So, things have been great! Then they weren't.
 

Getting sober is hard. I'm not gonna lie. I had my "last drink" on Easter 2014. My next drink was December 23rd 2014 when I decided that the Christmas holidays "deserved" a drink or two. I had just over 8 months sober. Things are good now. Great actually. But I'm not happy. I still drink "occasionally" and that drives me mad. Moderating sucks. Not ever drinking again would be amazing. I'm just STRUGGLING with finalizing that. Just hadn't posted in a bit. thought I'd check in. Tomorrow I'm going to try again. thought I'd check in. Thanks!

Good to see you, PinotNoMore! I hope you can get over the hump and figure out why you can't completely kick the booze. I loved wine too but there's no way I could keep an ember burning without it turning into an inferno that would burn my whole life down.

Maybe it would help to hit SR every day? I don't have any real cravings anymore but I still like to come here daily to talk to others and to remind me of my need to stay sober.:ring

Welcome back PNM :)

D

Hi PNM ,
nice to see you back .

For me the cycle your describing was baffling and crazy making …

The only way to bring it to an end was to quit and stay quit , how many more years of rinse and repeat was i willing to give myself ?

If not now then when ? was my mantra ..

It's real hard , my heart hurts for you being where you are .. it's a big change ..

You need never be back in this cycle again if you don't want to be ..

Take care , m

Welcome bk PNM

Hi, PNM! Abstinence does seem to be the key to real recovery, doesn't it. I'm happy you've discovered that.

Maybe I don't know what you mean by "things" being great. But being unhappy implies things aren't great. Nor even good. And the drinking isn't helping.

Lot of folks in recovery don't like the term surrender, because to them it means powerlessness. I don't agree. In your case, surrender means to give up the idea that you can control your drinking. You said it, moderating sucks. So give it up. Surrender the idea that you can drink. Start accepting that you can live alcohol free, forever.

This can be the time when you finally quit. I've tried the drinking in moderation thing myself and it didn't work. For me It has to be total abstinence.

Welcome back Pinot, glad you are giving sobriety another go. Congrats on your 8 months, to me that's pretty conclusive evidence that you can do this if you want to.

I had some long stretches and returned to drinking myself. I think drifting away from support was one of the reasons, not sure if that is the case for you too but something you should ask yourself.

In the grand scheme though, I kept returning to alcohol because I always kept the door open that I could someday be a "normal" drinker or that by a long enough sober stretch I would get "better". That's where accepting my fate helped immensely. I admitted to myself that I will NEVER be able to drink without negative consequences. Not on 50 days, 50 weeks or 50 years.

How one goes about that varies...some join a group like AA and publicly proclaim it. Some use self paced methods like AVRT and recognize their addiction internally. Some use their faith. There are many ways....but the commonality of all is the full acceptance of the addiction and a plan to live with it. I hope you can find that peace.

Good to see ya.... keep at it.

8 months is a great run and boy, have I been there!

14 months and things are really, really good. I'm not interested in drinking. Sure, the AV fires up sometimes... but as I explained to my new boss last night at a fancy high-rise Vegas soiree where the booze was flowing and I was drinking water; "Alcohol is incompatible with the way I prefer to live"....

And you know what? It really is.

Thank you all for your responses! It's nice to be back. I see now that my post has some contradictory statements. I guess what I'm saying is that everything in my life is good right now, but even though I'm having long stretches between drinking, it takes up a lot more of my thinking process than I would like it to, and that's what drives me crazy! If that makes sense. and I see a bad pattern where the stretches between drinking are becoming shorter and shorter. So I'm starting today after convincing myself for one more glass of wine last night. I don't even enjoy drinking anyway And proved that to myself over those 8 months. That "fun" relaxed feeling doesn't even occur anymore. So, I'm just going to focus on being happy and healthy, and there really is no room for booze in that equation!

Hi PinotNoMore, I agree, it's hard for us to be happy if we're drinking.

Boy, do I feel you. I made it to 6 months and just fell off. Stayed away from here mostly, had little stretches of no drinking, but they got shorter and shorter and last week I was close to drinking as much as I was before I got sober. It was both terrifying and completely normal. Yesterday I realized I cannot possibly go back to that life and I didn't want to. So, like you, here I am again, putting in the effort and remembering why I stopped in the first place.

There is no other way for us than to stop now and stop for good.

Let's do this thing.