Briansy

Thanks guys, your messages are really appreciated. The interesting thing is this time there was no trigger. I just walked to the supermarket and bought booze - I had fully intended to drink for most of the day. No agonising, no crappy stressful event. I just wanted to be numbed. Also, the depression I had been feeling lifted too and I was working really hard in the office.

Anyway, I'm not going to give up trying. I know the game is up but it's amazing how quickly you forget when you start to feel good again.

Gottalife

No trigger to tip you off? Memory failed to protect you? My experience exactly and the question is how do you fight such a cunning foe?

August252015

What scott said.

ScottFromWI

So it's interesting that you mention "feeling good" as that was the initial question you asked when starting off this post. At least on the surface, your statement above seems to indicate that you equate feeling good with being drunk/numbing your senses - would that be a fair statement? If so then it's not surprising that you would have difficulty in feeling good when you are sober, no?

Bottom line Briansy, it's going to be a tough road for you unless you truly make the choice to completely eliminate alcohol from your life. The fleeting numbness will always be replaced with increasingly bad consequences. And you will also just be pushing all those underlying issues ( depression, etc ) to the back burner to fester.

Cosima11

I had a similar binge cycle at one point.. I'd drink for 2-3 nights in a row, then I'd stop for 2-3 days. The first day would be hell, I'd be sick and miserable swearing I didn't want to keep doing this.. the second day would be a "resting" day where I'd feel content to just let myself recuperate. The third day I'd be feeling great, back on my game, completely dismissive of the misery I'd just endured and ready to do it all over again.

It takes a lot more than 30 days for your mind and body to heal. I don't want to get super in depth about my timeline but I'd say things turned a significant corner for the better somewhere around 8-9 months (also not surprisingly around the time I quit smoking). I didn't quit on my first attempt but at some point I had to stop seeing it as "progress" and start seeing at as more like flipping a switch. It's either on or off and turning it on for any reason puts me right back at 0.

This is really random but it's a scene in a movie about a serial killer actually (sorry it's kinda "dark", but this is serious stuff).. and I find the analogy to be totally relevant to all forms of addiction. To end the cycle you have to step away from the whole song and dance entirely..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtD2BKXKKxI

Briansy

Hey Scott, no, I meant it's amazing how you forget how wretched you feel once you get 7 or 8 days under your belt and you start to feel good again (because of sobriety).