Obladi

So much to think about and respond to, thank you guys for your participation. While I agree that the One Thing is to Not Drink/Use, the different perspectives you share is helpful and thought-provoking.

It's very difficult, indeed to live on this hamster wheel. It's almost as hard to "confess" to drinking again and again. And again. Dee says a lot of good things, but one that is very helpful to me was, "But you got here sooner than I did." This gives me hope. Like, all of us (most of us) drank for years through the ambivalent times. Wanting to quit, feeling the pull back to drinking, rinsing and repeating. Real talk is true. Cow and I have both been at this a long time. And we're here, trying to be honest and trying to muster enough "want" to get and remain free of our substances. For good.

Obladi

" All these curly words just keep you going in circles, exploring, digging deep, uncovering deep hidden mysteries. Listen, for now, stop spinning around and focus on one thing...do not put substances in your body under any circumstance. Just do the one thing."

I think there can be different meanings or motivations for this introspection. In some cases, some places I've been, the motivation was clearly (in hindsight) justification. "See me with all of my troubles - no wonder I drink." I own that.

In other cases, I think it's an acknowledgement rather than a rationalization. We're all different, we all process differently. In my case, I think a lot. Too much. But it doesn't seem to be something I can turn off and fighting it is not helpful. I can't speak for Cow, but I think our collective goal is to get to the place where relapse isn't even an option. Along the way, we've had plenty of fails and the thing (one of the things?) is not to use those failures as reason or justification to keep failing. As in, "it's what we do. *shrug*"

I had a crap day at work Tuesday. I failed to do something I should have done and I'm sure much of my team is pissed about it. I spent some time wallowing in the guilt. Had to go to bed early to escape the remorse and embarrassment. Yesterday I picked myself up and decided that there was nothing to do but to try once again to be the person I want to be. Being "good" takes a conscious effort and some reflection to understand why I fail when I do. Same goes for drinking. I can easily tell myself not to drink, but then I have to face what's behind that. Not drinking accentuates a void in me, points out how difficult it is to live with that void and to allow "the right things" to fill the emptiness.

As Tyne says, there's a reason we need this site, this interaction. I'm sure those reasons vary, but in the end it takes work to get to that place of finally internalizing that drinking is never an option. Don't know about y'all, but for me that is taking some practice.

I keep thinking of ways to refute or clarify what I've written. Think I'll take a shower instead.

Lonewolf22

I agree, regardless of where someone is at in their recovery, honesty is vital. Lies or perceived truths may work for a while but cracks can only be covered for so long.

I don't think anything is a simple as it first seems and recovery or alcoholism is as complicated as any other topic. I think conversation on recovery and alcoholism as been way, way too narrow for too long. It concludes, if you are sober, all is good if you aren't, that is not good. If you don't relapse, your recovery is perfect, if not, then you have a mountain to climb. I see slight changes to the discussion but not much.

I think forums are a great medium for this to happen. If you are in a close-knit circle there is very little room for change in opinions, attitudes. You see it at particular meetings, people repeat the same things over and over and over again. You hear the same response when you have a concern and it is easy to adopt that thinking also when everyone around does. On the Internet, it is difficult to maintain that bubble.

So your honest and blunt approach is much appreciated.

Sober369

I hope you continue this thread, it's been good reading for me. I have been relapsing over and over again for years. I have had periods of one or two years a few times, but mostly it's a few weeks or months sober, then drink and not be able to stop for a long time. Usually months, sometimes years. It's miserable. And it makes me think, why try, I'll just drink again.
I liked what one person said, about you just have today, and that's all you can try for (or something like that). But, deep down I am trying for consistent, long term sobriety. Can't help it, that's what I want and as far as I know that's the only solution. So when I drink again, it's not like, 'oh well, tomorrow is another day', no, it's like a desperate drowning feeling but worse because I'm the one that jumped back in over my head.
I'm destroying my health and my brain and my future and I don't know how to make it stop. I know how to get sober, though it's a monumental effort and seems harder every time, but I don't know how to stay that way and I have very little hope that I will.
I am looking forward to hearing everyone's thoughts on this. I've never seen a thread of other people who have a problem with repeated relapse, I think it's a great idea.

FBL

The key for me was total surrender. Alcohol had totally kicked my ass for so long, there were times that I just wanted to pass out and never wake up again. I had every excuse in the book to keep drinking. Anger, depression, paranoia, suicidal thoughts, all of these were my daily condition for years. When I was lying in the ER at the hospital, I looked up at the lights and made my surrender. That was over 9 years ago and I still remember it like it was yesterday. I never take my recovery for granted. I wake up every morning and count my blessings. If I had kept on going, I would be dead now for sure. I know many others that had it WAY worse than I did and the one thing we have in common is SURRENDER. Drugs and alcohol truly re-wire our brains and not for the better. Once you surrender, your mind and body WILL begin to heal. Yes, you'll have to deal with all of those feelings and emotions that you tried to escape from, but that's part of the healing. The past is forever gone and the future is unknown to all of us. Focus on today, for it's all we truly have in this world.

Cow

Wow, these is some very fecund input and sharings. Thanks to all you Lambchops!

Just to clarify Fini, by “get less comfortable with relapse” I not mean: keep doing it, but feel worse about it each time! I mean: get less comfortable with notion in you mind that it inevitable, and you just expect, and pretty much accept, it gonna happen.

For me, I has already surrender… to being alcoholic. (Among many other addiction, which I not bore you with whole list ). Anyways, I surrender to Cult of Addiction long time ago. So really, I has to unsurrender. Right now, I at part where spell is broken: Jesus God, all this things I part of for 35 years is just total crazy ********.

Ouch! - on so many level. Would be much easier just to stay in cult, where is comfortable and what I know and plus also you not has to face what you did.

But spell is broken. That not enough, though. I still vulnerable. And Cult of addiction just like Scientology, it keep try to lure you back, with sweet whisperings, and sometimes, it bring the muscle, cuz it got a lot of dirt on you. A LOT. “Hey Cow, I know who you are, and we both know you not gonna make it out. Here is 3 foot thick dossier of all you failure and relapse and insanity.”

So, for me, I need to dig up all the roots and unravel the threads, so I can... join a new cult! No, okay, I not want that. I want to be free. I not sure I want that before. Probable not. But I do now. I want to be free.

FBL

That freedom is there for you, Cow! I never thought I would ever be happy, joyous and free. Wasn't me in the past and it may not be me tomorrow, but today I am, and that's all that I really have anyway.

Stayingsassy

Hi cow and O!

I'm truly sorry you both have had recurrent issues with relapse.

I have anhedonia and depression and food addiction, and I relapsed many many times too for like a decade. I recently asked myself honestly if I would return to drinking if I have myself permission to. I thought, no I wouldnt. I've had a lot of time away from it.

1. It sounds yucky (the taste)
2. The effects sound bad and undesirable even the numb part
3. It's another problem to deal with.

I dont do AA or anything. I just stopped long enough to look at it like something that doesn't sound good.

think you could get there? I will admit my final six months of drinking were nightmare stock. so that helps with the aversion.

Good luck you two. May you get the monkey off your back for good one day so you find you don't really need the o and cow thread: cause you're just done.

NYCDoglvr

It's a killer disease. A friend who worked in a rehab as a counselor told me roughly 10% of alcoholics stay sober. I've been going to the same meetings for 26 years and they don't get any bigger. With all the newcomers we should be in Yankee Stadium by now.

entropy1964

Lots of great posts!

I don't know what the magic is. I've been at this for over a decade myself. Lots of periods of sobriety, lots of benders (I stay sober at least for a few months then drink myself sick sick sick....like gonna die sick). I think I have about 16 months this time. What's different? I don't drink. No matter what. I won't change my mind.

I realized that I don't have to 'be' anything to not drink. I don't have to happy. I don't have to be all 'sorted' (hell that'll never happen anyway). I don't have to be spiritually fit. I don't even believe in God. Or religion. Or any of it. I tried to fake that (as I have faked most things in my life....I have a mask for every occasion) but I simply don't believe. I don't deny there is a God...I just don't know. I'm an evidence based thinker. Just is. Can't change that. So I stopped trying. I can be absolutely flucken miserable and NOT drink. Who knew?

So the goal is don't drink. Then figure out how to simply stay content on a day to day basis. Learn how to modulate my emotions. Learn what I can impact and what I cannot. Learn to let go of expectations. But also learn to be ok with not being ok. Happiness is a feeling. It isn't a state of being. Now obviously the goal is to be mostly good. But if I have an expectation that I'm somehow going to reach some great place of bliss? Not gonna happen.

I like the very religious phrase "Thy will be done". Not because its a God's will but because it just throws whatever I can't control out into the universe. My health for example, specifically cancer. If it comes back, thy will be done (while obviously pursuing treatment!) Or like they say in The Sopranos when someone dies "Whaddayagonnado?"

I don't know. But the knowledge that I can actually be miserable and not drink was something I hadn't spent much time thinking about. I was so busy using my bs as a reason to drink that I simply didn't engage the idea that I didn't have to drink over it.

FBL

We ALL deserve to be happy in this life. The mind is a VERY powerful thing, we don't realize just how powerful it can be. After nearly 30 years of alcoholic drinking, I became a very cynical person and I didn't like myself at all. If somebody told me how good my life could be again, I would've punched them out, or at the very least called them a p***y! Once I got sober, my brain started slowly healing and with it, came a newfound positive attitude that I never even knew was in there! Negative thoughts can literally destroy you, they almost did me in on numerous occasions. I know a lot of you have been thru way worse s**t than me and you feel like things will never get better, but they will...if YOU start to believe it!

Sober369

What I need to know is how do I get to the point of surrender? I had a sponsor in AA the last time I put some length of time together. That was last August through to mid December, I think. She said she thought the reason I kept relapsing is because I hadn't lost enough. I didn't have the terrible consequences many alcoholics do. It made me mad. I told her about all the terrible consequences I did have. And they are very many and really awful. But, I never ended up in the E.R. or jail or homeless or some of those things. I just destroyed my relationships, became a hermit, lost my memory, made terrible choices, and other awful things that aren't crises but rather a slow and hellish loss of anything that is worth living for.
So, what do I do to reach surrender without having a crises? I am what you may call a functional alcoholic. But if I drink, all I can do is drink and work. I have no time for anything else. It really is bad, just in a different way than jail and homelessness and all that. I do want more than just work, drink, sleep, do it again.
I have gotten worse, not because I drink more than I use to. I have actually had periods in my life when I drank more than I do now and was even sicker. But the long term affects are killing me slowly, not like ending up in the E.R. I need to reach the surrender point without getting to the point of jail and homelessness and all. How do I do that?

Cow

This is good chatting, Kittens. I getting lot from everybody sharing, so hope we can keepa go. Is interesting cuz while issues and struggles are similar, everybody kind of have they own lexicon around it.

Although case possible can be made I over-introspective with all my navel gazery, fact is, for me to succeed brain HAS to be on board. But maybe deeper part of brain than chatty Cow. Part that can over-rule when basic thinking is run amok. I trying to put some muscle memory into the subconscious. Like today, when I go to the market and pass coffee bar and that aroma hit, I go back to my mantra: THIS DECISION HAS ALREADY BEEN MADE. Then I not allow any further thinking. I trying to train subconscious to learn new skill called RULES. Cuz regular consciousness can be very tricksy at breaking and manipulating rules.

Is just a thing I pull out my ass, but it getting me through some days, you know?

I not believe in gods either, Frick, so we also have this in common. When I in AA best I could come up with was that higher power was "a better version of my self than one I was living." Having say that, I wish to share passage my dear friend Glimmer sent me a while ago, cuz I just find it soothing:

C. S. Lewis:

Obladi

Such a good question, Karen.

Mine is how do I get to the place where I want to be sober forever?

Same thing or different?

Stayingsassy

Karen,

You have to want sobriety very, very badly. The scales of cost-benefit have to tip very far on the sobriety side. At all moments. Like every time you think about it, you say "oh hell no" instead of "wish I could" for a long time until it stops screaming and then it stops talking and then it even stops whispering to you.

Your sponsor was right. But it's not "jail homeless death.". My bottom wasn't even near those. It's your PERSONAL bottom. The low you can't repeat because it makes you shudder. And going back to drinking means a high possibility of repeating that low. No way in hell was I going to repeat my low. So I took it off the table. Knew that if I never drank again that particular bottom would not happen again: impossible without alcohol. So I remain without alcohol. Gladly.

Obladi

I like that passage, Cow, but it confuses me. What does it mean that he will give me a new machine? How?

Obladi

FBL I'm so glad you are happy in your sobriety, seeing the promises fulfilled and all.

It's nice to hear from your perspective because although I'm sure it's not all sunshine and lollipops, your grass sure looks greener than mine.

Obladi

Beautifully put. This is the conclusion I reached a couple of months ago and it's a good one in my book. I think the stumbling point for me was in part, "And then what? " And in part, I think there was some psychological spaghetti in the mix which I'll try to write about with some coherence later on.

I'm trying to be mostly good by being present for my visiting daughter.

Cow

Hi O, well, CS Lewis very religious, so he talking bout salvation from God in there, but to me, I very much relate to description of "trying to drive this wretched machine" and it give me comfort to think, if I just keepa go, is hope, one day, to find this burden is cast off, and I become something new. I always have thought he beautiful poetic writer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Obladi

..how do I get to the place where I want to be sober forever?

O, you maybe not get to "want" to be sober. You maybe has to put egg before chicken, or, it is chicken before egg? Whatever the cluck, you maybe only get to make a "decision" and the feeling come later (if at all). I know this have it own inherent problem like zero feeling of motivation to execute you decision, which I also am face with in my anhedonic states. Is a difficult nut to crack.

soberlicious

Stopping drinking is the necessary first step toward accomplishing any healing and understanding one's issues. Do not tell me what is easy and what isn't. I existed in a living Hell, just like everyone else who's been in the state of addiction. What's really "not that easy" is living like that.

It's a common strategy pulled out of many asses before yours, with good reason-it's very effective. The Buddhists have been pulling similar things out of their asses for thousands of years. It's exactly how I quit for good 11 years ago.

That's what I was trying to get at-especially the "I don't have to be all sorted" part-but you put it so much more eloquently. Thank you. People spend a lifetime trying to figure out their issues so that they can quit drinking. The issues never get sorted, nor does the quitting. Take alcohol off the table, come Hell or high Water- and then there is a chance to figure the rest out.

Well, part of my brain is like a toddler just whining to get it's way. I can tell you that when my triplets were toddlers, it wasn't necessary for them to "be on board" for rules to implemented and followed. Can you imagine trying to get a toddler to rationally understand why they cannot run into the street? If I thought that the only way I could succeed at keeping them from running into oncoming traffic was making sure they fully understood the reasons and were fully on board with it, then they wouldn't still be here. My brain can be like that sometimes. So that's why the more fully developed part of my brain makes the decision re:drinking alcohol. I'm not leaving that sh*t up to the toddler to decide. Nope.