EANx

I feel the same way. For me, a "slip" is accidental, your Coke next to someone else's Jack & Coke and the wrong one was grabbed. If I order something or walk into the store and pay for something, I didn't slip. It might be addictive behavior but it was deliberate and my recovery insists I take responsibility for my actions. For me, anything else is rationalizing and that's not just a slippy-slope, it's a cliff.

Silver11

dwtbd

Clark
Are you familiar with AVRT?( great threads on those ideas here on SR in the Secular Recovery forum)
You just articulated one of the basic tenets: learning to ‘hear’ the desire .

Recognizing and identifying the AV and then separating from and ignoring It, is the key to staying true to our truer, more rational self and values.

Learning and using AVRT has shown me how to be the teetotaler living comfortably with latent desire that I am . If you haven’t already check out those threads , I sense you will resonate with them.

bexxed

I think people do slip.

If you stopped drinking for a week and have a drink, you slipped. If you’ve been sober for ten years and drink, you’ve relapsed.

Alcoholism is a thinking problem more than anything else. One that is marked by the use of the cunning manipulative part of our brains.

You’re right on tho, about the fact that our lives are the results of a series of choices.

I didn’t make perfect ones today in every respect but I didn’t drink, and it didn’t even occur to me that it was an option, because it isn’t.

Thanks

b

fini

JT,
yes, i thought that way, too, and could not then understand why i kept choosing an insane thing that i did not want to choose.
you have been a drinker for a while...all these simple, clear choices to repeat former misery, add new misery, have another dwi, rocky marriage...maybe you can see why the concept of it being a simple choice that you just make sounds too simplistic?
why would you choose this, over and over?

Silver11

JustTony

Really fabulous posts to wake up to.

A breakdown would be something like:

"It's a simple choice but not an easy journey"
"Work a plan (don't be a dry drunk)"

The posts above are much more erudite, insightful and detailed and I appreciated every one of them

Thank you.

JT

Ayers

Hi Tony. So glad you started this thread. Will sit down and write my musings on this later this am after gym and a bit of work.

Maybe this is what we all need - erudite, insightful and detailed posts. Venting and probing a bit deeper ?

Speak later

Ayers

Hi Tony,

I have given this a lot of thought, because I am at a stage now where I don’t know how to keep fooling myself into thinking I am happy.

Do I want to be sober more than I want to drink ? Some days. Others , I feel like hitting the f-it button and giving in – those days I want to drink more than I want to be sober.

I took a look at the book suggested by a poster on your thread – just did the “look inside” thing on Amazon, and I think I might buy it. He says this: (not a verbatim quote) People develop addictions because they feel powerless.

At first I thought – no way, I never felt powerless. And then when I started really delving and probing – yes, it is true. I felt powerless over situations and circumstances in my life. What started out as having a glass of wine while cooking supper every night – to reward myself (what for, heaven knows) – ended with me being an all day drinker . In other words needing to “reward” myself, all day long ??

So, feeling powerless in your life – makes you susceptible to becoming an addict to your drug of choice. And then you become powerless against the hold that that drug has over you.
Then you break the cycle by quitting. The power it had over you is less or hopefully nearly indiscernible.
But ... that powerlessness you felt even before you became an alcoholic ., that caused you to become one... is it still there?

Of course it is. Lurking. Making you feel bad, uncertain, useless, whatever it was that made you feel powerless to start off with.

My thinking is that each and every one of us here drank “over” something.
Circumstances in our lives, scars from childhood, whatever – because we feel powerless to change that person causing it, that situation that cannot be changed, that circumstance that just is what it is...

Which is why, after successfully being sober for whatever amount of time, we suffer from a kind of melancholy , after the pink cloud phase has gone. Because we are still stuck with the same life we had before drinking became a problem. We might have changed , but nothing else magically changed along with us. And we no longer have a reward/panacea to look forward to. Another cup of ginger tea?

That is where I find myself now. Don’t get this wrong – I am immensely and utterly grateful to have come this far – but I’m at the “now what?” stage. The novelty has worn off. Now I have to accept that this – THIS is my life. No fireworks, no rewards, forcing myself to gain pleasure from the mundane and mediocre. Forcing myself to be “up and at it” each morning. Telling myself that because I misused the perks that came along with being an adult,(the freedom to drink if and when I wanted to) I now have to treat myself like a child who does not know when to stop and whose treats have been taken away.

I have to accept that I have to find another reward system that is going to work for me . Something that will feel indulgent and special. And I have not found that yet.

Posting on SR and reading posts of people who are really battling and offering advice , has been paramount in helping me stay sober. It sometimes takes just one down and out poster to make me realise again how damn lucky I am. And to then look at the mundanities of my daily life and realise that it is something to be grateful for.

I think I may have strayed off the original topic here, but I feel so much better after writing this.

Dee74

Ok one of the things I hated as a new member here was old timers droning on about their lengthy experience against my lack of the same...but sometimes I just have to share what I've learned

I think one of the biggest mistakes as newly sober folks we make is thinking the way we feel now is the best its gonna get.

I felt that way in my first year - I absolutely did. But things got better.
A lot better.

They say don't leave before the miracle happens...if my experience is any guide it'll be when you least expect it, maybe even when you've just about given up hope of not having a beige life

Part of not having that beige life was undoubtedly me moving on from the old alcoholic thing of waiting for things/fun to happen versus making things happen....for someone else it might be seeing someone about long term depression or anxiety...

but apart from that, time does absolutely heal.
Have no fear

D

Lonewolf22

Thank you Ayers and Dee. Them two posts were very pertinent for me. I mean as you both mentioned it is so easy to expect too much so soon when the seed has barely sprouted. I can definitely relate to your thinking Ayers and know I too will struggle with that.
​​​​​​and as always Dee, some useful insight. At the moment it seems good enough for me at least hoping for a better life than dancing in and out of drink, getting absolutely no where and basically falling in reverse.

August252015

I'm in some kinda mood this morning - better than yesterday but still not entirely sure where my 1097 day self is.

I do know this:
The premise of that simple choice is spot on for me. I had to be DONE, and so far and IMO if I keep doing what I am doing, I will die a one white chipper.

The word slip is BS. For me, yep, it's misleading and other dangerous things for the alcoholic mind. Drinking is always a choice.

That said- I do believe that there is a difference between one incident or such and going back out for (x) time. I also know that parsing words here is irrelevant FOR ME because I simply don't have another chance in me.

I also know that at 15 days I didn't have a grasp on the entirety of the PROGRAM of AA - not even close. IMO, still don't, never will, and hope I will keep learning and turning to the program as life goes on and recovery goes on. From what I consistently hear from people who do relapse is that they didn't have a grasp on some part(s) of the program that were significant to keeping themselves sober.

I also know that my emotional sobriety is my focus. Yesterday, it took just about every tool I have to get through the day w/o losing my sh*t. Drinking isn't part of the thought process- I can honestly say I haven't had one physical urge to drink, ever, and only remember one significant time (at 90 days exactly, just like a good alcoholic mind would conjure up) that I began to specifically think of a plan to drink that night.

Lastly - simple but not easy, and the human mind (alcoholic or not) is an interesting, sometimes baffling, beautiful thing....so it might sound trite but isn't intended to, I have to keep making the next right choice - whether that's not eating as much ice cream as I did yesterday because I hate looking at my stomach in the morning - or much bigger things like ever going more than a week with less than 3 mtgs, or....

Lonewolf22

I think the problem with arguing over whether it is choice of a slip of whatever. The same with other commonly used quotes is that it can easily become a game of semantics where the actual point of what is being said is lost. I think that what is useful is the fact of saying it has to be kept simple.
I mean sometimes it is a choice between a bad choice and a bit so good choice. An example is addiction is rife in the streets because homeless people find no way of getting out of their situation and that is their way of dealing with the cold, the fear, the hopelessness.

I think what you guys who are well into recovery is that for most of us, drink is never ever going to make anything better, mostly make life harder. try

So at first the choice is just to say no to drink because you can't win the battle with the mind at this stage. It's a almost impossible task. It is like trying to fight a gang rather than running away. The more you try to fight the more pain and hurt it will cause.

The dealing with mental problems, self esteem is the longer term work involved.
And dealing with triggers and thought patterns that can lead to drink ing is a gradual process. It is a choice when you have an awareness of why you pick up a drink, why you can't only have one, why there is other options, why drink leads to more despair and how to not fall into despair, how to improve quality of life. That is a lot of bloody work. But at my stage I can't even begin to think about them. I just have to be aware that I've tried drinking umpteen times and every time it has knocked me further down a hole.

Lonewolf22

And when people say keep it simple. By that I don't think they mean that addiction is simple. You can go on and on with theories as to cause and reasons for addiction and relapse. But in the most of all that complexity there is simple choices to be made. The theorizing is additional to them choices which can sometimes help understand ourselves but can also complicate things if we rely on them too much. As I do.

Kid50

DriGuy

I think you nailed it pretty well, and I think your straight forward observations will serve you well. For example:

Alcohol is not cunning or baffling. It's a chemical substance that is indifferent to your joy or addiction. It can't think or scheme. What is really cunning and baffling here is human behavior and the use of language to foist responsibility for alcoholic behavior on a insentient substance.

Human language, that evolutionary advantage that so far has set us apart from lower animals is indeed powerful, but it also gives us the ability to misconstrue and make up things that make no sense. If you think about it, most and maybe all logical fallacies are founded on the misuse of language, and we fool ourselves when we avoid responsibility for our drinking.

It's less embarrassing to say, "I slipped," than to say, "I consciously decided to harm myself, because I'm really don't care about acting responsibility," or "I don't intend to kill another driver. I may drink and drive, but I'm a good person and I do care about others."

We may not be responsible for being predisposed to alcoholism, but we are always responsible for whether we drink or not. Always!

Sometimes we don't need language to screw up. I never articulated this until now, but my past actions were founded on behavior I can only describe in retrospect: "I only meant to have one drink, but then I slipped and had another." Here's were I had to understand that every drunken bender starts with the first drink. I was trying to fool myself thinking I didn't have to start counting until the second or third drink where all the trouble starts. Every drink counts, possibly the first one more than the rest.

It's OK to face this problem squarely and head on. If that works for you, go for it. Take responsibility for your problem and when you solve it, take the credit for that too. Other's may have helped, but you're the one doing the hard part.

digdug

At least for me, I wish it was a simple as wanting to be sober more than I wanted to drink.

For a good portion of my active addiction, I hated drinking. Every morning, I woke up promising myself I wouldn’t drink, and every night, I found myself passing out with a bottle in my hand.

Now did I have a choice? Technically, yes. But at the time, it didn’t feel like one. I was so deep in it, that drinking to stave off withdrawals was the only solution.

When I first got sober almost 6 years ago, I hated the saying, “all you have to do is want to be sober more than you want to drink.” It felt disenfranchising for someone like myself who was so far down the rabbit hole.

But I get it now. For me, it means that I needed to want to ask for help and work a program more than I wanted to drink. So when I was at my bottom, I went to rehab, IOP and threw myself into AA. The steps were simple in nature, but the work required was difficult and uncomfortable.

At 15 days I was still in an inpatient rehab facility, just finishing detox and starting to get my sea legs back. Over the years, I’ve had a lot of ups and downs, as any person, addict or not. In order to get through those ups and downs, I had to have a solid plan to deal with everything life threw at me, from simple things like having to attend events with drinking, to more serious and profound circumstances like illness and death.

So it is as simple as the choice of wanting to be sober more than wanting to drink? To a certain extent, yes. I hold myself accountable for all the decisions I’ve made and continue to make. But without a robust recovery plan, my choices and aspirations would have been severely limited.

SoberCAH

Your questions and comments are important for all of us.

I concur the the term "slip" sounds entirely too benign for something which, for me, would be tantamount to stepping in front of a semi truck on the interstate.

Really, would throwing away my current life to spend the rest of my days being a slave to alcohol, drugs, absurd and juvenile behavior, and general physical, mental and emotional Hell, be properly referred to as a "slip"?

I think not - at least for me.

So I refer to it as a "relapse", notwithstanding the fact that the term "slip" is fairly ubiquitous in the BB and in AA generally.

But all of that is pretty much nomenclature and semantics to me.

As for the simplicity of not choosing to take a drink, would that it be so simple.

After I had been separated from alcohol in the treatment center for 35 days, my knowledge that drinking is a choice was often little use against compulsions, seemingly foolish notions of romancing the "old days", having financial, relationship and work problems.

It was also particularly problematic to me early on when there was such a staggering void in my life from the loss of alcohol, which was both my best friend and, of course, my worst adversary.

For me, at the insistence of the treatment center people, I pursued AA with everything I had.

Working the steps with my sponsor and meeting and spending time with others who were trying to change their lives helped me immeasurably.

We're delighted you're with us here and we hope that you stick around and keep us posted with your progress.

tekink

This plus the moodiness sobriety can initially cause put me in a relapse feedback loop for a while.

Everything rubbed me the wrong way.. month after month after month.

dcg

I could be wrong, but I think slip is an acronym for Sobriety Losing Its Priority, which is certainly what breaking sobriety would be, so I don't see it as a big deal when people say they slipped.