HappyHeartJoy

Today was 7 weeks and 5 days. I drank. First month was fine, feeling good, last week not so good. The pull to drink got so strong. I am pathetic. Wish I was normal.

BillyPilgrim

In the meet last night someone said you have choice over the first drink, after that you have no control, it is like that for me, drink acts differently on us, than it does on normals. Just pull yourself up, dust yourself down, and start again, we all get slips , I have had a few. Life is better without drink. Dont punish yourself, take it as a positive, that you know you cant just have one.

endlesspatience

I've been in the place you're at now many times before. It's rotten isn't it? When you know you really want to stop but somehow fall back into the trap. But we both know how much better life can be sober and we also know that we can achieve sobriety if we go about things the right way, using this site for support. For me, the key thing is to put other things in place in my life to replace the drinking. And for me too, daily attendence at AA meetings helps enormously. Don't beat yourself up - you will get over it soon and a better life beckons.

scrambled2012

Sapling

If it was as simple as...Well...I'm done...No more for me.....None of us would be here. Somebody rips a crutch out from you that you've been leaning on all your life...You have to replace it with something. Find some kind of plan and get busy...Beating yourself up and feeling sorry for yourself gets you ZERO!

instant

I had six weeks last year took me about 12 months to string a week together and build up a head of steam again. Prior to that I had six months about four or five years before. I am now coming up for 9 months.

It helps to remember you are dealing with an addiction, it's complex.

I think self criticism serves the addiction because it sucks the energy from rational problem solving and making a plan.

Just have another go- each time we learn something

Dee74

I think nearly everyone reading this knows how you feel.
You're not pathetic - many of us had false starts

It's really hard to change our lives, and it's really hard to deal with life sometimes when we've only had one strategy for dealing with life.

Try and look at this not as a failure but an opportunity to learn from

What else could you have done?
What can you do now?

Support is really important - do you think you need more support?

Learning to reach out and use that support when you're in trouble is hard to learn too, but it's vital as well, I think.

This is just an episode, not the whole story
Glad you're back on the right road

D

CaiHong

Hi Happyheartjoy,

Early in my recovery I was very worried about relapsing, worried that I would give up if I started to relapse or become a serial relapser I would constantly listen to recovery broadcasts dealing with the topic of relapsing. I think it helped me a great deal.

I did not relapse and with the support of this forum and AA, I hope I never do.

It does get easier and the struggle at the beginning is worth it, hang in there.

All the best
CaiHong

NewBeginning010

You can do this, none of us got it right the first time we quit... we learned how not to do it & made changes in our lives, thoughts & actions until we got it right (or close enough for now ;-)

You can do this & we are here to support you. All of the best in your recovery ~ NB

quitforme79

You are not pathetic...getting and STAYING sober is not easy but as many long timers say on this forum, it's worth it. Looks like you've already got a lot of good advice on here...take a breath, hug & forgive yourself and start over

keithj

I hope that wasn't an AA meeting where you heard that.

Yeah, 7 weeks sounds just like me. That was about all I could really pull off on my own power. It would go well for a while, feeling great, and hten slowly fade back into bored, anxious, angry. With strong AA meeting attendance and involvement, but no spiritual action, I could make it 7 months.

With the AA spiritual program of action (12 Steps), I recovered from all of that, and have spent many years in peaceful, contented sobriety with a better life than I thought was possible.

jocata

Get back on that horse.

Do you have a recovery program to use? Could make the difference.

God bless.

BillyPilgrim

It was aa. The point was he you don't take that drink you won't have the next and the next

keithj

That's incredibly unfortunate, because it goes against all of the experience contained in the BB, and the experience of recovered alcoholics in AA since then.

If one has the power to not pick up the first drink, then there is zero need for AA or the 12 Steps. Someone like me, who absolutely needs connection to a higher power through the 12 Steps, walks into an AA meeting and tries to follow that path of 'just don't pick up the first drink', and we may as well just hand him that drink ourselves. Setting the guy up for almost certain failure.

Case in point, how well did staying away from the first drink work out for HappyHeartJoy? If he had the power to stay away from the first drink (he obviously had good reason to), then why didn't he?

Dee74

The OP is a woman.

Maybe you guys ought to start a new thread, or take this to PM?

D

keithj

Which of the forum rules is being violated, Dee?

It's entirely on point and on topic for the OP. Why is it, after deciding to never drink again, with my life going well, everything seemed better and enjoying myself, that I would ever entertain the idea of picking up another drink?

That's the nature of alcoholism as I know it, and the exact nature of the OP's problem. It's entirely appropriate to discuss the idea of mental obsession (or why do I pick up a drink when I know what it does to me) in the context of the OP picking up a drink when she knows what it does to her. A lot of us have found a solution for that very thing. But we better be clear on what that 'thing' is.

BillyPilgrim

Dee, Keith, I have started a thread, the first drink , in newcomers.
Fire away!!

bostonluv

You aren't normal and I don't know what "normal" is anyway. You drank. Alright. Alcoholics do that. What are you doing today? You get a fresh start today.

:ghug3

HappyHeartJoy

Thanks to everyone for their posts and encoragement. I really appreciate them. Today is a new day (on Aussie time). I will get myself a plan, thought I could do it on my own. Not so.....it has been a bad week (excuses I know). I will learn from my mistakes and move forward.

Hevyn

HappyHeart - You came here to talk about it - you didn't go off on a binge and forget all about trying to get sober. I failed quite a few times, but each time I learned something. Now I have 4 years. You will get there - and you are not pathetic - stop it.