5 days since my last sober day.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2018
Location: London UK
Posts: 84
5 days since my last sober day.
Hey SR
Just posting for my own selfish accountability. I had a couple of drinks on the train last Thursday and now Monday I’m still drinking.
Dee suggested looking at a plan but for some reason I can’t open it. Anyhow my own plan had been good for me for 5 months and 20 odd days so I probably also need to go back to how that worked too.
Truth is I didn’t have a plan I’d set some goals in how I wanted to be as a person, in my health and fitness and just waking up every morning without a hangover.
I smashed the goals and is now what, seems drinking to celebrate is the now what. I haven’t got Beyond those original goals so they are achieved.
As I said in a previous post I know what to do. Seems like I don’t.
Just posting for my own selfish accountability. I had a couple of drinks on the train last Thursday and now Monday I’m still drinking.
Dee suggested looking at a plan but for some reason I can’t open it. Anyhow my own plan had been good for me for 5 months and 20 odd days so I probably also need to go back to how that worked too.
Truth is I didn’t have a plan I’d set some goals in how I wanted to be as a person, in my health and fitness and just waking up every morning without a hangover.
I smashed the goals and is now what, seems drinking to celebrate is the now what. I haven’t got Beyond those original goals so they are achieved.
As I said in a previous post I know what to do. Seems like I don’t.
Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 211,378
https://web.archive.org/web/20180728...0/SMA-3720.pdf
The link works for me wood not sure why it won't work for you unless you don't have the software to read pdf?
you can try this link
https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/re...y-samhsa-store
Think of active addiction as a hostile planet - you've crashed there - you need to achieve escape velocity to pull free of the planet.
Drinking will not give you any velocity and neither will doing nothing because that leads back to the default of drinking.
Your mission now is to stop drinking & 2: find enough support and expend enough effort to stay that way.
Not drinking starts with making sure your house is alcohol free, not being around drinkers or alcohol, and not buying anymore.
D
The link works for me wood not sure why it won't work for you unless you don't have the software to read pdf?
you can try this link
https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/re...y-samhsa-store
Think of active addiction as a hostile planet - you've crashed there - you need to achieve escape velocity to pull free of the planet.
Drinking will not give you any velocity and neither will doing nothing because that leads back to the default of drinking.
Your mission now is to stop drinking & 2: find enough support and expend enough effort to stay that way.
Not drinking starts with making sure your house is alcohol free, not being around drinkers or alcohol, and not buying anymore.
D
Member
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: W Washington
Posts: 11,589
we are all ONE bad decision away from destruction.
and ONE good decision away from the solution.
alcohol will NEVER bring you anything good.
sobriety will give you the chance for everything good.
and ONE good decision away from the solution.
alcohol will NEVER bring you anything good.
sobriety will give you the chance for everything good.
Member
Join Date: Oct 2016
Posts: 82
It sounds to me like you didn't 'enjoy' your 5 month sober stint. And you're trying to forcefully convince yourself that you did. But the brain can obviously tell if its being tricked.
In my experience, each time I have relapsed, it's only become harder to dry up the next time. The longest I've gone is 3 months. But my excuse for not even trying to quit since then was that "Oh, I'm never gonna reach 3 months again..."
Don't let that happen to you.
In my experience, each time I have relapsed, it's only become harder to dry up the next time. The longest I've gone is 3 months. But my excuse for not even trying to quit since then was that "Oh, I'm never gonna reach 3 months again..."
Don't let that happen to you.
Member
Join Date: Jan 2015
Location: London, England
Posts: 7,057
Hi Wood
Sorry to hear it got a grip again. I thought you had stopped at 2!
You do know what to do, you have done it before, but maybe your not sure you want to. Getting sober is hard and requires constant vigilance to maintain, you took your eye off the ball and now its rolling away. You need to catch it and stop it now.
If you achieved your health goals you could of made some new ones, you can never have too many or get too healthy.
What about your goal regarding sobriety?
Go on, get back on that horse and smash it!
Sorry to hear it got a grip again. I thought you had stopped at 2!
You do know what to do, you have done it before, but maybe your not sure you want to. Getting sober is hard and requires constant vigilance to maintain, you took your eye off the ball and now its rolling away. You need to catch it and stop it now.
If you achieved your health goals you could of made some new ones, you can never have too many or get too healthy.
What about your goal regarding sobriety?
Go on, get back on that horse and smash it!
Member
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: northern michigan. not the U.P.
Posts: 15,281
Originally Posted by Wood4trees2018 
Anyhow my own plan had been good for me for 5 months and 20 odd days so I probably also need to go back to how that worked too.
Truth is I didn’t have a plan
Truth is I didn’t have a plan
dont think id go back to a plan that led me to drinking.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2018
Location: London UK
Posts: 84
Hey All
Day 6 of still drinking it’s not get up in morning drinking I’m doing all the “functional” stuff I have always done whilst drinking. Going to work drinking after work going to work the next day coming home drinking a visit to my parents on the weekend coming home drinking.
That was my life I balanced it all around doing what I had to do and then getting my booze in. It was that cycle that made me decide to stop I had a life that fully evolved around 1 thing and I did the best I could to balance the other things round that.
I made it to the gym on Monday hungover I should have gone today but failed. I am missing the freedom that not drinking gave me. I totally enjoyed the time without drink absolutely everything was better. Yet here I am saying I will just drink for 1 more day because it does give you something it makes everything else not matter too much.
I read about relapses on here and I did think pfff It wouldn’t do that to me. I tell myself after 2 drinks I could easily stop here good news I could so at least I know that for another time but this time I’ll have the 3rd and 4th and maybe stop there and then maybe just one more....
This is just rambling I wasn’t going to post but feel I should. My plan is to drink again tomorrow I have arranged a night out with some old mates who aren’t alcoholic but like a drink. I have some important arrangements planned for the following few days / week that I put in place before I expected that I’d be drinking. They are looking in the balance now or I have to get off this running away train.
Day 6 of still drinking it’s not get up in morning drinking I’m doing all the “functional” stuff I have always done whilst drinking. Going to work drinking after work going to work the next day coming home drinking a visit to my parents on the weekend coming home drinking.
That was my life I balanced it all around doing what I had to do and then getting my booze in. It was that cycle that made me decide to stop I had a life that fully evolved around 1 thing and I did the best I could to balance the other things round that.
I made it to the gym on Monday hungover I should have gone today but failed. I am missing the freedom that not drinking gave me. I totally enjoyed the time without drink absolutely everything was better. Yet here I am saying I will just drink for 1 more day because it does give you something it makes everything else not matter too much.
I read about relapses on here and I did think pfff It wouldn’t do that to me. I tell myself after 2 drinks I could easily stop here good news I could so at least I know that for another time but this time I’ll have the 3rd and 4th and maybe stop there and then maybe just one more....
This is just rambling I wasn’t going to post but feel I should. My plan is to drink again tomorrow I have arranged a night out with some old mates who aren’t alcoholic but like a drink. I have some important arrangements planned for the following few days / week that I put in place before I expected that I’d be drinking. They are looking in the balance now or I have to get off this running away train.
Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 211,378
My plan is to drink again tomorrow I have arranged a night out with some old mates who aren’t alcoholic but like a drink.
Catch up with your mates another time.
Recovery sometimes comes down to the rough choices.
I think we forget sometimes this thing really can be life and death.
If you're content to let yourself drift it can easily years before you get another day one.
I gave myself a night off recovery once - I went out drinking 'for just one night' in 2004 - and drank daily until 2007.
I don't think that's what you want, but the more days you drink, the more likely something like that is.
The longer you stay out there, the harder it is to get sober again, Wood.
Member
Join Date: Oct 2016
Posts: 120
Originally Posted by Wood4trees2018
August
Yes I do want to get sober. I know you are big in AA and I have avoided that for no reason other that I dint think I need it. Maybe I do.
Yes I do want to get sober. I know you are big in AA and I have avoided that for no reason other that I dint think I need it. Maybe I do.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2018
Location: London UK
Posts: 84
Hey SR
Just an update on how my plan is going. I did go for a drink with my mates. I got horribly drunk and ended up sleeping at a train station. I’m not sure how I didn’t get arrested I think the station manager was kind to me. I don’t remember why we had a problem but she gave me a busciut and asked me to leave the station as all the trains had stopped.
It was pretty cold in the UK last night but I really didn’t think it would have come to that.
So I feel a bit sore, battered bruised and tired but I had planned that so all good and expected. I’d actually planned I’d just have a beer with my mates not ending up trying to sleep on a cold bus station bench. I even had a row with a cab driver who wouldn’t switch their engine off and was polluting my air just after I scrounged a fag off someone. I haven’t smoked for about 7 years and I can still taste it.
I’m trying moderate drinking am thinking I’m seeing how it works. I know I need to look at Dee’s plan.
Just an update on how my plan is going. I did go for a drink with my mates. I got horribly drunk and ended up sleeping at a train station. I’m not sure how I didn’t get arrested I think the station manager was kind to me. I don’t remember why we had a problem but she gave me a busciut and asked me to leave the station as all the trains had stopped.
It was pretty cold in the UK last night but I really didn’t think it would have come to that.
So I feel a bit sore, battered bruised and tired but I had planned that so all good and expected. I’d actually planned I’d just have a beer with my mates not ending up trying to sleep on a cold bus station bench. I even had a row with a cab driver who wouldn’t switch their engine off and was polluting my air just after I scrounged a fag off someone. I haven’t smoked for about 7 years and I can still taste it.
I’m trying moderate drinking am thinking I’m seeing how it works. I know I need to look at Dee’s plan.
Member
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: W Washington
Posts: 11,589
I’d actually planned I’d just have a beer with my mates not ending up trying to sleep on a cold bus station bench
that's the problem with us problem drinkers....we can plan our drinking event, but we cannot control the outcome. it's never just one drink. it's never harmless or even fun.
while there is a bit more to it than just NOT drinking, by taking alcohol out of the equation life does get a whole lot better!
that's the problem with us problem drinkers....we can plan our drinking event, but we cannot control the outcome. it's never just one drink. it's never harmless or even fun.
while there is a bit more to it than just NOT drinking, by taking alcohol out of the equation life does get a whole lot better!
Adventurer
Join Date: Feb 2015
Location: Tuxedo Park, NY
Posts: 1,101
Originally Posted by Wood4trees2018
I’m trying moderate drinking am thinking I’m seeing how it works. I know I need to look at Dee’s plan.
I hope you look at what Dee posted. I have been in your shoes and denying the the problem does not make it disappear. I hope you can make it to an AA meeting and keep posting on here.
Guest
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Atlanta
Posts: 8,674
I have to say this because, a, you have mentioned trying/getting/failing to get sober and number of times - and b, you keep planning to drink and carrying out that plan.
I can tell you with absolute certainty that the life you are living is NOT a functioning one like you are trying to convince yourself. It is amazing to discover what a not only functional but active, engaged life is once you get sober.
You aren't trying to do that.
You are actively trying the opposite.
You can kill yourself this way.
Sometimes I'm gentle, and sometimes I am not. This is a case of the latter:
This disease kills. Period. We don't get infinite chances to quit.
I hope you reevaluate the choices you are making, and come back to us for support we will happily give.
And, as a sidenote I probably don't share as often as I did when I first joined SR and then got sober (I joined 6 mo almost to the day before I quit) - I refused to go to AA for ages, and for every reason that was BS I could imagine (except the HP aspect because I have always believed in one)....the real reason was because I wanted to keep drinking.
It's up to you to decide what kind of life you want to have - or, essentially, how long you want to survive til things come crashing down. And you don't wake up in the train station at all.
I can tell you with absolute certainty that the life you are living is NOT a functioning one like you are trying to convince yourself. It is amazing to discover what a not only functional but active, engaged life is once you get sober.
You aren't trying to do that.
You are actively trying the opposite.
You can kill yourself this way.
Sometimes I'm gentle, and sometimes I am not. This is a case of the latter:
This disease kills. Period. We don't get infinite chances to quit.
I hope you reevaluate the choices you are making, and come back to us for support we will happily give.
And, as a sidenote I probably don't share as often as I did when I first joined SR and then got sober (I joined 6 mo almost to the day before I quit) - I refused to go to AA for ages, and for every reason that was BS I could imagine (except the HP aspect because I have always believed in one)....the real reason was because I wanted to keep drinking.
It's up to you to decide what kind of life you want to have - or, essentially, how long you want to survive til things come crashing down. And you don't wake up in the train station at all.
Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 211,378
I’m trying moderate drinking am thinking I’m seeing how it works. I know I need to look at Dee’s plan.
The plans based on abstinence.
Do yourself a favour today and re-read some of your past posts.
Start from the beginning.
Remember where you came from, how you pulled yourself up and how good you felt being sober.
You're not thinking clearly right now, man.
There's no way to move ahead if you're still committed to drinking.
D
Currently Active Users Viewing this Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
