Jazzy7

I've just stuffed up 7.5 months sober. I feel Terrible. The triggers are obvious. Spending too much time with a child with special needs. Im devastated though.
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​​​​​​I am worried that this is going to kill me and that my child will be left alone.

ScottFromWI

Hello Jazzy - are you drinking now? Best thing you can do is get rid of anything you have left and try to get some rest, drink some water. 7.5 months is great so you obviously have some tools to stay sober, you can start again right now.

Tanky

Parenting alone is a tough gig, jazzy and I can only imagine the extra level of toughness parenting a kid with special needs adds to that. I hear you. I see you. I feel you. I still remember declaring many years ago to a GP that I would “never” act on suicidal thoughts I was having because I had children. Unfortunately, you can’t stop MH or addiction with reasoning or sheer will. It takes so
much more.

But if you have done 7.5 months sober, then you have developed a lot of tools, some pretty awesome sober muscles. None of that is lost because of this lapse. You don’t need to continue drinking. You know you can pour it out, you know that you can dust yourself off and get right back on the sobriety horse. Maybe there are lessons to be learned about striking a balance between being present for your babe and looking after you? Please keep posting. SR crew are here for you.

Dee74

fall down seven times,get up eight Jazzy.
You can do this

D

advbike

Sorry to hear, Jazzy, that must be really tough. Congrats on the 7 months - that is amazing.

It's a new year today, you know what to do, and you CAN do it. You are obviously a strong person.

Please stay on here and join the class of January 2021 for suppoprt.

SunnyCoastK

(((((Jazzy)))) I hope that you are feeling a bit better today. You have a great amount of sober time and experience racked up, you can write this drinking experience off and get back to being sober. Sending oodles of hugs!!! xx

Gottalife

Be wary of triggers. They are very hard to manage, always discovered in hindsight, and many are not even known about until after the event. I managed to narrow all my triggers to one life condition, consciousness. Whenever I was conscious I was likely to drink. There was no way I could eliminate all triggers and make my life so perfect that I would not need to drink. I tried hard enough but in reality the things that made me drink were not external but completely internal. I lacked the power to "not drink", and once I started, I generally lost control.

The main problem was in my mind. I had something of a defective reaction to life, and my solution, the way I got to feel good about things, was to take a drink. It used to be good too, then it stopped working, yet I kept going back hoping I could again experience the good old days in spite of mounting evidence to the contrary, getting worse each time.. For me, when I tried to stop I found I could not, and when I drank I could not guarantee when I would stop. These are the two common characteristics of the alcoholic. All the rest was just window dressing. "Whether a person can quit on a non spiritual basis depends upon the extent to which they have already lost the power to choose whether they will drink or not." I am in that class, and I needed to find a more rewarding way of living to give me a 24/7 defense against against the fatal first drink. Changing external circumstances, or trying to avoid them, just never worked.

Anna

I'm sorry, Jazzy. I'm glad you're here and posting. Do you have any help with your child - a partner, a grandparent, anyone who could give you a break sometimes?

nez

Everything was obvious about my alcoholism, the triggers, the consequences, the solution. I fought the reality of my alcoholism tooth and nail. When I stopped fighting the reality, reality became the goal.