LifeChanges

Feeling so bad, drank more than usual yesterday. I understand this is a progressive disease and I'm scared.
My plan is to dump what's left and stay close to the boards today. So tired of this. Disgusted with myself. Again

D122y

Life,

Imo...you are still well addicted. Getting through the physical takes about a week. Then the mental addiction wears you down. That lasts...forever.

That is why folks relapse after years of sobriety. Some folks have a switch they can turn off and stop drinking forever. Others...relapse over and over.

On the bright side....if you make it 30 days...or 60 days...that is a long time clean. The body heals ups a bit.

The down side is the kindling and PAWS.

I needed a fairly terrible physical breakdown to scare me into stopping.

I had panic attacks that seemed to be increasing in frequency and severity.

The final straw was on my way home from work w a loud mouth coworker in the car.

He, of course, told everyone at work what happened.

Once I quit, I haven't had any severe attacks. Minor ones, that last maybe 2 seconds, but even they are fading.

So, I needed a scare...otherwise, I would still be a drunk.

It feels amazing being clean. It is worth it.

Thanks.

Dee74

I had to accept that I really wasn't doing enough to change.

I was doing a lot of thinking, and some reading and a lot of day dreaming.

I thought all that was action but the reality was I was still picking up and drinking.

I was 'trying not to drink' but I kept falling back into old patterns, old places and old friendships...

What does your recovery plan look like LC - have you any ideas on how you are going to stay sober?

D

PhoenixJ

The only way to stop- is do it. See a doctor- the physical w/d can be scary, med. supervision is a must. PJ

Carpathia

"If I want this so bad, why can't I stop"

Answer: you haven't admitted to yourself you are powerless over alcohol, that's why.

There is one who has all power, may you find that power before it's too late for you.

doggonecarl

Your user name is LifeChanges. But are you making the changes you need for a sober life? You can want sobriety, but you have to do the things it takes to attain it. Scary things for most of us, hard and difficult things.

Drinking is easy; recovery is hard. Hard, but achievable.

Nonsensical

Not trying to be a buzz kill, but I dismiss your premise.

You CAN stop. You just haven't yet.

Carl is right. Drinking is easy. Even NOT drinking is easy. Being Happy about not drinking - that's the journey.

Best of Luck on Your Journey.

FreeOwl

Because wanting doesn't work.

Choosing and acting does.

CHOOSE sobriety.

ACT in support of that choice.

It takes action and intention for a new direction to change anything.

If you want in one hand, and pee in the other..... one fills up first.

Think about your patterns, look honestly at what your choices and actions have been. Then make new ones.

MLD51

Yes - action. If one action doesn't work, try another. Keep trying until you find actions that work for you. I wanted to quit for a long time, but until I took real, solid action, and kept taking action EVERY DAY, I failed over and over again. For me, action meant treatment, AA, counseling, and changing where I went, what I did, who I hung out with. Sounds like a lot, I know, but for me, that's what it took. To this day, I work at it. I take care of myself physically (try to eat right, get enough sleep, exercise). I take care of myself mentally (meditation, reading the BB, coming here to read and try to help others, going to AA meetings).

When you really get sick and tired of being sick and tired, I hope you can take the necessary actions to quit and start to get better.

january161992

i went to meetings for a while and drank until i had enough pain to become willing to follow direction

LifeChanges

Thanks all. I've been to 4-5 meetings a week and I absolutely love them. Feel guilty for going and drinking. I guess part of me felt like going would get me closer to stopping.
I can do this, I have to. Thank you SR

LadyBlue0527

Great responses in this thread!

The only thing that finally worked for me was to remove the choice entirely. The commitment that, no matter how I felt or how I thought, that there would never be an excuse or reason to drink. Then, to plan on what I was going to do to support that mindframe when the time came. That, and consistent, ongoing daily activities that kept me in the right mindset for wanting sobriety.

To "deal with it when the time comes" is the worst strategy ever. Get on it, plan now. You CAN do this and the more you have a plan ahead of time the better off you'll be.

What is your plan?

Merigold

I'm in a similar place. I can do a day, then I feel good...and I **** it up.

I feel so horrible today. I was so proud of myself last night. I came to work.....I hate my job, I hate my boss....I use that as an excuse I guess.

I'm choosing not to drink tonight...despite having screwed up during lunch.

I know it's hard.

Ruby2

LifeChanges, You can quit. Needing and wanting are different than doing. If you're serious, I'd suggest taking a bath in AA and also coming on here and posting and reading. When I first quit, I was on SR all the time. Bump up your participation - in AA, on SR. Meet people for coffee, volunteer for service work. Anything to get out of yourself.

PurpleKnight

You can do this LifeChanges, it can be done!!

Dee74

Have you thought about a recovery plan Life Changes?

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...ery-plans.html
D

EndGameNYC

When you know that drinking is not good for you, that it wrecks your health, distorts your thinking and the way you respond to your feelings, puts you and other people in dangerou, causes a great deal of trouble for everyone involved, that the consequences make you miserable, that your mental health is also ruined, then picking up the first drink is a willful act. Unless you're a masochist or you don't care about hurting yourself and other people. You know that drinking is the worst thing that you can do, yet you do it anyway. You're going against logic and reason, and disregarding that part of your thinking that is yet uncontaminated by fantasy. Mostly allowing yourself to indulge in your delusions. You're trampling over your better instincts and your better interests. That's what I call willful. And premeditated, no matter how much we might claim that we were on "autopilot" when we did it. Or that the AV made me do it.

There are, of course, layers to all of this, and different levels of explanation. My experience when I relapsed was that I just didn't care anymore. I don't mean "Hmm, drinking is bad for me, but I like it so much that I don't care about the consequences. Yay me! Now I can really drink!" I mean I didn't care whether I lived or died. I didn't care that I was hurting other people. There was no joy in my relapse, only resignation and despair. I didn't care that I was in the process of destroying everything good in my life. By making the decision to drink, I agreed to sink as low as is humanly possible although, if I drink again, I know I can go lower. I agreed to put at risk the health, well-being and the lives of myself and of other people. To be everything I hated in myself. And in others. I agreed to pretend that I believed in my own delusions. I agreed to look away from all the destruction that came with my drinking. Choice or not, this is the deal we make when pick up that first drink.

Even the law insists, and very harshly, that we are all responsible for what we do when we're drinking. What matters is what we do while we're drinking; not how or why it starts.

freshstart57

Getting closer to stopping isn't stopping. Of all the times available to you to quit drinking, this one right now is the best. Are you ready to do this thing? You can quit. Honest. Reach out and grab hold, and never let go.

FreedomCA

I felt the same way as you not too long ago. I wanted so badly to stop but just couldn't. Looking back, I had not done ANYTHING to help me stop. It was when I started reading Living Sober and Daily Reflections that I finally got past my day 1 and beyond. Looking back, that is all it really took. I didn't even need to go to a meeting. My point: doing nothing most likely will not help break the addiction but doing just something (in my case reading) was all it took to get me over the hump.

Delilah1

You can stop, it took me a while to finally get it right, but I am so glad I did. Life is still tough at times, and now I have to handle whatever is in front of me without alcohol, which means I can't avoid issues and hope they will go away.

There are lots of great threads on this site, two that you should definitely join are the 24 hour thread, and the December 2016 class.

You can do this, and I promise it is worth it!!!