way back in the beginning I was able to do that...but when I got to my drink days I went totally insanely wild with drinking...I was making up for lost time...

In my experience binge drinking was never in anyway better than daily drinking...in fact due to the volume I used to drink in very short periods it may even have been worse for me.

In any case, it got academic on me - pretty soon my drinking days increased and my dry days shrank.

That was not possible for me for maybe the last 10 years of my drinking. I think most people are here because it's not possible for them either.

That's the inherent problem I found with tapering and moderation - it's asking us to control something we've proven again and again we simply can't control.

D

Moderation would never cut it with me. This is why I am here. The name of this website says it all really....

so·ber/ˈsōbər/
Adjective:
Not affected by alcohol; not drunk.

re·cov·er·y/riˈkəvərē/
Noun:
1.A return to a normal state of health, mind, or strength

I think that is what most of us strive for here. Good luck on your chosen strategy :)

But if you can't stop using the techniques offered on the off days then what hope have you of stopping period?

Myself and many of my friends have tried moderation so many times, its just a con.

Just prolonging the torture and making the obsession worse, I was deluding myself that I never had a drink problem yet my whole life was consumed with thoughts and planning when and how I was going to get my drug fix..alcoHELL.

Why not stop for say 100 days, see how you feel and then think about what you are going to do.

I hate to say this, if you are going to drink then drink.

If you want to quit and get sober, I wish you all the best there are many different ways to go about it.

Good luck !

Oh and btw, being free from alcoHELL is a million times better than my best day moderating.

As a 2-3 times a week drinker I always wanted to moderate but once I start I can't stop until I am passed the heck out most of the time and have never stopped at 3 drinks even though thats what I had in mind when I popped the first can open by 3 beers I am in denial and I keep on ...with just 17 days of sobriety here I know I am not even ready to try moderation, I know me too well I know 3 will lead to 8 and so on. Even though I have the urge to try and see if I can moderate I have to be honest with myself and say I can't even have one. If I didn't have the guilt and anxiety of just getting drunk 2-3 times a week I probably would of been drinking every single day so thank God for the crappy feeling of guilt and anxiety in a way I am not ready to moderate because I can't right now instead of thinking about how far along I am and asking myself when is a good time to try it out I just tell myself everyday, Today I am not going to drink. Good Luck I know this is hard but be honest with yourself even though it probably is one of the most difficult things we have to do in order to keep ourselves sober :)

I have struggled with moderation for years, & was/still am jealous of those around me who can have a few drinks & walk away just fine. You know, the folks who can take it or leave it. lol I have tried & tried. I made promises to myself to only drink a few once a week, like on Friday evening to celebrate making it through another work week. But That first one ALWAYS led me to drink all weekend & the worse Mondays!! Or I would think I need/deserve just one "to take the edge off" after a rough day during the week. A few months of that led me to totally giving in to this disease. Thats why I am here now, working on day 3.

The great thing is I don't get urges /cravings anymore. IMHO they are caused by a complex withdrawal state. In time our bodies adjust to living without toxins. I have found it is very easy to live without alcohol, but it takes time to get there.

I tried moderation for many years as well. It's only this past year, that I realized it wasn't working and truly, truly have tried for abstinence. It's not easy, and I've had many stops and starts, but each time I learn and feel better and more committed than the last. As for as moderating, like you, it usually ended up as a full blown binge eventually. IMO, its a dangerous path.

yup, tried it many times. only worked til i had a drink, then the obsession kicked in and i had no control.
i am an alcoholic. i had to smash the thought that i could drink like a normal person.

The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.

Physicians who are familiar with alcoholism agree there is no such thing as making a normal drinker out of an alcoholic

Here are some of the methods we have tried: Drinking beer only, limiting the number of drinks, never drinking alone, never drinking in the morning, drinking only at home, never having it in the house, never drinking during business hours, drinking only at parties, switching from scotch to brandy, drinking only natural wines, agreeing to resign if ever drunk on the job, taking a trip, not taking a trip, swearing off forever (with and without a solemn oath), taking more physical exercise, reading inspirational books, going to health farms and sanitariums, accepting voluntary commitment to asylums - we could increase the list ad infinitum.


if you can moderate, my hat is off to ya.

Okay, I genuinely do hear what you people, people who have achieved a fabulous state of being, are saying. Abstinence is where you have to get to, where I want to be.

But I am NOT proposing moderation either. And I understand why its unrealistic.

What I am asking is whether there can be some sort of a transitional process where you can learn techniques resist the urge to drink. Then use them to achieve abstinence.

The alternative seems to be, for many if not the majority, a morale sapping process of failure and starting over. Again and again. Such a small proportion seem ultimately to make it across the beach. And I'm wondering if its a lack of realistic training for the journey.

You've got to find what works you and maybe that is tapering. There is no one size fits all solution. What there is, is a huge amount of knowledge and learning from mistakes from the great people on SR - I am absorbing as much as I can and am grateful for it. Some of it will work for me, some won't. Good luck on your journey and keep us posted,

x

I know for me-this is only my second attempt at sobriety-I'm a one and done. I just can't seem to have one. Or two. And if I do-I'm thinking about #3. I've done the only drink the weekends-well weekends started getting longer and longer. I've done the only 2 drinks. Eventually-two drinks becomes 3, then maybe 4. I've done the not until after 5. Then 5 becomes 4:30, then 4:00. I've done the only beer or wine.

I still struggle-thinking I can MAYBE someday have just one. In my heart of hearts I know it isn't a good idea. FWIW-I'm only 8 weeks sober.

I attempted to moderate my drinking as far back as when I first started drinking. "I'll try not to drink so much next weekend," I'd say to myself when I woke up with a hangover - I'd convince myself that I'd take a weekend off. It never happened, and as soon as I had one drink I didn't care how much I would have, I just wanted to get wasted. I've learned the hard way that moderation is just not possible for me. I'm not saying that it's not possible for anyone... and if you can moderate and it works for you then why not, but having been posting on SR for 3 months I've realised that it's very uncommon for people who have issues with alcohol to be successful at controlling their intake. Also, it's just SO much easier to not drink at all than spend so much mental energy on attempting to limit what I drank.

Reading here there's the endlessly recurrent themes of shame, low self worth, failure, guilt, remorse. And I'm no exception to any of it.

But, people, I can't help but wonder if it has to be, in the early stages at least, so binary, either/or.

Okay, so you're drinking every night. Have one off and see how you can surf it. Have a couple as a result of discovering you can. A couple of months on maybe you can surf most of the week.

Then a fortnight, a month, a life.

This is naive yeah?

I choose to spend my energy, and thought processes, for important things in my life.....marriage, family, personal health, work etc.........not on thinking about day I can drink and on the days I'm not drinking, thinking about the day I can drink again.
I moderated last year, quit this year. Quitting is easier and allows me to focus on more important things in my life. Quitting is easier than moderating.......but it is not easy.

you're operating under a misapprehension I think, canguy.
You're thinking you still have some measure of control over this thing.

Very few of us do.

Every time alcohol entered my system I ceded my control.

And everytime I drank, whether it was once a week or every night, or one beer or ten, I was in that cycle, throwing the dice.

It might be a 'good' night with no catastrophes, it was usually not by the end...but it was up to chance rather than design.

I could never predict how my evening would end. I was not in control once I took that first glass.

Thats why I believe the only way to beat this thing is to cut it out completely, excise it, remove it from our lives. Then we can start to get better.

And tho it might seem less scary, or easier, it's actually more work, and more chances to get cold feet, to prolong that cutting out.

There's no intrinsic need to work up to that leaping off point.
Quittings rough - but so's the drinking life we lead.

If you're worried about withdrawal, see a Dr. beforehand.

Like I've said here before - alcohol and I have a disastrous relationship.
My drinking caused me immense pain and suffering, and it damn near destroyed me and all I loved....

Why wouldn't I want it out of my life asap ?

D

oh yeah I have to be aware of non alcoholic beer too because I tried that and since I wasn't getting a buzz I wasn't satisfied and of course I was like...gee maybe I can alternate through the night with the non alcohol beer and the regular nope just hurried up and drank the non alcohol beer to get to the real stuff and just ended up spending more money than I had before because I had to buy the guilt free junk too ..ya know so I could justify or deny my binge drinking habit. Some people can drink moderately but I will tell you from myself personally if I could do that I wouldn't be here on SR :)

I tried and found all of my attempts at cutting back failed because...having just one, or just a couple weakened both my ability to stop, and my inhibitions. Under the influence of one or two...stopping didn't seem as important as it did when I was sober.

There are times, for medical reasons that some substances MUST be tapered from. And with the right support, tapering is an option. The right support can mean inpatient detox or rehab, or at the very least having all the substance in the hands of someone who doles out controlled amounts of it according to a strict schedule.

There is going to be some pain in withdrawal, even if it is only psychological or emotional.

If it was easy to just cut back, it that "worked", well all of us would have done that. I would say that all of us have tried that, in one form or another, repeatedly before we were able to understand that our ONLY hope was to stop. Just stop. Stop once and for all. Either cold turkey (speak to a dr first) or under actual detox or other monitored program.

Your premise that it's hard, very hard, and that more people would be successful in quitting is true. If it was easy to quit, more people would quit.

The current reality is that for most substance abuse issues, there is no method that is both easy and effective, painless and guaranteed.

Still and all, people recover, there ARE methods of recovery that work, and a wide variety of methods to address the variety of people.

It's not a hopeless situation, but it does take motivation and support. That's where SR and the variety of recovery programs come in. Support can come in the form of other people, tapes, books,medication, time tested programs, counseling, prayer.

There are many ways to assist people who want to quit and be free of substance abuse, many ways to increase the numbers of successes.

In my experience tapering in an unmonitored program has a low success rate.

I vote, yes. Actually worse than naive. Harmful.

It has been my experience, that of constantly failing at it, is that whatever sobriety techniques you "practice" while drinking are for not.

NOT DRINKING is the foundation on which recovery and all the so-called recovery techniques are built on.

Practicing to be sober while you drink is not recovery. It's addiction.

i have to agree with most on this. i don't think you can ever really exercise true control or "moderation" of alcohol. You might feel you've succeeded some nights, but it will always lead to needing more eventually. Alcohol operates much like the law of diminishing returns, the more you do it the more it takes to maintain that same level of relief. Therefore you will have to just drink more and more to feed and maintain it. Ultimately, it is just unsustainable. I don't know about those who "can just take it or leave it" ... but for me, i know this to be true.