Stable

Have been struggling to get sober. I have now nearly made it 24 hours.

I have been vomitting a lot recently. Also been drunk dialing and regretting it the next day.

i had a productive weekend and did a lot of house work. Work brought my mood down and triggered me to drink yesterday.

i have suffered from alcohol problems since my late teenage years.

Now as a Middle Ages man I don’t have a lot to show for it and have missed out a lot in life. Even going out for a walk can trigger me just by seeing happy young attractive couples or looking at beautiful houses with the knowledge I am stuck in a Council flat.

When I give up it goes around in a cycle:

1. First couple of days/ first week anxiety, Deppression and physical withdrawals.

2. Weeks 2-4, starting to feel really good, saving money and improving my all around functioning.

3. Months 2 onwards starting to have a lot of thoughts especially of wanting to buy expensive single malt bottles of whiskey and or other spirits.

4. Months 3 onwards, get exposed to stress and frustration combined with the mental obsession to drink.

5. Some point after month 3 relapse. Big binge leading to impulsive behaviour followed by anxiety and Deppression.

My record this year is 19 days sober. As I know how bade stage 5 of the above is I am afraid of long periods of sobriety because the higher I build myself up when I’m sober the bigger and more devastating the fall.

I really struggle with forming a recovery plan also I have next to no ability to discipline myself which makes following a recovery plan very difficult.

All I can do is not give up and to keep trying!

Hodd

The drink’s not helping this mindset, is it? Why is it so scary to be sober for a long time? If you stayed sober for longer, preferably permanently, your mood would definitely improve.

Please keep on trying, but you can see things need to change. What does your doc say?

AlbaSober

Sounds like you need some help and support around you. Make Sober Recovery something you visit before cravings hit. What about a support group or AA?

Tell us more about yourself Stable, where are you from and what's you hobbies?

I can certainly relate to what you say about feeling left behind financially. I reckon I've spent about £80,000 on booze in the last 20 years compounded by paying off Credit Card and loan debt it's certainly 6 figures worth of poison.

But the good thing about being middle-aged ( I'm the same btw ) is we can make sure the 2nd half is just as long, via healthier choices and financial gains that derive out of sobriety.

LumenandNyx

Hi,

I disagree. What you CAN do is stop swallowing alcohol.

Here's your new recovery plan. Ready?
Don't drink.

That's it.

No matter what you do - just don't do THAT.
Everything else will fall into place.

And the longer you stay sober - the more your addict voice is going to tempt you to pick up a drink. Turn off that voice. Don't listen to it. Go for a run. Cook something. Clean your bathroom. Watch TV. Write a letter to your addict self. Just don't drink. It's that easy - and that hard.

Dee74

Some good advice here Stable.

If you fall for the AV's ludicrous proposition - that the longer you stay sober the harder the fall - you're not going to be sober for very long.

Maybe it's not about trying harder, but building a brand new recovery plan - I think you need something like AA or some other meeting based group - or maybe rehab if you can swing it.

The lone wolf thing is just not working for you man.

Sober45

You understand your drinking cycle and that’s a really good start to achieving the sobriety you’re looking for. I think Lumen makes a really good point too In that we can overthink things. When it comes down It, quitting and staying quit is pretty simple. I would add that we also need to TRUST and BELIEVE that life WILL get better as long as we stay sober. I think that belief is a big part of what keeps me going. Do you believe that for yourself, Stable?

least

I stopped drinking, and stayed sober, when I finally truly wanted to be sober more than I wanted to drink.

brighterday1234

Sobriety is a way of life that is facilitated by recovering from alcoholism through working a program of recovery. This is needed to stay stopped in my experience.

Obladi

You've just defined your self by what you have done, by your patterns.

That's not you, Stable. You are the person who performs those actions and follows those patterns. You are also the person who can make the decision that you don't do that any more. You are the person who wants to break out of this hell. You are the person who can change the verb tense to "I used to do these things."

In my experience, there were reasons that I was following those patterns. Deep-seated childhood reasons. I always "knew" this, but I wasn't able to deal with it effectively because my vision was so clouded that I couldn't see how it was playing out in my daily life - how it was leading me back to the bottle for seemingly no good reason at all. Recognizing what was happening in my brain that had previously been obscured from my consciousness made a tremendous difference for me. Therapy helped. A lot.

Still, even after I made that breakthrough, I wound up drinking because there were thought patterns I wasn't noticing. It felt to me like I started up drinking again for no reason whatsoever. That turned out not to be the case. What ultimately worked for me was to literally throw my entire self into sobriety. 8 weeks in rehab followed by 3 months in a sober living home. AA every single day (sometimes several times/day) for 7 months and counting. Meditating, writing gratitude lists, affirming to myself that I am who I am and that's ok.

Finally, and critically, I decided to box up that childhood stuff and put it on a shelf way in the back of the closet. Not to forget it, but to say "I can't handle dealing with that stuff right now and that's ok. It can't hurt me anymore, so I can come back to it later when I am much stronger."

I'm really happy for Lumen and others whose answer was simply, "Don't drink, even if your arse is falling off." That was not the sum of it for me, but in the end it did turn out to be the keystone to everything else that followed. It's hard work, but it's so worth it.

O

Dee74

Hows it going Stable?

D

Anna

I'll make a suggestion, Stable.

In month two, when you start thinking of buying expensive alcohol, find a way to do something nice for yourself. Start a new exercise program, call a friend, go out for a specialty coffee - something that helps you to feel good.

And, in month three, when you are feeling stress and frustration, go for a long walk every day, listen to your favourite music, start meditating, read a good book that you can get caught up in. In other words, take action in months 2 and 3 so that you don't have the relapse binge. Because if you don't change something, it will keep happening just as you said.

Hodd

I reckon (guess) that anyone who’s quit for good has changed at least one other aspect of their life too. People do activities whilst they drink whether it be watching TV, surf the internet or go to the pub. If a 4-hour-a-day TV-watching heavy drinker stopped drinking but still watched four hours of TV a day, that’d be incredibly tough. I’d say impossible. If that person watched one hour of TV and took up a hobby that doesn’t involve drinking (anything - sport, model making, origami, a class) it’d take them away from alcohol and divert their mind to other things.

Sorry, Stable, I sound like I’m on your case, but I changed so many things and am so glad I did. You haven’t changed anything, have you? You’re clearly not enjoying your job, and as it’s getting you stressed (and drinking), it’s literally killing you. Can you not do something to change what gets you stressed at work? Ask to have a chat with someone to suggest how things could be done differently. And if you’ve got time to drink, you’ve got plenty of time to take up a hobby that doesn’t involve drinking,

It’s not right. You’re working, getting stressed and drinking. You’re not daft, far from it, so life can be way better if you make just a few changes.

ImNotThatGuy

Hi Stable. Your pattern sounds somewhat like mine, though I have managed to string together entire years (even a multi-year stretch once) of sobriety here and there. It's incredibly frustrating to find myself back in the same horrible spot again.

Just wanted to say that LumenandNyx's advice makes a lot of sense to me at this moment. Maybe it will for you too.

That's the only plan that ever worked for me.