AtomicBlue

Brings a smile to my face to see some people starting their new lives!

Fearlessat50

I havent read through every post on this thread. Please don’t give up. I understand feeling embarrassed when slipping. I think many here do. But we’ve all been there and relapse is so often unfortunately part of the recovery process. So don’t let that feeling prevent you from coming here every day for support. If you don’t want to join AA, can you find a therapist? Are there other support programs? SMART recovery I think is another one. When you have a craving, can you replace the alcohol with something else - not necessarily food, but maybe 10deep breaths, a drive, a walk, co,e to this forum, whatever. And program that replacement activity into your brain as a new habit. The alcohol cravings are so hard in the beginning but they do lessen with time. I also started to look at the cravings as just an illusion and it was like mind over matter. You can do this. You have to want it bad enough, and also really understand this is a life or death situation.

saoutchik

Hi secretchord. I totally understand where you're coming from regarding succumbing to the cravings, they would come at me in the evenings, every evening. In the end, after too many failures, day 1's and despair I tried a method that partially takes the worst time, the evenings, out of play. I would force myself to get up much earlier than normal and walk for at least an hour, more like 90 minutes at weekends. This resulted in me barely being able to keep my eyes open at 9pm and bed/sleep was a much more attractive proposition than usual.

Insomnia is often a problem in early recovery so an additional benefit is that it helps counteract this and of course walking is good for us physically and mentally anyway, I still do it most days.

I think that doing something physically to fight against our addiction also helps us psychologically - no idea how that works but it does.

Don't despair and don't give up sc!

gypsytears

How's it going today Serenity?

Hope you slept well Oraclelam.



Woot!

AtomicBlue

I thought of something neat about your quit date. For what it’s worth, you could think of it as 8 times 2 plus 2. That is, 8*2=16+2=18. AND you kicked butt and went 2 days early. Hang in there!

OracleIam

I failed my first Friday miserably.

doggonecarl

Next time, post before drinking.

secretchord

Pick yourself up and never give up. Tomorrow is a new day.

I'm doing fairly well. Had a couple of moments where the AV wanted me to stick with the original plan of 8/18. Sneaky little bastard.

Fearlessat50

Be kind to yourself. Think about what led up to this and how to learn from it the next time so you keep moving forward with your sobriety goal

Dee74

good for you SC.

OracleIam - many of us faltered a time or two. The advice to post here and ask or help if you're wobbly is pretty darn good advice

D