Sober a long time? Tell me about it
 

I think part of acceptance comes in hoping that sobriety will just be a matter of fact, life will go on, and the costs/shame/consequences/regret/embarrassment will become a motivation memory but not an all defining aspect of daily life.

I get one more chance at work, I'm in rehab now, and have an aftercare program, but I'm just day dreaming about being back at work and proving to myself and to those who gave me a last chance that I can stay sober and getting my good life back... it's confusing between acceptance that I'll always be an alcoholic and not letting that define me everyday because it's all I think about (that I am and that I have to stay sober.). At day 23, longest stretch (and last stretch with relapse god willing) of sobriety since self identifying as an alcoholic in Jan of 2016.

I thought about it quite a bit in early days, I think that's part of the obsessive brain in early recovery. That spinny thought pattern will die down in time. Add to it that you're in rehab and it's larger than life.

Time takes time. Someone told me that at about two weeks sober and it was really comforting to me. The longer I'm away from the bottle, the less guilt/shame/regret I feel. I now see that I am someone in recovery from alcoholism, not an active alcoholic. I see nothing wrong with that. That's where you are too.

Take this chance and run with it. In a couple days I'll be 7 and a half years sober. I sometimes can't believe how fast the time has gone. It may take some time, but sobriety will become your new norm...and it'll feel great!

Practically every night I just dream about being back at work earning back trust and respect.

One of my biggest stumbling blocks so far in maintaining my sobriety has been allowing myself to put any emphasis on what others will think of me or have thought of me.. If I do this (recovery thing) because I want to prove something to others, or even if I know I'm getting sober first and foremost for myself, and just consider improving my outward image to be a secondary result of my sobriety, I will be disappointed.. We can drive ourselves insane, or worse relapse (;)) in the process of waiting for others to recognize that we've gotten better.

Two reasons, in my mind, that this never works...
1. Nobody but me understands the full scope of this.. Even when I'm among my fellow "battle buddies", other alcoholics, I can't expect to be fully understood, so it's much less likely non-alcoholics will understand me.. because they don't know every detail of my journey or every feeling that is on my heart..and that's okay.
2. We will never understand the hearts of those not struggling with this.. we don't get to make assumptions about what they are thinking or feeling, we just can't know.. we don't know where they've been or how their feelings will evolve.. we can't rush their journey to accept us any more than we can rush our journey to recovery.. everyone feels differently about this and that is okay, too.

"Time Takes Time" - good one biminiblue!

Water, I can fully relate to what you said. Not sure what else to say, except yes, yes and yes (and more yes's) and to steal from biminiblue, time takes time.

And "This too shall pass". That was a leap of faith for me early on. I would get the drinking thinking going, especially around 3:00pm when I would 'start' before going home and starting again with the wife, or alone and picking back up.

I had your same thoughts when I was sitting in the lock up hospital, after trying to slit my wrists, drunk of course, and in the morning of course. I still say I did not try to kill myself because I think I am fully capable of really killing myself. But still, if I did not acknowledge it and own it, my immediate destiny would not have been in my own hands. Since then I can see in fact that I absolutely did try. But then I drove myself to the ER down the street to get 'bandaged up' and drive back home. Nope, straight to lockup.

That was when I was having your exact same thoughts. How could I move on, how could I get past what I have done, and more questions. The answer was, one day at a time. Sometimes one freaking minute at a time.

The time part is the hard part, but you really have no options.

Your first paragraph (SO well said I might add) will happen in time. If you are like me, you really won't notice it, you will just have moments when you realize that time has happened and some of what you said in your first paragraph are finally happening. And it will continue to happen little by little. No magic wand with this one. And that sucks.

So, the 'tell you about it' part? Well, how long is a long time? First of all, 23 days is a long time, congratulations!!! Seriously, that is huge. I was sober 3.5 years and thought I was 'over it' and 'cured' and tried to drink socially at a golf outing annual trip. It did not end well. After the first sip, and my decision to drink was premeditated, I knew I would drink till I came home. I did not know I would not be able to stop when I got home. It took 3 months to stop again, and that was 1 year and 5 months ago. So, in round numbers, I am 5 years sober with one monster relapse, technically 1 year 5 months.

But in AA I consistently hear of people with 10, 15, 20 plus years who 'went back out' and some did not come back. So, time is relative. And how long you have been sober is long enough to keep not drinking.

It does get better. With time.

A dear friend of mine who I only knew online (she was sober for 25 years) would tell me to just go to a meeting (when I was having one of my many many many tough times starting out). She would not tell me why. She would say "just go. you don't have to talk, just listen, and just go". And I did. And it helped little by little.

It took me quite a few relapsed to hit 30 days, then another one before 60 days, and another one at 90 days. But I kept trying and each time I could feel the benefits of not drinking. Finally I got some time under me and 'as they say' 'here I am'.

I loved your post. Hang in there. If you get the urge, just stop, and take a moment or a few, and it will pass.

Hang in there and keep posting!

It will take time to create a new reputation and some people do have the flexibility of mind to say "Oh he's doing better and I am going to take it on faith that that will continue, and if he does relapse we will cross that bridge if and when we come to it".. Other people carry around the pain of betrayal and now refuse to trust anyone who claims to have changed.. maybe they themselves have struggled to change something and have not been able to and so they assume people can't change.. or they've been consistently disappointed by someone, maybe the absent father or husband who has said a million times that he will start being better and never follows through.. There's a mentality that if you trust, you WILL get hurt, and that once an alcoholic/cheat/liar, always that.. We know it's not true but we have to be sympathetic to those who have been conditioned to never put their trust back in to a person who has done wrong. And set realistic expectations - a large part of the world around us is of that "trust no one" mentality.

The way to get that trust and respect back is to choose to be a nondrinker, you can do it . I don't have the statistics at hand but safe to guess that there are billions of people on the planet who don't drink, some that never have.
Making the choice , really just finding yourself in a position to 'have' to make the choice seems daunting , but most of that is the smoke and mirrors of the addiction itself trying to shake your resolve. Time takes time, and it really does 'get better'.
The trust comes back when people see us doing the next right thing , time after time. We only have agency in the immediate present the 'now' , doing right , right now is not impossible , yeah? How about this 'now'?
You don't have to focus on and anticipate whether or not you are going to 'do' some future 'now' correctly, just this one :) ( and now this one) You can do it, rootin for ya

Making sobriety and recovery central to your life helps. Because then you can earn back your self-respect. And then comes the respect of others.

Regaining my self-respect is the most important thing in my life since getting sober 3.5 years ago.

You can do this! I assure you, you can!

Hi water, I understand your desire to prove your worth to everyone, but be careful. Your #1 priority right now has to be sobriety. If you quit drinking for anyone other than yourself, you will likely fail at some point.

I've only been sober for about 14 months, but I can tell you living a sober life is really good. It feels normal now. I also agree with others in terms of time.....it flies. I can't believe how slow days would go when I was hungover or in withdrawal. There are some common themes you will hear from people who have a long time sober, you will see them posted on this site (time flies, rarely think about booze, increased productivity). They are all true.

And you'll get that chance. I've said this a lot of times but i think we (addicts/alcholics) crave instant gratification - and not just the kind we got by drinking. We want everything to be better once we quit drinking and we want it to happen NOW! Unfortunately life doesn't work that way, things that are worth having take time to achieve. And all those years of bad behavior while we were drinking cannot be erased in a matter of days, weeks or even years sometimes.

But it is very common to feel as you feel, and most of us did too. Talking about it helps, and as has been said...every day things will get a little better. There will be setbacks and quite frankly there may be some things we've done that are never forgiven....but you'll never know unless you try your best today. Which is all you can do.

Hang on to that. The fact that you've been given another chance makes me think that your employer has faith in you. Prove that you can be trusted and you'll earn that trust and respect of yourself as well.

I used to dream about being sober too - the reality didn't match the dream tho - it was BETTER! :)

Honestly, my drunk self could not have imagined the change, the peace and the happiness I have now.

You are on the right track Water - have no doubts :)

D

I'm having internal fights with my mind knowing and having evidentiary proof that I can't go back to modernism without risk of a binge every 40 days or so and the binges are what got noticed at work. So why can't I just accept sobriety is my only option given that I want a life and a career and self respect and inner happiness. Why when I KNOW I'm an alcoholic I'm very early recovery do I find myself day dreaming about being a normal drinker in the future even though that's not possible. Where does actually acceptance come from? I've had enough proof that I can't control myself unless I'm abstinent....

I like my life today.

Sometimes I wish I had two heads on my mantelpiece...one that represented how I felt and thought 7/8 years ago at the end of my drinking, and one that represented how I feel and think today. Whenever I was frustrated I would put my old head on and remember "Holy sh1t! I'm glad it's not like that today" :)

People said that to me in early sobriety. They said "I wish I could give you my head today so you can understand how much better you'll feel"...I get that now, I really do. Love my life, don't want the old one back.

Hang in there friend

P

Addiction resists logic....but what it can't resist is repeated action against it.

I knew drinking would be a terrible choice for me so I consciously chose the opposite for a while.

I used all the support here when making that right choice was difficult. Gradually it got easier...the right thing to do was becoming the default :)

It took me some months before I realised that a) I had been still thinking like an active alcoholic and b) that was changing - I was re-discovering a me I'd used to be, one I'd forgotten about.

Things work out Water when we make the conscious decision to stay in recovery - I guarantee it :)

Addiction- sucks, does not obey rules, consumes. It is not a person- it is a bit of me I just have to accept. It just is. Always 'if only this' or 'I could have been that' thoughts. The trick for me is learning how to calm that thinking down and get on with living now with plans for what is to come- instead of being frozen in a rerun of the past.

For some reason, some people love drama in their lives.
What I used to think is boredom I now consider peace and serenity.

On this forum, I'd be considered as long time sobriety. Fortunately for me, there are a few members with even more then me. Thru out the years, I've paid attention to people with more years sobriety then me.
I've also learned a lot by the failures in recovery.
What ever I'm going through in my life, I know it's only temporary.
I'm humble enough to ask for help in situations I can't solve on my own.
I've learned, that what ever problem I have, a drink will only make it worse.
I've also learned life is fleeting. I want to leave this world sober.
I'm living a dream I never believed possible 18 years ago

so well said, WOW!
I have to remain Teachable... coming up on 10 years now (for me)
it's Still just a day at a time... i have watched the time FLY BY so quickly...
it is sometimes hard to believe just how fast it goes...

Hi Water. Sobriety is now a matter of fact sort of thing for me. It took a long time to become that way however. The first few years presented many problems for me. The problems have continued but I deal with them in different ways than I did previously. This is partly because of the work that I did in cleaning up some of the wreckage I accumulated during my many past years drinking.

What helped me most was working the 12 steps of alcoholics anonymous. It's no accident that the AA program has become so popular (and so helpful) in assisiting so many of us who have much to make right. Consider giving it a try.