My turn to be "that guy."
 

Ironically I was the one who started the sober Thanksgiving thread! And I bet I’m the only one that relapsed! I feel so stupid… I gave in to that reasoning that I could handle a bourbon or two before bedtime. After all, I did really well for over two months, why not?



Yeah right.



One bourbon led to many. One bottle became 5 (if I counted right). One solid week of basically drinking from morning until night (I was off work). I kept asking myself why?? Why can’t I be classy and enjoy a nightcap like they do in the movies?



Because I’m an addict, that’s why.



I was keeping a daily journal since my sobriety. Wrote in that little book every day. Until last week. I stopped visiting SR because I thought I had matured. Thought I didn’t need it anymore. Thought I got this. And therein lies my problem: I thought.



So once again, right before work this morning I made that trip to the gas station trash can and ditched my empties. And so it begins... again!

yeah no big deal you learned soemthing just dust yourself off and get back on the sober bandwagon. I'd try not to dwell on the relapse.

It does stink tho like yeah how come i cant drink like a normie. i used to like really dwell on that looking for that big EUREKA kinda meaning that would somehow enable me to drink like a normie. When the reality is the answer is simple I cant drink like a normie becuase i'm an alcoholic. theres really nothing further to investigate as to why at all. It just is what it is.

You've done well so far just keep charging forward.

I had 4 months of sobriety under my belt in 2013 and Thanksgiving is what did me in that year as well.

I even made it through a booze soaked wedding reception in October 2013 without drinking and my 50th birthday party in September 2013 without drinking.

Back then I started slowly with just a few glasses of wine every day. That led to a six pack of Christmas beer every day. By February I was back to my old ways.

5 weeks sober today. Feeling good.

Good luck.

A relapse starts well before the drink. For you, it was foreshadowed in your post where you were thinking about drinking. And now you know where thinking about drinking leads...

Thanks for the encouragement. I am hoping that the withdrawals are not bad. It was only a week and I had a few months sobriety before that. I'm worried about the insomnia and awful nightmares.... that's why for many years I was never able to get past three days sober.

yeah i drove by a bar yest saw the sign out front 1.25 drafts i about swerved teh car to stop in for a drink it was one hell of a craving. then I realized i had my kids in the car and I cant do that. I've thought about it since too i think if i didnt have my kids i woudl have at teh very least parked the car and sat there thinking about it. God help me if i woulda gone in. Told my one friend I woulda gotten drunk wife woulda called i woulda lied about my whereabouts wondered home drving drunk then THEN if i would have gotten away with it I knwo for a FACT i would be plotting doing it all over again in short order.

It was wierd for me to have such a strong craving like that out of nowhere all that it took was the sign out front 1.25 drafts *sigh*.

Hey, Steve. Relapses happen. You have shown that drink does not have to be part of your life. You can do it. Just get back on the sober bus and begin again.

Welcome back Steve. I hope the withdrawals aren't too bad either, did you have problems last time?

After the initial shock wears off you'll definitely want to look at where things went wrong. As Carl mentions, usually when we return to drinking there were many things leading up to it. Don't dwell on it but definitely learn from it - what can you do differently? What do you need to add to your plan? Ask questions like that and you can absolutely turn this right back around.

It's good to see ya back, Steve! I hope your recovery from that long weekend goes ok

"What we really have is a Daily reprieve based on the 'Maintenance' of our Spiritual Condition."

The Spiritual mirrors the Physical world. Everything requires Maintenance. If I don't maintain my vehicle, it FAILS. If I FAIL to keep pedaling my bike, it slows down and I FALL DOWN. If I FAIL to keep my car on the road by Maintaining my eyes on the road, I CRASH.

Step 1, for an ALCOHOLIC like me, IS A STONE COLD MUTHA. Fooling myself, that I can drink, or drug, and it will be OK, is just asinine stupidity ... I've PROVEN it over and over and over and ... on & on, AD NAUSEUM.
:e070: ... :a043: ... :wtf: ... :dee

When I quit in 2013 I had cravings all the time.

This time I do not. I do miss the freedom of being able to go to a bar and the rituals of being a drinker but the actual alcohol buzz and the hangovers I do not miss.

Saturday my wife and I had to drive I-90 from Cleveland to the Pennsylvania/New York border to pickup our daughter. My wife and I used to regularly hit all the wineries along US 20 outside of Buffalo to Geneva Ohio. We always had a lot of fun.

Saturday it made me sad that it likely will never happen again.

It was bad!! Usually the insomnia was about 3-4 days. The nightmares were horrible. The sweats were bad for me too.

thank god your back here tho. some go out for 1 quick drink and a drunken decade later they return to the sober wagon bruised and beaten. Could be worse.

It could have been. Its dumb... I knew what would happen but had some smoke dream I could enjoy a drink.

I dusted off a bottle of bourbon in less than 24 hours. Then my wife suspected and called me out on it, so I switched to vodka thinking no one will smell it. I danced between bourbon and vodka all week... fancy how addicted is tricky like that!

i never really relapsed myself. I did quit one time for 30 days becuase i wanted to prove that I didt not have a problem. 30 days in i went out to dinner thought i've done so well with this not drinking think i'm gonna have a draft. Ordered 1 beer. thought see no big deal i'll just drink this with dinner like a normie. Then i ordered another one. thought meh whats 2 drinks its a special occasion no big deal i just wont drink again tommorrow. Then I stopped on the way home got a 6 pack thought oh what the heck i'm doing so well might has well have some more tommorrow is a new day I'll stay sober then. Tommorrow came I thought oh who cares I proved i can not drink and do just fine so i got a 6 pack becuase i was just going to have 1 or 2 and drink like a normal person anyhow. within a few days after my BS of how i fooled myself thinking i was a normie drinker i was back to buying a 12 pack a day etc.. and the idea of not drinking was a distant memory. OH and I still didnt feel I had a drinking problem either :;facepalm:: fast forward I dunno at least a decade of massive drinking and problems I was forced to quit becusae of the chronic panic attacks etc.. even after a YEAR sober I still felt i didnt have a drinking pronblem. I finally realized I had a drinking problem when i strolled into AA and met people just like me.

It's not dumb Steve, it's addiction - and it doesn't make sense - never will. That's why acceptance is so important - and finding a plan/program that you can work each and every day to achieve it.

^This! I relapsed after 2 years of great sobriety. But I never actually enjoyed a minute of it because what zjw said was constantly on my mind, even when drunk. I stopped relatively soon, ~2 months of awful binge drinking, and I am very thankful for that. But it does not have to be any more that what has already happened for you, the sooner the better and safer!

Well now ya know. And thank you for posting. For me this is a daily thing. I'll never 'have it', I'll never not be an addict, I'll never drink like a non addict. Period. That used to really bug me. Now I just accept it. I accept it each day because I forget really, really easily!

Its stuff like this that helps me understand the whole "In recovery vs. recovered" debate. I think that things get easier, but they're kinda there in the background.

Hey Steve

glad you're back. Any ideas on what you might do differently this time? :)

D