Beeraholic

Today was supposed to be my 34th day sober. We had people over to meet our three month old. My sister and her husband whom I always drink with are in town from many states away. I have only told my wife that I have stopped drinking. She asks me this afternoon if I plan on drinking tonight. I tell her I am undecided (seeing a sliver of a window).

Tonight, my brother in law offers me a beer, i take it. And for three hours I don't drink it. After several hours of internal debate, I take a sip of it. i ended up having 3 beers on the night. At this point I am feeling good about my decision and the results.

As my wife and I are going to bed, she asks if I drank tonight. I said yes, I had half a beer that my brother in law gave me.

Her response stuns me. Shocks me. I expected her to be happy that I didn't drink myself into oblivion. And she is. But she also reveals that fir YEARS, since the first incident a month into our relationship when I got drunk and nearly ruined us, that she ALwAYS counts my drinks and worries about how much I am drinking. She says that tonight, knowing I was over a month sober, she realized for he first time how happy she was not to have to watch me so closely.

This broke my heart. She was trying to compliment my behavior tonight and all I could hear was that she has wasted years of her life watching my alcohol intake. I feel terrible.

Many negatives to digest. One, I relapsed after my 33 sober days. 2, my wife worries 100 times more than I even realized. And she was proud of me for not drinking too much and all I can do is feel crappy about the fact that I drank at all!

Goodnight everyone. Bedtime!

Dee74

Hi Beeraholic

yeah I'm not trying to make you feel bad but I'm always struck by the way a lot of us mitigate drinking again with 'hey at least I didn't didn't get drunk...'

My partners used to count my drinks too...I never knew that until I got sober, but I still cringe at the many many nights I needed my partner to carry me to the car.

How I could rationalise that away, I have no idea, but I did

Our drinking is not just about us - and it's not about us being the only person who gets hurt.

Learn the lessons from tonight - make the corrections to your plan you need to, and move forward.

If you need help in devising a new pLan there's a lot of willing supporters here to help

You never have to feel this way again, man

D

Berrybean

It shows that your wife has a good understanding of alcoholism. Even if you didn't feel it at the time, taking that first drink is taking a mad risk. So, when we say "Well, at least I didn't get drunk, it was okay" with no resolve to change, is is a little like a jaywalker saying "Yes, but the lorry missed me, it was fine."

Hopefully your amends to your wife for this will be a living amends and you will treat your sobriety as the precious thing it is (to her and your family as well as you). And in the meantime, back to day one, and a big "Phew" that you're not going to let it turn into a binge or long term relapse.

Take care

mecanix

You had 3 beers and told your wife you had half ?

For me it's this kinda thing i never wanted happening again , the lies told , the deceit .

I used to think my drinking effected only me but it poisoned every relationship i had for years and i was blindly unaware of it . I realised it one day and i stopped .

I hope you decide never to drink again , if you can do 30 days you can do a lot longer i recon .

Keep on , m

afloatsober

I would take your wife's words as encouragement. Yes your drinking makes her unhappy and that's more confirmation that our excessive boozing affects others just as it effects us.

But how do you make her s much happier?? By not drinking.

You can make such a difference by resolving that you won't bother with another beer, but will put your effort into developing a sober way f living.

End result.

One happy lady, and the avoidance of much misery and loss for you.

You know it makes sense.....

Be well.

Gx

PurpleKnight

I'm fairly sure I could also have a beer or 2 this evening and go to bed tonight, in the morning I could fall into the trap of seeing it as a victory, but it's only the opening of the floodgates once again.

In my attempts to control my drinking, experimenting with moderation, day 1 was never a problem, but within a few weeks things would begin to spiral, that door to oblivion would slowly open wider and wider until I'd find myself back at the beginning wondering how alcohol got back into my life and recognising that something needed to change with my drinking again.

Your wife is concerned with good reason, because she knows that this could be the start of it all over again!!

When I decided to stick to sobriety, life became a lot more straightforward!!

CaseyW

How are you doing today?

Carver

Lying to her about the amount you drank is a slippery slope. Maybe your AV sees a window for more drinking there...I dunno.

I'm not trying to make you feel bad, it's just that that's what I used to do when I was testing the waters in preperation for a return to drinking.

Whatever you were doing for the 33 days you were sober - keep doing that. Good luck

MIRecovery

My question is why would you knowingly put yourself in a drinking situation with someone you associate with drinking?

I am a firm believer in nurturing sobriety not challenging it. I was invited to my brother's house out of town to see my alcoholic brother who would also be in town. I said I would love to come as long there was no alcohol. My nonalcoholic brother said fine so I went. Not sure how my other alcoholic brother felt about not drinkin but I really don't care. I protect my sobriety like my life depends on it because it does.

Rar

The other day I was cleaning out a drawer and came across last year's calendar. Among other things on the calendar, I crossed off the days and months I didn't drink. After several months, I also recorded the day I relapsed with two drinks. A couple of days went by and I had two more, then 2 the next day, etc. It wasn't even 3 weeks before I was up to at least 5 or 6 every day, then more. In my mind I was thinking that I was able to moderate for a quite a while. My calendar tells me otherwise. I was back to the beginning.

thomas11

I applaud you for reflecting on how your life has impacted those who love you. Living life drunk not only hurts ourselves, but I don't think we realize how much it hurts those around us. I can't even begin to tell you how much my marriage improved once I changed my drunken/selfish ways.

RogerD

Don't beat yourself up too much. The past is the past. But start working on your sobriety. Don't think you can moderate. Focus on what you did in the past to maintain your sobriety for over a month and keep at it

Anna

I think that denial is a huge part of alcoholism. We truly are in denial about how much we are hurting our family members. I know I was, and it's not until we stop drinking that we can begin to process how much our selfish behaviour hurt our loved ones.

This experience with your wife tonight really resonated with you. Hold on to those words and feelings and use them to motivate you to move on with your recovery.

Reset

Thanks for 'fessing up, and I hope getting that off your chest helped.

If you get back on the right track this slip won't seem like much in the long run.

Maybe it'll help you but when temptation has arisen I've tried to remember the pros and cons of having "just one." And guess what? It always ends up Cons 20, Pros 0.

Keep at it!

melki

You've been in my thoughts over the weekend. I think it's important that you are honestly writing about everything here. Don't lose track of those feelings and don't brush them off. That first drink is not worth picking up no matter what.