JustODAAT

I am about a year and a half sober, but lately I can't shake fantasies of "justified drinking"...imagining some terrible event, personal tragedy in response to which no one would blame me for drinking. If my child died, etc., very terrible stuff.

What's going on in my head? Has anyone else had these sick fantasies?

Amajorityofone

Friend-

I too am just 3 days shy of my eighteenth month anniversary.

My advice? Confine your thoughts to the present. Then neither fear, nor hope shall invade. One thing I do frequently, which I would encourage you to do, is to pat yourself on the back and reward yourself from time to time for a job well. I did so last Monday and bought myself a shinny new pair of leather boots.

I've worn them three times already!

I have found that it's a lot more fun to stay on the path if you liter it with treats along the way. If I can afford it, I'm taking my family to disney for my 2 year.

Pedro1234

That AV is a cunning. manipulative presence that needs to be put right back into your past where it belongs. Stay strong JustODAAT

Dee74

If you accept that our relationship with alcohol is destructive in nature, there's nothing that would justify us drinking again, Just ODAAT.

Do you have sober support besides SR?

D

JustODAAT

No Dee, just my family. Maybe this is really a fear of losing my family, to which I feel accountable.

(Dee, also thank you for moderating this site.)

matt4x4

Everyone would have those exact same thoughts sooner or later. Its just human nature. That is why so many old timers of decades of being sober go back out and drink the poison. The think nothing is wrong with them, they are cured. They stopped working a program of action, they stopped progressing. Then in no time flat, in a very short time, they normally end up dead, or very badly beaten down to pysch wards, Emergency Rooms, Intensive Care Units or inevitably the Penitentiary. Now in the US, most likely doing a fed bit. Canucks are more lax.

Dee74

Feel free to post here as much as you need to JustODAAT.

D

bigsombrero

I disagree with the post above that says if you don't "work a plan of action" you are going to end up in jail or dead or in a mental institution. Sounds fairly extreme.

I have the same sober time as you, and I have recently experienced some "justified drinking" thoughts as well. I think that after a while, especially in the winter, we become impatient and start wondering when our "reward" is going to show up. We're looking for excitement, a spark, something to HAPPEN...and of course, drinking comes to mind. It's natural, and probably something we're going to have to continue to deal with from time to time. You recognized it, posted here, and you're getting some support from the community. You're not going to drink, haven't drank, and that's the end of it.

I really like the poster who mentioned buying the new pair of boots. Similarly, I just bought myself a vacation down on the Gulf of Mexico. Maybe it's time to jazz it up and give yourself a present? Don't confuse "fun" with "irresponsibility". They are two different things. You can still have fun, and you deserve to have fun. Just because you do something that makes yourself happy, doesn't mean that it's a careless endeavor. You don't drink anymore, you're done being careless. You can still have some fun. Get after it.

Threshold

YES! Thank you for putting this so clearly. Making this distinction was a huge help to my sobriety and literally a life saver!

SillyString

Well, actually, I had something horrible happen to me a year and 4 months ago that helped me justify my drinking. I was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer. Now, I had been drinking alcoholically for over 20 years already. The despair and fear and anger at having my future stolen from me was and is excruciatingly painful, sad and overwhelming. Every single day, it is. So...having been at a mental cross roads over drinking for years, wanting to stop, yet not wanting to stop, this diagnosis was like stepping on a land mine. And I consciously said, F it. I have a demanding, stressful job, I have a terminal illness, I have lived with depression and crushing anxiety my whole life, and everything from here is just going to get worse. So screw it, if this drinking gives me a MOMENT of peace, just one moment, then consequences be damned. And I drank even more. Because I gave up, lost my mind. Oh, I kept working...very high functioning on the outside. Crumbling on the inside.

And I thought I was justified. Absolutely justified. Who would dare tell me to stop? Who could possibly begrudge me a drink? Or 100? Certainly not my equally heavily drinking friends.

My thinking had become so twisted as to mostly believe this. But there was always a part of me that knew all this was bs. Just another excuse. And five weeks ago, that part of me said no more. No more alcohol. Trying to drown the pain didn't work anyway. It was a always waiting for me along with the hangover. Only then with a healthy dose of self loathing.

Sooooo....the point of all this is to say, even with a "justified" reason, a pretty damn good one, alcohol just made everything worse, and I frittered away precious time in blackouts that I could've used doing LITERALLY anything else.

Use your time wisely. Hang on to sobriety no matter what.

FeelingGreat

That's you AV (or primitive urge to drink) wanting to be fed. Once you recognise it, you and in a position to tell it to get lost.

Gottalife

Perhaps Matt could have started this message with "For a certain type of alcoholic". Because there is a lot of truth in this post for alcoholics of my type. I have seen people with considerable periods of sobriety pick up and end up dead. I have seen others transition from someone with a chance of recovery to an institutionalised "wet brain" by going on one too many benders. I have attended meetings in prisons where some of our type end up. It's not extreme for alcoholics of my type, it is entirely predictable.

We find something that works and while we keep doing it, we stay sober. Even if all we do is hold a belief that we will never drink again. But when we stop doing what is working, it seems to eventually stop working.

oak

Thanks for the reminder of how precious sobriety is.

I am nearly 1.5 years sober. I have had lots of thoughts of relapsing lately. A combination of justifying it and thinking it won't be such a big deal.

I'm fairly sure that I won't drink. I really love being sober. But the thoughts are unsettling.

JustODAAT

SillyString, I can't tell you how powerful your post is for me. I am so grateful to you for sharing. I'm not even going to try to put anything into words, because it sounds so empty and self-serving for me to do so (i.e. Thanks for telling me what a really excruciating experience is so I can imagine it and then snap out of my self-pitying ways.)

I feel where I am in my sobriety is struggling with the switch in my thinking from "I'm missing something" to "I've gained." Often I feel like I've gained, but sometimes I go back to the missing feeling.

Anyway: I wish you all good things, health, support, and I will be looking for your posts to see how you are doing.

KateL

Not fantasies exactly but I do worry about how I would react if the things you mention happened. Then I tell myself that if I did lose someone dear, the last thing they would want was to see me drinking from wherever they were xxxxx

nigey1

Must be a common thing for a year and a halfers to get these thoughts. Add me.

Gotta look ahead to the two years.

LadyBlue0527

I think that after a while complacency sets in about sobriety. The feeling of mastering sobriety appears as though drinking is a non issue. I'm thankful for these threads to remind me that it doesn't matter how much time you have in, the brain never completely gets away from the power of the AV.

If we quit drinking and said we'd only return to it if apples were blue we'd reason at some point that every color of the spectrum exists in objects. Therefore, the apple is really blue. There's no limit to the reasoning of the addictive mind.

Thanks for posting this JustODAAT. You recognized that the thoughts are falsehoods and looked for support and input.

abcowboy

For me, I can't even put a definition on "justified drinking" I don't think anyone who knows they are alcoholic could really justify having another drink.... Just yesterday morning, my wife and I were having a similar conversation, if you were given the terrible news that you had a terminal illness (and I'm sure many RA's have) and you only had a couple of days to live, would you have a drink no matter how long you've been sober? My response was an immediate "no", I would want to know I left this life beating my demon, not joining him....

SillyString

This really resonates with me. I honestly have these fleeting thoughts at times. Like, well, this was pretty easy to stop, so see? No problem! If I REALLY had a problem, if I was REALLY an alcoholic, well, then, this would be nearly impossible. Yeah - no. Just no.

I wrestled with the issue of eventually dying without having never mastered this beast, or just saying hell with it. For me it was less about quitting simply because I am terminal, and more about wanting to remember every moment of this precious life, and wanting to feel as good as I can, for as long as I can...and I just cannot do that, it is impossible for me to do that while drinking, thinking about drinking, recovering from days long hangovers, and hating myself for not stopping drinking. I was a hot mess emotionally, had several close calls physically, that could've easily killed me even sooner, and I just said, enough. Enough of this madness.

It's great JODAAT that you shared your thoughts, and got feedback on them. I am inspired by you and all the folks here.

flutter

Back when I first got sober and was in counseling, I was all puffed up telling my counselor how easy it had been for me not to drink and so on. He looked at me and said, "what I'm teaching you, if you're learning, will come into play when life brings you to your knees. It will, and when it does, that's true recovery. Your job is to make sure that when that time comes, that you are prepared to endure it without even thinking of using or drinking again".

At the time, (I hadn't had my son yet), the absolute worst thing I could imagine was losing my pup, she was my baby girl. At the time, she was just 5 years old, pretty healthy, and I was obsessively in love with her. I always said (even while drinking), that when I lost her, I would go off the deep end. I'd have to be committed. I couldn't even imagine.

About 6 months ago I did lose her. Suddenly, traumatically. I have been sober for a little over 5 years now. Not once during that ordeal did I consider drinking. I felt every single bit of fear, grief, sadness, desperation all by myself, pure and raw. I'm actually glad that I did, I'm happy that I'm feeling authentically and moving through difficult times in a healthy way.

It's amazing what we can accomplish, if we do the right work.

All that to say, yes, at one time I completely understood the "oh but if XYZ happens, I'm getting drunk FOR SURE!". I'm so happy I never have to feel like that again.