2ndhandrose

Sohard, it sounds like you are trying to make this so hard!

Seriously, next you will be breaking out the whiteboard, trying to figure out the perfect formula so you can have 2 (who only wants 2????) glasses of wine. For what purpose?

Complete acceptance that I don't mix well with alcohol and I never will is the thing that set me free.

So simple and no formulas to keep track of.

icoi87

It does seem so much less complicated to just not drink!

If you blacked out and drove on this stuff, it is obviously not a miracle. We have no right to put other people in danger. And I say this partially for myself because I have put people in danger too several times. I have to remember that when my AV tries to rationalize a drink.

vikingtwin

Early in Sobriety, my sponsor said "Your Brain is Broke & You Ought Not Use It."

Now I thought he was CRAZY, & it took me quite a while to truly comprehend what he was saying, which was, that I was trying to make rational & responsible decisions with a brain that had been addled for years by alcohol & drug use, & that brain had a history of NOT making decisions whose outcomes were beneficial to me.

And just because I got sober didn't automatically change that. Did you know that Alcohol & Drug Abuse throws your bodies chemical balance off.

After years of alcohol use, it takes 2 years of sobriety for a body to return to a normal chemical balance, & if you've been using drugs too, probably longer. When your bodies chemical balances are off, your brain chemistry is off too, and you are not quite capable (And I mean physiologically) of making good decisions.

That's why AA encourages obtaining a sponsor & using that sponsor as a sounding board for all decisions of consequence in your early years of sobriety.

Early in Sobriety, our brain is going to work overtime to return to what we know, which is how to get drunk & high, & it's going to do that for quite a long while.

Unfortunately, for those of us, who keep trying to find a way for us to use responsibly, it will take us much longer, and be a much more difficult path to travel.

Once you truly accept your powerless over your addictive substances the desire/obsession can melt away fairly rapidly.

So congratulations on your 36 days of sobriety, that is truly a miracle, but Your brain is broke & you ought not use it. So keep seeking input from others that you consider wise enough to give it to you. (Which by the way is what you have done here,)
So Congratulations on a job well done.

Eddiebuckle

Speaking only for myself, I have no doubt that rather quickly I would decide to modify the method and take out the middleman (Naltrexone) to get what I truly wanted - drunk.

The thing about alcoholism is once you're in it, it will slowly but surely take things from you: your family, friends, job, health, sanity... you name it. Our worlds will get smaller and smaller until the only thing left is alcohol. If we are fortunate, we will be aware enough at some point in this process to decide that we are not willing to give up something that alcohol is taking from us. That tipping point is called the "jumping off place" in AA's big book. It's actually a perfect description of that moment, because for an alcoholic, giving up alcohol is like jumping off a cliff on a pitch-black night. We have no way of knowing if we can survive the jump, but we are left with no other option.

Keep posting, and stay in touch with those who have made it. The first word of the first step: we. I could never have made it this far alone, but alone is the only way I could start. I sincerely hope you live to get the gift of desperation that it takes to get sober, this disease takes a staggering number of lives... don't volunteer to be one of them on the basis of rationalizations that you know are just that.

Done4today

Good luck sohard,

If you get a combination that works, hope it makes you happy. If not, come back as soon as possible. We don't want you to leave us but we definitely want you back willing to accept sobriety completely with no doubts. I hope you throw this idea completely out the window and embrace sobriety. But we all have a different paths in life.

Stayingsassy

I've read this post several times. It's a good one. Thanks, Eddie.

BullDog777

Here's my reality...maybe it's yours too....

I'm an alcoholic...no matter the rationalization, i will never be able to drink safely again.

If i'm honest, I drank because i liked what being drunk felt like. In the end, there's no such thing as moderation. It always leads me off the edge of a cliff. This is clear in all my past behavior.

I have to let go of any notion that I will ever be able to go back to the way i was before i became an alcoholic. I have changed on a cellular level how my body processes it. This is a fact.

If i ever think i am not an alcoholic, i am wrong. the test for this is simple. if I quit and never think about it again, I wasn't an alcoholic. I failed there. So I am.


What you're going through is early sobriety. you still crave it, you still grieve it's loss, you still probably romanticize it. That's the disease or illness at work. None of this will end well unless you solider through the cravings.

Good news is, it gets easier...A LOT easier. Sometimes down right fun...and amazing...and there are weeks at a time you don't think about getting drunk...and there will be a time your body forgets to crave it and you realize that you never needed it and you'll be happy. That will happen to you as long as you hang in there.

Good job for thinking it through and making the right choice not to feed the addiction.

Gottalife

If an alcoholic could moderate, as I understand it, he wouldn't be an alcoholic.

Your post reminded me of a time I tried a similar experiment with somewhat hilarious consequences. They gave us a lot of knowledge about alcohol and the body when I was in rehab, and I worked out that I could use antabuse as a means of controlling my consumption and thereby become a social drinker. It was all a matter of drinking less than was required to bring on a reaction.

So I sat there sipping my beer. If I drank a bit too quickly I would begin to feel the onset of a reaction. My eyes began to turn red and I began having difficulty breathing, so I would stop for a while and the reaction would die down. I looked a bit strange to my pals with the red eyes and all.

Here is the rub. Drinking like that, for an alcoholic, is not at all enjoyable. I drank for the sense of ease and comfort, but because I was restricted to such a low intake, the effect never came. The whole idea of drinking became pointless. Something had to go, and in true alcohlic style, it was the antabuse. I never could see the point in just one or two, and I still don't.

paulokes

Rhetorical question...I wonder why it's so important to so many of us to prove we can just have those couple of drinks without the hassle and heartache that so often comes with it.

I know a few folks who go back to (mostly) having a couple drinks on special occasions. I know many more who get into trouble trying...sometimes with fatal results. Literally...I've been to the funerals.

At the end of the day if I am honest with myself I cannot imagine myself keeping up the two drink trick for long, or enjoying it. More to the point rather than having a couple of social drinks with friends....no doubt I would be sat there ON MY OWN trying to prove one more time that "Tonight, I can have just the two and leave it" because that's how I roll. In the face of the likely consequences that is just crazy.

I threw the towel in a long time ago. Abstinence is safer and I reckon my only option. Nearly 9 years later I'm still here and not regretting that choice.

P

Cosima11

In the desperate last stages of my drinking I also wanted to try naltrexone.. I didn't mainly because I didn't want to spend money on it.

What I've heard from the person who told me about it (and the only person I actually know who has tried it) is that yeah it makes it so you don't enjoy drinking but you also don't enjoy anything else while on it.

The ONLY value I can see it would have for an alcoholic is you would be able to participate in social drinking on rare occasions (holidays, professional networking, etc.) without the awkwardness and discomfort of being the only person without a drink in hand. But that's where you have to make a choice.. are those rare moments really worth risking your sanity?

I'm only in month 3 and the only thing I can say that has steadily improved over this time is my resolve to make this a long term way of life. So maybe just give yourself more time as you've said.. that's all you really can or need to commit to right now.

tomsteve

i hope you decided not to drink yesterday,Sohard. ya know,what youre experiencing is nothing new. here is something from a book published over 70 years ago:

Most of us have been unwilling to admit we were real alcoholics. No person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows. Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people. The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.
We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed.
We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking. We know that no real alcoholic ever recovers control. All of us felt at times that we were regaining control, but such intervals - usually brief - were inevitably followed by still less control, which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. We are convinced to a man that alcoholics of our type are in the grip of a progressive illness. Over any considerable period we get worse, never better.


a little more:
Here are some of the methods we have tried: Drinking beer only, limiting the number of drinks, never drinking alone, never drinking in the morning, drinking only at home, never having it in the house, never drinking during business hours, drinking only at parties, switching from scotch to brandy, drinking only natural wines, agreeing to resign if ever drunk on the job, taking a trip, not taking a trip, swearing off forever (with and without a solemn oath), taking more physical exercise, reading inspirational books, going to health farms and sanitariums, accepting voluntary commitment to asylums - we could increase the list ad infinitum.

Rar

>>>Our worlds will get smaller and smaller until the only thing left is alcohol. If we are fortunate, we will be aware enough at some point in this process to decide that we are not willing to give up something that alcohol is taking from us>>>

I can attest to this. I winter in a retirement community (I'm 68) where every recreational opportunity is available to me. I used to participate in many of these. I fell into the habit of opening a beer after one of the morning activities and continuing until I went to bed. Eventually I stopped the morning activities and just started drinking around noon until I went to bed. Of course, I couldn't participate in any of the afternoon activities because I'd already drank too much. Ultimately, I became a recluse. I'm on my 7th day alcohol free and already have golfed twice and played pickleball 4 days. I've also gone to a community meeting and volunteered to help at a few functions. Anyway, I just wanted to point out that alcohol does indeed make your world very small.

Sohard

Wow. I awoke to all these responses. I really appreciate the time you put into trying to answer my question. So many of your thoughts resonated with me, which I suspected might happen. Clearly, your collective wisdom/experience/perspective is better at this point than my own twisted logic, which is why I reached out in the first place. So, thank you. I think the point that stuck the most is "Your Brain is Broke & You Ought Not Use It." No more of me trying to rationalize something into being true, because I am trying to rationalize it using a brain that isn't working correctly. So, rather than trusting my brain (which feels so darn confident at times in my crazy theories about how to start drinking again), I need to put my trust in the collective you. So, thank you.

And the comment about "breaking out the whiteboard, trying to figure out the perfect formula" made me chuckle it was so on point. That is what I was trying to do, which should be the most obvious argument that drinking needs to stay off the table.

I just knew if I didn't talk this theory/proposal out it would stay lodged in my brain. So, thank you. Yes, it is a risk not worth taking. I've never wanted 2 anyway. I've wanted the whole bottle plus more.

37 days plus. Onward I go.

2ndhandrose

This brought a BIG smile to my face, Sohard

SoberRecovery always workin'

ScottFromWI

Actually, I think you do need to trust your own brain - but the logical one that can fully accept your addiction for what it is. We all have that ability, but our addiction tries to push it out of the way.

We all can certainly benefit from the support of others when we start thinking addictive thoughts, but to make sobriety really stick you've got to fully accept for yourself - UNCONDITIONALLY - that drinking is not an option for you, ever. No matter what your addict brain tells you, no matter what you read on the internet, no matter what someone says on tv, drinking can neverbe an option. Not even one sip. And you also need to accept that you will always be this way - you won't be able to maybe have "one or two" in a few years after things settle down a little. This is absolute and forever.

Sohard

I agree I need to accept this absolutely and was recently having a bit of a struggle with it. That's why I asked for the collective advice, and it helped me to come to a bit of peace.

tomsteve

good on ya!
i cant say i didnt have thoughts of,"maybe i could_________" once or 27 times early one.
something i learned about it; "NO!" is a complete sentence and i can say it to my thinking even.

ScottFromWI

Yep, it's a struggle for many - I struggled with it for years. Glad you are here asking.

Sohard

Thanks, TomSteve and 2ndHandRose! It was great to wake up this morning knowing I'd succeeded not just in not drinking but perhaps just importantly, in unknotting the knot that had been in my brain about this logic. I really appreciated you guys helping me to do that.

The neat/strange thing is that I had a dream last night that I'd started drinking again. I woke up so disappointed and horrified...until I realized it was a dream. Then I was so doubly thrilled. It was a great reminder to me of how I'd ever feel if I ever failed.

Sohard

Thanks so much! I appreciate your moderation!