Doubledee

Hey Oregon.
AVs are something I have difficulty silencing too. After a few weeks sober my AVs manage to find ways to convince me to drink and make me forget how bad and life destroying my binging was. Hope you find a way through it.

Dee74

These are good tips: check out Urge Surfing in there

https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...-cravings.html (CarolD's tips for cravings)

making an Action Plan is pretty useful too:

https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...very-plan.html (What exactly is a recovery plan?)

asixstringnut

Hey Oregongirl. Don't be hard on yourself. Just get back on and start again. 5 days is great.
If you only knew how many day ones I have seen it would boggle your mind!

I am also in Oregon!

asixstringnut

Oregongirlsite

Well, not sure where to begin but I am letting you down, letting me down. Again...2 drinks today. I could not get past that craving and Dee, I saw your post too late. 😢 so I will check in here everyday...read, pray, absorb and hope. I will not post again until I get a few days under my belt.

Oregongirlsite

Thank you.

Doubledee

Oregongirl- I found a similar thing was happening me. Each time I did drink I wrote down when I would get triggered and what would trigger me. This way I can try and avoid it. Hope you're feeling ok today.

Doubledee

Dee - Thanks for the links, they look very helpful. I must check them out when I have time today.

Lorax1981

Hi there. Fellow Oregonian here! Been sober a while and can say without a doubt that it’s worth it. Good luck buddy, don’t listen to the AV nonsense.

Oregongirlsite

My Saturday read. Thanks Dee
PS I love the smileys but I still have trouble accessing them. Only way I can is to submit reply and then hit edit and then it wants to know why I want to edit. 🙈

b0glerd69

Hi Oregongirlsite, I too relapsed recently (around 3 weeks ago) after many months of sobriety. We are all human and we all make mistakes. I messed up at a work event so it was particularly ugly. I have got to the stage of my problem where I, from an emotional perspective, can't take the shame and guilt anymore. Vague notions of moderation are for me, simply my AV raising it's ugly head and attempting to trick me into another binge, and to hell with the consequences. You can find a way through this. Good luck.

Nonsensical

My AV has been talking to me for about 3 decades now. In all that time it hasn't told me one true thing. Not one.

Looks like yours is also a liar. YOU have repeatedly expressed a desire to be finished. Your AV doesn't want to be finished, so it tries to tell you what you think.

It's rather confusing when it's all happening inside one head, right? Learning how to separate between myself and the alcoholic living inside my head saved my life.

SimplyFree

Staying busy was and is key for me. Sitting around on evenings and weekends would be a disaster for me. I am always planning a few days a head. Very little free time keeps me safest and tired. But it works well to not give my AV any of my thought time!

Oregongirlsite

I went for a 5k walk for credit in an organization called AVA. (Not the AV we know...) I know you are right about planning. I so often just let my days “happen” to me. If I plan and execute ANYTHING that I planned it makes me happy. Thanks for your thoughts.

Oregongirlsite

I’m going back reading my threads and the support of the last 6 months. You ask what happened...well, I think I just wasn’t honest with myself about wanting to give it up. I didn’t want to get drunk but I just wanted to moderate it. But my pattern is go a few days drinking moderately then wham...I get drunk. It never fails. Tomorrow is a new day. Another Day One. I started walking again so that’s a plus.

Doubledee

Thanks for the post Oregon. In the back of my head I was considering trying to moderate again but posts like this make me reconsider.

FreeOwl

looking back.... I can't even count the number of day 5's I caved on.

In every single case, what it came down to for me was that I hadn't ever really..... REALLY made the choice.

I'd been doing "a sober month"....

I'd been "taking a little time off"....

I'd been "Quitting Drinking"...... but with the secret, inner intention that one day it'd be ok to drink again.

I'd been "Seeing what would happen"....

I'd been "giving it a try"....

I'd been "Stopping this because I HAVE to quit...."

When I finally got beaten up enough and the pain and anguish and consequences got great enough..... then I finally REALLY made a choice; to embrace sobriety and to follow up that choice with ACTION that supported sobriety.

Even then, I had to truly struggle with the choice to keep it alive. I had to acknowledge when an inner piece of my awareness was thinking things like "maybe one drink on christmas as an annual tradition" - and when that happened I had to take ACTION:

Stop what I'm doing, tell myself out loud: 'no. NOT any traditions involving alcohol. Alcohol in my life interferes with what I want from my life'. I'd sometimes then sit down and journal all the things I want from life, what abundance and joy and presence looks like. I'd sometimes go to a meeting. I'd come here and read stories, post, read my own previous posts. I'd make a list of sober people I looked up to and things about their lives I wanted. I'd go volunteer somewhere to get out of my head and out of my self.......

Until I HONESTLY made the choice that I was going to live sober whatever it took....

Until I followed that choice up EVERY DAY with ACTION to support the choice....

Until I ruthlessly beat back every wandering stray alcoholic thought with counter-action to keep my focus on recovery.....

Well, my day 5 failures went on for years.... and years.... and years.....


You can do this.

JJ991

I don't think moderation works for many people, it certainly didn't for me.

I started off with my alcohol counsellor saying I wanted to moderate, get down to the healthy limit of 14 units a week (from 70+ units a week). I managed to get down to 30+ but then it started to creep back up again, and her words of "moderating is just exhausting" kept coming to my mind, and finally I made the decision to quit. It was no longer a question of how much I could drink of a night, I just would NOT drink.

I had my last session with her last week. We were having a general chat and she said everyone comes to her wanting to moderate and so she goes with it thinking "here we go again" (in the nicest possible sense!).

It is much less tiring and work to quit. I know that sounds a bit odd but it really was true for me!