Golfdad

I agree, I have had 5 weeks of reduction/ recovery with 2 days of a couple of beers (ski trip). So i have had 36-2 days.

To me the fact that i challenged myself and accomplished the challenge and continue to challenge myself is worth highlighting.

Some who have followed me know I am still trying to figure it out and realize that i need to change my habits, and believe I have done that. I have purposley put myself in situations to test myself and have been successful.

I will continue to weigh the benefits and detriments (as I define them),

I do feel this site has been a great reminder to me of why i need to take a step back and figure out what role drinking plays in my life.

I will continue to report.

Keep in Keeping on

fini

he says he has 30 years of sobriety with a few slips here and there.

"i have a thirty years monogamous faithfull-to-one-person marriage. except for those few one-night stands. here. and there."

ReadyOrNot123

I don't think it's one size fits all. I'm counting days like most people, but am ambivalent about it. I like the fact that all of a sudden you realize how much time has gone by - important when compared to those miserable first few days and weeks when time seems to have stopped. I don't like that if you slip, that means you have failed. Who wants to be a failure? A repeat failure at that? I believe that nothing succeeds like success, and if you discount the positivity you have earned, then what's to stop you from quitting entirely? I'm coming up on a year (continuous days) and although I realize it's an achievement, part of me knows I've been there, done that and it could easily be gone again so I'm actually not looking at it as an achievement. And I know that's at least partially because I know I've "failed" repeatedly too. It's an ongoing battle, and we need to grasp tightly onto what works for us, and let go of what works against us.

Years ago, I was at an AA meeting and a woman said she had been sober for something like 7 years and then on the anniversary of her son's death she had a drink. Her clock reset that day so she considered herself only sober a year (picking up her 1 year chip). I remember thinking how unfair! But if that's what worked for her, who am I to argue. Personally, I believe she had been sober for 8 years at that point, but I don't make her personal rules.

jade123

Thanks so much for all of the replies.

I'll keep 1/1/16 as an important date, they day I started my recovery. But my sobriety date is 1/23/16. I just never thought about holding both dates as important but separate until it was mentioned here.

The more I thought about it, too, the more I felt like haggling over this in my head while I'm only 7 days sober is probably not where my energy should be spent right now in the first place.

Thank you all for your input. I really appreciate all of your help.

fantail

In think of them as my Quit Date and my Sober Date.

It's probably not the right time to worry about dates, no... but thanks for starting this thread. I think all these different points are really interesting. It digs in a little bit to the different ways that people use the same tools. Very cool.

UnixBer

I always counted the days but never the relapses. Always trying to look at the positive I find useful in recovery. There is always hope.

PurpleKnight

There's something wrong with the plan if there's a "few slips", the reality is what we choose is up to us, but the intention to drink no matter how small was there and a red flag to change things up!!

Carlotta

Golfdad, while it is important to keep positive, I have seen quite a few people adopting this system: comparing the # sober days vs the drinking days and considering it a victory when SD are more than DD. I have yet to see someone achieving long term sobriety that way (maybe I am missing someone here on SR).
One of my classmates from the class of January 2013 did that. He disappeared then tried to come back a few times but did not make it. He is still MIA

While this kind of method can be really useful and motivating when dealing with things such as diet or exercise I believe that alcohol is another ball game. We deal with addiction and the obsessive nature of the beast. I strongly believe that we have to work for and strive for complete abstinence. This does not mean that you have to beat yourself up for drinking but that rather than looking at the "big picture" of 28 days sober, 2 days wasted and thinking:
Oh well it's progress!
it is wiser to look at why you drank and what part of your plan needs to be tweaked so you don't "relapse" again.