DODO69

1 year sober then I have had 6 slip ups in the last 12 days.
Haven't got any excuses. I wanted to drink and I did

Time to start again

Dee74

Welcome back DODO do you have a plan to help you stay sober?

D

doggonecarl

Quitting is wise. Things can spiral out pretty quit.

Make SR part of your daily routine.

aasharon90

As long as folks think that they can drink
successfully one day down the road then
staying sober successfully wont happen.

One has to accept that fact that alcohol
is never gonna ever work today, tomorrow
or 1000 yrs from now.

Learning and incorporating a program
of recovery to your everyday life one day
at a time will help build a strong solid
foundation to live upon as you move
forward in life.

The thought of ever drinking again
down the road successfully has to be
squashed for good. No and if or buts
about it.

Stop the insanity once and for all.

ScottFromWI

Welcome back dodo. One year sober doesn’t just happen, and usually drinking alcohol doesn’t either. Both require planning and effort, hope we can help you get back on track. Did you follow any formal plan while you were sober for that year?

feldknocker

I was coming up on two years sober, when I relapsed last week. So I feel your situation. For me, the prayer and meditation were the first to go. I then stopped talking to my sponsor on a daily basis and that's really when the idea for drinking started to take hold. Ironically, my first drink came on the way home from an AA meeting.

I got my silver chip yesterday and my sponsor and others have been great. Sometimes it feels like everyone in my group has a better hold on sobriety than I do because relapse is rarely spoken of. I don't know if it's just not common or people don't admit to it when it happens. When I read from addiction experts, they state that relapse is part of recovery. It should be used as a learning point and not as a sign of failure.

Let's get back to it.

NYCDoglvr

I agree completely. An early sponsor said a relapse is "doing more research". A relapse is traumatic and forces us to look at why we started drinking.

Grungehead

I've relapsed twice after having long-term sobriety (5+ years). The good news is that those mistakes didn't prevent me from finding sobriety again. My 5 year anniversary was in April. "Third time's a charm".

The first two times I got sober I put a lot of effort into my recovery the first year or two and then let up, "rested on my laurels" as AA warns about. Part of that was because I didn't put a long-term recovery plan in place. Life got infinitely better and I got "too busy" to keep up the preventative maintenance a recovery plan would have provided. I'm going to be an alcoholic the rest of my life whether I ever drink again or not. It's been my experience that my alcoholism will wait patiently for months, years, and possibly decades for me to let my guard down, so I must follow the plan that has kept me sober for life.

Stayingsassy

I don't know why but these one year drinking posts really trigger me.

PhoenixJ

The power of the mind can be an awesome thing. There are a huge load of resources here- we CAN learn by the mistakes of others- and not have to go to rock-bottoms to get it (which I did). Use it as a learning experience and focus on the here and now. Support to you.