Benjamin33

Me= 38 days sober with nothing to drink. Yesterday, I had three beers with lunch. Stopped at three and went home. Don't plan on drinking again anytime soon. Am I in trouble? Is that a true "relapse?" I didn't get drunk, but I did feel it. If I can stop, am I a "real" alcoholic like book describes or am I just deluding myself?

NewBeginning010

Based on your first post here I would be very concerned. Please stay with us during your recovery.

NB

Benjamin33

Thanks for you input. I don't plan on leaving this place nor do I plan to stop going to AA meetings. Matter of fact, I am going to go to one at noon. I am not going to share about my three beers yesterday at the meeting. I know that most, if not all, would consider my three beers yesterday a relapse, but I do not. I am not going to drink today or tomorrow and hopefully for another month or so. We will see. Maybe this is just the insanity that is making me feel this way, I don't know. I realize that I was playing with fire yesterday, but for some reason I wanted to prove that I could drink a few and get up and leave.

Thanks again for the input.

Rowan

Hi Benjamin,

I am an alcoholic. If I were to go back to drinking, I might be able to stop at three. Maybe not. But, given time, I would be right back where I started. Alcoholism is a disease which can be arrested, but not cured. If you are an alcoholic like me, abstinence is the best (and only IMO) treatment. If I start thinking I can start drinking like other folk (who are not alkies) then I am in trouble.

Benjamin33

You are very kind to offer your words and advice. I appreciate it. I am aware of AA's position on "that first drink." I think I might be going through the insanity of still holding on to the proposition that I may one day be able to drink like "normal" people. But, contrary to what many people think, there are those that have been reportedly able to resume controlled drinking after serious problems with alcohol, albeit a very small percentage. My thing is that I think that I might have to find this out the hard way before I can totally surrender to the fact that I can't drink successfully. Trust me when I say that I NEVER want to go through withdrawal again, but the way that the folks at aa have been telling me is that If I have a couple of drinks, the next thing you know I will be in the hospital, jail or dead. I'm still not completely believing this anymore. Thanks again for your feedback.

smacked

I responded to your other thread as well, but I'll say this here..

I know I could go out and have 3 drinks, and stop.

I could probably do that a dozen times.. and stop. And I would think about it, a lot.. I would think about when I "could" go and have another 3.. (normal drinkers do NOT think like this, or have to "control" their drinking, btw). Even if I never drank more than three, I know I'd want to.. maybe not the first time.. maybe not the 10th, but at what point might I find myself in the ER again after downing a 5th of vodka surprising everyone that I could even breathe on my own much less have a heartbeat? I never want to find that out, and luckily I'll never have to!

Living without the brain damage and obsession about 'the next drink.. the next time' is just much better for me.. I have too much other stuff to live for!!

Benjamin33

How long have you been sober and have you relapsed before? And I thank you for responding to my thread.

smacked

A little over nine months, and .. I really don't think about the term relapse.. to me, if I "relapse" that means I drank, and I sure as hell wouldn't consider myself sober for 9 months if I hadn't been the entire time It's been 9 months since my last drink/drug, prior to that I 'quit' (ha), started, quit, started.. until I finally let it go, and realized that I could and would never drink or use again, and I haven't. No plans for it in the near future either It's actually very much a relief not to even have to think about it anymore!!!

I hope you find your way..

keithj

Then stop believing the opinions of people in AA who do you a dis-service by giving it. Instead, read what AA's Big Book says about it. "If anyone questions whether he has entered this dangerous area, let him try leaving liquor alone for one year." You didn't make it 39 days, my friend. Fact.

You will hear 3 things in the rooms of AA. One is someone's opinion, and it may or may not be worth a darn. Two is experience, which might be worth listening to if they are alcoholic like you and have recovered. And three is stuff out of the book, which you can trust absolutely.

Read the jaywalker story in Chapter 3. See if it relates. Read Jim's and Fred's stories and see if they relate. Study the state of mind preceeding that first drink and see if it matches your own. What was your state of mind, Benjamin? You're a month out of detox and you decide to have a beer? What got you into detox in the first place? Because you couldn't control your drinking? Has something changed since then? Have you discovered some secret that lets you now be in control of drinking?

coffeenut

If you truly don't want to go through the hell of withdrawl again, you wouldn't be playing with the fire of 3 beers.

I said it in your other thread....you already know, right now, if you have a problem.

tommyk

Three beers...!!

Good for you, that's great.

Three beers for me would be like three strokes while having sex, I need to go all of the way.

When I had to control my drinking I didn't enjoy it, it was only when I didn't control my drinking that I enjoyed it!

The main thing that keeps me from drinking now is that I don't want 1 ,2 , or 3, or even 4... I WANT 12... or none at all.

123bubblegum123

Ben,

what you posted has been the story of my life for 7 years. I know my addict mind tricks me into things that deep down I realize are bad for me when I'm thinking clearly. Alcoholism and addiction is a disease, imo, and it wants us dead. For me, I've got a nice little pattern going of doing well for a little bit sober, then I start moderately drinking or smoking, then it could be a few weeks, or even months, but eventually I'm right back to the huge binge that landed me getting sober in the first place.

If you weren't an alcoholic you wouldn't have had to try to get sober in the first place

Good luck and stay safe. Also, you really may want to consider sharing about your drinking at a meeting, not sharing will just lead you to feel enabled to drink again later. Get connected within AA. You cannot do this alone.

Rach

eddie73

I wouldnt touch it again after reading so many similar posts on this forum that all lead to the same conclusion, that we are all obsessed with the next drink when we are drinking. Its all about getting hammered and trying to soft land doing it, which is impossible really. Day 6 off it for me has been a good day, unremarkable, but good.

Benjamin33

You and the others who have responded to this thread are giving me what I need. Kudos to all of you. I certainly haven't discovered any secret. The thing is that I have never actually tried to control my drinking. It never occurred to me that I actually needed to. I knew that I drank too much and figured that it was having a negative impact on my life, but that it wasn't that big of a deal. Nevertheless, I stopped drinking and then came the withdrawal and seizures, which scared the absolute **** out of me. Then, I began drinking again moderately and that did lead me into detox after it got bad again. But, during that time, I never really tried to moderate. I just said **** it and kept on and it crept up on me before I even knew what was happening.

In any event, I appreciate again what you are saying and although I have read the entire book, I will revisit the portions that you mentioned. As to my state of mind before I drank those three beers, I guess it was the just the fact that I felt like I couldn't that made me want to do it. There was no particular anxiety, fear or anything like that, which was the primary reason I was drinking during the last couple of years or so. I don't know. I am going to continue in AA, and not drink again in the foreseeable future. Right now, that is all I can promise myself.

Benjamin33

Congrats on the six days. That is a very difficult thing to do if you were drinking like me. Impossible for me to do, actually. I would have had to go to detox or the E.R to quit because of the physical withdrawal. Did you not have physical withdrawal symptoms?

eddie73

Hi Benjamin, hope u are feeling ok. The withdrawals this time wernt bad, appart from shakes, sweats and sleplessness, 3 days of anxiety and depression. Got away lightly!!

No I didnt go to an emeregency room or detox clinic, ever, although i would have been a lot safer there during more testing times.

I hope you can stay off it now, i realise that we are the must cunning liars in the world, and we can even trick ourselves into thinking its ok to drink, when in reality it is utterly impossible.

Check into the forum, there are really inspiring people in there who have stayed sober for years, and are living busy, happy inspiring lives.

Bon Voyage pal!

Benjamin33

I congratulate you on your continued sobriety. You have a much healthier attitude than I about the whole thing. See, I am not going to not drink for some freaking record or day count. The only reason that I quit drinking in the first place was because it was killing me. Literally killing me at the amounts I was drinking.

The absolute last thing that I would want to do while posting on this site is to put someone's sobriety at risk by voicing an opinion or view. Accordingly, I have held back with some of my thoughts. In any event, good luck to you as well and we are both in agreement on one thing: That SR is a great place.

joedris

You didn't relapse.To relapse, you need to have some sobriety, and 38 days doesn't really count as sobriety.f you had a year of sobriety that would be different, 3 beers would constitute a relapse. I don't mean to put you down here, believe me. 39 days is a good start, but now you have to begin all over again. Let me ask you, were the three beers worth it?

Benjamin33

Bingo. So, you don't think anyone is sober that doesn't have a year. How many people do you actually know that haven't had any sort of alcohol in their system for a year or more? If your definition of sobriety were correct, we would be walking around in a world where 80 percent of the freaking population was considered drunk.

Was the three beers worth it? Worth what exactly? Some arbitrary day count? I go to AA to try and understand how to live my life without being drunk, scared and obsessed with alcohol. I would also like to be able to socialize with groups of people comfortably without alcohol and to live my life not being obsessed with having a drink. Its surely not because of some arbitrary day count. WOOO HOOO, I've got X amount of days sober. Who gives a f*ck? Have you been living a healthy, fulfilled and serene life. That is the question. I certainly don't feel like I've thrown anything away because I had three beers yesterday at lunch.


EDIT: And I'm not starting anything over again. Who are you to say such a thing? I go to AA for ME. I will continue going to AA and take from the program what I wish and leave the rest.

smacked

Um.. yikes.

And if time doesn't matter to you, why did you ask me how much sober time I have? I'm confused.

I don't count days either, but I know when my last drink was, and I know that I'm a non drinker, and that I have a mostly blissful complete and honest life... much more so than when alcohol was in it.

Not quite sure what the mini tantrum here was about, but a nerve was hit, and you're reactive to whatever it was. Keep drinking if you want.. the only person it really should matter to is you.. you asked for our opinions.. and you got them.

It always interests me that when people want opinion, they don't really want it.

I hope that you found something here that's helpful. It sounds like you dont' want to quit drinking, so don't. We'll be here either way.