FenwayFaithful

Well I just passed the 90 day mark and I guess I am doing well...got a job (part time but it's one I really enjoy), really like my therapist, I've been training for a half marathon, spending some time with my best friend and even stayed sober at a bar and a Red Sox game.
I haven't been going to meetings, which a lot of people think is a mistake. Maybe it is, I don't know. I have a really bad habit of having a bad attitude and wanting to do things my way. And AA isn't really my cup of tea, too much God talk for my taste.
I guess my method of recovery is just say no. If you can even call that a method. I just don't allow myself to drink or I resist the urges as they come. Normally I am pretty happy when I resist and when I am in a good frame of mind I am perfectly content with not drinking.
At first I really didn't have any desire to drink. Not after everything that happened leading up to rehab. It just wasn't worth it, and it was all fresh in my mind.
And I mean it still is but at the same time I feel like a lot has changed. I am in a better place, I am back living in Boston and no longer 2 hours away from everything and everyone I know. I have turned down drinks on several occasions and not struggled as much as I thought I would.
Someone suggested, not for the first time, that perhaps I am not really an alcohol, and that's also what most of my family continued to say even after everything that led up to rehab. And obviously drinking was a huge issue but I can't stop myself from justifying that maybe it was everything else that was the issue an that now that I am in a better place I could drink.
I don't know, part of me is like why risk it, after everything alcohol has caused me to do. Part of me doesn't miss it, doesn't miss the hang overs, the empty calories, the nights I can't remember, the embarrassment, the depression...all of it...
I don't miss drinking alone, I don't miss blacking out or not remembering how I got places...I don't want to go back to that but it would be nice to just have a drink at the end of a long day, or while watching a game. Like today, I got texts from friends and cousins about going out to watch the game somewhere, I worked all morning and took a 4 hour test this afternoon and I can't tell you how much I'd love to kick back with a beer, relax and watch the game.
There is that fairly illogical thought of "Well I've gone 3 months, even gone to bar, and a party and to Fenway and I didn't drink. Don't I deserve a couple drinks?" I am starting to get into that frame of mind where I am thinking that "in moderation" cant hurt even tho that really isn't a possibility and even if it was, my parents have made it clear that if I want to live here I cant drink but I don't think they take my alcoholism seriously, or maybe I am just projecting.
I don't know, I guess the fact that the Bruin's are in the playoffs and it's June and it's time for nights at Fenway and my friends are returning home or visiting Boston for the summer is kind of catching up with me. I am feeling like I am missing out, feeling left out and missing certain kinds of drinking. The kind when I keep it in control, when I just have a few...and I feel like I could really do that and I can't get rid of those thoughts and know they're dangerous ones to have.
I learned enough in rehab to know that this kind of thinking is what leads to a relapse but I am not sure how to stop it. I did have to cancel my therapist Appt this week, maybe that's part of it. Maybe it's the fact that I had a 4 hour exam today, maybe it's just having dinners and work functions and graduation parties coming up in the next couple weeks... I guess it's a lot of things.
My relapse prevention plan involved reaching out to people friends or family but I don't really feel comfortable doing that. I know that's the aspect of AA that would be helpful for me, is having that fellowship and outreach but I am not one to ask for help. I pretty much exclusively talk to you guys or my therapist, people who aren't really involved in my inner world, if that makes sense. I guess I'm not sure what to do or how to stop myself from this line of thinking... I know I'll regret a relapse but at the same time I can feel it coming and am not sure how to stop myself and turn around.

Dee74

I moved your thread to the usual forum FF.

so...you're feeling weak, you think you might be in danger of relapse...but you're not really fussed about doing something about it?

Your addiction is calling the shots right now.

I've been there before - heck you've been here, before FF.

90 days is awesome but I really want to see you make this a life change, not just a between drinks break.

Make a different outcome. It's in your power.

Do something about it.

D

Olive1

Man, that is a tough one.
It would be really devastating to me to have 90 days and then start the moderation thinking. Even after the many years I have, I have to remind myself that it would never be just one. After that first one, you lose all your sobriety judgment.
I vote just say no.
Don't drink today and ask everyone again tomorrow.


PS. I am a little mad at you guys for wiping out the Penguins so brutally.

BigShoe

Getting ready to watch the Blackhawks. Sober.

Great job on 90 days. That's great. It's tough to go that long, I'm working on 30 again. But really, 90 is probably a fraction of time you gave to drinking.

It's easier to see on the outside. Alcohol causes problems, drop alcohol, feel bit better, have cravings for alcohol and not think it's a problem.

Sounds like you have a lot of reasons to drink. Bruins, Bosox, buddies. No doubt you have reasons not to drink. Hangover, recovery, kicked out.

Relax without the booze, watch the drunks be drunk

Good luck

Anna

Congratulations on 3 months sober. That's great.

I wonder what changes you've made in your life besides stopping drinking. I am not an AA person, but I did make some significant changes in my lifestyle. It sounds like you're romanticizing the drinking right now and we both know that for us, it's not like that.

LazyBonez

Read and listen to the countless other stories JUST like this... where people thought they could drink/use in moderation again... and how it NEVER works out. You can read the story a billion times, and it might work out for 1 person out of a billion. Plus, I'm sure you've already been in this same situation before, where you have some sober time under your belt, and you start thinking that you can just have a few drinks this one night and catch a little buzz.... but by the end of the night, you are passing out drunk... and then the next day you are hungover and craving it way more than before you picked back up. Or, you actually do moderate yourself that one time, and you think you can do it again and again... but eventually it always ends the same way... right back to where you were, or even worse. It's always the same story pretty much. I'm sure that the longer you stay sober, the part of you that is saying "no I don't want to drink today" will keep getting stronger... and the part of you that is saying "I can just have a few this one time" will get smaller and smaller.

On a side note, I'm only a month sober, and I am having very similar thoughts as you. Alcohol was one of my "less serious" problems, compared to other substances... and my mind is really trying to convince me that I can get drunk just ONE night, and not do it again for a while. But, I've been in this same situation enough times to know that if I do that... then the next day I'll do it again... and again... and then I'll start using other drugs... and it gets nasty really quick. So I come here... read... and I call sober friends... talk to my parents... go to a meeting (I also don't enjoy AA, but i go anyways, and sometimes hear something good)... anything to stop that thinking.

DAB

Until I took AA seriously and trusted the process, I always went back to drinking around the 90 day mark, sometimes sooner. My longest stint of sobriety before now was just under a year. Don't let the God talk bother you, you can make anything your higher power. I made my group my higher power at first, then my higher power evolved. One observation I have made going to AA is this, most people that stop going to meetings eventually drink. I have yet to see a regular meeting attendee have a slip or relapse. I'm talking about people that are attending because they don't want to drink, not because someone else doesn't want you to drink or it was a court order.

DG0409

"Well I've gone 3 months, even gone to bar, and a party and to Fenway and I didn't drink. Don't I deserve a couple drinks?"

Only if you think you really deserve more of the "hang overs, the empty calories, the nights I can't remember, the embarrassment, the depression...all of it... "

It's not like you drank before PLANNING for those things to happen. Drinking lowered your judgment so you drank more and you might have changed a little, but alcohol hasn't. It will do the same things. They haven't removed the part that causes hangovers yet, I can assure you. It's the same old $hitty stuff it always was.

notdrunktoday

Just don't drink man, you will regret it later. I had hard time at 90 days and fir awhile after that. I tried not to think about not drinking forever but simplified it. My main goal was to make it a year. I couldn't wrap my head around never drinking again. But to get to a year dude is tough. I had to just focus on not drinking one day at a time. At year I figured reevaluate life see where I was at. I'm coming up on 3 years sober this month and every year I reevaluate life and where am at today. I say try a year with out drinking and see where your at next year..... For some reason I keep choosing to be sober

EndGameNYC

For most of us who've struggled with problems related to alcohol, we never wake up thinking, "I wish I'd drunk last night."

gunther84

I have to say, most normal drinkers do not have most of these experiences....or if they did, it only happened once. For a true alcoholic like myself, these things happened over and over to me....dozens of times, yet my alcoholism told me it was not that bad and things like that will not happen anymore, I can still drink....but as soon as I have one, I am already thinking of my next one...and the next and the next...etc...

Those things you mentioned only stopped when I stopped drinking.....and began again once I drank again.

If you drink again, I suspect you will experience those things again as well.

OneLessLonely

Fenway, I hope it doesn't take any more relapses for you to remember/realize that you don't drink normally. No matter how not classic your alcoholism is, it is a problem and it will take you down and ruin your life if you let it. Read some of your older posts. They broke my heart.
At 90 days I totally had some confidence that it meant I might be able to control it and therefore could probably moderate. But I had read here about many that went before me who had felt the same. The ones who tested the theory were miserable and trying again, and the ones who stuck it out were muh happier. I chose to not test it and I've never regretted that decision.
I really had to trick my brain into thinking in any way that would benefit my sobriety. ANY thoughts that went against my sobriety I immediately attributed to my AV and therefore shot them down. I really wanted to be over the drinking and hangovers and anxiety and embarrassment, so I did and thought however I had to stay sober. Eventually you come out of the woods and you're not so wushu washy about it. Give it time to get to that point. It took longer than 90 days for me to get there but I got there. And so can you.
I know you said you're not good at reaching out (thoughts I would truly blame on the AV, which would make me angry and want to prove it wrong), but good job for reaching out here. This and therapy and my two main forms of support. Have you considered delving a little deeper into SR? There's some really nice and friendly people in the one year and under thread. There's also a gratitude thread that helps you see the glass more full than empty. Find some people you could connect with and private message back and forth with them (myself included.) The unlikely scenario of you being able to be content with moderating or "just one or two during a game" isn't worth the very likely risk that you'll end up in a worse spot than you started.

Soberpotamus

Yes, I'd say that is illogical thinking.

Please get the book Staying Sober: A Guide For Relapse Prevention by Gorski & Miller. I can't recommend this book enough. It helps you understand that relapse is a progressive thought process... exactly what you are describing here. Relapse isn't limited to the moment you turn up the bottle... it is everything leading up to that point.

I'll be honest, your post caught my eye because I've just passed day 70 and have my eye on the 90 day mark... Lately, I can tell the quality of my thoughts have declined just a bit, and I think it's directly related to my tendency to isolate and avoid people and meetings.

Please consider some type of meeting, doesn't have to be AA. I do SMART, Women For Sobriety, AA, and group therapy at my rehab center. And try to get your hands on a copy of that book... it will walk you through PAWS, relapse red flags, and how to set up a relapse prevention plan.

Gorski states that addiction is a two sided coin... one side is recovery, other side is relapse... if you aren't moving forward in recovery, you are probably on the flip side of the coin, in relapse thinking mode.

artsoul

That "justification" is your addiction working on you..... (and I understand totally, because I relapsed in the past on that same kind of thinking).

Play the tape all the way through. What happens after the first drink.....
Do you have another? (Maybe a third or fourth after that?) When you wake up the next morning, will you think "whew, I got that out of my system?" or is it going to be "Hey, maybe I can do that again sometime...."

Once you open that door, the cravings are going to get much more intense...... (and there's always a justification, because there's always a game/party/wedding/holiday, or some kind of stress). Don't listen to your addiction - you can get through this!

EndGameNYC

Many people who, after blacking out and/or vomiting, vow never to get drunk again. And then they don't. The rest of us? Not a problem to do it again.

Justfor1

Fenway, I from Chicago & will be watching game 2 in a bar with non-alcoholic friends. It will be a good series and will probably go 6 or 7 games. Go Blackhawks!!

Gottalife

Hi Fenway, I understand where you are at. I never got past 90 days on my own. used to start of OK, felt quite good for a while, even got some money in the bank. But then I kinda went off, started to feel miserable, fearful even and eventually the pain of staying sober outweighed the benefits. Then I got drunk. When I took that fatal first drink I did not even think of the consequences. All those bad experiences and other peoples horror stories just did not come to mind.

It sounds like you are battling what we in AA refer to as the first step, which can be read as "what exactly is the problem". Until you know what's wrong, you can't fixit.

Some here think you are a problem drinker and the solution is to simply not drink. They believe that alcohol is your problem and as long as you don't drink, everything will be fine. It is simply a matter of manning up and choosing not to drink. There are plenty of people like this, so it could work for you if alcohol is your problem.

But if you have lost the power of choice in alcohol, if you are like what AA describes as the "real alcoholic" there will come a time where you have no defence against that first drink. When all the reasons why you should not drink have been forgotten or pushed aside by some trivial excuse or trigger. And once that fatal first drink is down, you will have little control over what happens next. You know the story - this leads in time, to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralisation.

As the book says it may be worth a case of the jitters to get a true idea of your situation.

If you are like the "real alcoholic", you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer. This will require a completely different approach to that which you have tried so far.

If you are satisfied this is you then step one has identified the problem.

Step two invites you to consider solutions. There are literally dozens of solutions offered on this site other than AA, and they will work fine for most who consider themselves alcoholic. Is there something here you have not yet tried. Is ther a person in existence who knows just the right thing to say to solve all your problems? If so, go for it. If you have exhausted your options as I did, and nothing has seemed to work, a spiritual solution is about all that's left.

You have met recovered alcoholics in AA, those in whom the problem has been solved. They give the credit to a Power greater than themselves. Do you think it would be possible that this same power might work for you? Would you be willing to try? And there you have step two. We decided to accept spiritual help and we decided to do that willingly and because we wanted to. A little willingness is all that is required to make a start.

Fenway, I'm trying to draw a distinction between staying sober through will power, a path I found too tough, and becoming sober and free by spiritual means. If you still have the power of choice, none of this will mean much to you, but if you don't I can witness that this is a solution that works for alcoholics of my type.

Incidentally, I'm not advocating a whole lot of meetings. Nowhere in the Big Book does it say tha a bunch of meetings will get you sober. In fact I,ve seen loads of people do 90 in 90 and then get drunk. What is needed is to try and get our lives on some sort of spiritual path. The 12 steps is about the best path I know of.

GoodbyeJose

Thanks Jennie, Just ordered it.

sandgirl

Not drunk today had a good plan-just posted my condolences on the wall of a man who lost his wife to alcohol. I think that brings it home- "Get busy living or busy dyeing". STAY SOBER.

Soberpotamus

Hope it helps I keep that book close by. I'm still coming up with my relapse prevention plan. But I think I've got most of it figured out as far as the red flags and warning signs... just gotta stick to the plan now!