MarkstheSpot

I don’t believe in falling off the wagon. You jump off or you’re pushed. After all, ‘the wagon’ refers to a cart used to transport convicted prisoners to the gallows. Tradition dictated that prisoners would be allowed to stop off at the tavern for a final drink – thereby getting ‘off the wagon’ – before getting ‘back on the wagon’ afterwards and being transported to the scaffold.

By that measure you can’t really ‘fall’ off the wagon. You step off it. The falling comes later. Boom tish!

Any road up, after an intermittently brilliant 2023, I stepped off the wagon over Christmas and New Year and finally got back on about nine days ago, having done quite a bit of falling in the meantime. Not much to celebrate, then, apart from the fact that the binmen have just been, and with them goes the last of my empties. Hurrah for that.

A glance at my join date shows that I’ve been here before, to say the least. My issue is that I’m committed to sobriety when the memory is still fresh, as it is now. And I can keep it up for months. But I forget. I get lazy. I let my AV in.

I know the sensible thing is to work on my sobriety every day by coming here, reading recovery literature and so on (my Plan -- I've got a plan! -- says to do just that). But occasionally that feels like trying to forget an ex by looking at her photographs. Sometimes it’s even downright triggering – all that talk of how terrible drink is makes me thirsty.

That’s it. I have nothing else to say. Thank you for reading.

biminiblue

Well, sure. It's always a decision when someone takes a drink.

F Scott Fitzgerald tried to put a spin on it, but the end result is always the same, "First the man takes a drink. Then the drink takes a drink. Then the drink takes the man."


Luckily for you you're still on this side of the grass so it's still possible to change.

fishkiller

The AV is a powerful beast.
Until we refuse to listen. Then it's a weak little wimp. Yet always able to return to its powerful beastly form if we let it.
As you know all it takes is to have a conversation with it and it's power grows.

Next thing you know it's pulling our strings and we are just hanging by the threads.

Nah I don't drink.
These are the words my AV hears whenever it pops up. Nothing more.

You seem to have an idea where your plan needs work. Work it.

Steely

Welcome back Mark.

Thanks for history of the wagon. Best to stay aboard and keep travelling, hey?

I can remember, as a child, my grandmother talking about the "green cart". Apparently, according to her) it was a cart used to 'cart' away the 'insane'.

It's a great feeling when the last of the empties are finally gone.

I hope you continue to post.

Dee74

Welcome back Marks

When I quit, everything was a trigger - and that’s not a glib response, I ended up an all day drinker, so my life was strewn with triggers, old memories associations old habits and rationalisations to start drinking again.

The only way I could get through that was by never taking the first drink, with the help and support I found here.
If other peoples experiences trigger you you can always stick to your own threads for a while?

Our inner addict will use anything it can to set us off drinking again.
The most important thing I ever learned was I didn’t have to do what it told me to do

D

Oglsby

I think it shows strength that you are posting instead on continuing drinking. What do you think it would take to make it, perhaps a year if you can go many months?

VikingGF

I remember those days- SR was a trigger for me because all this talk about getting sober made me realize that I had to work on getting sober and that reminded me of missing drinking and around and around I went. Oh, it was terrible. Then a light clicked on and I realized that drinking brought me none of the things it promised- in fact, it took everything I wanted or needed away from me like a mean bully. I stopped seeing the "not drinking" as the goal and accepted the "living sober" as the prize. I was losing nothing, I was gaining everything. I stopped coming off the wagon. I forgot there even was a wagon, wagon-rider just became who I was and how I lived. It takes a pretty large shift in how you perceive drinking, MarkstheSpot, no one can sustain deprivation forever. But once you can realize that alcohol has nothing to offer, only the eventual loss of everything you hold dear, there is no deprivation, no need to wonder when you'll drink again. Sure, the plan is to not drink, but that's just the first step. Stick around here for the rest, take a glance at my join date and my sober date and know that anything is possible.

joe801

I would tend to just say a (mental) relapse, is a (physical) relapse.

And a complete mental relapse will usually lead to a physical relapse by the actual act of drinking. I found out that if I keep alcohol out of my body it doesn't affect my mind. A craving or a thought can be blotted out.

That's the key and why that not picking up the first drink will always work if followed.

MarkstheSpot

Thanks for thoughts, all. Have a good weekend.

Dee74

You too Marks - hope the thread was helpful.

D

novips

I could not stay clean and sober until I fully committed to the recovery program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I have come to conclude that there is a type of alcoholic for whom, like me, there is no other solution but AA. Obviously, I have no way of knowing whether you are that type, but I encourage you to keep an open mind about it. Feel free to PM me if you want to chat more about that.

Scott2295

Forgetting the negative consequences of drinking actually has a name. Fading affect bias. From Wikipedia: ”The fading affect bias, more commonly known as FAB, is a psychological phenomenon in which memories associated with negative emotions tend to be forgotten more quickly than those associated with positive emotions.” Never forgetting what would happen if I take that first drink has been very important in my sobriety for 2 plus years. If I need a refresher I look back on my journal and previous SR posts to remind me. William Porters Alcohol Expained books do a great job of explaining it.

ThatWasTheOldMe

No matter what happens in the world and/or your life, a drinking binge will make the good bad, the bad ugly, and the ugly unbearable.

And for me, ingesting any amount of alcohol always leads to a binge.

Steely

Best then to maintain Postive Effect Bias PEB

Positive memories.

Unbiased.

MarkstheSpot

Just over two weeks since I last had a drink and I'm thinking about something a guy once told me: 'You need sunglasses in sobriety, Mark, the clarity can blind you.'

Didn't really know what he mean at the time, but I've learned in the years since, and sure enough right now my brain is lit up like an airport.

It's almost dare I say trippy.

fishkiller

Good work on 2 Weeks!

Always remember the fog is just a drink away.

Free2bme888

Mark,

glad you are here, we support you.

Ive only been sober almost 2.5 years. My start date is 2018.

i chose to drink again, because I confused abstinence with cure.

HUGE mistake on my part.

want to be sober. WANT to be. You don’t HAVE to be.

I don’t WANT to drink, as opposed to I SHOULDNT or CANT

Coming to SR, I look at my old posts to help remind me.

18 days was SO HARD .

now it flys by like a north wind.

Dont let those romantic thoughts of drinking stay for tea.

Squash them.

You are in control. Love yourself.

We believe in you. Do you?

Steely

Wear cool sunglasses Marks. 😎

trachemys

With you all the way, Mark. Since 2013, I've stepped off way too many times. Been over a year sober twice. I stepped off over the holidays. But, I'm sober again. Went to the doctor today to get professional help. Putting mores arrows in the quiver.

MarkstheSpot

Thank you, Trach, Steely, Free, Fish.