"Once an Alcoholic"
 

From my 24 hour book:

"Always an alcoholic, Commencing to drink after a period of sobriety we are in a short time as bad as ever. If we have admitted we are alcoholics, we must have no reservations of any kind, nor any lurking notion that some day we will be immune to alcohol. What sort of thinking dominates an alcoholic who repeats time after time the desperate experiment of the first drink? Parrellel with sound reasoning, there inevitably runs some insanely trivial excuse for taking the first drink. There is little thought of what the terrific consequences may be".

Have I given up all excuses for taking a drink?

(end of book quote)

For me.....I really think I have given up all excuses for a drink....at least so far....52 days.....and although many bad things have happened already that would have in the past gave me "reason" to drink, I have not picked up a drink.

Now I try to think of the reasons why I should NOT drink.

Great quote and great way to apply it in your own sobriety!

Best advice I got to shore up my sobriety was to practice gratitude every day. :)

The brain never forgets.

If I were to pick up a drink today all the work I have done in the last 16months healing my brain will be undone instantly. All the old neurons and pathways will light up like a slot machine and that's why I would return to drinking alcoholiclly.

There is nothing that could happen to me now that picking up a drink would make better. On the contrary. If I find myself slipping into self pity because I can't drink (boo hoo poor me) I write a gratitude list ot all the things I have today BECAUSE I am NOT drinking. It gets me off my pity pot pretty darn quick.

52 days is awesome, a huge achievement. Well done. I raise my sparkling water to you and say cheers, here is to your best life ever!!

Thanks for starting this thread. Gratitude is huge for me as well to keep from drinking.

As a man thinketh, so shall he be.

If thats true for you, awesome.

Im hoping to get healthy and not label myself, learn my lesson, and not shove myself into that tiny little box.

Absolutely true for me. I picked up a drink after two and a half years of content sobriety. I thought I’d take the edge off immense grief, just a couple of drinks. Oh no, didn’t happen. All the old neural pathways lit up, and my drinking reverted to the previous massive amounts I drank, within less than a week.

I don’t recommend it.

Wow that is fast Tasty. I do get that sneaky voice, I think you call AV, that says of course you can't drink now, but in the future you may somehow evolve into a creature of exquisite discipline.

My reason unfortunately says different. I've never really controlled it even adequately, and in fact I'm getting worse and worse in every way as I get older. I have no desire right now at all to risk it, and I suspect as I've drunk about four life times worth of the stuff my brain chemistry will be changed forever too.

Yes, FreshStartOk! That’s the voice, my AV, Alcoholic or Addict or Addiction Voice. It always lies. After the first few months of stopping drinking, it disappeared, rarely raised its head. Occasionally, but it was trivial, mowed the lawn in the summer, ‘let’s have a drink’. Celebration ‘let’s have a drink, just one toast’. I always ignored it.

Until, after tumultuous circumstances, I listened to the lying AV and it’s siren call, that I could switch off the grief, ‘take the edge off’ with a coupe of drinks. Nooooo not so, those brain neuronal pathways fired straight back up. Not drinking is wonderful, truly. I’ll never drink again