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My shame

Old 03-15-2016, 07:21 PM
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My shame

Well as I seem to sleep at totally the wrong time- got to sleep at 7am yesterday and it's 2am now I thought I would come and bare my soul as to the reason I finally became sober. Firstly thank you to everyone on SR, it is your kindness , help and support that has got me to day 9.
So here goes:
On March 7th I went for lunch with a friend who is currently not drinking and I decided to try to complete my second day sober and drunk lemonade. We ate, had a chat, he kindly paid and he dropped me off near my local pub. This is where it started going wrong. I walked in and the barmaid said " strongbow John" to which I answered yes and that's where it all started. I drunk about 8'pints and this lady who prob had drunk the same amount asked me to sit next to her. We talked, held hands and rubbed each other's legs in drunken affection. I'm rather vulnerable so I rung my wife to explain I was being malled and she offered to pick me up but I refused. My shenanigans with this lady had made a couple of regulars quite hostile towards me due to the fact I have a long suffering wife.
Anyway the landlord came in and I asked him for help as this lady is apparently is known in his other pubs as a man-eater. He just laughed at me but then kindly gave her a lift home. I had drunk about 10 pints by now and the pub was closing- I had a key to my mates flat I had been looking after which was a 3 minute walk away but no clever dick here decided he was going to drive 2 miles home. Now this is a drive I've driven many times before drunk - in fact I'm slagged a lot for driving drunk by a lot of regulars behind my back, some who do it themselves but practically no one challenges me to my face. I suppose I had been doing this drive most nights for a year and I'd never come across a police car. Trust me the more you do it the more arrogant you get and keep doing it.
So I got in the car and started driving down the hill , I remember hitting a car coming up but thought he had prob hit my wing mirror so I carried on driving. I stopped at the lights and all of a sudden had a taxi driver banging on my window asking why I hadn't stopped and saying he can tell I was drunk. I opened my car window and he snatched the key out of the ignition. I got out and tried to get my key back to no avail. He said he was ringing the police and did so. Luckily he didn't use the words drunk or leaving the scene of an accident to the police so they told him he just needed to swap details. Someone I knew got out the taxi and moved my car- we were a spectacle for others by now.
He took my details and the person I knew gave me my car key and I got home safely. The next morning I had a text from the taxi driver asking when I sobered up to contact him. I sorted out the insurance and admitted liability. Checked my car and the wing was completely smashed.
That night is the reason I no longer drink- I should have been arrested for drink driving and put in a cell. I was so scared when he rung the police. That night I used all of my nine lives and will never again get in a car after consuming alcohol. It's the memory of that night and what could/ should have happened that keeps me going one day at a time.

Last edited by Jtmlk; 03-15-2016 at 07:26 PM. Reason: Spelling
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Old 03-15-2016, 07:35 PM
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Sounds like a very lucky outcome. I hope you will take it as a cue to stop drinking forever.
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Old 03-15-2016, 07:41 PM
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That does sound like your 9th life. If that's what it took and your on day 9, it must have been your "bottom". Congrats on day 9.
Is your wife happy about this?
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Old 03-15-2016, 07:44 PM
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You can have reasons, or you can have results, but you can't have both.
 
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Sometimes, this type of thing is exactly what we need to dig deep and get our lives turned around.

I certainly understand your embarrassment (I was arrested for drunk driving in Oct, handcuffed, the whole treatment). But as long as you take this and make it the impetus to move you forward in life, you can hold your head up and be proud of doing the right thing,

The most important thing is not that this happened; the most important thing is what you learn from it and what you make out of it.
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Old 03-15-2016, 07:46 PM
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Reality...what a concept!
 
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Good for you on 9 days sober! Stick with SR and keep reading...you will quickly discover what a gift your very close call really is. Hunker down, stay away from the pubs, and hug your wife - even if she is still angry and won't hug back. This is your chance!
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Old 03-15-2016, 07:49 PM
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Your AV is also a hypnotist. Don't let your AV make you forget or conjure up ideas that it wasn't so bad. Don't let your AV gloss over the past.
Be well.
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Old 03-15-2016, 08:11 PM
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I'm incredibly lucky that due to lots of complex reasons that I will save for another time my wife knows I can get myself in the odd situation but also knows If I had been invited to the woman's house I would Probably have a heart attack.
She just guides me on the phone when I ring her and helps me see sense, never angry at me.
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Old 03-15-2016, 08:16 PM
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Thank you for sharing your powerful story. It rings very familiar to me as I received a DWI in September 2004. Ten days before receiving this DWI, the same cop stopped me late one night and instead of giving me a DWI he gave me the option of leaving my car where it was and calling someone for a ride home. I was given a moment of grace there and didn't take it. Glad you are taking yours.
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Old 03-15-2016, 08:41 PM
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Sounds like drinking opens you up to a lot of danger jtmlk, and not just DUIs. I'm glad you've decided to quit

D
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Old 03-15-2016, 08:57 PM
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Hi JTmlk, congratulations on day 9.

I remember my husband got me out of a spot of bother a few times over the years until he stopped being my enabler and got on with his own life. That still didn't stop me from drinking.

Drinking can ruin our lives and others lives and though we know this in our heart of hearts, we can still be manipulated by our AV to think it's ok to have one more drink!

For me, I found I had to just stop. Then I learnt how to live without booze. Without my prop. And it gets easier but with all the rubbish we put in our bodies over the years, it's not a two minute fix.

SR helped me greatly. Just reading people's experiences and knowing someone understood what I was going through, helped me enormously.

Stay close to SR. It soon becomes second nature to not drink. Just like we look right, then left and right again before driving out of a junction. It's Automatic.
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Old 03-15-2016, 10:19 PM
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I hope this is your wake up call to get sober for good.
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Old 03-15-2016, 10:42 PM
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Thanks for sharing - but again, please don't dwell too much on it. If we want to get sober, and make a change, it helps to save our energy for making our plan, and sticking to it. If we let despair and shame run away with us, this can easily turn into self-pity (the 'poor me, poor me, pour me another drink' scenario). I use a couple of simple meditation techniques to reign my mind back in when I spot it trying to wander off to some dark abyss at an unhelpful time (such as 2 am when I need to be getting some rest). Am happy to share these with you if you're interested in giving them a go.

It's generally better to focus on staying sober one day at a time so that we can stop adding to the wreckage, and get our lives more manageable. Then, later on we can think about putting things right ( for example, in AA this is done through inventory making - looking at Harms we've done to others; Our Resentments and Fear ; and our Sex (and relationship) conduct, which we then use to work out what amends we owe). And we're able to do this because we've developed our sober tool-kit by then if we've been working your plan on a daily basis.

Our rock 'bottoms' are never pleasant to look at (haha). The good news is that from now on it doesn't have to be as bad - or get any worse.
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Old 03-16-2016, 04:37 AM
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Talk about lucky huh I can see why this is your turning point I almost burned my house down with me comatose inside

il never get over that properly I forgave myself but again how lucky was we both

Your doing excellent on day 9 stay in regular contact here at SR it really helps having support and somewhere you can reach out

Not sure if you have heard of Brené Brown ? she writes excellent books

https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brow...me?language=en
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Old 03-16-2016, 04:54 AM
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Stay strong
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