opalblue

Sansa I won't leave. I honestly do want sobriety. I couldn't fight this one. I was exhausted. I have poured out the rest but who knows how I will feel tomorrow.
I am scared I have set of a massive trigger to drink even more tomorrow :-(((

opalblue

What so funny is that i uploaded my new avatar to give me incentive to run . They was me at my fittest. I felt so good

It's not too late. I can start again

SansaS

Yes you can definitely start again.

Badger07

Hello KNB. How are you? You did good pouring it out. Yes you got started but you did not finish. Stopping during the interim took some real strength I imagine.

OldTomato

Yes, you can start again knb. You slipped up, it happens. Now do something different this time. Get a new sponsor, someone you can speak to every day - attend more meetings if possible.

Badger07

Day 43.

Badger07

Of course you can start again. We are not going to give you a choice otherwise. You have come a long way. Get up and keep moving with us

Outonthetiles

knb, you're very brave to have stopped. you could have easily turned off the device for the night and kept drinking. It seems crazy, but I actually see all of this as a positive thing, not a slip up.

opalblue

Well done badger. I ain't leaving you. Had a slip but determined to get back on the wagon ASAP . Hopefully

Outonthetiles

Nice job, my Sober Brother!

opalblue

OOTT thank you :-(((
I feel so rotten. I appreciate the positivity

opalblue

My name is a Kim by the way

opalblue

So I actually drank three quarters of a bottle. Just had a cup of tea. Now drinking a cup of coffee. About to eat chicken wings ( not again! )

I am still anxious about tomorrow. have fed my addiction tonight . It might still be raging tomorrow. God sake. Life of an alki it's rubbish

OldTomato

Just get through the rest of the night for now knb.

Outonthetiles

So tip the rest and get it sorted.

Delizadee

Definitely keep posting but I want to point something out.
You're already leaving the door wide open to drinking tomorrow. Which means basically you've already decided it's ok to drink.
I want sobriety BUT..... I'm too exhausted to fight the av.
Ok. That right there is negation.
It does not compute in sobriety. You either drink or you do not.
Reframe it.
Good: I want sobriety. ....
.... and I'm willing to do whatever it takes.
.... and I'm going to try to find more ways to rest and cope.
.... and I'm going to keep fine tuning my recovery plan to strengthen my resolve.
.... and I'm going to learn from yesterdays mistakes and problems to reassess my tools today to work towards tomorrows solutions.

Bad: I want sobriety
....But I'm too exhausted.
.... but I'm an alcoholic.
..... but I'm too weak.
..... but I'm so stressed.
.... but I want to feel better now.
Etc etc.

All you're saying is your want to be sober but don't want to put in the work.
You want it in theory, but in practice you are already planning to drink!

Hun you are the only one who can arrest this mind frame rightnow. And correct it. But it takes just as much work as we put into our drinking careers. And right now it's going to feel like a ton of work.

But if you REALLY want sobriety. ....

Then you are going to have to dig DEEP inside you and recommit to it.

We can't find it for you.

But babe, we got your back. You can do this.

safeandsound

knb, you have been such an inspiration to me. I actually had the same sobriety date until I relapsed three weeks ago!

Please don't give up. You are important to our class.

amazingjoy

Yes...yes I DO THINK SO!

I know there has been debate here before about the etiquette of "day counting"...please allow me to very humbly share my thoughts on this...

I am admittedly very new to this and to the idea of counting days or a sobriety date. The idea of never drinking again puts a lot of pressure on me. It seems this approach absolutely does help some people, but the whole idea of "failure" any time I "slip" feels very pessimistic and rigid to me.

I am not trying to advocate moderation.

However, putting this in the context of 51 days without drinking (not 3 or 4) AND in the context that sobriety is a life-long journey (not a destination one ever "ends" at) , I think going back to day 1 sucks!

It strips away the last 51 days as if they were all wasted...as if to say you might as well just have spent those days drinking because now you are back to day 1. That logic is just so faulty to me very dangerous for me.

Consider this...what happens we we get to January 25th, 2017, your sobriety "date"?

What if you can look back and say my sobriety "journey" began 365 days ago. Before I committed to this journey, I used to drink alcoholically every day (or whatever your case is/was).

Since I began this journey, I have had 7 days where I really tried not to drink but but I ended up caving in. (That is using 51 days at a time as a metric = 365/51).

That would be a remarkable 358 days of sobriety!

To me, this is what should be celebrated...the "journey" not the "date". And if one can actually string 365 days in a row together without struggling, making a mistake even better!

I mean, my body should be jumping for joy going from drinking alcoholically for 365 days to anything less significant than that.

Again, I don't want to start any heated debates...I'm just saying for me, it helps to think this way.

Delizadee

I agree with you amazing joy. I'm less hung up on the days than I am about staying sober today.
But I also have enough restarts under my belt to KNOW without a doubt how it ends up. Every time. And how it makes me feel.
I went from I want to drink normally but I can't seem to stop with difficulty. To I want to stop and I did but I can't make it stick. To I can't drink but I want to. To I don't want to drink because I know better. It took a lot of being honest with myself and retraining my brain. A lot of work.
I don't think there's a right or wrong way of looking at things. In the end our goal here is sobriety and we do such a good job of supporting each other which is crucial because I don't know many sober alcoholics who've been able to do it on their own.
We make mistakes or bad decisions, but in the end it was still a choice we made. Absolutely we are stronger for every sober day we get. What counts next is what we decide to do about a relapse. Do we learn from it, or use it as an excuse to beat ourselves up and repeat the behavior we are trying to correct or improve?

amazingjoy

Oh I think this point is SO important.

It's not right to expect failure or "slips"...or make excuses but to be reflective, forgiving and try to be more of a cheerleaders providing hope and believe that we can...