exwell66

Have posted this a few times before goin on vaca with family to a beach house,A place where drinking is well everyone is drinking.I know the answer is don't go...The reality is I want to and I think I want to have a drink thinking I can stop after the week there ....I know how I sound...I am doing so well 80 days now...I am afraid 1 will mess me up....again I know how fkd up this post sounds...anyone?

Coldfusion

Good job on posting here! I think one drink would mess me up seriously--if you have any choice in the matter, I would say don't go.

trachemys

I'm sorry, I thought you didn't drink. Didn't booze make a mess of your life?

exwell66

I love my life now just stating the facts..I was told this would happen and it did in the past...looking to beat this into my thick skull...In the front of my mind I cant...In the back of my mind I can get a buzz and put it in the past,,,again just how im trying to rationalize ....knowing its a slippery slope

Notmyrealname

Not going would be a high-percentage approach to avoiding drinking.

Or you go, and manage to keep from drinking. Risky, but you made it! Good job you!

Or you go, and you drink. Not a great outcome, but hopefully you can get the train back on the tracks reasonably quick without hurting yourself or others. But maybe you end up drunk for ten years, or divorced, or die in a flaming wreck. Not necessarily inevitable, but we can agree those are not great outcomes!



Those are the likely courses of events as I see them. Are you looking for someone to tell you to not go? Or someone to tell you it's okay to go and drink?

If you could turn it on and off like a light, you probably wouldn't have found your way to SR.

jaynie04

I head out east for our summer vacation too (bridge). I didn't go the first summer I was sober. My husband and daughter went without me. I didn't feel it was necessary to put myself into situations that would make me feel resentful.

Last summer (my second sober), I went for 1/2 the time I normally go. My family went ahead, and I went a few days late and left a few days early. It was absolutely amazing. And it was a completely different experience. I used to get through the days until it was time to break out the cocktails. Last summer I was much more engaged during the day and we ate dinner early and went home and enjoyed the quiet. I even hosted a dinner party with very close friends, a couple who knew that I had gotten sober. That was great, and for once I remember the meal and the fun conversation.

This summer I will head out for a longer stretch. Sobriety has become much more natural to me and the things I look forward to are different.

It is one summer. In retrospect I feel like staying home the first year was an active step to protect my sobriety. It was the beginning of me making choices that would improve my life. What I have gained in the last couple of years is so unbelievable that missing a vacation seems inconsequential in hindsight.

New sobriety is fragile, and I think we need to do everything in the world to protect it. It won't always be so tremulous but as each season passes the benefits begin to greatly outweigh what we think we are forfeiting. The island you are headed for is small and tight and isolated. If you choose to go you won't be the only sober person there, but you might want to see if there is a meeting even if you aren't a regular AA person. I needed to see that there was life after sobriety and observing people who had found a new way gave me the strength to hang in there at the outset.

There are things that will arise in our sobriety that we can't plan for. But I think the things that we can make prudent decisions about beforehand are really important to solidifying our commitment to sobriety.

sva777

Exwell, just remember not that long ago you were telling us if you didn't quit death might be not too far around the corner. What has changed since then that makes you think after 80 days everything has changed? Great job on 80 days but honestly that is still early in recovery. If you decide to drink, you will be attempting something lots before have done and failed and honestly you probably will too.

exwell66

thanks...I know what I might be giving up ...Like my son asking me to sit next to him and watch tv...that's huge...its stuff like that that makes me think in the situation I will be strong...I will also look into a aa meeting in ocean beach...great idea

Soberwolf

In all honesty just dont go your AV will tell you anything dont listen to it

I think you are amazing to come here & talk about it here are some links to help with cravings & urges http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...-cravings.html

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...e-surfing.html

Coco60

Hey Exwell - not that I am a fountain of advice, but if you're going to go and want to go, why not look at the whole drinking thing differently. Is it the drinking that makes it fun, or the being on the beach, being with family? My guess is drinking, probably leading to being drunk, isn't REALLY what you enjoy. It's not that you can't drink, it's that you don't have to drink. It has worked for me. I went out to bar with my husband the other day and looked at other people having beers, cocktails and I thought I don't need it. It has given me nothing when I think about it and certainly doesn't make things better or more fun. That was an illusion (or delusion?). You can have a great time without it - a better time I bet! What's the saying: "when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change" . A soda in your hand is a drink, too....

exwell66

this is why I keep coming here advice that means something to me.....I have neen in situations nothing I couldn't handle...The part about enjoying the beach,fam everything I did drunk in the past and really didn't remember most of my time there...Like turks and cakois was looking at pice from april don't remember most of the vacation...that sucks.I hope the thoughts leading up to july 6 will be just that thoughts ...like waiting to get a needle its really not that bad...I can always leave and be home in 30 minutes...great advice

thomas11

I read your first thread (and most of the others), might be a good idea for you to go back and read it. You have a lot invested in these 80 days. Based on what you said in your first thread, I would take a pass on this vacation. The beach house will be there next year, you might not.

sva777

I also read the first few posts and the talk about choosing not to die by not drinking hit home. I hope you haven't forgotten where you were not so long ago and I am sure you don't want to be back there again.

PurpleKnight

For me 1 drink and intentions of stopping after an event always seemed to spiral into weeks on sometimes months of drinking.

The consequences of the fairytale in our minds always turned out worse in reality!!

Imtehaan

Exwell... As all other SR friends have suggested, the priority for you is to build upon these 80 days and not throw it away for a short term buzz.

From my experience, such kind of vacations caused me to relapse and the irony was, it took longer and longer time to get back on track and each time, it was harder and harder.. My therapist put it in very simple words.. "You have been managing with outpatient detox last couple of times but your next detox is very likely to be in ER in a hospital" . I saw the point. Please.. avoid it be all means.. It is too much hard work and risk to life.. Not worth for short term buzz.. We all pray for you..

Anna

Really, I hope you choose to not go.

There are plenty of fabulous vacation options that aren't built around alcohol.

Saskia

I, too, hope you don't go. It sounds like a very high risk choice. I've seen too many people lured by the AV's siren song. Staying sober is a lifetime commitment and needs to be job #1 for a good stretch to have a chance to be permanent. Just saying ...

exwell66

just printed the thread...I will take it with me....lots of good posts to get my mind right if I lean to straying...I will prob take one of my meds that dosnt allow me to drink as a deterant

FarToGo

I'm at roughly the same point as you, 90 days, I wouldn't go but that's me and not you. I hope you'll be ok if you do go.
If it helps me sharing why I wouldn't ......
I wouldn't trust myself not to get totally wasted as soon as I started to drink and then all my old habits and shames would be back, mouthing off, being selfish, being ridiculous, falling about............ yeah yeah, you know.
My sober time is still a bit unbelievable to me (not easy either), precious and hard won. I still dread a relapse and expect I will for some time yet.
I couldn't face that first week of getting sober again ( I hope I don't have to), it was truly awful....... think back to yours maybe ?

I hope this is useful rather than preachy. Stay well whatever you decide.

xx

2muchpain

All I can tell you is that every single time I went on a vacation and drank thinking I would quit again when I got home failed miserably. Had just over a year one time, went on a vacation figuring I'd just have a few beers. The first stop I made when I got home was a liquor store. That's my story, but other's might have had a better outcome. John