Can anyone relate
 

I am trying to quit drinking again. I have did it a few times. One time I did it for a year. However about 3 times a year I start again. I am really scared that I am not going to be able to stop. I drink alone and I drink until I run out of money or the bar closes. It's like I can never get enough.

I can go about 3 months without drinking then the stress just gets to be too much and I drink to releive it and it does releive stress.

I am hoping that I can find people that can relate to me. I am just hoping to list the reasons why I drink and see if anyone else can relate to them.

I know that I like myself better when I drink. I really do forget about my problems. I know it does not make them better but at least I forget about them and I feel better about my self for at least one night. It's like when I drink I just feel like a load has been lifted off my shoulders.

Please relate

I eliminate my stress through prayer. Long as I trust God, keep my inventory in check and help others everything in life falls in place :)

Worry will not add a single day to your life !

hi coffeeclub;

after 11 sober days (the most in 25 years)...I am finding that I like myself better when I don't drink....positively speaking, your long rounds of sobriety are great, life has daily highs and lows, so you must cope well.

I would go stints without drinking usually months at a time, during those times everything associaed with the material world would improve, people would say how well i am doing, notice a change in me etc...problem was i felt just awful inside, so i would go on for months saying to myself things will keep getting better, talking the talk like i should maybe think about buying a house next year, oohhh ill buy a new car, how about a new set of clothes, time for a hair change, lets move to this town, etcetc never happy...

Eventually i would drink again, which always happened...so i wasted well over a decade with this...then eventually, last couple of years, i got to the point where i had experienced that whatever i do isn't going to make a blind bit of difference so then went from totally delusional thinking when dry to why even bother and drinking almost every day bigtime...to well i might as well end it things are never going to change and then onto a new low point and into the rooms of AA.

I count myself really lucky indeed, i could easily have kept giving up for a period, then 'relapsing' and so on and so on well into the next decade...until i was willing to take a look at the real problem, which was me...and i mean look, through guidance from someone who had done this before for themselves (makes me laugh this one about should i get a sponsor, like anyone who is drinking everyday with sporadic periods of being dry, which is insane in itself, is going to know how to fix themselves, try another 20 years me see if that works, wtf?!) and managed to stay sober for years as a happy human being, i was doomed to a miserable existnece of always trying to fix a problem without knowing what was wrong...

So yeah i can relate and if you are really sick of it go to AA and ask someone who has what you want how they got it, if not just keep going...thats the honest options isn't it, no matter how we jazz it up and count dry days and kid ourselves! There are a couple of exceptions to the rule with long term sobriety on here, so why don't you PM them if AA isn't for you and do EXACTLY what they have done, maybe it will work for you too?

I have a list of my problems that I have to deal with. Each time I cross one of this list, by dealing with it rather than shutting it down with alcohol - that's when I really feel the weight lifted of my shoulders. Alc is just temporary fix, it will not hold the weight of you for a long time...

I can relate, yes. Booze is like an old friend that slaps you on the back and understands your woes and sympathizes. It's reliable that way. It also tends to kick you in butt afterward, and makes it impossible to fix things so that you come back. The only way to break the cycle is to not show up, find some new friends.

Stress is part of life. You can blow it out any number of constructive ways (exercise is good, AA, therapy). Rather than let it build up, acknowledge it, maybe every day do an inventory, and then deal with it in small bites. But don't toast it with a glass, saying "here's to you kid." Give it a kick in its butt. It's been lying to you for a long time. You don't need friends like that.

I completely and totally relate. You could be telling my story. Either way, a lot of our stories are some what different, but we seem to have the same thing in common just don't pick up the first drink.