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Success And/Or Failure In Recovery

Old 01-26-2014, 06:40 PM
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Success And/Or Failure In Recovery

I was just thinking it's been nearly 10 years since I first went to a treatment program. Since that time I have had periods of sobriety and relapsing into binge drinking. The longest periods of sobriety usually being between 6-11 months. I have noticed my relapses have been getting shorter in duration. Maybe that is a good thing. I typical drink uncontrollably for 2-3 days & return to sobriety. I have not been arrested in 4+ years. Some say I have made progress while others say I'm a constant relapser. Physically I have recovered somewhat thanks to my periods of sobriety. But mentally, I still feel out of touch with reality and find myself thinking about picking up a cold beer.
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Old 01-26-2014, 07:15 PM
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I typical drink uncontrollably for 2-3 days & return to sobriety
That is what was happening to me as well in the last 12 months. I have been attempting to get and stay sober for over 4 years.
This has to be some weird as.d deprivation thing or fit in as much as you can quickly so I can get back into a sobriety cycle.
In the last 12 months I had worked out I couldn't moderate by having 2 or 3 drinks an evening so it had become 3 days heavy drinking, sobriety for 1, 2 or 3 weeks then back to drinking as much as I can for a few days.... Have I got rocks in my head....that is hard hard work. ...far easier to just not drink.
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Old 01-26-2014, 07:19 PM
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I think the fact you guys are here and trying again speaks volumes



D
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Old 01-27-2014, 01:31 AM
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Sounds like progress to me What can you do to take it up to the next level? Are you getting support at all? I found I had to make recovery a fairly regular part of my life to stop me from slipping back into old ways of thinking... x
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Old 01-27-2014, 04:09 AM
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to me, successs is a one day at a time thing.
i went to sleep last night sober. i was successful yesterday.
if i go to sleep tonight sober, i was successful today.
however, it wasn't always that easy. when i got into recovery, i had to fight very hard to not pick up a drink,and there were times it was down to one minute at a time.
but one thing Finally got from my head to my heart: alcohol wasn't gonna help anything.
over time, and with work on fixin/changing me, the craving,compulsion, and obsession left.
it was well worth the fight.
SOBRIETY ROCKS!!!
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Old 01-27-2014, 04:42 AM
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Most alcoholics go out drinking when we try and take control of our own recovery. If we do what we always did (and it's not working) we get what we always got. Would working an active program of recovery work for you do you think? Would you consider reaching out to a counselor, doctor or a program of recovery like AA to see what they have to offer? Sitting by myself in my home or the bar and debating whether to drink or not was always a losing proposition for me. You have the desire to be sober or you wouldn't have posted - that's huge - so think about what the next step is.
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Old 01-27-2014, 07:50 AM
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Originally Posted by Turninganewleaf View Post
Physically I have recovered somewhat thanks to my periods of sobriety. But mentally, I still feel out of touch with reality and find myself thinking about picking up a cold beer.
I don't think it's important to worry about what everyone else thinks of our drinking patterns. If someone is able to maintain long periods of sobriety, but "relapses" every so often, that does not take away what they learned during sobriety. Obviously the health and social concerns of daily drinking are minimized. So yes, there is progress. But there is also the fact that if we can't predict the outcome of our drinking, we don't know what's going to happen. Each binge could be the last, because I could hurt or kill myself or someone else, which is why it is so dangerous for me to even consider that I could drink again. I also run the risk of damaging my relationships.

Perhaps most importantly, as you've noted, the obsession to drink is hard to get rid of if drinking is still an option. Mentally and spiritually, I cannot imagine what it is like struggling with staying sober for ten years. I remember how miserable those first few days/weeks/months were, and I can't imagine living in that state for so long. So I applaud you for keeping at it! I would echo others' comments to keep trying, and perhaps try something different.
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Old 01-27-2014, 08:29 AM
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Looking back, I realize something about myself (I truly had NO idea at the time)

I didn't want to live sober. I wanted to be sober when I wanted to be sober, and get blotto when I wanted to get blotto. So, I got into recovery and sober didn't seem all that fun, but I was "committed"...so I stayed sober, until I really just wanted to get blotto again. And I did.

Problem was, being blotto ALL the time wasn't so good. So I'd get back on the wagon..until some time came along that I didn't want to experience sober...and got blotto again. But then I found myself blotto when it wasn't so good to be so...so I'd get sober again...then find myself wanting to be blotto...

Then finally I realized that there were only two choices for me. I wasn't capable of doing sober when I wanted and blotto when I wanted. It was one or the other, I had to pick. That I really truly had to pick, and then live with my decision.

All that time I had thought I was committed to recovery, I was really just committed to trying to be sober when I needed to be, and still getting blotto when I wanted to be.

One day, finally I chose sober. To learn to live sober all the time. To say no to blotto, and find other things to do with my life.

In those early days I thought I wanted to live sober all the time and just couldn't do it. Now I realize that the truth was, I didn't want to live sober all the time, Sometimes I wanted to be blotto.

Just like cheating in a relationship necessarily affects the relationship, cheating in my recovery affected my life. It destroyed it, just like cheating can destroy a relationship. I had to stop it completely, not just do it only on special occasions, but take that behavior out of my life entirely.
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Old 01-27-2014, 09:47 AM
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It just seems like sobriety, at times, is impossible. I have a little voice that says, "you know you are going to drink so just get it out of the way & drink". Some of my darkest days were when I was drinking a 12pack of beer and pint of vodka daily. I was really out of it and ended up in a psych ward for 2 months. I still feel like I did brain damage during that horrible time.
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Old 01-27-2014, 09:58 AM
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I spent years trying to get sober, going through all the usual attempts at will power, fear, doctors, counselors, treatment programs, rehab, court ordered programs, etc. All of those efforts resulted in short term periods of not drinking, followed by even worse periods of drunken antics.

All of that changed when I got a solid sponsor in AA and worked the 12 Steps. I've been sober a long time now, just by doing what has worked for a few million other people.
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Old 01-27-2014, 10:05 AM
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Originally Posted by Turninganewleaf View Post
It just seems like sobriety, at times, is impossible. I have a little voice that says, "you know you are going to drink so just get it out of the way & drink".
You're not alone in this. Even after years of sobriety, sometimes this thought still comes to me. But it's not true. I don't have to drink again if I don't want to. But like I said before, those obsessive, daily, attacking thoughts of drinking only subsided when I quit drinking. It's sort of a paradox. If drinking is still an option for me in the back of my mind somewhere, if I still feel like it's ok to drink if . . . ., or like Threshold said, if I want to still be able to get wasted sometimes, then I'm going to obsess about drinking. And my life, even if not drinking, will revolve around fighting those thoughts. It was only until I gave up absolutely that those thoughts left me and I could be happy in sobriety. This is why drinking moderately or occasionally doesn't work for me, and why most people on here and in recovery circles recommend total abstinence. People who don't have a problem with alcohol do not spend their sober time obsessing about alcohol. This is what makes me an alcoholic.
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Old 01-27-2014, 10:57 AM
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Originally Posted by Gal220 View Post
But like I said before, those obsessive, daily, attacking thoughts of drinking only subsided when I quit drinking. It's sort of a paradox. If drinking is still an option for me in the back of my mind somewhere, if I still feel like it's ok to drink if . . . ., or like Threshold said, if I want to still be able to get wasted sometimes, then I'm going to obsess about drinking.
This is expressed perfectly. My latest attempts to moderate included not drinking until a certain time of the day. Well, let me tell you, no one watched the clock more than I did in anticipation of the witching hour. And no one was crabbier that everyone else had already been drinking all day except for me. I felt like a child being punished, and I was NOT happy about it. It was honestly torture.

Now, that I've taken drinking completely off the table as an option, the crabbiness just stopped. I'm not watching the clock, there are no "decisions" to make on the fly - "Do I drink now, sneak one? How about NOW? Are others watching me? Do I seem drunk already?" My favorite was waiting until a certain time to drink, then guzzling so fast, I put myself in a blackout in about 2 hours. On beer, for god's sake.

But - the other major breakthrough I've had, that makes me feel like it's easier this time, is that I'm truly grateful to be waking up without a hangover. Without the shame and regret and the constant mental back and forth of trying to have my cake (be sober when I want) and eating it too (getting hammered when I want). The mental gymnastics were exhausting, honestly. The whole thing was exhausting, and I feel grateful now, that I am finally getting some peace, and rest. I only wish I would've had this epiphany years and years ago. Being drunk isn't the reward...being sober is.
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Old 01-27-2014, 11:21 AM
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There are many in recovery that have found
success in not drinking each day by incorporating
and living a program of recovery that was taught
to them and they learned from.

My secret to staying sober a many one days at
a time was due to fear and determination in
the those first months sober. Fear that after
a 28 day rehab stay I would be sent to a halfway
house away from my babies, home, family for
more time that I already had spent from them.

I was told if I went home early, I would surely
drink and because of my stubbornness and fear,
I begged and pleated that I would do whatever
I needed to do to stay at home.

Sure enough, I did do what I needed and followed
suggestions, sat quietly absorbing all that I heard
and hung on to dear life learning from others who
had learned themselves how to stay sober for many
one days at a time.

I wanted what many had and no, it didn't come
easy at times. I like so many have touched hot
burners constantly getting burned because many
lessons in life were harder for me to learn.

Eventually, once I realized I had had enough
getting my fingers burned which caused so
much pain, that lesson was learned and I became
teachable.

Im not gonna say I will never not drink again,
because I don't know what the future holds for
me and it may never get here. However, as long
as I stay in today and continue living and incorporating
all that knowledge Ive learned in recovery over the
past 23 yrs, Im pretty sure I will remain sober today.

That is sober success for me as I continue
on my recovery journey with many others.
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