Plenny

I have never had luck moderating either. I was 35 days sober and went on vacation, slipped, but moderately drank for three days. Ive always had bad luck in the past because I'll think I'm safe because I successfully moderated. Then my tolerance goes up, I chase that buzz, I have a hard day at work, or a good day, and I drink and get drunk. Now I'm back and extremely nervous because I'm at day 1 again. I don't feel guilty about my slip which is a godsend because guilt makes me fall harder. But I'm extremely nervous about what's gonna happen next. If I mess up again I've let myself and my husband and my career down. I posted about it last night when I got back from vacation but not one person responded and I felt really hung out to dry. It is a bad feeling. I need reassurance when I get this nervous. I need strength. It's why I came here. I do not want to feel this way and I don't know what's going to happen tonight.
I share the wish for moderation. But I've never succeeded despite my best efforts. And I'm on the edge.

Celticgirl

Hey, Plenny. Sorry nobody responded to you I think you're obviously headed in the right direction. Hopefully I am too. I'll need to be honest with myself about what's going on.

ru12

People that moderate don't post here and the few that try to post here soon leave. You would have better luck finding moderate drinkers over at Moderation Management or HAMS network. I find that it is just too much work for me to moderate... Charting drinks and all that. Im lazy: not drinking at all works for me and is simple.

I hope you find your path.

ReadyAtLast

Plenny, it may be because you posted in the daily support threads. hopefully one of the mods will move it to Newcomers and you'll get lots of responses

resolute50

Yes,just noticed that.Took me a bit to find the post.
It was very early this morning 12:02 am.
Sorry nobody responded,Plenny.
We're all here for you.

Michael66

I had a similar experience. I thought after 12 months of sobriety I would have "reset" my system. My drinking went back to previous levels a little slower, perhaps over 3-4 months, but then increased from then on. It took me several years to get back on the wagon. I have learned the hard way that I'm not able to moderate.

Having said that I can understand why people want to try moderation (even though now I wouldn't drink moderately even if I could). I think many of us have to find out for ourselves whether we can moderate or not - I just don't recommend taking several years of drinking to work it out!

ClearLight

Not for more than one or two days - and that was over a 30 year time frame.

Plenny

Thanks guys and thanks for the posting advice. Im new at this. New at all of it.
I've heard good things from Moderation Management. Except every dependent drinker I know cannot moderate. I have tried countless times. I ended up here because I got fed up with trying moderation. It's black and white, all or nothing for me, even if it takes a while. Thanks and good luck Celticgirl

Lightning Bug

I am an all or nothing kind of drinker. No moderation *ever* for me.

FeenixxRising

As much as I've tried, I just can't moderate.

Eleni58

The only time I moderated per se was when I was tapering down with the goal of completely quitting.

Celticgirl

Yeah, this may or may not work. Didn't drink today. Felt like it a couple hours ago, but I had dinner and a piece of cake and completely forgot about it. Tomorrow we have a kids' activity to attend, so that takes care of that. Going to a picnic on Saturday, and I'm not sure whether I will have a beer or not. I guess it depends on how I feel. My husband isn't drinking, and the kids will be with us, so getting drunk isn't an option.

Rubyx

It's the same for me, every time I've tried to drink in "moderation" I end up going off the rails and drink even more

Bubovski

Post 5 weeks de tox and a few following months of sobriety I opted for 'moderate drinking'(lol)
This involved keeping notes,counting drinks, organizing times, applying considerable restraint, and feeling miserable a good deal of the time. In short only marginally better than those ultra bad old days. This was 19 years ago. I even tried to patent 'the std drink' glass, based on the old medicine glass.

No I definitely don't think moderation is an option for many folk!

FreedomSought

This is how alcoholics work. Celtic girl, maybe you are a non-alcoholic drinker who got wind of program. Fortune tellers abound on the internet, and here, you can get a picture painted of your worst-case scenario.

Some people enjoy a bit of dessert on occasion without becoming obese. Others have one cookie and gain 15lbs in a month. A lot of it is their mentality and belief system. Nothing lasts forever, but a lot of people manage to not-drink one day at a time, and they're quite happy living that way. In my local area, a lot of people die with 20, 30, 40+ years of good sobriety (in old age), by all accounts happy never to have drank.



Just live your life. AA/SR will always be here. Alcoholics Anonymous is a way of life for most members. All you need for now is the Golden Rule. Treat others how you would like to be treated. How would you like to be treated?

stevie88

No moderation for me either...Tried it but failed on many occasions....I'm all or nothing when it comes to beer....1 is too many and 12 is never enough....Steve.

ClearLight

You should check out the fate of the founder of Moderation Management - Audrey Kishline. She couldn't make her own program work, dropped out and:

Not what I would call a ringing endorsement of that path.

Road to recovery - Dateline NBC | NBC News

DisplacedGRITS

in a word, nope. for me, i can try to enjoy a drink for a little while but then i start chasing that high eventually. there's also the issue of trying to actually manage my drinking. how many can i drink in how long? am i going to feel okay in the morning? i'm never happy with one drink and one leads to two and after two my judgment is impaired and who knows what can happen then? sometimes, when i try to drink moderately, i get more irritated than if i'd just abstained. then there's the guilt. oh the guilt! i mean, do i absolutely HAVE to have alcohol in my life? what if i was on a medication where i couldn't drink alcohol at all? could i do it? why bring all the drama and calculation and fear of moderation into my life? it's just so much less complicated not drinking. not drinking is very clear. it's very simple. it's very clean. you just don't drink. it's not easy, for sure, but moderation is much more difficult and complicated for me. it feels wonderful to not have the sensation of craving anymore. i'm not pouring alcohol down into a hole in my soul. i have self respect back and a very clear and simple path to follow.

i suppose some people can moderate but i just can't. the sensation of craving makes moderation distasteful to me. if you can moderate without cravings or being unsettled at being limited, more power to you. for me, abstinence is the simpler, more fulfilling path and i'll stick with that.

jkb

VERY true... thanks for pointing that out Jazzfish. For me moderation would not work regardless of what program I tried. I contemplate moderation however, it seems like more "struggle than fun" when I think it through.

pinkdog

Hello. I had some success in moderation early on. The problem for me is that it took more and more alcohol to achieve the same results. It felt like a constant choice, drink or don't drink. Torturous really. An emotional roller-coaster. Added to the emotions of withdrawal. It was so freeing for me when I made the one-time decision to quit. No more going back and forth over it. No second-guessing myself regularly. When I had the urge to drink, the response I made to myself was "no, no, alcohol. period". This is what made it all so much easier for me. It's the acceptance. The surrender. It's very freeing.