chrissycoff

Anyone else quit drinking for a couple or few days, and it feels great being sober and not hungover. Then, you feel so great that you feel like you deserve to go have a drink??? Weird, but this seems to be my drinking cycle.. it's like having a drink becomes the reward for proving that I can go without...

least

Yeah, I understand. It's like 'well if I can stop drinking I must not have a problem'. But I can't be ruled by that sick thinking. It will just take me back to Hell and I don't want to go back there.

123bubblegum123

Using has always been my reward. Time to get a new one hah

Fubarcdn

I have probably done that a few hundred times over my life.
Once I went for four months because I wanted to go the longest I ever went without drinking.
Before I started I planned on drinking at the 4 month 1 day mark and I did.
That day didn't go well.
This time out I plan to never drink but I will allow myself to drink 1 day after I pass away.

Texasblind

I used to celebrate not drinking by drinking all the time. We all know where that leads. If we are truly alcoholic, we cannot stop at one.

serenityqueen

I can't begin to count the amount of times where I told myself, "Hey, look, you have went for X amt of days, weeks, without drinking. Obviously you aren't an alcoholic, because an alcoholic can't quit like you have. . . so go drink. But don't drink as much as you did last time because remember how sick you were the next day, how you can't remember half the night . . . . "

Then, the next day, I'd wake up, sick as hell, not remembering half the night, looking in my wallet and seeing I spent every penny and even went to the money machine, . . . Then the guilt and shame of my behaviors would set in and the vicious cycle would start all over again.

It's my disease telling me that I am NOT an alcoholic, that I can drink. When this voice starts talking, I know I need to get to a Meeting, pick up that 1,000 lb phone and call someone else in Recovery, . . . Anything to get back to reality, which is, I am an alcoholic. I cannot drink. Period. Dot.

lovinmenow

Yea. I have also done that in the past. It is that type of thinking that makes me relapse every time.

louis

Yes...
I dont give myself time limits for that reason...
I wont accept chips at AA also... because to MY brain it is the same as giving me time limits....

Maggot4Life

I know that feeling, U think just one drink and I will be satisfied. Then you have that 1 drink and it doesnt come close to satisfactory, next thing you know u wake up the next morning thinking what the heck did I just do. Thats my usual cycle and that is why I stay away from booze.

savior93

sounds like me

Jayne2

See? This is why I love SR. You people did the same crazy things I did. Nice to know I am not alone.

adore79

When I was really active I didnt try to quit drinking because I didnt want to and didnt care. When I decided to quit, then I would go a few days or weeks or months and then start drinking again. I dont think it was because I was rewarding myself for not drinking, it was just because Im an alkie and being drunk is normal for me. I no longer deny this, it is normal for me to drink but I cant because then I will eventually die, so I try rewarding myself by not drinking, if that makes any sence.

tk1fry

Yep, me too. Thats the insanity of it all. I still can't figure out why i didn't get different results by doing the same thing over and over and over. hmmmmm.

serenityqueen

penny74

Only a thousand times......


You never know what is enough, until you know what is more than enough. ~William Blake, Proverbs of Hell

Eidetic

I did this 100s of times and I really hope I never do it again, but I can't even say that.

Even now, when I absolutely know I am an alcoholic, my crazy thinking looks ahead to a few years down the road, when I'll have gotten my life together, and then I'l be able to drink. I know that thought itself is proof of how sick and crazy I am, but even with that knowledge, I can't help the thought from coming.

mikefreak

I think that is fairly common when you are FIRST trying to get sober. Half a zillion relapses later, & it started to penetrate my thick skull that the voice that said it was O.K. to drink & that I wasn't really an Alcoholic was a LIAR. You forget a lot of things after you've been sober for a little bit. However, NO ONE ELSE does...

gravity

I am pretty much at the point where any notion of drinking in the future is gone. I accept that I am an alcoholic and I know that one drink will lead to misery. I fought a losing battle and it's time to move on. I can no longer even fathom drinking as a reward for anything (like others, I used to think like this – obsessive, delusional thinking).

It took patience and working a recovery program (AA) to clear this fantasy from my mind, that I could someday enjoy drinking. There is such peace that comes with this acceptance, an excitement about today and the future.

Now, my thoughts and actions are more about living a good life and being responsible.

Ghostlight

I did this yesterday. Went four days without, had a couple of appointments and decided I deserved a reward.

Ha! Some reward. I only made it through six cans of a twelve pack, but feel like death today.

Hopefuly, never again.

Coolmummy

Yep, what they all said!!