soberbrah

I know that not drinking I feel better physically, mentally, emotionally

Have a bright future ahead of me etc...

But can't stop fantasizing about scenarios where I can drink again(vacations, celebrations, if I become successful...)

Delilah1

I have had those same thoughts, I think that is the whole reason behind the one day at a time motto. I actually thought that it is sad that I won't be able to have champagne when my kiddos get married, they are 5, 7, and 9!!!!

MycoolFitz

Yea I am learning if you care about people and special events it is not about drinking it is about loving and caring.

soberbrah

But it feels good

Threshold

I've experienced all the "stages of grief" in recovery. After all I lost something dear to me...the delusion that I could escape life, my "refuge" in the storm.

Bargaining is one of those stages. And fantasizing...that we are once again reunited with our lost love, that it will be different, better...or even remembering the past as better and shinier than it really was.

Bargaining..."hey Universe, if I do this...surely I can have that again, right? What do you want from me, anything, I'll do it, just to have my loved one back."

Forgetting they are gone...hearing their footsteps, picking up their favorite cookies at the store only to come home to an empty house. I've done that with my substances as well...looking forward to using them, then the hard reality that I can't do that anymore. I can't call my ex, or send that card I found that is SO perfect. I can't enjoy my favorite booze. I can't go to my favorite restaurant...it's 2000 miles away. But I forget. And then have to feel again the rage and loss when I remember.

it's a process. In time, if I let it, life fills in the blanks.

hypochondriac

It sounds like you're harbouring feelings that drinking is actually beneficial in some way. Romanticising it at least.

I actually stopped drinking in public years ago because I wasn't a dignified drunk. And being sober and watching other drinkers confirms for me that no one is. You could do worse than read Allan Carr's Easyway to stop drinking. His smoking books changed the way I view addiction. It still surprises me how many myths cling to drinking and even smoking now.

Junebugapril

Makes sense to me, the way you are feeling. You had a relationship with alcohol. You miss it and are thinking that if you are good and do everything right, your mistress, alcohol, might come back to you.

I feel that way too, I understand. My bottle of wine was my best friend.

Dee74

To me my relationship with alcohol was very like an abusive relationship - even tho alcohol was bad for me, and I knew that...I loved it and I missed it...

I wondered if it as my fault...maybe I'd done something wrong...maybe if I tried harder I could make it work....

I look at all the other people who were able to have a good relationship with alcohol and wondered if I'd ever find happiness again....being lonely scared me.

Don't forget the abuse.

It took a little time but I rediscovered who I was - and I regained my perspective on what my relationship with alcohol has really been like.

D

Thepatman

Love your post Treshold. The analogy of loosing someone. Funny because this time I feel exactly the same way. It's over between us, and like Dee said it was an abusive relationship.

nonblondechef

This is a great thread. Great analogies coupled with reality. Everyone keep up the great work. Stay stopped and celebrate your strength and tenacity. We are all on the same ocean, just in diferent boats. Sail on - we got this!!

SavingSelf

What helps me is although I know we are supposed to stay in the moment--if I think about say, "one day taking a trip to Italy and not being able to have a glass of fine Italian wine"--I now try to follow it up with what happened most times I was drinking--getting drunk. And getting drunk, really drunk--wasn't much fun for me at the end. Do I really want to be stumbling around Italy sorta remembering what I saw later on? No, I don't.

There isn't any event I can think of that I may look forward to that I wouldn't want to remember later on. And sometimes (lots of times) when I drank, it was hard for me to remember fun events. In detail anyway. What is the point of that?


Anyway...you are not alone in these thoughts. I think we all have them--at least in the beginning of recovery.

freshstart57

She was simply gorgeous, and I was nuts over her. She had everything I loved and lots of it. I spent so much time with her that she became everything to me, and my other friendships got abandoned as we grew deeper and deeper in love.

But things started to go sour. She started making excuses and then the lies popped up. Then things started going missing that couldn't be explained. I knew that it had to be over between us 'soon', but I kept hoping that I could save our relationship. I followed her around and tried harder and harder, but I was made to look like a fool, time and time again.

One morning, I woke up, and decided that I deserved so much better. I wanted more out of my life than this never-ending trail of misery and tears. I walked away from her, and kept walking. I will never have anything to do with her ever again.

phoebe64

I was having those same feelings about comparing my drinking to a bad boyfriend. I remeber one I had. he was intoxicating, but so unhealthy for me, in the end. And once I was truly free of him, I did feel so very good.

I can use that to help me stay sober.

On the flip side, I bet many of us can relate or alcohol addictions to relationships, because we might have also used relationships to feed our addictive selves. I know I feel a terrible lack of attention from my husband, and I numb my pain with wine. Or use it to escape and temporarily feel good. Just like sex might accomplish. So, drinking and relationships can have similar dysfunctions, if we use them for the wrong reasons.

And, there is where we need to heal ourselves. Not just quit the drinking.

It is so easy to type that. Not as easy to fix it.

Nikkipoo

I can so relate to what you have said here about lack of attention from your husband and numbing that with wine. My drinking was directly related to whatever was going on with my husband... arguments, criticisms,indifference etc. My bottle of wine was always there for me.

FreeFall

Great advice and thoughts on this thread! I found myself fantasizing more at the beginning. Adding the dose of reality to the fantasy has pretty much stopped the process. I'm sure we all wish we could celebrate occasions like we used to, but if we kept up the addictions we might not be alive to participate in the future ones.

Xune

There's nothing for me to fantasize about.

I surrendered to my addiction to alcohol.

There is no circumstance that could ever take place where I would find myself drinking alcohol.

I suspect it takes work to get where drinking is no longer an option.

I hope you get there!

Anna

There is no fantasizing or romantisizing for me either.

You can find healthy ways to celebrate special occasions and other successes.

Junebugapril

Rochele, I can relate to so much of what you said. I have no husband or boyfriend now, and wine was my substitute. I could always count on my bottle to be here for me. It was my friend at the end of a day, my comfort. When I was mad at the world, alcohol made me feel good. When I was hungry if I had a glass of wine I felt full. Wine filled the hole in my stomach. Wine filled the hole in my soul.

But we are getting off track of the original post. Romanticizing the drink. Thinking about a trip to Italy or Greece, how will that be without a glass of wine at dinner? Don't I deserve to have a drink with a meal in Italy? Even the kids get a glass of wine, for goodness sake. And when my kids get married. What about champagne at their weddings? Won't there ever be a time when I can celebrate with a drink like "normal" people do?

The answer is, probably not. When I quit smoking in 2001, after a few years, I started smoking once in awhile. I love to travel by train, and every summer I take Amtrak trips around the country. On train trips I would bum cigarettes once in awhile. Or if I was with a smoker I would bum a cigarette. I could go six months without smoking. I thought I was bulletproof.

In 2010, I took a painting class at the community college. On breaks, the teacher and some of the students went outside to smoke. I started bumming cigarettes from then. I bought packs for them when I realized I had bummed at least five from each one. Then I bought myself a pack. And I was right back to smoking.

So addictions are always there. There's no fooling my addictions. They have me by the scruff of my neck, and if I have "just one", I will probably be right back to where I was 8 days ago. Drinking a bottle of wine a night. Instead of night, though, I had started drinking at three in the afternoon. Recently, I even started drinking at one in the afternoon.

I can see how easily and quickly that could have morphed to me waking up and needing a drink, getting DUIs, and being in jail. I don't want that. So I probably need to not drink at all. Ever.

Sorry for rambling on. But I know in my heart, that I won't be able to have those drinks in Italy with dinner. I hope I can get to the place where I won't be resentful of that, and that I just won't want to drink.

Casmasta

For me, I have taken Italy entirely off the table.
(maybe someday that will change.. but not now. not for me.)
Italy IS wine. And probably the major reason I romanticized the country so much.
But there's a great big world to see.. With great food, and scenery.

However.. I know you can't take vacations, and celebrations off the table altogether.

Maybe just make better choices for the vacation to begin with.. One that includes hiking, or zip-lining, or visiting museums and aquariums..
Pass for now on the all-inclusive beachfront resort.

(i just went to Boston, and decided that i shouldn't go check out where the show Cheers was filmed.. though my alcoholic self would have been all over that..)

I digress.
It's all about making choices that our logical, and healthy mind can get behind.

Though I still think sometimes(like all of these bad relationship analogies) that maybe sometime I could have a drink there.. We could just be together for a moment.. And go back to being sober again..

Sometimes I have to remind myself that I've tasted all of it.
There's no need to "try" anything again.

I know that it's impossible for me.
There's no more drinks. Ever.
And for now..
I just can't go to the places that I think would threaten the future I have with my sober self.

soberbrah

for me i think of ireland

i went last year and the place is the balls and the sack

i plan on going back and cant envision it sober

shot of jameson and a pint of guinness at a pub in ireland is what i think about