I binged again
 

Hello everyone. Me again. Well, this addiction is certainly something. I drank last Thursday night and, as I always do now, I vommitted and my body tried to reject the alcohol. I didn't drink Friday and got back on the wagon - this was surely evidence that not only is my body rejecting alcohol but the act of drinking itself is a miserable one. I felt that this would be a strong message to my sober self and that this drinking lark is just totally pointless. Out of nowhere the urge took me to drink on Saturday and so I did and that bled into yesterday when I went and got a bottle of vodka at 6AM and drank it without eating anything. My Dad called me at lunchtime yesterday and surely will have known I was smashed. I hate that he will be worried about me now. I will raise it at some point but don't have the energy to do it now. I also had some weird / angry conversations on text. The usual crap.

So here I am again, feeling chastened and defeated. And also feeling utterly wretched. I am trying not to berate myself but it is easier said than done.

I called my Mother just now to tell her. I am glad that I did.

Hi Briansy
Sorry to hear the urges got the better of you again but as difficult as it is you cant keep beating yourself up about it.
I come from the same Island as yourself and like many other citizens here strangers, cousins, family alike i grew up around alcohol. From an infant its promotion normalisation its use its right of passage to adolescence is what i think most irish people were raised with and still go through today. It dosent make it easy. If you dont drink there's something wrong with you.
In a brief history of my own addiction i started at 13 years got so bad on the first night i cant remember it to this day and all people did was laugh and mock me the next day adults included instead of asking the real question why did this happen.
I went on from there every weekend and did the usual things as a young adult but lived for the weekend so i could get pissed.
It was my turning point now at home instead of drinking beers they weren't good enough anymore for the quick high i craved so i took to spirits, Vodka and sometimes whiskey if i had a cold you know yourself any excuse but it took over my life and all that mattered was the high when i got home from work. Its only this year i have finally made it over the 6 month hurdle being sober but i know this time i cant go back and its finally sunk in i cant drink anymore. Its hard even my friends dont understand and tease me if we meet up for not having a drink even though i explain everything. The difference this time is being here and asking for help, i couldnt do it on my own as the last few years have proved.
So please start again and share with people family or friend,people who will encourage you and support you its never to late to get this right. It's an on going struggle but with work it can be done. I know this I've had so many day one's at this stage they would add up to years as day 2 was the day to give in. I do hope things will work out and please keep posting.

Thank you Al, I really appreciate it. Today is about getting to bed time, absolutely exhausted.

Sorry friend. Will be in touch more later.

Sorry to hear that you drank Briansy. Certainly this is a setback and I understand you feel disappointed. Getting some rest and re-hydration is a good idea, glad to hear you are reaching out locally to your parents as well.

Regarding the bolded statement above though, can you honestly tell yourself that the urge to drink "came out of nowhere"? And can you think of anything you could have possibly done at the time to make a different decision? I noticed you haven't been posting much lately, what else are you doing besides using SR to actively work on your addiction issues? Certainly you don't want to overly berate/beat yourself up over this decision, but at some point you will need to learn from your actions and make the necessary changes to your life.

Self directed shame isn't going to help. From observations of myself prior to every relapse I've had there was a strange mix emotions. Restlessness, agitation and rebellion with like a touch of mania so at this point I believe I can predict and stop one from happening. Maybe try to remember how you were feeling prior to making the decision to go to the store and purchase alcohol. I hope this helps.

You addiction doesn't care if drinking is a miserable act. In fact, it probably prefers misery, as miserable alcoholics usually drink. As your subsequent drinking shows.

Hi Scott, I had just finished reading a book called Awakening your power within by Gerry Hussey, a performance coach and therapist. In it he describes how so many of us are stuck in thinking patterns from our childhood and he suggests various methods to go about changing your personal narrative that I want to try implementing. About believing that we are "enough" and worthy of love, respect etc. Treating ourselves with more love and respect. I also want to find a good therapist. O made a very good point recently in saying something along the lines that I probably didn't believe I was worthy of happiness. I think looking at this mindset and how to change it will be time well spent.

I've had a history of relapses, so I relate to your story. My subsequent sobriety was ALWAYS short-lived when it began with a lot of self- flagellation. An exhausted and depressed/anxious mind is easy prey to that. But my recovery absolutely depends upon looking forward. I have to learn from the past, but I can't live there. What's done is done. Today is all that matters.

Best wishes.

Hi Briansy,

I am drawn to this thread because I was in a similar cycle last week and also struggle a lot with cravings for alcohol. I found a very effective way last year, so I know I can make it work and those urges will also subside within a few weeks if I don't water them with any more alcohol. I see from your thread history that you got interested in many different approached and methods. Have you had lasting, satisfying success with any of them before? I had with SMART - just stopped using the tools and attending meetings after a couple months because I got lazy, and no surprise, eventually relapsed and got into the same cycle of binge drinking and other behaviors/avoidances tied to it. I will reinstate my use of SMART, for me it makes sense to do something that definitely worked for me instead of trying yet another new thing, which (seeking novelty too much, often just for the sake of it) tends to be part of my self-defeating cycles. Explore all sorts of things but never stick with anything long.

Hope you get back on track now, wishing you all the best!

Those are certainly good insights and i'm glad you are seeking help in those areas. I found therapy instrumental in helping me get back on track after I quit drinking, I too had a lot of issues from the past that I had neglected/tried to ignore for a long time.

Having said that, none of what you shared specifically addresses the issue of how you will stop drinking. Addiction is a separate issue that needs to be addressed separately and directly in my personal opinion. I know you've been here for a long time and have heard a lot of people tell you exactly what I'm telling you now, but if you don't take any action you cannot expect results any different than you've been getting.

I don't know what you do as a career, but maybe it might help if you thought about your sobriety like a Project Manager thinks about any project. You've already done the research and you know exactly what he problem is. What are some concrete action items you could take away today after what just happened? And I mean literally - get a piece of paper out and start a numbered list. Even if you only have 1 item it will be 1 more than you had yesterday, right? I'm talking about things like

1. I will not drink alcohol today, no matter what.
2. If I feel an urge to drink alcohol, I will log onto SR and ask for help.
3. I will go to a recovery meeting today
4. I will make sure I have no alcohol available in my house, and I will not buy anymore
5. I will use ( insert recovery method of your choice here ) as my primary support mechanism and I will spend at least 1 hour today practicing it.

Doing those kinds of things will allow you to stay sober and then address the other things you list in your response. Certainly a therapist may be able to help with addiction issues too, but they are indeed distinct and seprate issues requiring distinct measures to solve.

What I have realised is that I have some very good and supportive friends and family that I can speak openly to about this and that has been a big help today.

H Brainsy;

I am finally coming out of a 6 month short relapse / sober short relapse / sober cycle that really eroded my confidence and caused quite a bit of stress, conflict, and self-loathing.

What I did to get out of it and back on track was to review and upgrade my sobriety “toolbox”, including a list similar to what Scott has above of concrete “at that moment of temptation” list of steps to take to delay acting on the urge to drink.

I had all the intellectual knowledge of alcoholism and various treatment strategies already, and my extensive negative history of what drinking does to me and my body, and yet that wasn’t enough to break the recent cycle until I added on some simple tactics to avoid acting on the urge until the urge passed.

I did this before in successful quits of 1 or more years (3 times now) but I seem to conveniently “forget” to use my list as I become complacent in sobriety and think I have it in hand. And then what you describe as an “out of nowhere urge to drink” would hit me, and I would act on it.

It isn’t out of nowhere though, is it? The part of my brain / psyche that equates drinking with euphoria, stress relief, connection to others, numbing of anxiety, etc. is really in the driver’s seat fronting the urge to drink, and drink now.

I think we can do better for ourselves—the drinking has not delivered on any of the above positive effects for more than a brief time for many years. Like you, my body also has become reactive (allergic?) to alcohol.

I read here several times people stating they “don’t know how many quits they have left” and I always have assumed I had some. Not so sure after this past year. Alcoholism is physiologically and psychologically progressive. I have been living that truth but refusing to see it for some years now.

Waste of time, waste of Life energy, hurts those who love us—that’s the abstract version.

I agree. When I first started recovery I had a list of things I wanted to tackle in therapy like anger, grief, depression and stuff I figured was driving the drinking. After a couple of years of recovery I've noticed that I never directly addressed those things in any therapy setting but those problems have drastically diminished in my life. The reason, as best as I can guess, is that not having alcohol in my system and life was conducive to just having a better life in general. From the way I cope with things to how i handle setbacks, things are very much different now then when I drank.

When I was drinking I used to think if I figured out how to deal with anger issues, my drinking wouldn't be so intense. Im being honest here. Back then, I didnt want to stop drinking, I just wanted therapy to fix me just enough so that I could drink "normally" but not go off the deep end.

Getting better for me, was indeed what happened after I cut the booze out of my life.

Thanks so much, guys, for these responses. I'm absolutely wiped out after yesterday and struggling to put anything coherent down. I've ordered some delivery food and will try to relax tonight. I really appreciate the support.

Hey Briansy,

So... I'm not up to date with your happenings, though I did fret a little bit about you yesterday when I popped in to post and thought I'd have a look at your thread. Forgive me if I'm not putting the timeline together correctly. I agree with Scott's observation that going awol from SR isn't probably doing you much good. Also, didn't you lose it the last time you went island hopping? Do you think your "stumbles" prior to that trip were some sort of backwards preparation? I'm wondering because I remember doing weird things like projecting that I was at risk of drinking when some particular event or travel was going to happen, so I would preemptively drink before the date.

I agree with people who say you can think and feel your way through continued stumbles indefinitely and never solve the underlying problems. I don't agree with people who say that you will likely find that all of your problems will dissipate if only you stop drinking. But who knows? Nobody - not until you actually stop drinking. I don't know what's true for you but I can tell you what was true for me. I had problems. Booze was the anesthetizing agent. When I drank, I created new problems for myself and/or worsened those I already had. I wasn't about to fix the problems until I gave up the booze but I also needed booze to escape from whatever was ailing me.

An allegory (or parallel or some sort of literary device, I can't keep it straight right now): About a year ago, I was preparing to make myself some burgers the way I know to do it best. Turn the oven on as high as it will go and heat a cast iron skillet. Transfer the skillet to a preheated burner, throw some olive oil or butter in there quickly followed by the burgers. I'm sure I was doing other things at the same time, so was not focused (or mindful) when I went to take the skillet out of the oven - bare handed. Holy sheemama that hurt. The whole aperture of my grip was burned. I ran my hand under water and then got some ice. I had this notion that ice was going to help. And it did until it warmed up. I also had some notion that the ice needed to be applied and removed at some regular interval, so I tried that. I could go as long as three minutes before I couldn't stand it anymore, then worked my way up to maybe 5 minutes between ice episodes. The pacing and the swearing and the can't-stand-it-one-more-second nature of this reminded me in the moment of tapering alcohol. I finally calmed down enough to pull up the internet to be reminded that this ice method was actually wrong and that I should get some aloe or lidocaine to apply to the burn. So I drove to the pharmacy, got my soothing gel and everything was better. What a relief.

Get the gel and put it in the medicine cabinet. The worst thing that will happen is that you don't need it. Be mindful that the stove is very very hot.
Get the therapy. Don't drink even if your hand is burning so badly you can't sit still. It only makes things worse.

This doesn't have to be either/or.
Do both.

Also, for the love of Pete, go to some meetings. Say hello to someone there.
I don't even care at this point if you buy any of the program being sold; the fellowship will do you good.

It's really a matter of what you're willing to put into this, Briansy.

xo
O

^^^^^^What he said^^^^^^

You have the same issue as i had which is that you cannot tell us why you drank, as you said it came out of nowhere. There will be a reason why you drink but i can't tell you what that is as it will be your reason and if you can find out what it is you have a good chance of understanding it and solving your problem. It's very easy to demonise alcohol, but it is a liquid with no consciousness which means it doesn't care if you consume it or not, it's you consuming it for a reason that, at the time, you think is a good one. It didn't come out of nowhere and it wasn't just a f*** it moment as our brains are amazing things and don't work on a knee jerk basis even though it appeears sometimes that they do. Good luck:)

Hi Briansy
How are you feeling today?