Fail
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2010
Posts: 8,614
Fail
I've been avoiding posting due to embarrassment. My drinking is out of control this month. If I stop now at least I can say I drank half the month and not for more than half. I cannot believe this.
Pressure makes diamonds
Join Date: May 2014
Posts: 521
((( Sleepie)))
I understand, because I too can be my worst enemy.
How about tomorrow is day 1 and don't reflect on the negativity your feeling from mistakes in the past?
You can't change yesterday, but you can choose tomorrow.
I understand, because I too can be my worst enemy.
How about tomorrow is day 1 and don't reflect on the negativity your feeling from mistakes in the past?
You can't change yesterday, but you can choose tomorrow.
bona fido dog-lover
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: SF Bay area, CA
Posts: 99,780
Make tomorrow your day one. Make yourself a promise to stay sober. Then keep that promise to yourself. Make a gratitude list too. List all you're grateful for, which is also a reminder of what you could lose by drinking. 
You can do this, but you've got to want it more than anything.
You can do this, but you've got to want it more than anything.
Pressure makes diamonds
Join Date: May 2014
Posts: 521
I know the behavior seems predictable, so you are expecting to fail.
Shift your perception and expect to WIN.
I know right now you think alcohol lessens your anxiety, but it actually makes it exponentially worse. It over burdens the central nervous system so the emotional roller coaster never has a chance to reboot.
You're a strong person! I have read your posts. Life has thrown you curve balls, but you're still standing- and posting. You can do this Sleepie, just believe in yourself, because we do.
Shift your perception and expect to WIN.
I know right now you think alcohol lessens your anxiety, but it actually makes it exponentially worse. It over burdens the central nervous system so the emotional roller coaster never has a chance to reboot.
You're a strong person! I have read your posts. Life has thrown you curve balls, but you're still standing- and posting. You can do this Sleepie, just believe in yourself, because we do.
Member
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 5,229
I agree with hope2014. Your still here your still standing your still posting that a pretty good thing. Its a viscous cycle just gotta keep trying sooner or later it sticks. You've made decent progress too. just keep pushing forward. Just by posting here I think you might realize you cant just keep up this pattern. You'll get it.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2010
Posts: 8,614
I just am driving myself nuts with why couldn't I have been stronger? Why didn't I just deal with awful jobs and stress without drinking?
Or quit sooner as long as I didn't drink? Or what could I have done differently?
Now I have to go through all the worry about going to the dr. again when I could be saying I have 6 months of no drink. But no, I can't now.
And the quitting again.
Or quit sooner as long as I didn't drink? Or what could I have done differently?
Now I have to go through all the worry about going to the dr. again when I could be saying I have 6 months of no drink. But no, I can't now.
And the quitting again.
Forum Leader
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Wisconsin, USA
Posts: 16,945
Originally Posted by sleepie 
Or what could I have done differently?
Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 211,442
I hope that noone ever feels too embarrassed to post here.
I think you need more options sleepie.
Your options for responses to any triggers seem to be limited - thats not a criticism, simply stating a fact.
maybe start working out and writing down some other healthy more positive responses other than drinking?
D
I think you need more options sleepie.
Your options for responses to any triggers seem to be limited - thats not a criticism, simply stating a fact.
maybe start working out and writing down some other healthy more positive responses other than drinking?
D
Guest
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: The Deep South
Posts: 14,636
Do you have confidence that you can do this, Sleepie? If not, the answer may be to bolster your confidence through new tools, a different approach, and whatever means necessary to increase your confidence that you can indeed quit drinking.
For me, it was sheer desire to experience life sober, no matter what. No drinking under any circumstance.
It isn't easy, especially at first. But you can develop confidence in yourself by gaining the tools, the plan, the method, and so on; and you do this by examining your motivation. Is it important enough to you? If it's not yet, then find whatever you can to make it that important.
For me, it was sheer desire to experience life sober, no matter what. No drinking under any circumstance.
It isn't easy, especially at first. But you can develop confidence in yourself by gaining the tools, the plan, the method, and so on; and you do this by examining your motivation. Is it important enough to you? If it's not yet, then find whatever you can to make it that important.
Member
Join Date: May 2015
Posts: 136
Hey, Sleepie. It's tough, but hang in there 
I haven't been on this site for very long, but something I've noticed with your posts is that they tend to fall back into very similar styles. There's stress in all of your relapse posts, so what I can't help but wonder is if you're trying to do anything different in your life other than just not drink?
I'm still new to sober life, but when it was just quitting drinking I found it really hard to grasp/take seriously. For me, it was when I quit cigarettes in addition to drinking that sobriety really took shape. Quitting cigs forced me to start doing totally new things in my life, and it's this newness in my daily existence that has given sober living the shape I was looking for when I'd first started.
Sober choice doesn't have to bring sweeping changes into your life if you don't want it to; it can just be quitting drinking, and that is all that changes.
But for myself, being open to, and inviting, greater changes has been the thing which has led to comprehension and appreciation of sobriety. I'm constantly finding new and exciting things to be a part of, and the reason that I can not only see these experiences but also partake in them is because of sobriety, and this immediately proved itself to be fulfilling enough for me to truly quit drinking, as well as many other poor habits also.
Keep trying, and keep searching, Sleepie!
I haven't been on this site for very long, but something I've noticed with your posts is that they tend to fall back into very similar styles. There's stress in all of your relapse posts, so what I can't help but wonder is if you're trying to do anything different in your life other than just not drink?
I'm still new to sober life, but when it was just quitting drinking I found it really hard to grasp/take seriously. For me, it was when I quit cigarettes in addition to drinking that sobriety really took shape. Quitting cigs forced me to start doing totally new things in my life, and it's this newness in my daily existence that has given sober living the shape I was looking for when I'd first started.
Sober choice doesn't have to bring sweeping changes into your life if you don't want it to; it can just be quitting drinking, and that is all that changes.
But for myself, being open to, and inviting, greater changes has been the thing which has led to comprehension and appreciation of sobriety. I'm constantly finding new and exciting things to be a part of, and the reason that I can not only see these experiences but also partake in them is because of sobriety, and this immediately proved itself to be fulfilling enough for me to truly quit drinking, as well as many other poor habits also.
Keep trying, and keep searching, Sleepie!
Member
Join Date: Jan 2011
Posts: 1,126
Sleepie, I can only share my struggles with getting sober, and as I've posted here before, I had to Embrace the Suck to be able to chalk up some early sober time.
It. Ain't. Easy.
It was the hardest thing I have ever done. And the rewards others get during those first weeks and months of sobriety -- that ubiquitous pink cloud many or even most experience -- never appeared.
I was going through post benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome, and for the first six months my legs were like jelly, I had muscle spasms that I could watch originate in my calf muscles, like a small alien attempting to burst through my skin, then shoot up my leg, through my back, and end in shoulder spasms. I couldn't read a sentence and understand it. Anderson Cooper on CNN was indecipherable noise coming from a moving mouth.
Add to that extreme agoraphobia, a constant near-panic state of mind, roaring tinnitus, and a maddening OCD state where the last snippet of music or a commercial jingle kept rolling in my mind driving me mad, and all I wanted to do was revert to my second drug of choice -- any form of alcohol.
But I didn't. As each month passed with no progress, I clung to a notion that time would heal me and that only total abstinence would offer my brain a slim chance to heal.
That state lasted for a year. At two months, I kept telling myself things would have to be better at six months. At six months, I pleaded with the universe to at least show some let up of this hell emerge at 10 months. But at six months I was able to sit down and really think of the past weeks and realize I could measure improvement in small increments.
I was better than when I was reeled out of a hospital. I was better than the first month I sat on my couch in a fog where it was near impossible to digest that the television was indeed on and that the swirl of colors and noise was actually a picture and words were being spoken.
At three months my the shaking of my fingers tempered a tad to allow me to turn on my laptop, thought hitting the keys to form words was still a challenge.
And at six months I could emerge from my condo, enter the elevator and score cigarettes on my own and not have to have someone deliver them to me. I could also make tuna salad.
My point is that I had to embrace that hell, to accept that while this was going to be my reality for a long time, it couldn't get worse and I could only pray that it might get better. Total abstinence was the only thing I could do to possibly make things better.
These were just my cognitive and physical symptoms and I won't go into the psychological pain of accepting that I had destroyed countless precious relationships and lost every material thing in the world one can lose short of being in prison.
I've had major depression and panic disorder since adolescence and the first year of my sobriety was the deepest, darkest, soul-crushing low I have ever experienced.
Each day would wake up and realize there was only one thing I could strive for that might make me better and that was not to drink and not to run to a doctor to get a benzo script.
I'm now approaching my fifth sober anniversary, and life has improved beyond my wildest imagination.
From my dark perspective, I can only offer you this advice: Embrace the discomfort. Grab onto the pain. Accept that things are bad in this not drinking and benzo taper business and know it's going to get harder, much harder, and the discomfort you feel in the first few weeks to going to get worse.
Go to the crappy job, let the frustration of a learning disorder roll off your shoulders, mope about, scream at the walls, embrace the suck and get pissed off knowing that the second months is probably going to be harder than the first month.
Do that every day. Have no expectations of rainbows, ice cream and orgasms raining down from heaven just because you managed not go pour beer down your throat that day.
Wake up and do it again.
Stick to the benzo taper and know that each incremental dosage decrease is going to be worse than the first. Love that thought and hate that thought but accept that thought.
There is only one thing that is going to ease the pain and that is more pain spread out over time. And the real kicker here is that you aren't really going to notice when things get better until you have six months sober and can look back and realize that the suck today is a little better than the suck of the first month. Rinse and repeat.
It. Ain't. Easy.
It was the hardest thing I have ever done. And the rewards others get during those first weeks and months of sobriety -- that ubiquitous pink cloud many or even most experience -- never appeared.
I was going through post benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome, and for the first six months my legs were like jelly, I had muscle spasms that I could watch originate in my calf muscles, like a small alien attempting to burst through my skin, then shoot up my leg, through my back, and end in shoulder spasms. I couldn't read a sentence and understand it. Anderson Cooper on CNN was indecipherable noise coming from a moving mouth.
Add to that extreme agoraphobia, a constant near-panic state of mind, roaring tinnitus, and a maddening OCD state where the last snippet of music or a commercial jingle kept rolling in my mind driving me mad, and all I wanted to do was revert to my second drug of choice -- any form of alcohol.
But I didn't. As each month passed with no progress, I clung to a notion that time would heal me and that only total abstinence would offer my brain a slim chance to heal.
That state lasted for a year. At two months, I kept telling myself things would have to be better at six months. At six months, I pleaded with the universe to at least show some let up of this hell emerge at 10 months. But at six months I was able to sit down and really think of the past weeks and realize I could measure improvement in small increments.
I was better than when I was reeled out of a hospital. I was better than the first month I sat on my couch in a fog where it was near impossible to digest that the television was indeed on and that the swirl of colors and noise was actually a picture and words were being spoken.
At three months my the shaking of my fingers tempered a tad to allow me to turn on my laptop, thought hitting the keys to form words was still a challenge.
And at six months I could emerge from my condo, enter the elevator and score cigarettes on my own and not have to have someone deliver them to me. I could also make tuna salad.
My point is that I had to embrace that hell, to accept that while this was going to be my reality for a long time, it couldn't get worse and I could only pray that it might get better. Total abstinence was the only thing I could do to possibly make things better.
These were just my cognitive and physical symptoms and I won't go into the psychological pain of accepting that I had destroyed countless precious relationships and lost every material thing in the world one can lose short of being in prison.
I've had major depression and panic disorder since adolescence and the first year of my sobriety was the deepest, darkest, soul-crushing low I have ever experienced.
Each day would wake up and realize there was only one thing I could strive for that might make me better and that was not to drink and not to run to a doctor to get a benzo script.
I'm now approaching my fifth sober anniversary, and life has improved beyond my wildest imagination.
From my dark perspective, I can only offer you this advice: Embrace the discomfort. Grab onto the pain. Accept that things are bad in this not drinking and benzo taper business and know it's going to get harder, much harder, and the discomfort you feel in the first few weeks to going to get worse.
Go to the crappy job, let the frustration of a learning disorder roll off your shoulders, mope about, scream at the walls, embrace the suck and get pissed off knowing that the second months is probably going to be harder than the first month.
Do that every day. Have no expectations of rainbows, ice cream and orgasms raining down from heaven just because you managed not go pour beer down your throat that day.
Wake up and do it again.
Stick to the benzo taper and know that each incremental dosage decrease is going to be worse than the first. Love that thought and hate that thought but accept that thought.
There is only one thing that is going to ease the pain and that is more pain spread out over time. And the real kicker here is that you aren't really going to notice when things get better until you have six months sober and can look back and realize that the suck today is a little better than the suck of the first month. Rinse and repeat.
Member
Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: Georgia
Posts: 13
Originally Posted by sleepie
I have been doing this for years. Well over a decade. It's stupid.
You are not a fail. Never quit quitting.
I appreciate your struggle.
The light will come on for you, it took a long time for me, too.
(there was just a loud clap of thunder here! a sign?)
Beth
Member
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 5,229
I like memphisblues post. pretty realistic. I felt much the same that first year. I really felt screwed either way. but i started to see the ever so slight improvements.
now life is just life. drinking has no bearing if my life is good or bad becuase I do not drink its just not a factor anymore. Which is kinda nice because I'm not addicted to anything else so i can easily or hopefully easily change my circumstnaces to improve various things. But while i was drinking and hooked no matter how hard i tried that one big problem of mine the drinking just weighed me down day in and day out and spread into various other aspects of my life. And since i was addicted I could not simply change my circumstances about it. But once i put it down and made the commitment the fog started to lift in time.
now life is just life. drinking has no bearing if my life is good or bad becuase I do not drink its just not a factor anymore. Which is kinda nice because I'm not addicted to anything else so i can easily or hopefully easily change my circumstnaces to improve various things. But while i was drinking and hooked no matter how hard i tried that one big problem of mine the drinking just weighed me down day in and day out and spread into various other aspects of my life. And since i was addicted I could not simply change my circumstances about it. But once i put it down and made the commitment the fog started to lift in time.
Member
Join Date: Jan 2011
Posts: 1,126
I had no choice but to go cold turkey. Besides, if had been offered the luxury of the Ashton tapering method, it would have taken years to come down from the 20 milligrams of Klonopin a day I was prescribed.
As an addict/alcoholic, I am sure I would never have stuck to a tapering regimen.
Consider yourself blessed that you found a doctor that would prescribe a tapering program. I suspect they are few and far between. And I also suspect most doctors are still uninformed of the dangers of protracted withdrawal and opt for a quick taper that sets folks up for failure.
And I also bet that a good doctor who will follow the Ashton method may not be very tolerant if you don't follow their direction.
And alcohol use of any kind will thwart your tapering program and make the withdrawals much, much worse.
I neglected to state in my previous post that I opted for AA and NA during my first two years of recovery, hitting morning and evening meetings with online meetings in between. It was all part of my total surrender to my hopeless state of mind and my drop-dead realization that this was going to really, badly suck.
As an addict/alcoholic, I am sure I would never have stuck to a tapering regimen.
Consider yourself blessed that you found a doctor that would prescribe a tapering program. I suspect they are few and far between. And I also suspect most doctors are still uninformed of the dangers of protracted withdrawal and opt for a quick taper that sets folks up for failure.
And I also bet that a good doctor who will follow the Ashton method may not be very tolerant if you don't follow their direction.
And alcohol use of any kind will thwart your tapering program and make the withdrawals much, much worse.
I neglected to state in my previous post that I opted for AA and NA during my first two years of recovery, hitting morning and evening meetings with online meetings in between. It was all part of my total surrender to my hopeless state of mind and my drop-dead realization that this was going to really, badly suck.
Member
Join Date: Jul 2013
Posts: 1,649
Sleepie, never give up. You are here. You can do this. When I stopped drinking every time I wanted a drink, I got a glass of water and came here and read and answered posts, or went to the chat room. The craving stopped after a while, and my body realized I was not giving in. Sometimes you have to choose for you, not let your cravings make the choice. No one ever poured booze down my throat. It was always my choice. I had to learn to make better choices. You can do this. We are all here to help.
Member
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: SoCal
Posts: 222
Well I can tell you Im very recently fighting my way back onto the wagon...Was sober four about for months, figured I could take a night off (for my jobs "Holiday Party" of all things), and well you know how that goes...6 month relapse. I have right around a decade of abuse as well.
Ive been so sick and miserable so many times, both mentally and physically, due to alcohol...and then would find myself doing the absolutely absurd thing of continuing to consume the very source of it all...like when you're really in that dark place sometimes there really is that feeling like you simply have no choice in the matter. Its an awful place to be, and its extremely hard getting some initial sober time in...even when continuing to use is such a terrible option, and deep inside you are fully aware of this.
Ive been so sick and miserable so many times, both mentally and physically, due to alcohol...and then would find myself doing the absolutely absurd thing of continuing to consume the very source of it all...like when you're really in that dark place sometimes there really is that feeling like you simply have no choice in the matter. Its an awful place to be, and its extremely hard getting some initial sober time in...even when continuing to use is such a terrible option, and deep inside you are fully aware of this.
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