lushly

I am just so frustrated. I am now into day 2 again. What part of this I am I not getting? Why can't I get off booze. I am surrounded by people who love me, and when I started to relapse. A few glasses of wine. They were understandably upset. Which was reason enough to get me to the vodka Islands( thats where I drink Vodka til I pass out, then wake up and drink til I pass out again) I have went to rehab twice.I plan on getting into some therapy. I had lost 20 lbs in the last year.I worked very hard to take the weight off. Even cut down on the drinking. Worked out lots too. I have now gained all the weight back. Plus my drinking has escalated also. I just chose to drink instead of doing anything productive. I don't believe that it is a self loathing thing. I feel fine about who I am. I am just baffled at what has happened to me because of this 30 year addiction. I feel defeated. Thank you for reading this. I am simply beaten down by this. I know I suffer from extreme selfishness. I am so rummy 2 day that I feel I am rambling. Truely feel fortuante that I found SR. I tried to read and post here everyday that I was sober and it helped. I plan to set up some theray to sort out what the hell is going on with my being.

Corri

What is it about 'don't take the first drink' concept do you feel you are not getting? Or, what is it that you ARE getting from that concept that leads you to do it anyway? Anger? Resentment? Rebellion? Self-pity? <--- They are incredibly lovely feelings that pave the path to the bottle.

There is no logicaling this. There is no more to the answer than... "I cannot drink alcohol, ever again." Period. The why's, the how come's... don't matter. When you get stuck in trying to figure that out, denial is running amok.

Let's say you lost a limb (heaven forbid). No matter how much you'd want to deny it, it isn't there, and you would have to learn to live with its absence. No amount of anger will bring it back. Right?

It is completely normal to mourn the loss of something, and in a sense, the anger/resentment you are feeling over the absence of alcohol in your life fits into the Stages of Grieving. Until you are truly able to accept the facts, exactly as they are, you will remain stuck.

Yes, yes, yes, go to a counselor. Find acceptance. Then you can change your life.

keithj

I had to get the part about me having the power to stay away from that first drink. Through enough experiences just like yours, I learned that I lacked the willpower to stay sober. I also experienced that I would never have the willpower to avoid that first drink. That's a very scary position to be in, where I had a firsthand experience of being well and truly screwed where booze is concerned.

Oh, I could stay away when circumstances demanded. 6 months, a year maybe with enough pressure, but I inevitably found some insanely trivial reason for picking up that drink. Over and over and over.

The only way for me to win was to stop fighting.

Ghostly

Follow through with the help you will be getting. This disease is baffling and difficult to figure out. You can do this. Good luck.

Dee74

The part I couldn't get was I can't control my drinking.
As simple as that sounds, I could not accept that for 20 years.

When I accepted that I was different to other people, I started to move forward.

I can be the person I want to be, and live the kind of life I want, or I can drink alcohol.

I can't do both.

D

artsoul

Sorry that you're feeling beaten down - this disease really IS baffling. It's baffling, I think, because we're not stupid until it comes to picking up that drink.

I went to treatment twice, too, and this time (my third attempt), I don't have any doubts that alcohol can/will take me down if I were to go back to it. We have the tools - we just have to put sobriety first. Hang in there!

Peter G

Only thing I can do to help is share something that helped me when I fist picked up and got sober. Maybe this can also help you get through those critical first 10 or so days.

Before I started seeking out recovery and found this forum, I've had so many "Day 2's" it's not even funny. And Day 3's, and Day 10's, e.t.c...

When I found SR I read a quote (see below) before even joining the forum, and for some reason it etched into my brain. It was a thought process I had not considered, a concept I felt comfortable applying, and a rule I wish I would have set in motion years ago.

Let me qualify this post by saying that I also thought applying a simple phrase and concept to my alcoholism was like applying a bandaid to a gunshot wound. At any rate, I read it, it made sense, and I figured what the hell, if it keeps me sober one day it's worth just trying to apply it. So when my mind started getting loud, irritable and urgent for a drink; when the crafty booze salesman that lives inside my head started pitching me incessantly to "just have the one", I kept repeating that one rule over and over again, almost like a mantra.

BTW, the first 10 days of my sobriety were sheer frikin madness, identical to the million other times I tried and failed miserably. This time however, I felt beaten down, but that wasn't as important as sobriety. I had the shakes and felt close to a seizure, but that wasn't as important to me as my sobriety. My wife and I fought like cats and dogs, daily, but that wasn't as important as my sobriety. I lost an extremely lucrative gig, but that was not as important as my sobriety. A few beers and a shot during a concert won't bloody hurt for crying out loud - but that wasn't as important as sobriety.

Eventually every problem, every issue that came before me was instantly delegated to second place. The funniest thing happened at around day 5; my sobriety started to mean the world to me and I started to feel - for the first time in 25 years - hope. Sure I still had all the crap and problems that co-exist with a long term hopeless alcoholic trying to quit, but that one thing just kept me steeled against falling back into hell for the first few days when we are all at our most vulnerable.

Once I had two weeks of applying that rule and posting here, I had found other tools to help keep me sober. This forum is an excellent resource. Now I have the Big Book, and have read it through sober for the first time in my life. AA and my first actual meeting is on the horizon and I am actually excited about it. But on those first critical days this singular rule, once applied, worked to keep me from giving up and getting tanked. I'm 43 now, and this marks the first time in 25 years I managed to string sober days together by choice.

Hope that can help you in some way lushly.

lushly

thanx binder. I am having a time of it and that's sick that I have no compulsion to change, I am defeated and just don't see why it is the burden that I have refused to let go of . Gosh I feel frightened that I feel no desire to stop this thing that is robbing me of so much. I have to hope that a higher power will help me until I want it for myself.

Anna

I wonder if you're keeping alcohol in the house? It was really helpful to me to know that there was nothing in the house. I think that you should do whatever it takes to not take that first drink.

I'm glad you're here!

CarolD

Have you been attending any local support groups?
You can find people who understand alcholism and
are willing to assist you with sober living.

Welcome back...

lushly

We have a very small AA group in the area. They meet a couple times a week. I am not big into the whole AA thing. I certainly believe the 12 steps have merit, and I am not closing my mind to anything. I have spent time in AA before. both the treatment center s I went to were 12 step based. I did make an appointment with a counselor. No I don't have any alchohol in the house. I couldn't I would without a doubt find a reason to drink it!