Bird615

I stopped drinking at 21 because one day I just knew that I was going to die if I kept on going. But when I got to that point where I finally wanted to/had to stop, I realized I couldn't, so I had to get help.

I stayed sober for 20 years in AA but moved away from my neighbourhood and then drifted away from meeting attendance and the people in the program. Eventually, I drifted away from working the program and practicing the principles in all my affairs; my thinking and mindset began to revert back to unhealthy ways, and I didn't catch it or stop the progression. I got to where I didn't value my sobriety anymore.

Over the next 10 years, I gradually began to entertain the thought that maybe I had just been too young and irresponsible back then and maybe I wasn't really alcoholic. At first there was a lot of resistance, but I began to believe the lie again that alcohol could be a solution to my problems of boredom, stress and loneliness. So 30 years after I first got sober, and after a lot of contemplation, I actually convinced myself to pick up that drink once again. If that isn't insanity, I don't know what is.

I told myself that if it did turn out I was really an alcoholic after all, that I would just stop again, but that was far easier said than done once I'd woken the beast. It took me four and a half years to make it back and I know how very fortunate I am to have a second chance. It was remembering how good sobriety had been that kept me trying to get it back again.

I now accept that I truly am alcoholic and picking up a drink for me is inviting all that pain and suffering back into my life.

CAPTAINZING2000

I've never went back out. That's why I continue to attend a meeting or two a week. I need a painful reminder of a new commer sitting there with a deer in the head light look on their face.

There is a guy in my area had 33 some years sobriety, his wife died and he went back out. The last I heard, he's been unable to get a few days strung together again.
I know, I have another drunk left in me. What I'm not sure of having another recovery.

Many people have told me from their relapse, they ended up drinking like they did before they got sober. I can't afford that. I was soulless in a black period of body and mine..

Everything I own can fit in a shot glass if I pick up that first drink again

Aellyce

This was exactly my experience when I decided to drink after 2 years sober. Even the first drinking episode was exactly the way I used to drink earlier, followed by a few similar events. No thinking I could (or would want to) moderate, no initial less harmless episodes or gradually sliding into my old full blown alcoholic pattern -- it was the same kind of extreme from the beginning, drinking copious amounts alone, hiding it, being very sick from it etc. Thankfully I stopped relatively soon but even the monster cravings I experienced first time had returned with full force. I am still dealing with that now a few months sober again. Absolutely not worse repeating the whole nightmare.

Pondlady

Interesting thread. I've read about people with long time sobriety, drinking again and it scares me. Dee said things so perfectly and I feel similarly.

I never want to feel like I did when I was drinking and I read here daily, to keep on my toes.

August252015

I agree one bajillion percent with the near certainty that it would become far worse than ever before if I ever drank again. So few people who drink again are able to stop after just an episode or two. I will not take that chance - which leads me to echoing another bajillion times the comment that we never know that we will in fact GET another chance to sobriety. Even that single drink could be the final one for a real alcoholic. I should not have had THIS chance. No more Russian roulette for me.

CAPTAINZING2000

I've stopped smoking before and after several years, stress would get me. I'd sneak a smoke in and before long, I was smoking like before.

I have an addictive personality. I want more of everything

Aellyce

On the acceptance thing... I also have a bit of a hard time to see how that would be the center of recovery. As I said above, I did not have an issue with accepting that I am an alcoholic when I relapsed, no doubts whatsoever. And I experience similar with other destructive/dysfunctional behaviors. Can be very sharply aware of the problem, understand it deeply, accept it as a challenge and issue -- and yet I would act out. Acceptance for me helped initially when coming out of denial many years ago about my addiction, but as far as sustained sobriety, I find that for me it is most effective to focus on how not to act out my urges as I can react knowing perfectly how harmful the act is for me.

Similar with some other patterns that do not serve me well at all -- I can trace them in all sorts of depth and lengths, where they come from, what drives them etc. But still keep falling back into the behavior in the moment. What helps me best is to develop ways to divert my urges and impulses and instead of acting on them, do something constructive, often despite not wanting to do it at all initially. I often find initiating constructive action can bring healthy motivations as a consequence on the go and it is better than waiting for that to arrive a priori. Acceptance is probably most helpful as part of learning these constructive reactions and realizing that reinforcing it this way will indeed help me. But simply just accepting the problem would perhaps be akin to having a serious physical illness like cancer, learning all about it and knowing the risks, but not doing anything to treat it.

PurpleKnight

I tend not to overcomplicate or over think things, it was that type of thinking that caused me to go round and round in circles trying to moderate and analysing my drinking to the nth degree and not actually doing anything constructive about sorting out, but everyone is different.

For me alcohol was causing problems, and continuing to do the same thing would continue to cause those problems, so I knew for a long time what I needed to do before I did it, years in fact.

Eventually I decided to make a change to produce a new outcome, that was it, it's that which set me on my way to Sobriety, continuing to do the same thing and expecting different results hadn't worked for years . . . and so a change was needed!!

madgirl

This scares me to death, and is also revelatory - I realize I have a "thing" I will need to deal with the rest of my days.

It helps me to be honest about alcohol's genuine effects - like when I see the Total Wine sign at my old store, I think Total Headache, Total Nausea, Total Panic, Total Depression, etc. It turns me into a disgusting version of myself - pathetic, sad.

I think these things every day to fight off any impulsive, romantic lies.

AlwaysGrowing

Acceptance is the key from my point of view. If/when the idea creeps back in then drinking is back on the table. My hardest years were 18 and 19 during a divorce. During the period when my 1st wife passed away drinking was never on the table. Today is 25 years and one week sober. I want to be me not what drinking does to me. I embrace life on life's term as much as it has torn me up uncontrollable crying on a bed. Having God in my life today and in those key times in my past has saved me from myself.
Take it and leave it off the table.
AG

LadyBlue0527

I was days away from 18 months of goodness. There was one reason alone that led me back out. I lost mindfulness.

I accepted the lies I told myself as I dropped each sobriety tool I had in my toolkit. "I'm good, I've got this" I said. Since I had some time under my belt even those who were my anchors agreed with me. Slowly but surely I went back to living my old life but without alcohol. The mindfulness of why I didn't drink was gone. Soon, opportunities arose where I pondered drinking but decided not to. Until the night my company had a party with a fully stocked limo. I knew full well I was going to drink if I stepped in and sure enough, I did.

I will never again allow myself to forget why I can't drink ever again.

I learned a lot in that near 18 months. The most important lesson was what NOT to do this time.

I also have a theory as to why we get worse every time we start back up. Regardless of how good we can do for a while with it or, how much we accept the lies we tell ourselves, I fully believe we know we will again come to another quit day.

Buy 10 pounds of candy and put a child in front of it. Tell him he has a time limit to eat as much candy as he can and then there will be no more for the rest of his life. Then let him have at it.

That's us, in a nutshell, every time we return to it and it just keeps getting worse.

If you do go back out don't lament over the time you had in sobriety and lost. You lost nothing, it's a very essential part in learning how to stay sober.

Algorithm

In hindsight, I think it was originally to cut my losses, until I could turn things around. It was a terrible idea.

It was followed by major, permanent losses, but the insidious thing about it was that I was able to stay out of "big" trouble for a while, so I thought I was getting away with it. Until I wasn't.

What AA and others refer to as acceptance, I prefer to refer to as removing the Precious Option of any further drinking. I need not necessarily accept anything in order to quit for life, but I certainly must remove that precious option.

AA was right about one thing. The idea that someday she will control or moderate her drinking is the obsession of every problem drinker. The yearning to drink moderately is known only to problem drinkers. The yearning actually proves its opposite, since social drinkers don't yearn.

Consider removing the precious option. No more yearning.

Lobrien

Yesterday I had a relapse and today reminded me why I stopped drinking. I had been doing well not drank a drop for about a month . I have started avoiding going out as a lot of people drink and I'm not in a good enough place to do it yet. I am very weak when with others who don't seem to understand and encourage me to drink, thought I cud just have a couple but then I get a taste for it. I wasn't physically dependant and never have been but I felt I have always had a problem with alcohol and cannabis and wanted to stop it all. I also split up a few months ago from alcoholic partner as he was abusive and didn't want to stop drinking. I still have a big attachment to him and when I was out some work friends talking about him, I ended up going to see him and drank more and smoke weed. It did not end up been a positive experience and I don't remember going to bed. Felt very ill in the morning and depressed, I am on antidepressants too which was another reason for stopping drinking. My friend who looked after my son for me was really annoyed with me and said I was selfish. The day was a right off. Any kind of social event worries me I just feel I shud probably not go out in certain risky situations but also feel isolated. My ex still drinks and has met new drinking buddies since we split including a very young and attractive woman which has further added to my heartbreak. I want to get over him but I miss the good parts of him terribly, but I know the most important thing is my son.

AnvilheadII

i had 7.5 years of sobriety and then CHOSE to drink again. i gave it a lot of thought beforehand, i knew full well what i was throwing away, and i just didn't care. i had been drifting away from "recovery" for some time, wasn't attending MY meetings (AA), altho i was attending meetings (NA, with my bf). i didn't have a sponsor. i didn't do 12 step calls. or service of any kind. and sobriety lost its luster............it all became "eh".

that first drink nothing bad happened, the roof didn't fall in, i didn't go up in flames, nor did i then drink the bar dry. but i continued to drink and it wasn't long til i let myself get drunk - and then it was on. going out 2-3 nights a week (as a married woman with a child from another marriage), getting blind ass, black out drunk, and driving.

to say it didn't go well would be an understatement.

Maudcat

I heard both "going back out" and "picked up" in AA. "Crazy train," meaning the cycle of drinking, getting sick, drinking again (and my particular favorite. Evokes monkeys on circus trains for me) was used a lot as well. Pick up is easy to understand. You pick up a drink. Go back out, I guess, means you leave the AA rooms. Interesting.