DylanS

Naw, it doesn't sound crazy-er. It sounds like the mental mind-f*ck that alcoholism does to us to get us to drink.

Pulling for you...

zjw

I get the secrecy of it. I recently heard about taking a beer and putting it into a mcdonalds cup so you can drink it while driving. I had never thought about that back in my drinking days and upon hearing this idea the alcoholic in me was like AHA what a fabulous idea I'll have to try this no one will ever know I could even drink and drive etc.. Then my sober mind was like OMFG what the hell are you thinking!! And started to point out that I have got to be insane thinking this is a good idea. The alcoholic in me has been rather obsessed with the whole hiding it thing lately. I never had to hide my drinking. But I think its the latest twist in my recovery. It seems everyone knows now that I had a drinking problem etc.. My alcoholic solution? screw them just drink anyway and hide it. It tells me all the time how i'm slick at being sneaky I could hide this for a good while no problem.

Its my latest battle I have no idea where it came from its my mind playing tricks on me. I fight it tho and dont bother. I know better then to give into it.

bigsombrero

Yeah I get the hiding deal - I think I saw that same picture of the beer hidden inside the McDonald's cup as well, and the same thoughts about it. "Aaaahh, clever". And, like zjw, I "hid" my drinking as well. I'd get up early on weekends before my girlfriend so I could put vodka in my morning OJ. So why is it, when she woke up, did she suspect I'd spiked my drink? When I had friends in town on holiday from overseas, why did they suspect the same thing? Apparently it was pretty visible to anyone close to me that I was drinking - whether they were familiar with my daily routine or not.

You can't hide it forever, that plan will come crashing down. Hard. What are you going to do when you have to visit your family on Christmas and stay in your sister's spare bedroom for the week? What are you going to do when you take that long vacation with loved ones? I can tell you what I did: bust out into seizures from alcohol withdrawl. And then the nightmare will be back upon you. There is no way out, no shortcut. There is no "cheat code" in this game, no parachute if you jump, no free extra lives or get out of jail free passes.

BoxinRotz

My Alcoholic Husband was sober for 20 years. He celebrated a new house, new car, new job, new motorcycle and yet to come... a new wife... ME! I came to realize after the marriage what he was hiding. He had no one to tell him, YOU ARE CRAZY! IT WON'T WORK! He had his mind and the alcoholic demon to say, It's ok... You can do this.

Almost 5 years later, he's got a brain injury from totaling his motorcycle while riding with a .197 BAL. Over $100,000 in medical bills and a bottle of vodka beside him after everything.

You are not missing a God Damn THING!

DuhDave

Hiya Melba...I dont tend to "Candy Coat" this insanity...or even attempt to be...(how should I put this)..."Mild" or "Diplomatic"...but...YOUR A DAMNED IDIOT!!!...to think you can go back to what you were...and control it !!!

I threw away 14 years of sobriety...in 5 minutes !!!...because I thought I had it "licked"...and "under control"... I thought I could control it...WRONG !!!!

THAT IS WHAT IT WANTS YOU TO THINK !!!

That was 15 years ago!!!!...BEEN DRUNK EVERYDAY SINCE !!!

Do yourself a favor... Tell your AV to shut the "F" up...and stay SOBER !!!

Then...come back here and post...and let us know you just had a brief moment of insanity and "Stinkin Thinkin"...and your OK !

(You'll appreciate me in the morning)

Dave

veryready

I didn't have a drop for 7 years and it took me another 7 to get stopped again. Here with 9 months. It will be worse, I guarantee it. Maybe not overnight, but eventually. No doubt about it. Starting again was the dumbest and most dangerous thing I ever did.

Melbadaze

Thank you for all your replays. I've been seeing a therapist for 10yrs. I tell her of my desire and she doesn't really say anything. Admittedly in the beginning she said she doesn't deal with alcoholism as such, I need outside support for that. So I hear silence and I think, maybe in that silence she thinks its ok too
Oh yes, this thinking is doing press ups.
I read all your experiences and at first I think - but I'm different. I won't be like you lot. It will work out fine.
But a crack has begun to appear in my thinking. I lack input from other alcoholics. I don't know how that works. But it does. I guess inside there's a loneliness, other alcoholics feel that gap.
The thinking is still there. But there is some light.
Maybe for now, hanging 'here' will help.
I left AA meetings 7yrs ago.
We're see.

artsoul

Ah yes, I was going to be the ONE alcoholic to control my drinking, too. Tried it twice, as a matter of fact. I was lucky to get out after 7 years this last time.

I think we'll always have to deal with that voice that pops up occasionally and says "I'm different now - I can have my cake and eat it too.... if it gets bad, I'll just quit again." We feel in control, but that's because we're sober! Add alcohol, and we give that control up, little by little. We want to drink but do it with a sober mind and it just doesn't work that way.

Maybe you need some excitement in your life, or relaxation......, something new, whatever..... Maybe there's something out there waiting for you right now. If you drink, though, you'll miss out on it. Glad you're here!

Melbadaze

Reading posts from those in early recovery. My wanting to drink doesn't seem so desperate now.

EndStage

Once an alcoholic ... always it will be.

afloatsober

cunning, baffling, powerful. The dis-ease is screaming at you maybe.

Recent friend drank after 26 years because he though it might work this time. Died without knowing his name of Korsakcoffs in a care home for alcoholics....

Be safe

Tamerua

You haven't lost them. At all! Your one post demonstrated them perfectly.

You have zero control over alcohol and your life is unmanageable because after all this time, you're pondering a drink.

Restored to sanity..... Because thinking it would be different or that you changed is my sane.

Turn it over... Which at the moment is SR.

I'm no expert, far from it. But I hear enough of people who have gone out to know that it hasn't changed ad you're not missing out.

Take care.

tomsteve

It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe. We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will into all of our activities. "How can I best serve Thee - Thy will (not mine) be done." These are thoughts which must go with us constantly. We can exercise our will power along this line all we wish. It is the proper use of the will


maybe its time to get back to meetings

Melbadaze

I held on to the prog of AA so tight in the beginning. It meant something. My sober time meant something. It's like it doesn't mean so much.
But I will ask for "his will to be done today". If the monster in the dark doesn't tell me that's a load of crap too.

numptie

Melbadaze,
maybe we think we are 'cured' after a decade or so. Forgetting.
Re-reading some literature, talking with others, and re-establishing gratitude may help.
Maybe see this as a very valuable learning experience.....you sound afraid of your alcohol thoughts and that's good. You can address them. Do something about them now
Best wishes.

IOAA2

I was told to Remember When and that my drinking would resume and be worse than when I stopped. I was also told to be honest with myself and that what we will have this disease for the rest of our lives which is "powerful, cunning and insidious."

RobbyRobot

Longevity in sobriety is never something which just happens. When we quit drinking our alcoholism doesn't quit with us, and so effort is required to keep happily and successfully sober when being a recovering/recovered alcoholic. My alcoholism illness is as sick as it ever was even though my last drink was back in 1981. Am I myself though still sick with alcoholism? An interesting question indeed.

Struggling against my alcoholism is not something that happens anymore since my becoming successfully sober as a changed man in a new life. Having said that though, struggling with life is of course something that comes and goes with any person who examines their life - and an unexamined life is not worth living as said by Socrates - and yeah so not examining ourselves can create the seeds of our own destruction.

My ongoing everyday sobriety is proof enough against my alcoholism BUT my sobriety is only as good as I make it, as I live it, and as I care about it. One of the disturbing things I've learned over the years is my unfortunate ability to not care about whatever - and all the while of my not caring about any particular whatever's is it takes its own sweet time for my everyday life to come apart enough for me to see the writing on the wall. Ignorance is bliss until it isn't. Arrogance is a costly enterprise I've learned again and again while keeping sober.

I work at being who and what I am - a sober man. I do not put much effort anymore though, and haven't for decades now, in keeping myself from actually drinking alcohol. After all these years without drinking there is nothing about drinking that could ever phuck me up again because the answer is always I don't drink anymore no matter what happens or doesn't happen in my sober life. I'm a recovered alcoholic, so its all about living in the here and now, and not about dragging around my past drunken days like some lost alcoholic soul seeking redemption for my past wrongs. My own past guilt has already condemned me - no way around the truth of any of that - nonetheless my sober living frees me today and always from such an impossible prison. I am the key to my own success!

Socrates really nailed it all those thousands of years ago. When I don't examine my life - inside and outside - my life becomes a sham and a waste of time. Not a day goes by for me that I'm not grateful. Examining my life is directly hooked into my being grateful - and my levels of gratitude rise and fall accordingly.

Gratitude is its own reward and as such, gratitude always changes up my life experiences - no matter how difficult or horrible - into my being able to make the real difference in my own life. I don't just float along in heavenly bliss - I get down and dirty with my life and I make the tough choices to be all that I can be for my sober self. It's not always pretty, but its always done as a sober man, and that is itself priceless and good enough for this recovered alcoholic.

Good to hear you care about yourself enough to re-examine your 10+ years of sobriety, Melbadaze. You're in the right place to re-visit yourself. Welcome to SR!

BoxinRotz

My husband's friend, who's been sober for 35 years now, told him... Jim! That alcoholic voice is going to call you on the phone BUT you don't have to answer it! Don't pick up that phone. It will stop ringing.

Melbadaze

Hi, still sober.
I had that unmanageable feeling in my gut last night. For some unknown reasoning flashed back to my father who had a gambling problem he just managed to keep mangable.
As he would leave to go gambling he would be all smiles. When he wasnt gambling he was a miserable person.
As I remembered that, I suddenly identified with the feelings. How when he could take no more "personal misery" he'd have to act. Use his will power.
It hit me. That's what is meant by "surrender to win".
I too felt that "personal gut misery" and acted to take it away instead of accepting it, moving toward it and surrendering my will. Handing it over to the invisible soul doctor.

I think some of my addiction is learnt behaviour. Not all if course. But that insight last night oiled the wheels for me. The obsession to drink has gone for now. Now that I named the feeling and surrendered

BoxinRotz

I am so glad you are still sober! I know this can't be easy for you but you worked through it and conquered it. Good for you!!!