lilacgirl

...no, correction. I'm in an even more pathetic place. And I have no one to blame but myself.

I came here a couple of months ago, asking for help to get sober. And you helped. Your kindness, acceptance and lack of judgement amazes me still.

And I did get sober for longer than I had in ages. My husband and I renewed our marriage. And I started to heal the damage I did to my family and friends. Started to work out again, started to go out again. Started to make a nice place for us to live. Started giving all to my job.

I felt great. Too great, I guess. I stupidly thought I could once again live a normal life, be a social drinker, live in moderation, etc...

That was five days ago. It was my birthday, and I had a glass of wine at dinner. I thought, 'hey, what the heck? I deserve it'.

Since then, I've been making up any excuse to go out, so that I can get something to drink. A double shot at the local bar on my way to the grocery store. A mickey of vodka I can hide in my purse for later.

I'm not looking for sympathy. Just stating the ugly facts. Maybe some of us can actually recover, and resume a normal life. That's what I hoped for myself. But I have to face the fact that I can't.

Beanfrost

Don't give up hope, you can recover and enjoy a normal life.
Just remember, your life isn't normal if you drink.
If you feel the need to deserve something, I think you deserve a happy sober life.

Zappa

Dear lilac girl.
Your story is so familiar. I have had a few dry periods my self, but crash landed every time. Last time, I was dry for two weeks, crashed, and started drinking worse than ever. I was to embarrased to admit to my self that I crashed again, and that I needed help from outside to sober up. Me sobering up was my own project! I drank for another year, until 12 days ago. Quitting the habit seldom succeeds first time trying, or the second. I think that goes for almost every one also here on SR. For me, it is important to say to myself that if I can`t do it this time, try again VERY soon! Giving up, is my biggest enemy regarding me getting sober. It is NOT the end of the world not to succeed this time, but it IS the end of the world to give up trying!
You are welcome back with all your imperfections

zappa- MD in imperfection

least

Oh yes you can! Don't give up. Keep trying until you get it right. If I can do it, so can you.

SSIL75

But a life without alcohol IS a normal life. My sober life is WAYYYYYYY more normal than my drinking life ever was.

aasharon90

My soul purpose in life today is to share
my own experiences, strengths and hopes
of what it was like before during and after
alcohol. This is what has kept me sober some
21 yrs.

I had to crawl, hang on for dear life, listen
to many that learned to stay sober a day at
a time just by living and incorperating the steps
and principles of our recovery program in their
everyday life.

When family stepped in with an intervention
to get me help I so desperately needed at that
time in my life, it was them doing for me what
I certainly couldnt do for myself. I spent 28
days in rehab recieving the tools and knowledge
of my alcoholism, then setting me on the path
of recovery to learn to live a day at a time
without alcohol.

Today, I continue on that path as it is my only
way of living a happy joyous freer way of life.

And most of all ....I live an honest life that has
allowed me to recieve those promises stated in
our Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Biza

I am right there with you. I can always justify my drinking after a period of sobriety. Its so frustrating not to be able to just swing back into life as you picture it. I would love to be able to drink socially and remain in control. As I am finding out that doesnt seem to be a possibility for me. Which is really scary.

Zebra1275

Step 1 of AA is We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.

Sounds like you might have completed this step. For me, to stay quit I eventually had to give up and go to AA.

What are you going to do different this time to stay sober?

Terminally Unique

You certainly can recover, you just need to make up your mind that you will never drink again, under any circumstances, and do what you need to do towards that end.

Since you are not looking for sympathy...

What is your plan? Are you going to drink some more, or are you going to quit for good?

For whatever it's worth, though, even though you may not believe it at the moment, I have full faith in your ability to recover.

LoftyIdeals

lilacgirl...I recall your posts, and am I ever glad you are back today. You have touched upon my personal, perpetual failing point...until this time. I joined SR in March by the grace of God, but my sobriety didn't last; until now. I have 28 days today. For some reason, after 28 yrs of "hoping to find an easier, better way" I have FINALLY surrendered to the simple program of AA. Your post epitomizes the cunning, baffling power of alcohol in an alcoholics life. We are best when we simply accept our condition, and stop beating ourselves over the head about it. In some graceful way, our alcoholism can be a gift, to ourselves and others, when we see it for what it is, accept it, and recover.

I hope and pray that your relapse is nothing more than a wake up call to the sobriety that is so important in your life.

Keep posting!

eJoshua

Hi lilacgirl!

You don't have to feel shame in failing. If we didn't fail then we would not be human. The trick is to get up and try again.

I thought for a long time that I was the only person in the world incapable of getting sober, but I was wrong. If I can do it I'm sure anyone can.

Best of luck to you!

stugotz

If we all got it the first, or second, or even third time no one would would need meetings and this forum would be empty. Its what we do. Good luck and God bless.

bellakeller

Towards the end of my drinking, my sneaking, planning and lying and hiding took so much time and energy and made me into a person I didn't recognize even when I wasn't always drunk. I'd always considered myself an honest person, but doing all those things sure canceled that out and just made me sicker.

I hope you get off that awful ride soon.

Much love.

Anna

Lilacgirl,

It's good to see you back!

I sabotaged myself in my recovery many, many times and it just about drove me crazy. I couldn't figure out what was going wrong. It finally occurred to me, that I wasn't used to succeeding and feeling good, and in fact, it made me sabotage things. Give yourself permission to succeed and know in your heart that you deserve a good life.

artsoul

Good to see your post! I think we can all relate. We get sober and feel strong, things are going well...... we simply can't imagine that we would ever let it get out of control again.

I don't know about you, but I need a daily reminder to keep sobriety #1 in my life. I've relapsed twice and I know it only takes a moment's decision to start the vicious cycle again. Coming here and reading - even if it's just a few posts - helps me stay inspired.

Those sober days still count, ya know......

Peter G

Hey ya lilacgirl. Good to see you here again. God I can relate to what you're going through. Was the exact same way for years.

One thing... I've a personal favor to ask you in regards to this statement you made...

Please download and listen to this speaker (link) if you haven't already, and then come back and tell us you really think you can't recover. You see, there are those - I certainly fit within the category - who have literally torn their lives apart from drinking. There are points, moments of sheer terror, when some of us have been looking at a pistol in one hand and a bottle of Absolut Vodka in the other, crying and hating our broken lives so bad we wished we could pull that trigger. Yet instead of using the tools of destruction in our hands, we put both down and walked away from the fight completely. We surrendered. Some of us in jail for the 10th time, some with no one left on earth that didn't absolutely hate us for what we've done. Some had children taken from us, spouses gone, money depleted, possessions lost. Homeless, I mean hell, the list of the lengths an alcoholic has traveled by thinking "I can't recover, I can't beat this" gets about as sick and perverted as sick and perverted is.

Many have gone to the absolute end of it and somehow even the most truly hopeless cases have managed back from the same brink that you now feel incapable of facing. You saying that you "can't" do it is nothing more than your dis-ease using it's power to sabotage any normal and healthy thoughts on the matter. It's really that simple. Of course you can recover. If that speaker I linked can, if I can, if the other kind folks on this forum can, then you can. I'll say it again. You are NO special case Lilacgirl, and certainly not terminally unique. You bleed the same color we do, and you suffer the same as we do.

Please listen to that tape, hear his story. Get to the end of that talk because he's a poignant reminder that even those of us who have had life $h!t all over us for decades can move beyond what seems like truly hopeless circumstances and thrive in spite of what amounts to TEMPORARY and often times self induced desperation. We can win this, millions before you have successfully become happy and content in long term sobriety. It is not a myth, nor exclusive to every other person on earth but you.

The thing is, willing it to happen is no plan. It's a recipe to continually fail. You have to take this issue seriously enough to learn and develop a detailed set of actions and steps, a plan that has been proven to work for others for years, and throw yourself at it with reckless abandon. Whether that be AA, AVRT, or any other treatment or combination of treatments, you need to adapt it wholeheartedly to your new reality in order to properly face it. And like it or not, your reality now is that you can't drink without losing control, and you can't control your ability to stay stopped once you have. That much should be obvious. Would you enter the 100 meter dash and expect to win if you haven't trained for it at all? Of course not. Do you think you could play guitar in a world class fusion band just because you managed to buy a nice guitar? Of course not. Quitting a habit that has been part and parcel of your life for a decade or more by simply saying you want to quit? Not a plan, it's a good intention, an act of will. And willpower is woefully and historically inadequate to battle alcoholism.

I've said it to you before, beating yourself up about relapsing is like taking a swing at a cancer patient. What for? You drink because you're sick, and until you develop and nurture a treatment plan that has been proven to work, you will remain with inadequate defenses against relapse. You drink because you're alcoholic, not because you have character flaws or because you're weak or degenerate. Stop buying into that stinking thinking. Those thoughts caused me to relapse for years before I managed some quality sober time. I was literally drinking BECAUSE of the damage I caused, using the same bloody poison that caused the damage in the first place. Sounds insane right? It is. It's also the definition of active alcoholism. That doesn't have to be you. You don't have to live one more day like that.

Like I said before, support is here for you any time. Take it and run with it. And you don't have to avoid this joint because you may have slipped either. Hell, come back and post tanked out of your skull if you have to. This forum is full of people who have walked in your shoes. Use our experience, strength, and hope. It can help.

Hevyn

Hi lilac - You have some great responses here, hope they've helped. As you can see, you aren't alone - we've all been where you are. It's wonderful that you came back to continue on your path to sobriety and sanity.

Dee74

Hi lilacgirl

I crash and burned, weekly, for years. I never gave up tho - and I got it in the end

Think about what you can add to what you've been doing - think about more support, perhaps?

Many of us thought we could never do this - but we did.
You can do this too

D

wpainterw

Don't believe for a moment that you can't recover. You can. And you will if you can finally convince yourself that you can't have "just one". They say that for an alcoholic "just one" is one too many and "just one" is also nowhere near enough (in other words after having "just one" an alcoholic is never satisfied- it's like having one peanut, one cashew) So when are you going to learn that you really don't "need" a drink, that the real you doesn't "want" a drink. It's going to take a lot of time, a lot of patience and a lot of guts but if you stick with it I swear you'll get to a point when you really don't miss the alcohol, when you don't need it and you really don't want it. It's every bit worth working for and if you do it it will be the best thing you ever did for yourself. Never give up. Never compromise with this thing.

W.

wpainterw

binderdonedat: What an eloquent message you've given to Lilac! Lilac- this person speaks the truth.

W.