I resent the suggestion that those who relapse are "losers" in recovery. I think that's potentially very damaging. I relapsed twice before I got sober. Am I a loser? Or am I a winner because I've lasted so long? If I relapse the day after my three-year anniversary am I a loser again? If you're sober for one day you're a winner. If you relapse you're not a loser, just try again until you make it. I think admitting we were alcoholics makes us feel enough like losers. I'm sure you weren't aiming for that notion Noelle based on your previous posts, but I had to say something. And guess what? It's still a day by day thing for me after almost three years. I still haven't made the commitment to never drink again, I'm just not drinking today. The next day I'll make the same vow to not drink and the day after that.

And to hypochondriac (your name is very revealing), it doesn't matter if you call yourself an alcoholic or whatever word you feel brings too much baggage. All you want to keep track of is the negative consequences in your life from drinking and why you want to be sober (the list of these does grow). No, not all alcoholics relapse. I know an alkie friend who just quit and never looked back. Not all of us are the same but we're not worse or better either way. We just are people who need healing and that can start any day of the year on any baktun of the Mayan calendar (the world's not ending by the way). Also, guilt and shame may help you at first to get sober but they become real mean enemies in staying sober. Right now I'm learning to battle my inner judge because he's the one that gets me to believe in a lot of nasty stuff about myself that makes a drink more appealing and all his judgments are lies that need to be confronted. Forget what you think about recovery and alcoholism and especially what other alcoholics are like or do because NO ONE has the same experience in recovery, so stop comparing your experience to others. Society, our parents, friends, teachers, co-workers tell us a lot about how we should and will be if you do this or call ourselves this, but they're not walking in your loafers and they can't predict your experience, even if they have a crystal ball. Nothing about my recovery or spiritual process has been normal or easy or predictable even by my spiritual "advisers" but man it sure has been worth it.

One. Day. At. A. Time.

i wuz, i guess, a high bottom. i say "i guess" because for a long time i wuz dry and this gave me the illusion of control and not being alcoholic. so not true; being dry was torture and when i broke the dry spell i ran to the bottle for relief; not A LOT of wine or whatever, but enough to give me that aaaaaahhhhh, thank God feeling. the bottom line is that the amount you drink is never the issue. it's your relationship with alcohol, how it makes you feel when you drink it, whether or not you can quit (i can stop when i get the feeling i need, but quitting is another matter). i wuz lucky because i wuz in alanon and my sponsor kept pointing out signs of trouble which i never would've noticed; she kept on at me until i wuz willing to attend a few aa meetings and talk to people. also, i have bipolar which makes drinking far more destructive than it would otherwise. my sponsor recently told me that more people at an earlier phase of the disease are entering aa (or another program) because there's a lot more awareness in our time than in the time when aa started.

this is the thing: if you had two cancer patients--one at stage 1 or 2, the other at 4--would you say that the first one didn't have cancer? would you want to wait until stage 4 to do something about it?

i am stopping at an earlier phase and i consider myself incredibly fortunate. these are the signs that i wuz alcoholic:

i could not quit on my own. i could stop drinking at one sitting once i got the feeling i needed, but quitting was another matter. after 1 or 2 weeks of "i'm done with this!" i wuz back at the liquor section of the grocery store.

i spendthours online to research how i could drink without increasing tolerance.

i made rules: no booze in the apartment (but the car was ok); only healthy red wine (rather than cocktails); no more than X times a week, etc.

I got to the point where i would mark in my calendar the days when i could drink so that i could, hopefully, not increase tolerance.

i always counted my drinks. Etc.

none of my non-alcoholic friends did any of this. they could have a bottle of wine in their homes and it would sit there for weeks! not so for me. the booze would start singing as soon as i got home. i didn't always sing back but it made its presence known.

look at your relationship with it--how much time you take to think about it, ponder it, etc., how hard you try to prove you're NOT alcoholic, whether you can simply have one drink with no promise of an effect on your thoughts and feelings and so on.

welcome to SR

Zorah