30 Days Sober Log II
 

I went about 15 months sober from 2014-2015, largely thanks to this website & logging my process.

Unfortunately in early 2016 I fell back into drinking. In January I went to Bali with my girlfriend- it was a Mexican restaurant, & for whatever reason I ordered some tequila. From that point on, I slowly crept back to my old habits. It took some time to progress, but as of June 2017 I'm once again drinking 250+ml of bourbon a day. At this point it barely feels like enough, & I really want to up my intake.

Through chance I signed into the old email I'd used to sign up for this website, & saw a few PM's. It was the spark I needed to give this another try.

I think I'd just turned 27 when I first attempted sobriety. At that point I'd just traveled the world, only recently finished university & had a new girlfriend. Everything seemed to be in front of me, so summoning up the motivation to stop drinking was not so difficult. I could easily idealize my dream future, & it still seemed attainable.

Things feel different now at 29, very close to 30. My relationship didn't make me happy, & now I feel inherently flawed. I wasn't happy with her, the woman who had matched me better than anyone in the prior 25+ years, to the point that I had to end the relationship. But I wasn't happy without her either. So what's wrong with me? I seem to have some kind of deep flaw where I don't really like being around people (sober at least), but being alone feels like a wasted life too. So how am I to reconcile this contradiction? I'm not young anymore. I am what I am, life is what it is. I can't find refuge in my imagination anymore ... So what's next?

I don't know. I'm just rambling. But either way, drinking isn't helping. If I'm ever able to work my life out & find some kind of peace, it isn't going to be through the bottle. So it's time to give this another try. I don't have any support (through my own fault/choice-- it's too humiliating & stressful to show weakness) outside of the internet, so I'm reaching out once again. Maybe I can string together a few days of sobriety, build some momentum & go from there.

I've done it before. Unfortunately now I feel like a completely different person, & the void feels much deeper. But I know the longer I go without taking action, the bigger the hole will get.

I first realized I didn't drink like regular people in my mid-twenties. It finally gelled for me this year, age forty. Basically, yes, the hole will get bigger, but you're at a great age to quit.

On the topic of being a loner -- if anything, being sober has made me more comfortable in my skin, whether around others or not (I'm kinda solitary as well).

Welcome back Eshgham :)

Drinking ******** me (in the true sense of that word ). I never progressed emotionally, my self analysis skills stayed undeveloped and my capacity for change was permanently diminished so long as I drank.

Getting sober and staying that way didn't solve all my problems, but it gave me a level emotional field from which to do so.

I learned who I was, I gained an appreciation of who I was and I worked out 'what I wanted to be as a grown up' while in recovery.

I could never do that as a drinker :)

D

My greatest weakness is alcohol. My great and true flaw. Until I dealt honestly with my addiction and faced it head on and gave it up forever, I never was fully whole to be in a relationship. You must be whole to make any relationship work. You should be fully present. Deal with this now, all the rest will fall into place.

Thanks guys. Dee, I see you're still here & going as strong as ever. You're like an institution!

Day 1 under way with coffee & cleaning.