even though its only been 8 days clean for me, it seems sex & drugs went together, I didnt want to do anything unless I had my drugs, but theres a song by John Mayer called Shadow Days, I dont know if your familiar with it but it sure hits home for me, if you get the chance look it up on You Tube, I bet you will relate too and have a different outlook on this

1newcreation

C'mon midnite! Don't do this to yourself..you know there's nthg good to be out of you going back out. That's the disease lying to you. No matter how long we've been sober, today is only what matters. No one on SR is going to stop if you decide otherwise..try the controlled drinking(pg31-32 big bk) & when you get beat down enuf, we'll b waiting w/ open arms. pls talk to you're sponsor or network 1st
On top of that, the whole women thing is insecurity sounds to me. I know I drank to get them but today I can look in the mirror & say "I love & accept myself"
Hope you make the wise choice

skunkape

I went back out after 2 years and I learned the hard way that this disease is extremely patient. It will wait as long as it has to. Unfortunately it only got more confusing, it seemed like the maze inside my mind grew 1000 fold. Don't do it!!!!

Grungehead

Midnight,

I suffered so that hopefully you won't have to.

I got sober in 1990. I went to AA. After 5 years I stopped going to AA (or using any other recovery method). I started drinking again after 7 years. After 1 year drinking, 1 lost job, going downtown and smoking crack with strangers, and 1 scrape with the law I got sober again. After 5 years of going to AA I stopped going again. I started drinking again after 7 years sober (this is too crazy to make up). This time I stayed out there for 7 years and just got sober 24 days ago. There are too many bad things that happened in those 7 years to even list here.

Take it from me so you don't have to experience it for yourself, it doesn't get any better out there. Both times, within a few weeks I was as bad or worse than I was right before I got sober. Both times my bottom had dropped to new lows before I got sober again.

midnightapt

Thanks to everyone for your responses. You are all very helpful, I appreciate it very much.

sable1

I guess you stopped drinking for a reason, so try to remember all the bad things that drinking caused you.
If you're an alcoholic and you always feel like you need to drink more and more, than it will just bring you down.
I know that if I drink again certain things will happen; I will become sick again (part of the reason I stopped was because my body was simply done with processing the amounts I drank), I will become an idiot, I will want to drink more and more, I might end up hurting someone and do things that I'll live to regret since I have absolutely no control over myself when I drink. And it wont make me more attractive, social or smart even if I think it does while drunk, I'll probably just end up isolating myself and have panic attacks and fear and paranoia and other fun stuff every day.

paul99

Alcoholism likes to whisper all sorts of sweet nothings in our ear, especially when we are in a vulnerable position to hear them. Things like "this time it will be different" or "this will solve your sex problems" or "you're a mature person now...go ahead". This is the alcoholism at work. Instinctively, through past experience, you know that this won't work. You mention life is better since you stopped drinking. Alcoholism is telling you that things would have been the same if you didn't stop drinking. Sweet nothings. All manufactured and designed to get the first drink in your hand.