Need advice from old timers
 

Hi - im back to these forums after a pretty long time. Worse, of course. Here's my question for you guys that have long term sobriety-how do you keep your desperation?? I get low, low, low, quit drinking, do a bunch of recovery stuff...then get bored and shame/pain fades and i convince myself it wasn't that bad.

I'm clearly on a downward spiral, and have been living this pattern for over 15 years. I'm desperate to stop-today-but I just know it won't last.

How do you keep the reality of your addiction fresh enough to keep you motivated day in and day out??

Welcome, melsworld. Thank you for posting this today.

Posts like yours help me stay sober.

One thing I did was write out all the bad things I could remember about my drinking days. That keeps it real.

Maybe keep coming back here. It takes time for the body to heal. Give it more than a couple months - how about a year? In the meantime - please keep reading and keep posting.

p.s.
saying "I just know it won't last," pretty much ensures that it won't. Whether you think you can or you think you can't - you're right.

I think it depends what you mea by 'recovery stuff'. I think recovery means finding a balance in your life that works for you. Staying sober involves making significant changes and with those changes, hopefully you will not feel the urge/need to return to drinking. Recovery can be a happy and fulfilling life for you.

i keep the reality of my addiction fresh by coming to this board and hitting AA now and then.

i dont really always want too but i dont wanna get complacent either. I knwo it would be easy to think i got this and to go drink.

Heck just today i thought ya know i got a lot more self discipline these days i bet i could have a few. But i know this just my addiciton talking.

I just remind myself of what it was like drinking for forty years.
The anxiety, fear and shame of the days after a binge.
I come here and read posts like yours. I went to AA and met others just like me who understood.
It took action, not just laying in bed the day after wishing I could quit.

The efforts to convince myself that I wasn't that bad faded after a time and the stark reality set it, I am an alcoholic and I can never safely drink. And I was a bad drunk at the end for ten years.
I needed help. I stopped getting complacent about drinking.
It took me a long time, and many failed attempts to get sober. I was seemingly hopeless.
It's been six years now since I took a drink, and now I realize I never have to drink again.
I make it a high priority in my life, right at the forefront of my life. With all my being.
You can do it, and I wish you the best.

You ask an important question, and it's one I've asked many times ( and over many relapses). The suggestion to write out what those terrible experiences are like, with as much detail as you can remember, is helpful. It has also been suggested that going to meetings can help. Almost every time I go, someone says something that brings back some memory for me I might have buried. Our brains just aren't designed to recall the essence of pain. We can remember that something was unpleasant, but can't recall exactly what that experience was like. So, sometimes we need reminders. Above all, we just have to come to a point of acceptance that we can no longer safely drink again, and not allow ourselves or anyone else to fool us into believing otherwise.

Edit: Not sure I'd qualify as an "old-timer," btw, with just 625 days, but thought I'd throw in my 2 cents worth anyway. :)

I think that the need to remind ourselves about how bad it was is a problem of denial. It's not possible to forget what I did, how I hurt other people, or that drinking brought to the surface my most destructive impulses. For me, what I did while I was drinking were not things that "I'd never do," that were the workings of an alternate self, or of some "beast" that functions without my permission. They were things that I actually did, and for which I am accountable. But romanticizing our drinking, minimizing the extent of the destruction, and choosing to believe that things weren't that bad and, even that if they were, it will "all be different this time around" are sleights of mind that are available to everyone. And the grand prize is further destruction that will only affect us if we survive our next intentional act of not acknowledging who and what we are.

For me, it wasn't so much about keeping all this fresh in my mind as it was about accepting who and what I am when I'm drinking, and then doing whatever is necessary to never do it again. Much to my delight, that included building a life that would make it extremely difficult for me to ever want to drink again, under any circumstances.

the gift desperation got me to the doors of AA, but I don't keep it any more. by working the program of AA, I have recovered from the hopeless state of body and mind. which that means I have recovered from desperation.

HOWEVER

my past is the most valuable possession I have. I remember what it used to be like. I remember quite a bit of the gloom,dispair, and agony of 23 years of drinking.
I don't live there, but I remember.
and I know it can and will get worse if I drink again.

mel, ya said this
"I'm desperate to stop-today-but I just know it won't last. "

as long as ya have that attitude, youre screwed.
change you attitude, change your life.
it CAN last if you work at it.

At over13 years sober,I do not consider myself to be an old timer,but it is a long time for me.

Today I want to stay sober as much as I did on day 1.

I work the 12 step programme of AA,it works great.

I attend meetings regularly,no popping in and out of them.

I am lucky to have an amazing sponsor with 32 years of sobriety and sponsees that I can pass the message on to.

I never lose my gratitude for my sobriety.

I wish you well,you can do it

I am only 68 days sober after drinking everyday for 27 years and I to wonder if I will forget the hell I suffered during the last few years of my alcoholism.

Hopefully I will not forget. I guess as long as you adopt a sober lifestyle you can't go wrong.

Thanks, friends. You're so right-my attitude needs some major work. Of course if I expect to fail, I will. So that's priority #1.

Journaling-I always indend to do this, as a means to keep the reality of today fresh. So I can't lie to myself later and believe my own line of bs trying to drag me back in.

And I need to step up my AA game. I need a sponsor. I've always tip toed around doing the program the "right" way-and look where it's gotten me.

I stay sober by truly wanting to be sober more than I want to drink, and by practicing gratitude every day. :) I just celebrated seven years sober this month so I think it's working. :)

Something is missing in your life. If this were not the case you would not try to fill that space with something which inevitably turns self destructive. Find what appropriately needs to fill that void

and don't let go.

Gift Of Desperation, sometimes used as an acronym for God.

The desperation drove me to adopt the AA program as a way of life guided by a new found relationship with the God of my understanding. Unless I want a fear based sobriety, its job was done and desperation, or the memory of it, has little to do with how I remain sober.

My past is a valuable asset that I can use to help others, but it is not a gun to my head to keep me sober. What keeps me sober is the result of a spiritual experience, a different reaction to life, in which drinking just doesn't come up as an option. It is rewarding enough that I find it a pleasure to maintain the small amount of dscipline required, which mainly involves helping others, and trying to treat others as I would have them treat me.

makes me think about the 1st line in "how it works:"
rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path.
changing the position of 2 words makes another true statement

thoroughly have we seen a person fail who has rarely followed our path.

it all starts with step 1.
personally I think it starts before that:

if you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any lengths to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps.

are you willing to go to any lengths?
do you know what it is we have that you might decide you want?



jan 6 reading from the "24 hours a day" book

AA Thought for the Day
Keeping sober is the most important thing in my life. The most important decision I ever made was my decision to give up drinking. I am convinced that my whole life depends on not taking that first drink. Nothing in the world is as important to me as my own sobriety. Everything I have, my whole life, depends on that one thing.

Can I afford ever to forget this, even for one minute?

Meditation for the Day
I will discipline myself. I will do this disciplining now. I will turn out all useless thoughts. I know that the goodness of my life is a necessary foundation for its usefulness. I will welcome this training, for without it God cannot give me this power. I believe that this power is a mighty power when it is used in the right way.

Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may face and accept whatever discipline is necessary. I pray that I may be fit to receive God's power in my life.

I think one of the reasons so many people recommend support groups, including forums like this one, is so we don't "forget" how bad it was. Maybe that's daily meetings, 90 in 90 or something, maybe it's a lot less, depends on you. There are lots of different flavors of support groups, AA is the biggest and best known.

One of the things I remember the best about a 3 month after-care (after intensive) outpatient program I went to was, whenever someone new joined the group, which was pretty much every week, we all went around and told our stories. Again and again and again, it drove me nuts having to re-tell and re-live that whole period every week for months.

I didn't understand until much later, but it was deliberate, and they had us re-tell all those stories again and again so we'd have a harder time forgetting during the period where most people will relapse, the first few months. :)

When I have those thoughts that it wasn't that bad, I remind myself how sick I am to even think that. It was that bad (And worse) and the fact that I still occasionally think of drinking again shows how much of a problem it is for me. Why would I consider such a thing after what I went through with it.

Some people find it helps to think of those thoughts as the addiction talking. It helps to create a distance and not keep going down that road in your brain that it'll be okay to pick up again.

But also I've worked to create a life that is worth staying sober for. I have too much going for me to want to mess it up now.

Isolation puts an end to our lives sooner rather than later, and not just those of us who express our problems through our drinking. It isn't a threat or an opinion. It's what we know from our history.

[QUOTE=KAD;6269930] Almost every time I go, someone says something that brings back some memory for me I might have buried. Our brains just aren't designed to recall the essence of pain. We can remember that something was unpleasant, but can't recall exactly what that experience was like. So, sometimes we need reminders. Above all, we just have to come to a point of acceptance that we can no longer safely drink again, and not allow ourselves or anyone else to fool us into believing otherwise]

I'm definitely not an old timer, appreciate hearing the advice from you who are. Just remembering here how certain muffled painful memories come back and I am reaffirmed that quitting was only option.
Having a bad liver can also seal the deal.

I just try to remember drinking will never work for me.
It stopped working a long time ago. All the evidence tells me it won't start working again.

Any thoughts I have to the contrary are not 'good ideas' or realisations or insights or risks worth taking...they are just evidence of Alcoholism...a condition that'll keep trying to tell me that drinking is a good idea.

It may sound boring but that's the be all and end all...whatever is going on in my life drink will never make it better. No amount of recovery stuff will benefit me if I forget that.

P