164 Days Today- And Almost Threw It Away
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Join Date: Nov 2019
Posts: 15
164 Days Today- And Almost Threw It Away
I came so close to rationalizing a relapse. I had a weekend golf trip planned with my friends, away from my wife and children. I’ve been coasting for over five months but for the week leading up to the trip all I could think about was “I’ll be away from my family they won’t see me drunk, I can have a good time with the guys for a couple days and nobody is impacted, why not make an exception?” Then that got me thinking “well if I’m going to plan a relapse a week from now why not plan a couple happy hours this week with some friends I haven’t gone out with for a while?”
I literally had to talk out loud to myself that just because my family won’t see me drunk doesn’t mean my actions don’t have consequences for them. A DUI in a different state would have consequences, the impact on my health from drinking a fifth a day on the trip could have consequences. The coming home having no sober time under my belt and rationalizing a couple more weeks or months before I stop again would have consequences.
I’ve always viewed “one day at a time” as a useless cliche until now. Once I realized I didn’t have to make a decision a week out before my trip whether I would drink or not on the trip but instead just made the decision not to drink NOW made it so easy. Then I made that same decision each day on the trip.
And BTW - I had a really fun, sober trip!
I literally had to talk out loud to myself that just because my family won’t see me drunk doesn’t mean my actions don’t have consequences for them. A DUI in a different state would have consequences, the impact on my health from drinking a fifth a day on the trip could have consequences. The coming home having no sober time under my belt and rationalizing a couple more weeks or months before I stop again would have consequences.
I’ve always viewed “one day at a time” as a useless cliche until now. Once I realized I didn’t have to make a decision a week out before my trip whether I would drink or not on the trip but instead just made the decision not to drink NOW made it so easy. Then I made that same decision each day on the trip.
And BTW - I had a really fun, sober trip!
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Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: UK
Posts: 732
Brilliant! I live alone and I could drink whenever I want to with nobody knowing (at first) but it's just not the point. I'm not drinking for loads of other reasons apart from other people knowing. Glad you had a great trip!
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Join Date: Oct 2019
Posts: 259
Thank you for sharing this experience and others can learn from it. For me, the impprtant insight is that drinking likely wouldnt be contained to a single time but probably could drag on for months. Its better to just not start.
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Join Date: Apr 2018
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 324
I know this may seem mad, or at the very least unconventional, but I treat my alcoholic voice (AV) as a demonic spirit. My alcoholic years have been hellish - hangovers, anxiety, shame, guilt, self-recrimination, health issues, financial woes, the loss of friends, etc are all the result of alcoholism.
The AV is like an alluring temptress, a Siren, trying to lead us down the road to perdition with promises of no-strings-attached pleasure. It's evil. Pure evil.
The AV is like an alluring temptress, a Siren, trying to lead us down the road to perdition with promises of no-strings-attached pleasure. It's evil. Pure evil.
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