Moderation???
 

Hey

I am confident I can remain sober to my first check point of Sept 2014. Has anyone ever managed to drink again in moderation?

Has anyone thought like I am about the purpose and value alcohol brings If they started again.

Since I have given up the alcohol, I have lost purpose of why I needed it.

Kind regards

JO

I hope that you'll not only make it to September but that you'll decide to make no drinking your default setting.

This is a brief sample of all the threads I could find with moderation in the title.

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...archid=5167958

The one common thread you'll find is that drinkers like us can't moderate.
If we could we wouldn't be here josafe.

I notice in your last thread you said 'Whilst I can drink in moderation, this simply wont work for me.'

what makes you think you can drink in moderation?

and if it 'doesn't work for you'...why are you thinking about it again?

D

Hi,

I think the important question is what caused you to pick up the drink in the first place. For me, it was a combination of very low self-esteem and severe anxiety disorder.

I tried to moderate back in September last year, only a few weeks sober after a detox. It worked for about two months. Then, I went out a couple of nights in succession for my birthday, and started to realise what I had been missing. This was far from a good thing. Fast forward to January, and my drinking had spiralled completely out of control. I was an anxiety-ridden mess, drinking nearly three bottles of wine a day for at least a week before I was admitted to a rehab centre for three weeks, where I underwent my second detox.

I have attempted to address the anxiety and low self-esteem, both inside rehab and out, with a combination of CBT, counselling and, at the moment, but I hope not indefinitely, medication as recommended by the doctor. I am still suffering, albeit to a lesser extent, and feel far from truly getting the upper hand on my condition.

Bottom line is: until I feel my reason for picking up in the first place is under control, I will not 'kiss that glass' again. This may be in a year, 5 years, or never. At the moment, I know it's the worst thing I could possibly do. Whenever I get the cravings and remember what I considered to be the 'benefits' of alcohol, I try and instead remember how desperately ill it made me, and the discomfort I had to endure detoxing to get better again. For me, it just isn't worth it.

As Dee has said, we must have sought solace in these forums for a reason.

Look after yourself,

Wendolene x

Didn't work for me. I managed it for over a year but then I hit a tipping point where the choice to drink was no longer there. When I say "managed" I mean I was able to keep it to 2 beers a night. Mentally though it's all I could think about. Before long I was taking the bed for a spin some nights. It simply became too hard to get the buzzes I got with two beers early on.

Btw, I had long term sobriety, so I thought my drinking problem had been tied more to immaturity (I stopped in my twenties) than actual addiction. Wrong. And stopping the second time around was way harder than the first time.

Moderation is not in the alcoholics dictionary. If it was we wouldn't become alcoholics in the first place

It just keeps getting worse. You have two options. Death and surrender. Sorry for being so morbid.

I know this, if I drink I CANT stop! I have tried moderation more times than I can remember, I cant do moderation, it is too dangerous for me to even try!

The part of me that likes to drink doesnt believe in moderation. I always chased the buzz

I got sober for a month the year before I got sober for real. It was a completely different experience. The first time all I did was stop drinking, I didn't change a thing except putting down the bottle. I felt deprived and cognizant the entire time of what I thought I was missing. Those 30 days seemed endless, it was like fasting. I was resentful of everyone else who could drink, and felt like a little kid whose toy had been taken away.

This time I took a very different route. I enlisted the help of doctors, went away, removed alcohol from the house. I made it a very central issue in my life. These 11 months have flown. There were some murky weeks, and months 4 and 5 were scary because I felt so flat. But I pushed on, knowing that I was making the journey of a lifetime. I stayed connected here, I continued to see a therapist weekly.

The last few months have been some of the best in my life. Not because of any real external factors, but more because I have begun to find the girl I lost. You know the saying "go shopping in your own closet"? That is sort of how I could explain it. All of the good stuff was obscured by my obsession with alcohol. I have a visual of pulling wine labels off of my soul everyday revealing the authentic me underneath.

For me, having a date in the future that I would even consider drinking again would totally change my state of mind. You know the person who keeps looking over your shoulder when you are speaking to them searching for someone else? That would be me, involved but not really committed. Instead I am fully engaged with what is in front of me, and my understanding of what I was giving up in order to cling to something that was hurting me deepens daily.

Most of us have had periods of extreme focus in our lives. Studying for a huge exam, or training for an athletic event, or going on a major diet before our class reunion. That sort of modified behavior with an end date in mind is usually radically different than our day to day life. We can do it for a period but we expect to revert back to our regular habits once we achieve our goal. I think approaching sobriety like that makes it really difficult. I had to understand that I was integrating a complete life altering decision that would give me the best chance for the life I want.

Getting sober this time has created the sense of moving away from the bottle and all it represented. If I had an end date in mind, I would feel like I was moving towards the bottle, it would be a totally different experience.

Moderation was a no go for me too, it just doesn't work.

I really needed to read that jaynie04, thank you! Until I accept that I can never ever drink again I'm always going to be thinking about booze. I'm slowly understanding that there is no other option for me. I have to accept the fact that I can never drink again. I was sober for 5 months while I was training for a marathon and I knew I was going to drink after the race was over. I think I was more excited about drinking at the end of the race than I was about finishing the darn thing! Twisted!

@jaynie....very well put, thanks

On reflection alcohol didn't bring any purpose or value to my life, it aimed to destroy it.

Moderation isn't something I can do either, I didn't drink 1 or 2, I drank until I blacked out, but a gap in drinking through Sobriety hasn't in some way healed or cured me, if I had a drink now, I would again drink until I couldn't drink anymore.

The end result would be the same as my brain hasn't changed in any way, the only thing I'm doing is not opening that door and giving it a chance to run riot by picking up that 1st drink.

It was all pretty said up the line.

But think about it. If you had a problem with drinking before, what makes you think you won't again?

Moderation is like going to the shallow end of the pool because you don't want to be wet anymore.

Moderation= Disaster

I tried moderating 5 years ago.
And it was nearly 5 years before I climbed back out of the bottle.

If that's the case, why not keep it that way instead of trying to re-find that "purpose"?

Non alcoholics drink in moderation most of the time.

Alcoholics not so much lol

If I could moderate, I wouldn't be an alcoholic and I wouldn't be on this forum right now.

Agreed. Perfectly put and great advice.