LoftyIdeals

Ryan...you have a lot of great advice here, and I'd take it if I were you.

My advice? If you want to watch the world series and drink, go ahead. But, you'll have to wait a year, since it ended last night with the St. Louis Cardinals winning it all.

Just my $.02

Ranger

Ryan - Perhaps the disconnect is you believe this hypothetical is plausible while many of us (i.e. your fellow alcoholics) dismiss it as so much fairy tale.

While it is harmless for a normal drinker to have a few drinks one night every couple months, it is lunacy for an alcoholic to believe s/he could assume this type of drinking lifestyle.

Quite honestly, my observation since joining SR is that when someone begins asking questions like this they typically disappear for a while if not forever shortly thereafter. Please, please, don't do it, Friend.

laurie6781

Yep it is a problem, the World Series is OVER. So you will have to think of a different EXCUSE.

Okay, truthful answer. YES IT IS BAD, for someone like you, who definitely has a BIG problem with drinking. You will just be setting yourself up over and over to keep going through the same throes of withdrawal or worse one.

You have to find a way for you, to get this through your head, you can be sober or you can be drunk but YOU cannot do both. YOUR CHOICE.

Everyone of us here that is maintaining sobriety had to go through the same thing.

You will not get a one of us to tell you that having a 'drinking' night every few months is okay, because WE KNOW ............................ IT WON'T BE JUST ONE NIGHT.

So you will do what you WANT to do. Just remember the 'addiction' progresses, always getting worse, never better.

Your choice, a 'night of drinking' not knowing what could happen, or NOT picking up that first drink and awakening in the morning (not coming to) rather bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready for a good breakfast with NO HANGOVER.

J M H O

Love and hugs,

instant

It feeds the monster. Lulls you into the false notion that you can be in control, and encourages you to believe you are missing out unless you can have a good time with alcohol.

Thats the beginning

Dee74

I quit drinking for two months at the end of 2004. May not sound like much but I was a daily drinker.

I felt great.

My high school reunion came up - I thought - I'll just have a few beers and go right back to not drinking the day after.

I got wasted, then drank every day after...right up until I arrived here at SR in 2007.

One night was the plan - 2 years was the reality.

Ryan...you've been having incredible trouble letting go of the past and the guilt and shame of ending up on the front page of the newspaper, the stress on your family etc etc....

and all that can start again from just one drink if you're a drinker like me.

it's your choice to do whatever you like.

I really hope you read this thread - really read it - and choose wisely though.

D

Hevyn

Ryan - I know you're frustrated, but please try to get through this without caving. You joined SR for a reason, and the facts haven't changed. You're the same person who came here seeking help and advice. If it were possible for you to manage your drinking, ("just one night"), or to somehow magically become a social drinker - you would have done so.

Like Dee, I made an exception and drank after 3 yrs. of sobriety. I went on a date for the first time in years, and was very nervous. Without thinking, I accepted the glass of wine that was put in front of me. Then another. 5 glasses later, I felt ok. The next day I woke up and thought, "See - I can handle a few now and then." Thus began my seven year journey to hell - including my first ever dui's, complete with jail time.

It's not possible for an alcoholic to take a break from being sober, Ryan. Please reconsider.

simplex

Ryan I get what you are saying and where you're coming from. I thought like that too about drinking after about one year of my first sobriety attempt. I started thinking, "I've made it this far and it was somewhat easy... am I really an alcoholic or was it just _______(fill in the blank with one of a million excuses) as to why things went downhill? I also reasoned to myself that in my year plus of sobriety I could see how ridiculous my drinking years were... IF, I'd say, I were to for some reason do it again I'd be much more controlled this time around. I wouldn't do x, y, and z that got me into that last mess. If you take that step and drink that one night, all of what you're thinking now flies out the window.

The thing is, the way you're talking is how alcoholics talk before a relapse. It's exactly how I talked and thought before my relapse.

I really am not trying to be rude here, but honestly I didn't realize you were the same guy that posted about being humiliated in the news papers. I hope you go back and read what you wrote. The questions you are asking seem like pure rationalizations. I can tell you from my experience that it doesn't change.... You might do the one night and somehow manage to control it. But that's the trick. It only reinforces your notion that you can drink successfully. Which just adds to the cycle. Which leads you to another incident, sooner rather than later, or reason to ask yourself, "why am I doing this?"

But what if you don't ask yourself that again for say, 20 more years? Then at 60 you're in the same position as now, wondering how you're gonna beat this thing.... It's just not worth it.

One of the best tools I keep in recovery is to remember this. My disease is patient....

SomethingBetter

Its true man, this thing is patient, you sought out others like you for advice and now I get what you’re saying, just one night, after all you drank a lot so just one night here and there should not be a problem.

You can learn on your own or learn from us, your choice…

I was given a bottle of wine on Christmas day back in 06, I should have tossed it immediately but I kept it and I begged my wife for just a glass, she pleaded with me not to drink any (I wanted her approval so bad), I had 87 days under my belt at that time, I ended up drinking the whole bottle, by news years I was drinking a couple of beers after work, by mid-year I was back to where I started.

I come here and found people like me, and I read here every day, I can relate to almost everyone in some way or another, I have over 8 months sober now and I know that I am only 1 drink from that spiral of downward hell, and I know from experience that I am not sure I can resist it’s pulling force, I am now at peace with my sobriety.

I wish you peace with whatever you choose Ryan

CaiHong

Hi Ryan,

Thanks for starting this thread, I think it is important to discuss the feelings we have about our cravings,/desires. I am 5 months sober today and those kind of thoughts happen to me a lot. I play the tape or sometimes I just ignore them but I tell you the next day I aam so glad I didn't act upon them.

I feel my sobriety is so tenuous and it is posts like yours that make me feel I am not alone on this and it has stimulated positive reactions by other members that I can read and ponder over for the rest of the day.

As one poster wisely pointed out your are wanting us to condone your drinking, I honestly feel you are a hair's breadth away from a drink.

Do you have a support group?

CaiHong

EricL

I say if you're really up in the air about this matter, then go for it. Maybe you aren't alcoholic? That would be a wonderful thing to know about yourself.

I know for me, I was totally unable to do that. I would set out with the best of intentions to just have a beer or two, or just a fun weekend... sometimes it worked, most of the time it went devastatingly wrong. That was the problem. As an alcoholic who is powerless over alcohol I can never predict what the outcome would be. Eventually those times of it working as planned disappeared and I had my answer-that I was in fact an alcoholic and terrified because no matter what I thought, tried, or felt, I could not stop drinking.

So, go for it. See how it works out. My hope for you is that it goes well and you find your answer that you aren't afflicted with the same alcohol problem that I am.

But nobody on an anonymous internet forum can tell you whether or not it will work, if its a good idea, or if you are an alcoholic. All that's up to you.

Dee74

I think Ryan, you have all the proof you need about what kind of drinker you are - you don't need to test it again.

Read through your old threads again - and maybe some of us responding should as well?

D

EricL

Why not test it again? Nobody on an anonymous internet forum can pronounce someone as an alcoholic. We do it by suffering, by proving to ourselves that we are alcoholic.

If he is as unclear on this as his posts suggest, then its probably a good idea to get some clarification and see.

Dee74

I tend to believe that most people who find their way here have already done all the 'testing' they need.

I'm not diagnosing anybody - I have, however read all of the OPs posts here since post #1.

Personally I think 'go and drink more' is pretty horrible advice to give to anyone here - if someone had said that to me, I might be dead now.

D

soberred

My one night of drinking lead to several weeks of drinking and going back to where I was. If you are coming here to get the ok to drink, drink. You're a big boy.

EricL

But if he thinks he can do it... maybe he can? That certainly would have been quite the relief to find out. Just because someone suffers consequences or questions their drinking doesn't mean they are an alcoholic.

So, my experience over the years has been that sometimes alcohol can be a great persuader. In my case drinking obliterated any doubt from my mind that I may be able to drink normally. For others I have seen them get the opposite results. Just because someone finds themselves on a site like this or wanders into an AA meeting, doesn't mean they are alcoholic. Simply means they are on the site or at the meeting.

artsoul

There's not much we can do to stop the thoughts of drinking, but we at least recognize them for what they are.

I think you summed it up pretty well when you posted this 2 weeks ago: Be good to yourself - don't let alcohol pull you back to a miserable life.....:ghug3

suki44883

This is so very normal for an alcoholic. When we get into trouble, we are aghast and embarrassed and ashamed. We swear (and really believe it) that we are done with drinking. We know that alcohol is toxic for us. We KNOW. Then...after some time, the hideousness of what we went through starts to fade. We think we've learned our lesson and won't ever let something like that happen again. This time, we'll be able to control it and know when to stop. This is all so very normal thinking for an alcoholic.

It's good you came here and posted. We understand. Most of us have felt the exact same thing during our drinking careers. We try to talk you out of drinking. We remind you of your past posts. We do all that we can to convince you that drinking is the worst possible thing you could do. But, that's all we can do. We can't force you to take our advice, even though you came here and specifically asked us for our advice.

Alcoholism is such a baffling and cunning disease. Who else but an addict will go back to the very thing that we KNOW has screwed us up so much in the past?

FHB1

I stopped drinking for 80 days last year just for the heck of it. I didn't think I was an alcoholic or anything, I just wanted to prove to myself that I could do it and that I wasn't an alcoholic. After 80 days were up, I was hanging out with some old friends and they convinced me that I could have a drink. To make a long story short, I drank every day after that for a year straight, heavier and harder than I did before I quit for the 80 days. It scared the heck out of me and helped to confirm that yes, I am definitely an alcoholic. That's just my experience. Hope it helps.

2bAlive

I've asked myself that same question even though I know deep down what the answer is. For me, I wish that one night of drinking wasn't a big deal, but that one night eventually leads to a binge, which leads to embarassment and humilitation, which leads to my need of total sobriety slapping me in the face. I have given myself way too much proof to say anything other than yes.

Is one night of drinking a big deal? You are the only one who can answer that.

LoftyIdeals

Interesting thread. Lots of great comments, but Ryan hasn't logged back in since yesterday afternoon at 3:44. I hope he decided to keep his sobriety. I went to an AA meeting tonight, a big book meeting, and Chapter 3 - More about Alcoholism, was read. It was the third time I've read it, or portions thereof, this week. Anyone who has a thought of whether they are an alcoholic would be well-served to read or re-read the chapter. I know it helped me. I haven't been questioning myself on this front; in 84 days of no alcohol, I feel sober, but I also feel brain-damaged. I don't think I have room for another drunk in my life at this point. But, there is a reason God put it in my life as much as it was this week.

I posted earlier in this thread in a smart a*s way; I said that Ryan could go ahead and drink while watching the world series, but that he'd have to wait, as it had concluded the night before. That was true, but didn't need saying. I should have asked whether Ryan was considering whether he should have had a drink, or contemplating having one now. Either way, he was looking for an excuse to drink. I hope he didn't.