This is too easy
 

I am going on 2 weeks of not drinking. I haven’t been hungover in 2 weeks. I used to barely go 2 days without feeling like death. I’ve been tired, had some weird nights of sleep, but nothing like those nights I don’t even remember.

I feel like this is going way too easily well. Like I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the issues to set in. But they’re not. I don’t want wine. I don’t want to go to the bar. I actually DID go to a bar last weekend, to drink cranberry juice and see my best friend, as opposed to sitting home alone all weekend. Said best friend was drunk out of her mind, and I was repulsed by it and my former life. No triggers, no desires, no nothing. If anything, i was happy to have gone to the bar and seen her acting a fool, it reinforced my decision. I’ve read peoples’ posts...this can’t be that easy, can it? The real hard part must be coming?

I come from a long line of Irish drinkers, and my grandmother quit cold turkey one day. She had a bad night, woke up in a bad place (literally) and that was the end of that. Maybe I’ve inherited her bullheadedness? I don’t know, but I’m scared of letting my guard down, and then getting caught off guard. But then again, I feel like if the above-referenced best friend, or even my family, were to want to hang out this weekend, I feel very confidently that I could safely go out with them, have a couple of drinks SOCIALLY (as opposed to what the best friend looked like last weekend) and also go back to being this normal self the next day that i have recently found, with no problems.

There’s no way this can be that easy. What am I missing?

Do not get complacent! You are still in the VERY early stages of sobriety. You may think you could have one or two drinks and stop, but the truth is, that is a lie. Sure it might work a few times, but it will not last.

This is you addictive voice trying to sabotage your decision to stop drinking. Do not let it deceive you.

Welcome to the pink cloud.
Don't let it get to your head, a sinister beeing is waiting for you,...

My guess is you are not conviced you are alcoholic and don't really understand what it means to be alcoholic.

There may be a reason you are not convinced, based on your post and your grandmothers experience. Plenty of folks have problems with booze and other substances and just wake up one day and that's the end of it. And things get better. That is because booze is the problem. Take away the booze and the problem is solved.

We call them hard drinkers in AA. They are often hard to distinguish from the real alcoholic because their drinking behaviour can be very similar. However they can stop or moderate if they have a good enough reason.

The alcholic OTOH has tremendous difficulty stopping, and cannot moderate at all. On top of that, stopping drinking tends to reveal the real problem, which is alcoholism. Just stopping drinking does not usually provide a better life. In fact things often get worse for a time.

I guess you could take advantage of the hiatus, and write down your drinking experience of the past, what problems you had and how sucessful you were in fixing them. Perhaps that would give you an answer one way of or the other.

I followed a more dangerous path, an experiement in moderation as it was suggested in the AA big book. I instantly came unstuck, and at the same time convinced about my problem. I was able to then proceed with recovery without any "what if" reservations.

Hi and welcome!

Are you looking to be completely sober? The beginning of your post definitely reads that way. However, then you mention you could have a few drinks, that thinking was always my downfall in the past.

I have been sober for two and a half years, and before that I alternated between periods of sobriety, and failed attempts at moderation. Each time I would convince myself it would just be a few drinks, and often that night it would be, and then the next time it might be one or two, but gradually I found myself right back to the craziness I'd drinking way too much,sicoxaiô ooko ppp

I got complacent thinking wow this is easy, I also come from a large Irish family, then one day bang, I was back drinking, keep your guard up and good luck

Well done on 2 weeks! I never really had a 'hard part' when I finally took my alcoholism seriously and quit drinking. I was always, like you put it, waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it didn't actually. I never really had any close calls or cravings or moments when I felt I was at risk of losing my sobriety. But what I did was I kept working my plan solidly, did everything I was supposed to do, and never let my guard down.

In fact, I did not let my guard down until ... well, Iet me think, I have never let it down. Not after 1 year, not after 2 years. With the grace of some higher power, I just passed 2.5 years sober.

When I read this I thought ... what am I missing? You refer to your grandmother's bullheadedness about quitting cold turkey, but then in the next couple of lines, talk about drinking again. What you are possibly missing is that one of the biggest reasons for relapse is complacency.

If you are worried about letting your guard down, I'd say you've just done it in this paragraph.

Hi Rayna :)

Many times I felt not drinking was easy, or that I felt so good it meant I didn't have a problem anymore.

I'd think about drinking, just in a social setting, and having one or two.

Never worked out for long.

Don't confuse abstinence for control.
They are not the same thing.

I am sure, if I was to drink tonight, I'd end up back at my worst in days.

I went out for a 'night off recovery' in 2004 and did not stop drinking again until 2007.

I believe no matter how long the abstinence period, my lack of control would still be there.

Sure some of us, like your grandmother, can quit one day and never look back - but please don't count on that.

I know many others - people from this website - who died putting off that final stopping date.

D

might be missing these facts:
-I was terrified to do this, but I reached my limit tonight and as much as I want to be done,
-I can't bring myself to just stop, even though I'm desperate for sleep and a clear day.
- I am in such a vicious cycle.
My drinking has risen to the level of screwing up things at my job.
-Then I drink to deal with/forget how I've screwed up.
-Then I screw up more.
-I don't know how to break free.
- I'm drinking more and more, and starting earlier and earlier.
-I know I need serious help
- The difference is they can all control it, but I can't.
-I drink everyday too, and way too much these days.
-A bottle of wine a day has escalated into so much more
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rayna, what happens if you cant make it back? what if you dont have another shot at sobriety?
there are HUNDREDS of threads and posts from people that thought they could return to drinking and be normal drinkers.
https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...archid=8271565

https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...archid=8271567

hope ya change your mind. you might not have another chance at recover rayna.

You're saying " I feel very confidently that I could safely go out with them, have a couple of drinks SOCIALLY (as opposed to what the best friend looked like last weekend) and also go back to being this normal self the next day that i have recently found, with no problems." This despite that (As Tomsteve points out), not very long ago at all you were at this point...

-I was terrified to do this, but I reached my limit tonight and as much as I want to be done,
-I can't bring myself to just stop, even though I'm desperate for sleep and a clear day.
- I am in such a vicious cycle.
My drinking has risen to the level of screwing up things at my job.
-Then I drink to deal with/forget how I've screwed up.
-Then I screw up more.
-I don't know how to break free.
- I'm drinking more and more, and starting earlier and earlier.
-I know I need serious help
- The difference is they can all control it, but I can't.
-I drink everyday too, and way too much these days.
-A bottle of wine a day has escalated into so much more

This is the insanity of alcoholism. That forgetfulness of the power that alcohol has over us once we start drinking.

You've had a great couple of weeks. You've gone from a point of despair and being trapped on the crazy carousel of drinking to being sober and taking your life back. Only an alcoholic would consider drinking again at this point.

BB
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It's strange how addiction is, when I was 6 months off drinking with the help from AA, I thought one day I am cured and can drink like everyone else, within a week I was a mess and I struggled to string any sober days, they could have been my last, thank god I have been given another chance

I think you need a reality check, which is, you can never drink responsibly ever again.

I'm nearly 2 months sober and I've had my AV telling me I can go back to normal drinking and I never really had a problem. As time goes by its easy to forget how bad you really were before you got sober.

By a stroke of fortune IMO early in my recovery I joined a gym and I discovered my PT is a recovering alcoholic. We had a conversation last week about how I had a couple of thoughts that I could go back to drinking, but in moderation. He laughed and said he knows hundreds of alcoholic (he chairs in AA)...and he said every single one of them who went back to try moderate drinking are now either dead or failed and are back in recovery. That is the reality of your and mine situation. You feel Good and everything is going well precisely because you aren't drinking. Don't forget where your previous drinking life took you.

Hi everyone,

Just my thoughts here - I'm on day 63 today (I have a little App on my phone which calculates it daily). I have to say that like Rayna, I'm feeling pretty good right now.
Thing is, I'm also motivated .... frankly, I'm frightened of going back to how I was and all the chaos that went with it. Now that's not a dry drunk negative thing to me, it's 'incentive', a positive thing !

Hope everything goes well, and all the very best,
Johnnie.

I just hit 8 months and it was not hard. However I never want to drink again. The easiest way to do that, never take another sip.
I could control my drinking, when I HAD to. It was never an enjoyable experience. My biggest money issues from drinking was over paying bills. Of course I did that sober too, paying my hydro bill 3 times in November. :)

Someone from the outside looking in would think I went cold turkey one day and that was it. They don't know I have a big plan, that I had to figure out how to (unwillingly) let go of some major resentments, learn coping mechanisms to not create new ones. That I did a pile of bargaining. I can quit for a month, anyone can do anything for a month, I will stay quit six months, a year, a decade. Once I made the decade decision a lifetime seemed doable.

However I have never played with the thought I am cured or one or two is ok. I did a lot of research on kindling. A fascinating phenomena. That is one fire I have no desire to play with.

As time has gone on, I have really thought about booze. Today we are haying, well I am chaperoning a field trip first, tonight a case of beer will disappear down the throats of my husband, grooms and neighbours who come to help. We are racing the rain. I used yo relish those beers on a hot summer day after tossing 35lb bales of itchy, prickly hay for 8-10 hours. I don't want it now. It took me years to develop a taste for beer and for wine. I don't want to re develop that taste, to me, it is revolting. Know what I want? I am going to run the tap in the barn ice cold and drink a big glass of water, let it run down my chin. That is what I crave and that is the best reward.
Trick of the mind I find booze revolting, maybe. It helps. I put as much time reading and researching, thinking about not drinking as I did drinking. I feel confident and looking back it was easy, but that is probably just another trick of the mind.

Read what Tomsteve wrote. Then read it again.

Do you actually want a couple of drinks socially? Really and truly? I know I don’t. I want eight drinks and no consequences.

You very likely could have a couple and go home. But it’s like touching a mosquito bite on your leg. Once you do that - the itch flares up until it’s murdwr trying to keep yourself from just digging into it and scratching until the skin almost falls off. If you’re like me, that successful night of having a couple will leave you 1) over confident and 2) vaguely dissatisfied until you scratch your alcoholic itch. And then it can be so much harder to stop again.

Try this: stay sober for 6 months. If, after those 6 months, you still really feel like you are missing something- the bars aren't going away, the liquor stores aren't going away. You can always go back to it.

But, why not try a life sober? Why not see what happens when you're in control of your nights out, when you don't feel hungover, when you don't blackout and regret your choices?

Try to find a local AA meeting. Helps me so much.

Great thread - thank you for posting and sharing!

As i do often, I COMPLETELY agree with what MissPerfumado said, all of it.

I don't live in fear, but I have never let down that last few percentage points of my potential for relapse - and working a VERY dedicated AA program, creating recovery as the backdrop of my life, has gotten me to 28 mo and 1 day. The only "finish line" I imagine is dying sober.

One more comment to add the the others that people have already made -
the clarity and flat removed web of thinking, deciding, worrying etc about drinking is one of the BEST things about recovery. That took up so much of my energy for so long.

Best to you- hope you read around and look for similarities, not differences, to your (hopeful) progress.

Oh my gosh. When I hit two weeks last month I felt the same way. I'm not back to day three, a month after bingeing on my dad's whiskey over Memorial Day. Please take the time to remember why you stopped and don't let the alcohol do it for you!!! Good luck!!!

The truth is, it was only as hard as I allowed it to be. It was all in my head. It's about how I thought. I had to change my thinking, my mind. Once my decision was 100% solid, it was easy for me. I had some moments as I adjusted to life of the other side, and I've had some cravings, but I got through them. I wanted this, really really badly. I didn't want to live that way anymore.