VigilanceNow

It seems to me you are making a conscious decision to abandon your recovery! Why would you do that :-(

taplow

If I were making that decision, then it would be puzzling. The part of me that thinks he's running the show wants to stop drinking. Each time, I give in. It's always the same.
I think it's more complicated than just deciding you won't do it as someone said earlier.

2ndhandrose

taplow, I am going to disagree with love and kindness...it is hard, very hard. You can bear it, it may be really, really, really hard but, you and me and all of us here, we can do hard things.

This is meant with kindness, I know the battle well.

CreativeThinker

Hi Taplow, sorry you're having a hard time. You are exactly like all of us. The only difference between you and I right now is that you chose to drink today. You don't have to finish that drink, it's your decision.

We all have a choice every day whether we will make the choice to drink, or move closer to a life without negative consequences, shame, sadness, loss of relationships...I'm sure you know what comes along with this disease.

Once you make the decision to change your life and find happiness again, recovery begins. All it requires is deciding that you will not drink today. Every day that you move past the urge to drink, you'll begin to feel that you have power over your addiction.

Lastly, don't be too hard on yourself. We've all given in and took that drink. The first few days of abstinence is the hardest. Hang in there!

kevlarsjal

I agree with 2ndhandrose. There was a time where I thought I had to drink to survive, it felt like I didn't have a choice.

Now I know that we always have a choice. And that there is a life without alcohol. For everyone. For you too, it's just waiting there, even if you can't see it yet. We don't need alcohol in our lives, we really don't. It's purely the addiction tricking you there.

Spartanman

Hello Taplow,

I really understand what you are saying. Really wish it was as simple as saying, "That's it, I'm done"!, and then never drinking again. Perhaps some have had that experience but I cannot relate to that yet. It's been a struggle and feels monumentally difficult most of the time, and I've failed at it about 2000 times. But we keep trying. I saw someone on here say that his or her recovery was "95% living sober, 5% fighting addiction," and I thought that was really cool. I am trying to get to that mind-space as it sounds like a great place to be. For me, I feel like I am at 30/70 on that spectrum most days ...

Cornbread

Don't forget that your post is a great deal of help to those of us who are trying to remain free. Many of us are processing this with you as you type.

Harryho

I too get caught up in the illusion that drinking will make it all better. I used to tell people that it's as if my hair is on fire, I just want to put out the fire. So, what works for me now is reconstructing the very last time I made a complete and utter drunken fool of myself. And ruined my chances of a great opportunity of landing a dream job I was working up,to for a long time. I replay the whole shameful drunken evening, even up to the point where I was carried out. To make matters worse, my son has to face those same people, and luckily they don't know we are related , and I have had to warn him not to let on. My son doesn't know why but he suspects and is now newly embarrassed by my AGAIN. Is there no end to my ability to destroy everything good in my life? This is what keeps me from picking up a drink. Day 18.

taplow

I know it's bearable and that it's my choice. I'm responsible, I know that. As I'm drinking then this is obviously what I want.
But it isn't. I don't know where choices come from. Whoever's in the middle changes moment by moment. There's no great constant arbiter there.
I can decide when I'm sober that I'll do this or that. But I change my mind. It's my choice, I'm responsible I admit. But who makes the choices changes. With me anyway.
How is it possible to control that? Well it's not is it? The only way is to be is as Grymt to be physically incapable of actually getting to it. As I said earlier, the only time in my adult life I was alcohol free - 8 years - was after being in hospital for a month and with lots of recuperation afterwards.
At whatever level, I do choose not to drink. I can't choose anymore that I'm choosing. But then......
Maybe I'm not someone with an alcohol problem but just a lunatic.
Anyway, I'm all done now. Thanks everyone.

taplow

Thinking about it though, if it just comes down to, "it's your choice", "just don't do it", "it's not unbearable", then what's the point of anything here?
The advice to just not do it isn't really worth anything is it? I drink so it must mean I want to drink. And if I want to drink then why am I here saying that I don't?
As I said earlier, I don't belong here. Another alcohol site banned me because I wasn't the right kind of drunk. I don't think anyone's the right kind of drunk.
I'll stop for the evening now. I recognise the signs.
Thanks all.

ScottFromWI

Making the decision to quit is not complicated. Even forming a plan to stay sober is not complicated. It is definitely not EASY though.

Carl laid it out in pretty simple terms actually. You don't have a plan and you haven't taken the necessary steps to change your life either, right? Very few people can just "stop drinking" and move on with their life as if they never drank. There is a fundamental difference with an alcoholic that doesn't allow you to just stop. You need to make a plan to address that fundamental difference...either through a recovery community, therapy/rehab/counseling, self help, etc. We can help you do that here if that is what you want.

MarkTwain

I love that picture of yours, that painting...very cool.

All these years and there's probably only one thing I know for sure about quitting alcohol:

As long as you're fighting it, alcohol will win.

Dee74

I think you're exactly the right kind of person to be here actually

The point of being here is that you're expanding your 'toolbox'.

I couldn't quit drinking on my own - not for 15 years - but with the help of SR I managed it.

If you go into this thinking you have a condition you can do nothing much about, and assume a passive role, the outcome is pretty much preordained.

Not drinking is not easy, no - but it's not complicated either not really.

do you want to quit - if yes, what are you prepared to do to make that happen.

If what you're prepared to do isn't enough to keep you from drinking, are you prepared to do more?

We can quit and stay quit Taplow

people do it here everyday - you have to decide if you want to join them or not.

It really is your call

D

taplow

Clearly I don't want to quit. Yes, the rational part of me wants nothing else. It's what I want, to be free of this nonsense.
I think I fit somewhere else. I won't drink anymore tonight but only because it's all gone. There's nothing left.
I think that the important thing is to have resolution. I can't change my life as people here say you should. How, in what way, that's just silly. I can't just become someone else. You can't just come back as some idiot, walking out of the sea wearing a safari suit. No, this is it, there's no life changing going on. I've given up on that but that's okay, I can cope with that side of it.
A plan though. A drinking plan? That's something to look at.

dwtbd

A not drinking plan, yeah? A plan that sees you clear to be free of the nonsense. That in itself would be life changing, no? Perhaps that is what others mean.

Dee74

Everyone has an internal struggle.



Feed the right wolf.

You can absolutely become someone else - or more accurately become the person you've forgotten you were.

It is possible. I've experienced it, I've seen it in others..

Change is scary. Our AV would much rather we think of this as an incredibly complex and intricate process but ...it's not.

It all starts with putting down the bottle and not picking it up again.

Why not come back sober after a sleep and get some ideas on how to start off?

D

fini

taplow,
you 're right, you can't "just" become someone else. nobody does. it is a process, a process which accompanies ongoing abstinence.

i hear you about choice. it was my bigget stumbling block, believing i had free choice. rationally, that is true. but my drinking wasn't driven or "decided" by rational reasoning.
my choice mechanism was impaired.

this did not mean, however, that i could not or cannot choose the things i do that continue to allow me to stay comfortably sober.
as do so many others here.
this is where things like plans and changes come in.

Scrainblaugh

I understand your ambivalence, Taplow. I was recently there. I spent the last 7 months "quitting" every Monday only to start again within a few days.

I can't say what will work for you but I kept returning over and over to resources like SR. Reading stories, discussion boards, etc. 11 days ago I read one sentence that changed it all for me. I am absolutely not ambivalent anymore.

It was an unimportant sentence in an unremarkable thread that didn't pertain to me (newcomer, woman, parent) at all.

I guess my point is, if you don't give up on that part of you that wants to quit, eventually you might come upon the thing or things that will finally overcome the part of you that gets a case of the ****-its as soon as the bad cravings hit.

It feels so good not to feel or act like a victim. It just took me a while to get here.

Steely

I understand what you mean taplow, and to cheer you up thought that your considering of a drinking plan would only run to one line on the page . At least that's how it would be for me. Where do you think you belong if not here? What's the real problem then?

taplow

I like this fini. Because me you've explained to this simpleton here about with the plan thing and why it might be necessary to have one - whatever a plan is.
Choice doesn't mean anything if another "me" just decides, "you know what, I want a drink". You need something to override that. The special plan.
It makes sense, not like the idea of some on here who say that you should just show a bit of backbone. Anyone who thinks, just don't drink, just say no, in my mind doesn't really have much of a problem. As you understand, it's not that simple.
I reckon you need something to take you outside the drinking environment whether physically or mentally, and me being unable to afford rehab, can't afford anything, would have to rely on something else. A secret plan then.
I'm drunk again, obviously, but wanted to reply. Scranblaugh thank you and I will keep going, what else, and Steely, it's been a long day already. I really reckon that I've got brain damage because I don't seem to able to understand seemingly simple statements. Would a plan be something like, everytime you want to drink to put on a nightdress until the craving dies away.
Dee, thank you.