SoberFreckles

I recently went on holiday and I planned to drink in advance despite being sober for a year.

I did drink on holiday. I drank every single evening. And I stopped the second I got on the plane home two weeks ago and haven't had any since.
Those are the facts, but I don't really know what to make of them.
I enjoyed drinking. A lot. I enjoyed being drunk. I enjoyed letting go of everything, all those emotions kept tightly locked inside despite my best efforts sober. I liked being in the drunken moment.

But no shame however each morning after. No sense I had done anything wrong. Maybe I knew it was finite? In fact, I don't feel guilty or ashamed at all for drinking. It wasn't a lapse. It was completely wilful.

However, now I am home, I don't think for one second I should carry on drinking. And as I said, i haven't touched it since I got back. Although the old patterns caused no danger during my holiday, I know long term my life is better without alcohol. But I don't feel like anything momentous happened.

Maybe I am in denial? Or just an idiot. Trying to process....

Fly N Buy

Don't know your background, friend. The cycle for me was tried in various forms over many years. The first round of drinking starts the insidious insanity because I am one of the 10% of people who drank that progressed into alcoholism.

If life is better not drinking, than playing russian roulette with a binge here and there may be life threatening. Many stories of what you describe with people starting a "holiday" in 2009 and it's still going........

I am thankful the debate for me is over.

ScottFromWI

I'd strongly suggest that might be the case. The last post you made here was this one

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...f-so-much.html

Do you think perhaps you were already setting yourself up to drink way back then? Since you didn't post at all between then and now it's hard to know what you were doing ( or not doing ) for your recovery that led up to the week long binge. And make no mistake..it was a binge, even if you don't feel like it was significant. Drinking until you are drunk every night for a week is well outside the realm of "normal" drinking, even for someone that is not an alcoholic.

What exactly is your goal? That's a rhetorical question...but an important one to answer for yourself.

Nonsensical

Here is a question I had to ask myself:

Why was drinking so important I was willing to take the risk of something horrible happening?

FreeOwl

Seems to me you are still not ready to devote yourself to living life as fully as possible and really digging in to being as happy and free as you can.

I'm glad nothing awful came of your holiday binge, but what could still come of it if you allow it could be a dark and downward spiral.

I hope not.

Anna

I think it's sad that you had to get drunk every night on your vacation in order to enjoy yourself. And, yes, I think you are in denial.

SoberFreckles

I don't really know what I want from this thread.
It is as if I feel like I should be angry with myself, but I can't be for some reason, and I am hoping that someone can challenge me and metaphorically slap me in the face. Maybe yell a bit.
Usually, I am very talented at telling myself I have messed up, but with, this I am struggling.

tomsteve

youre not an idiot!

this struck me:
I enjoyed letting go of everything, all those emotions kept tightly locked inside despite my best efforts sober.

a major reason i drank was to try and get rid of what was rolling around in my head. the insanity was getting drunk not working and keep doing it again expecting different results.

then i got sober a d faced all that crap rattling around in my melon-learned causes and conditions, how to change it. learned what makes me tick.
i dont have to keep whats in my head locked up anymore. im allowed to have emotions and feelings.
i dont have that crap rattling around up there any more.

imo, i think the problem is denial about being an alcoholic. drinking to get rid of feelings/emotions,etc is one of many symptoms.

ScottFromWI

I'm not sure that you are going to get "yelled" at here, that's not what recovery is all about. I think it is pretty obvious that you aren't doing much towards your recovery though...obviously if you felt no qualms about going on a weeklong binge and have no problem with it afterwards you aren't serious about sobriety - at least looking in from the outside.

I can tell you one thing for sure though - no one is going to tell you that what you did was OK. Or give you a pass to do it again.

tomsteve

there was probably more danger than youre seeing.
danger to those around you.
did you do anything that year you were sober other than not drink? did ya do any work on you? take a look inside?

SoberFreckles

I have done a lot of work on being sober over the year. Therapy, reading, daily visits to this and other sites.
But once I had decided the best thing to do on this holiday was drink, I obviously kept it to myself as I didn't want anyone to talk me out of it. I don't know why.
I knew I was going to do it for weeks.
I keep thinking I am tackling the denial, but that is frankly laughable. I can't seem to break through.

Soberwolf

Don't beat yourself up but of course this is a reminder why were sober SF my suggestion is back to basics & keeping it simple

I don't drink safely or responsibly I can't so I'm now in recovery not torturing myself and learning new tools to combat my alcoholism when I hear that AV whispering

Fly N Buy

SF - do you believe you are an alcoholic?

OpenTuning

Hi SoberFreckles,

I just went through your old posts to try and catch up. Your very first post was at 6 months back in April saying you were struggling with acceptance and feared you would start drinking again. You posted in July that you were going to be going on this holiday and were seriously considering drinking on the holiday. I don't know what happened in those first 6 months, or what led you to stop drinking, but I found that striking.

Just from what I picked up from your posts, I think the only explanation for why you'd go on a week long binge, planned months in advance, just after reaching a year sober, and not feel regrets or guilt about it, is that you don't now, and possibly never have, truly committed yourself 100% to sobriety. Which is a very strange thing to write about someone who has just gone a year without drinking, but that's how it comes across.

So I guess the next step for you is to try and remind yourself why you stopped in the first place. What was your life like then that made you make such a big change. Because I can guarantee you will end up back there again if you continue to keep binge drinking on the table as an acceptable, enjoyable thing to do. As sure as night follows day.

SoberFreckles

Do you know, deep down, despite the mass of evidence to the contrary, and my total willingness to say that I am an alcoholic out loud to all and sundry, I don't think I believe I am?

Like I'm talking the talk, but too afraid to walk the walk.

zeppodog

I've been through the long periods of sobriety and even though I've proved over and over again that I can't drink in moderation after some time passes I'll drink again and regret it again when I over do it, why does anyone make themselves sick? Wish I new the answer.

lessgravity

Reading this thread and looking back on your previous posts is scary to me. Not that I know you well enough to be scared for you. More that I can see the ways in which alcoholism reaps it's horrible ends - simple, irrational denial.

Does someone who isn't an alcoholic need to post on this site? I really doubt it. The fear and shame and desire to get beyond your addiction was evident in previous posts.

That you can be so lackadaisical in what was obviously a hardcore relapse/binge week speaks to the real insidiousness of this disease.

It scares me, because I know the beast is in me too.

Best of luck, let us know how you do...

sva777

You need to figure out what you want, I know because I had a hard time figuring out what I wanted too.

Part of me always knew I should avoid alcohol at all costs because it was harming myself in so many ways. Part of me did not want to avoid alcohol because I liked how it numbed my senses and gave me an escape.

Eventually I came to a crossroads which basically were keep drinking and die or quit and live. Even after that I still had a hard time accepting that I had to quit, I know that would seem crazy to any normal person.

Now almost a year sober I know I made the correct choice as life is worth living sober and I do not want to go back my old sick mind and body.

Make the right choice, because ONLY you can do that.

fantail

I don't think "denial" is the correct word right now. You haven't had any negative consequences, so there's nothing for you to be minimizing right now.

Instead it sounds like failing to fully recognize the danger of the situation.

We have addict brains, which are basically corrupt accountants trying to cook the books so that it looks like drinking or using is a net positive. We all understand this when we talk about "hitting rock bottom". A rational assessment wouldn't need absolute destruction to justify cutting out a harmful behavior.

That's why "successful" relapses are so detrimental. It gives your addict brain evidence to point to when it says drinking isn't so bad. Which means maybe around the holidays, you think "I was able to do it just for vacation and then shut it off; so I'll just drink for Christmas and New Years and then back on the wagon."

This is what happened to me. I had eight months sober in 2013. Then I drank at a wedding that August. I had a great time, went home and didn't repeat it. So in October I went to a day long music festival and at the end of the event I had 2 very light beers. Also no repercussions and I stopped again the next day for another month or so.

I spent the next year and a half going back and forth, but over time the sober periods got shorter, the drinking periods more intense, until they got to a place way worse than even before I'd gotten sober the first time. It was like reliving my whole progression with alcohol over again, but in a tenth of the time. And the end was ten times scarier than the first time.

That's what you need to watch out for. I don't know your history, but I can hear in this thread that you're already talking about sobriety as a sort of vague, theoretical positive ("I know long term my life is better without alcohol"). For me it was the same... I had to relearn all over again that I couldn't control my drinking. Because for a very brief time, it kind of looked like I could.

zeppodog

I had to accept that if I kept drinking It would kill me but I sure have had to fight the urge to drink, don't know if it's the holidays or what, keep telling and reminding myself how sick I've made myself and don't want to go there again.