MyTimeNow

I can't keep coming back here, but I can't keep drinking either.

I am ambivalence at it's best - on one hand I want to quit, on the other I want to drink.

Drinking wins as that's the easiest choice. I also still see it as more of a pleasure than bed and book.

It's so daft, I love my bed, I love reading - but I abuse alcohol to switch off/liven me up - then get pished.

The life I am living is just not right and I don't know how to do it. I don't.

RR speaks the best to me, but then I engage with my AV, we're best mates - fancy a drink - too right buddy! I need to shut that **** off. I'm not even trying when I agree with my AV, I think that is half the problem - I'm not even trying or questioning I'm just doing.

I just don't know what to do. Be stronger I guess and want it more - I've been telling myself, you're going to drink on your hols in August anyway so whats the point. I see that AV and I embrace it and make it my best friend. Idiot

Nuudawn

I am reminded of the old adage "Change occurs when the pain of remaining the same is greater than the pain of changing."

I really wish I had the right words to spark the flame...but ya know, it's ultimately up to you. You need to end the friendship with you're AV. It's a soulless trickster..not a buddy.

GwenCummings

Why can't you keep coming back here? Does it say somewhere in the rules that you have to be in recovery to be a member? If so, many people are going to get booted out!

You sound unhappy... If you're unhappy you need support. Keep this sober influence in your life... You need it if you think drinking is the easy option.

ReadyAtLast

Great to see you-I've missed you

Course you CAN come back,however many times it takes. Be proud of yourself for not giving up

There are so many people here rooting for you and so much support. If RR helps maybe read it again, It helped me more second time round. xx

MatildaRose

A few years ago a fellow alkie said to me if you never quit quitting you will finally someday reach your goal. I listened and followed that advise and am happily sober today. You can do it to. I know you can!

Dee74

MTN

I fought with my inner addict for 15 years - eventually I got there.
Don't lose hope - and don't stop fighting either.

You and your loved ones deserve a better life than the one you have now. Never give up.

Don't think about pulling back and losing elements to your recovery - add things, advance....

Yes, your AV will kick back and throw tantrums and tell you it's not fair, and maybe you can just skate on that thin ice a bit more, and recovery is just hard work that never leads anywhere anyway...

but it lies.

D

freshstart57

I suggest that recognizing your AV is only part of AVRT. You must accept your AV, separate from it by realizing that it isn't you, but above all, make your commitment to yourself, your Big Plan, to quit drinking for ever.

Believe that you can do this, that you really are in control of your actions. I believe in you, MyTimeNow. I believe that you can do this. There is a wonderful life waiting for you. Are you ready to make your plan about continuing to use alcohol?

Fallow

Oh MTN I feel your pain, I really do.

This whole not drinking thing can be so difficult at times. It is very hard to get off of the fence. And then stay off. Even after a decently long dry spell I still find myself on the fence sometimes.

When you say 'the life I am living is just not right' that really connects with my feelings. I've felt that way many times drunk or sober but the feeling was certainly much worse when I drank. Being sober there are moments when I am truly able to enjoy life with no regrets. That feeling of things not being right is still there sometimes but I think for me most of it was alcohol related.
I think we all learn as we go.

I have a future focused AV. It says I can drink in a year or when my birthday comes. Or on holiday. In the past I used those future events as a reason to drink way in advance. Now I tell myself to wait until that day comes. Once that future date arrives I have found it easier to disregard my AV for one more day.

I really hope that you will stick around here

Elisabeth888

Play the tape through! Try to think about what ALWAYS happens every time you pick up a drink. Talk to yourself about it A LOT. Because this is your truth: alcohol is poison to you.

Journal what all you are going through after the relapse and then be sure to not throw it away. You can look at it the next time you think it is a good idea to drink.

I know EXACTLY the feeling you are talking about. You want to drink but you don't. You have got to train that brain to do SOMETHING ELSE.

forabetterlife

Like Elizabeth, I know EXACTLY what you mean also. I'm still new myself and struggling but when I was drinking, but yet not wanting to, I was so torn, so mad at myself for not doing the right thing, for not even TRYING sometimes. You just need to get to that point where you are ready to struggle through that tough beginning and wait for the light at the end of the tunnel. It's there, I promise, I have seen it before and I'm seeing it again. Don't give up and don't stop coming here. We all have been there and understand.

thekl0wn

I know the feeling. For me, it was about making a change deep down that allowed that spark of hope to grow large enough to battle the cunning, baffling, and powerful voice that is alcoholism. And as days go by, other voices such as reason, logic, health, and love have started chiming in on the battle.

Mizzuno

The struggle will be there for most people, especially in the beginning stages. It is hard to change something that has become habitual. I mean, I am sure that there has been pleasure with drinking, and some moments were not horrible. Some were enjoyable. BUT, there is a reason that you gave up in the first place.

You would not be here if you did not have a reason. I would rather deal with the hard moments of want, then to deal with the fact that my life, emotions, mental state, relationships, job, and health are all hanging in the air because I chose to drink.

No one said that this was easy. In fact, sobriety is very very hard at times. I can understand the ambivalence. This does not mean that giving up is the option. Keep moving forward into the light. You are meant to be there.
I am happy to see you again. Please keep posting. We need you here.

Nattythreads

MTN

You cam keep coming back. You must keep coming back. There's an old adage that says it's never the same again when you go back out. You know in your heart that's true.

Keep picking yourself up, dusting yourself down and refuse to be beaten. Because one day it will stick if you want it enough.

EndGameNYC

Steve Jobs, as most know or will recall was Apple's now-deceased CEO, gave the 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University. It was both inspired and inspiring. I thought he was speaking to me.

At one point -- it may have been at the beginning, but I don't recall -- he said the following:

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, some day you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "no" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

His speech is a treat on so many levels.

You can watch the whole thing here:

Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech 2005 high definition.flv - YouTube

Hevyn

MTN - I hope you'll keep coming back as long as you need us. Never give up on trying for a better life - one that doesn't fill you with regret. True, deep down happiness can be yours. Keep on talking and trying.

Nighthawk8820

Your just trapped in the cycle of addiction, and it will repeat and repeat until you get fed up enough or something else happens to sort of shake you up. Either way, I suspect you will arrive to that point sooner or later, and when you do, then you will be able to break the cycle and live a good life. I think you have to get to that point though, where you want to put in the work recovery takes because you think its worth more than a cheap buzz or getting loaded.

RobbyRobot

Speaking for myself, I didn't fight against alcohol being pleasurable for me, and in not fighting against those feelings, I was able to appreciate the depths of my alcoholic addiction. I was able to realise how little regard I had for myself and others while I drank. It really came home to me how my life revolved around my chronic drinking and my self-seeking and selfish rewards I felt with my drinking because it became increasingly obvious what I was carelessly throwing away to keep drinking.

The final writing on the wall for me was the continuing shift of how even horrible consequences could be justified as unimportant in an unimportant life -- Jail. Mental hospital. Street life. Alone and severely isolated -- I kept drinking nonetheless. Emotional mental physical pains eventually became blurred with being satisfied by my hurts and hatreds. As I sunk to new lows, with myself and with others in impossible situations, I much didn't care if I could at least stay drunk.

For me, it really became suicidal to keep drinking. Dying drunk was not a question of if but entirely one of when and sooner than later.

Not drinking didn't really matter to me as much as not dying as a drunk meant to me - I couldn't drink "enough" to stay drunk - I would quickly blackout more and more and go thru DT's again and again because I could no longer drink and just keep a buzz going - I was just too far gone - my addiction owned me.

Since I was suicidal, this all amounted to a sick pleasure too, as bad as that may sound. So yeah, so-called pleasure with drinking can become way twisted and surreal when one keeps drinking hopelessly.

Well, the good news is I did eventually successfully quit because here I am clean n' sober! YOU can quit too MyTimeNow - even though right now you don't believe you can, I believe YOU CAN, and I'm not alone in that believe as this thread shows.

Forget how "pleasurable" it is with your drinking - because likely sooner or later it won't make any difference, and that day will be a day of impossible misery that never entirely quits hurting no matter how much you might drink. That is, unless you successfully and eventually quit drinking. Anyways, this was my experience speaking for myself, like I've said. What are the chances you'll experience the same?!!

It's never too soon to quit.

EndGameNYC

Powerful stuff, Robby.

hypochondriac

When you are agreeing with your AV, you are your AV, if that makes any kind of sense. You get the ambivalence thing, part of you wants to quit the other part wants to drink, well when part of you is agreeing with what you perceive to be your AV, that is your AV too. You, the part that wants to quit is still there, that's the you that wrote this post and won't give up.

Sorry if that sounds convoluted, but I think the problem here is not that you agree with your AV but that you are not identifying it correctly. Any thought that supports drinking is your AV.

And yes please do keep coming back here no matter how many times you fall. It is obvious that you are trying, you just having got it all to click yet. Best of luck and hugs to you x

aasharon90

Who says you can't keep coming back
here to SR? No body. Not one single
person. Unless you abuse the rules.

Im 22 yrs sober and do I need to
keep coming back here to SR? Sure,
I do. And I want to. Why?

I need to stay connected to my program
of recovery which I use in my everyday
life and SR is one extra tool I use each
day to pass on my own experiences,
strengths and hopes with others also
in recovery.

It's one more thing that helps me remain
sober today. And it can for you as well
for as long as you need and want to.

Stay connected and we can help you
stay sober today. Just for today. And
if you make it sober 24 hours today,
then come back tomorrow and repeat
the same thing. Then the next, and so on.