Failing over and over
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2015
Posts: 2
Failing over and over
I am new to this site I have been struggling with alcohol for about 4 years now. It has taken a toll on my family where they are giving up on me. It seems that I'm good for about two weeks and then I slip up again and as much as I want to stop for me and my family I keep messing up.
Member
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Upper Midwest
Posts: 1,730
Welcome to SR, AntlerMan. You will find a lot of support and helpful advice from the good people here. I know that I did.
Poke around, read what others have written, and let us know how you are doing.
Good luck. I am glad you are here with us.
Poke around, read what others have written, and let us know how you are doing.
Good luck. I am glad you are here with us.
Member
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Ma
Posts: 3,553
Welcome to SR.
Your story sounds very familiar to me. I was doing the same thing. Would string a couple weeks together and then fall.
This site will help you, like it did me. Use it as a tool to help you get through the cravings.
Your story sounds very familiar to me. I was doing the same thing. Would string a couple weeks together and then fall.
This site will help you, like it did me. Use it as a tool to help you get through the cravings.
Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 211,438
Welcome antlerman 
The support and encouragement I found here helped turn me from a routine relapser into a guy in recovery
Read around, see what works for others, post as much as you need
D
The support and encouragement I found here helped turn me from a routine relapser into a guy in recovery
Read around, see what works for others, post as much as you need
D
Member
Join Date: Apr 2013
Location: Ohio
Posts: 3,785
Welcome to SR. Glad you found us.
I had to accept that I had a problem and get help. Saying I had a problem did nothing. I had to take action.
Doing something about it was the change that needed to happen. Have you thought about recovery?
I had to accept that I had a problem and get help. Saying I had a problem did nothing. I had to take action.
Doing something about it was the change that needed to happen. Have you thought about recovery?
Re-Member
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado
Posts: 7,583
Welcome Antler,
You made it two weeks! More than once before you got serious and came to SR? Dang bud, if I could have made it 7 days I would have been done for good. I failed daily, and drank from waking up to passing out every day. I retired early because I could, and work was getting in the way of my drinking. I had to go to a hospital for a week's medical detox to quit more than ten minutes of one morning. Then I found SR and had to hang out here because if it was listed on the list of Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome (PAWS), I had it and then some more. MY skin dried up and itched terribly as one of them thus my nom de plume here, Itchy. my PAWS was pretty intense for the first three months and I also started going to AA for the first three months on the advice of some friends here. I had the support of family and friends, and no I didn't hide it. It seems they were in denial not me. After three months the PAWS eased up some and after six months just some lingering sleep and memory issues. After a year almost all gone. After a couple of years I could start not thinking about it anymore and only when I come here daily do I think about how lucky I am to be alive with some of the best friends, who, tho I never met them in person, stayed in my corner and are still offering me support and encouragement.
We don't quit here for only long enough to feel a little better from feeling sick and tired, or to face job family and professional peers. We quit here for good, forever, lifetime sobriety. I can now die of anything but it won't be alcohol related. I have more than a few years and am not through yet.
But I remember that self loathing and disgust. I remember the feeling that I was just a weak suicidal and I can drink that away too, committing slow, but sure, suicide by alcohol. I remember waking up one morning and having uncontrollable shaking for the first time of many mornings. And having to pour some scotch in my coffee to stop the shakes if I could keep it down long enough.
See it is chronic and progressive. It gets worse with time as we get worse with it over time. I used to call myself a functional alcoholic. What a bunch of horse hockey. I could not function without it. Nothing functional about me without more alcohol in me and then more every day.
I never hid my drinking nor drove drinking. All my appointments were scheduled for early morn and I would have a triple in my coffee and git r done before ten so I could get home and get drinking. I thought I had the life of Reilly until that last two years, and the last was really a study in being subordinate to my need for a substance.
Then I went into a hospital determined to get a week's head start and quit smoking at the same time. Both for good. And I have had no relapse, and really no cravings beyond some PAWS. See I had no conditions on my sobriety. It did not depend on life being a smooth sail. It did not depend on my having or not having someone in my life. It was not on condition of not being bored. No lack of excitement in my life could make me regret my sobriety. I believer that boredom is wanting to something, anything, without actually having to do anything to do it. OMG! That describes the actual effect of alcohol on me when I saw videos of me later when I was sober. Alcohol brought me out for some of the most boring times in my life.
All done in the dark at night, and inside during the day.
I am unconditionally recovered. No backsies for me. No revolving doors of fooling myself that I can handle it or taper down or drink normally, no matter how many years I remain sober first.
Do you want to be a recovered alcoholic? Or do you have conditions that must be met for you to agree. I was down to no conditions needed. I was willing to do whatever it takes if I could just get and stay sober. For one day! Then I'd talk myself out of it. And folks tell me how they were exciting and had high times drinking and go back looking for that. Nothing exciting about an alcoholic drinking and trying to stay high without passing out to enjoy it.
I was a sick puppy and hit my bottom. I was ready. I hope you are too.
I am nothing special sober to others. But I have my self respect back. Seems that makes me special to all the others I was afraid would shun me.
It was there the whole time.
So what's your plan? Mine was to stop drinking safely in a hospital for a week, then do rehab for 28 days which I quit after a few days because I was free for a week and knew my real plan.
Don't drink today, repeat daily.
You made it two weeks! More than once before you got serious and came to SR? Dang bud, if I could have made it 7 days I would have been done for good. I failed daily, and drank from waking up to passing out every day. I retired early because I could, and work was getting in the way of my drinking. I had to go to a hospital for a week's medical detox to quit more than ten minutes of one morning. Then I found SR and had to hang out here because if it was listed on the list of Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome (PAWS), I had it and then some more. MY skin dried up and itched terribly as one of them thus my nom de plume here, Itchy. my PAWS was pretty intense for the first three months and I also started going to AA for the first three months on the advice of some friends here. I had the support of family and friends, and no I didn't hide it. It seems they were in denial not me. After three months the PAWS eased up some and after six months just some lingering sleep and memory issues. After a year almost all gone. After a couple of years I could start not thinking about it anymore and only when I come here daily do I think about how lucky I am to be alive with some of the best friends, who, tho I never met them in person, stayed in my corner and are still offering me support and encouragement.
We don't quit here for only long enough to feel a little better from feeling sick and tired, or to face job family and professional peers. We quit here for good, forever, lifetime sobriety. I can now die of anything but it won't be alcohol related. I have more than a few years and am not through yet.
But I remember that self loathing and disgust. I remember the feeling that I was just a weak suicidal and I can drink that away too, committing slow, but sure, suicide by alcohol. I remember waking up one morning and having uncontrollable shaking for the first time of many mornings. And having to pour some scotch in my coffee to stop the shakes if I could keep it down long enough.
See it is chronic and progressive. It gets worse with time as we get worse with it over time. I used to call myself a functional alcoholic. What a bunch of horse hockey. I could not function without it. Nothing functional about me without more alcohol in me and then more every day.
I never hid my drinking nor drove drinking. All my appointments were scheduled for early morn and I would have a triple in my coffee and git r done before ten so I could get home and get drinking. I thought I had the life of Reilly until that last two years, and the last was really a study in being subordinate to my need for a substance.
Then I went into a hospital determined to get a week's head start and quit smoking at the same time. Both for good. And I have had no relapse, and really no cravings beyond some PAWS. See I had no conditions on my sobriety. It did not depend on life being a smooth sail. It did not depend on my having or not having someone in my life. It was not on condition of not being bored. No lack of excitement in my life could make me regret my sobriety. I believer that boredom is wanting to something, anything, without actually having to do anything to do it. OMG! That describes the actual effect of alcohol on me when I saw videos of me later when I was sober. Alcohol brought me out for some of the most boring times in my life.
All done in the dark at night, and inside during the day.
I am unconditionally recovered. No backsies for me. No revolving doors of fooling myself that I can handle it or taper down or drink normally, no matter how many years I remain sober first.
Do you want to be a recovered alcoholic? Or do you have conditions that must be met for you to agree. I was down to no conditions needed. I was willing to do whatever it takes if I could just get and stay sober. For one day! Then I'd talk myself out of it. And folks tell me how they were exciting and had high times drinking and go back looking for that. Nothing exciting about an alcoholic drinking and trying to stay high without passing out to enjoy it.
I was a sick puppy and hit my bottom. I was ready. I hope you are too.
I am nothing special sober to others. But I have my self respect back. Seems that makes me special to all the others I was afraid would shun me.
It was there the whole time.
So what's your plan? Mine was to stop drinking safely in a hospital for a week, then do rehab for 28 days which I quit after a few days because I was free for a week and knew my real plan.
Don't drink today, repeat daily.
bona fido dog-lover
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: SF Bay area, CA
Posts: 99,780
I failed too. Over and over. I thought I was hopeless. But when I wanted to be sober more than I wanted to drink, I was able to stay sober. Been sober over five years now. It can be done.
Member
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: Jackson Tn
Posts: 53
Welcome antlerman! You've come to a great site to get unconditional support from people who've stood and who are sometimes still standing where you are now.
I know waking up feeling ashamed and full of self-hatred must be overwhelming to you, not to mention the notion that you feel alone and alienated from your family. Like you, I tend to clean up my act for a short time-ten days was my max- and then slide back into old destructive habits. I'm wrapping up day 28 now and my view today compared to twenty days ago is completely different. I can't imagine how it must feel for those brave souls walking the earth who've accumulated months and years of sobriety.
I think at this point it's important to remember that you aren't alone, we've all been there; millions of people hit personal bottoms that are unspeakable. If you put in the work, develop a plan, make the necessary changes, and let your actions speak for you, I think you'll find your family will come around. Remember that our disease is a family disease; as fed up with your addiction as you yourself are, your family and friends have worried about you and tried to "fix" you for just as long. Maybe it isn't irreparable, it just takes time. Good luck, and look around the site here, talk to people, and be honest!
I know waking up feeling ashamed and full of self-hatred must be overwhelming to you, not to mention the notion that you feel alone and alienated from your family. Like you, I tend to clean up my act for a short time-ten days was my max- and then slide back into old destructive habits. I'm wrapping up day 28 now and my view today compared to twenty days ago is completely different. I can't imagine how it must feel for those brave souls walking the earth who've accumulated months and years of sobriety.
I think at this point it's important to remember that you aren't alone, we've all been there; millions of people hit personal bottoms that are unspeakable. If you put in the work, develop a plan, make the necessary changes, and let your actions speak for you, I think you'll find your family will come around. Remember that our disease is a family disease; as fed up with your addiction as you yourself are, your family and friends have worried about you and tried to "fix" you for just as long. Maybe it isn't irreparable, it just takes time. Good luck, and look around the site here, talk to people, and be honest!
Administrator
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: Dancing in the Light
Posts: 61,504
AntlerMan, have faith that you can do this.
When you look around here, you will see many people who struggled for a long time to get it right. The important thing is to be able to make changes in your plan. What causes you to relapse after two weeks and what can you do to avoid that the next time? I know you can succeed.
When you look around here, you will see many people who struggled for a long time to get it right. The important thing is to be able to make changes in your plan. What causes you to relapse after two weeks and what can you do to avoid that the next time? I know you can succeed.
Member
Join Date: Mar 2015
Posts: 262
Welcome! I've made it almost a month and check in here often to read encouragement and to vent when I have cravings or it gets tough. I love the weekender thread bc it highlights all the great things people are doing sober. And gratitude thread. Makes you realize all the great things you feel/have/experience when you're sober! Good luck, you got it this time!!
Community Greeter
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Upstate New York
Posts: 51,564
Glad to meet you AntlerMan. You never have to be alone with the struggle - we all understand and want to help.
In my many drinking years, I kept insisting I could control it if I used willpower. I lost decades of my life being numb and reckless. Stopping all together was my only safe option. You can do it.
In my many drinking years, I kept insisting I could control it if I used willpower. I lost decades of my life being numb and reckless. Stopping all together was my only safe option. You can do it.
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