Holy Join Date, Batman!
 

I just realized: I joined this site ten years ago in April! And I couldn't tell you how many Day 1 posts, or pitiful cries for help, I've posted in that time!

That makes me kind of sad, actually...most of my posts were drunk, often crying, over my mental and physical condition at the moment...I'm too embarrassed to go back and read them through. Or maybe I should...

Oh well, what's ten years?! The last three days I've been sober are more important that past regrets and false starts, I reckon...that "anniversary" just sort of jumped out at me tonight!

It is definitely today that counts Arpeggioh :)

congrats on day 3 - got a recovery plan going?

D

what matters is your still here trying and sooner or later its gonna stick. its awesome that you have not given up. 3 days is a pretty big friggen deal!

I've also heard it said 10 years sobriety or 5 years it really dosent matter all we really have is 1 day.

how long is a lifetime? only one breath.

we are always one thought away from liberation.

2006 was 10 years ago?!
Good job on 3 days! Keep it up!

Great to see you posting again, Arpeggioh. Stick around, huh?

I feel the same way my friend, except I have almost 13 years sobriety!

Thanks to my higher power, I am still happily married, in great physical shape, mentally aware and appreciative of my surroundings and just able to live life with the full range of emotions.

By the way, I would have none of the above if I did not quit drinking.

Keep fighting, it is more than worth it!

Dave

Ps. I really love reading the stories of recovery on this site, very inspirational!

I know the feeling. Im halfway there with 5 years here. Feels unfortunate to know I chose to continue using most of that time, but I also learned that I can change. Its still gonna take lots of work in my case though.

Hi Arpeggio, how are you today?

Let's have a sober weekend. I was many years getting here too, on the site for quite awhile but now I am nearly 5 months free of alcohol and benzos. It is really hard but breaking away from the substances can be done.

I reach out here a lot, with the intention of getting and staying sober. So far it is working but I basically had to change my mind to a frame of "The goal is getting and staying sober".

I have been thinking about this a lot lately, I look at peoples join dates and see them back at day one , I too am one of the reoffenders , I have made it to 9 months at my longest , 6 months , 3 months , a couple of days , countless day one's , I don't know if I will ever stay stopped . I hope I can , but it's so hard . I wonder if there are varying degrees of alcoholism and I am more alcoholic than others ?

its almost as if its somehow worse if you replapse vs quiting once and staying quit. Yet it seems more the norm for people to relapse a handful of times till they get it right. I dunno why i have y et to relapse myself. I guess i just get to scared to go back to that to be honest. I for some reason dont think my family would tolerate me relapsing and that kinda scares me.

But from a quality of life perspective and in reality your better off havng some false starts and keep on trying to stay quit vs continueing to drink and not bothering to try at all to quit.

My very supportive, patient (with me especially), worried Dad has always said:

Never Quit Quitting!

I will never simply surrender myself to an early, ugly death at the gripping hands of alcohol...not ever!

great, Arpeggioh!
so...what will you do?

I'm sure that there's many who quit once and that was it.

For most of us it's the recurring story of quitting, leading ourselves to believe that why we quit wasn't really as bad as we thought and justifying drinking again. Then, something worse happens and we quit again. Each time the reason is more serious than the last. Until you finally get to that day where the inevitable happens. The "in your face no denying" situation. Even then, we still toy with ourselves. It all depends on how bad it needs to get for you to wake up and smell the roses.