BartShelbyGT

Had 65 days. I'd posted a few weeks ago about worrying about Christmas Eve, and then made it through with no real cravings.
Then on Sunday afternoon, the 29th, for no good reason, I bought some beer. After some serious self analysis, maybe I'd been planning it and it was hidden in my subconscious. Although I really thought I had it made.
Anyway, by Wednesday morning the 31st, and a 24 pack, two 18 packs, and a couple of 24 oz cans later, I took my last drink (again).
Today is day 3, and I'm functional again. Still a little foggy and BP still a little high, but better. I made it to work yesterday but felt AWFUL all day. I really thought October was the last time. I'd committed to myself that my life was as the book says "unmanageable" with alcohol, and I'd never touch the stuff again.
I thought seriously about coming back on here and pretending like it never happened, but my conscious won't let me do it. I was just too depressed the last two days to come on here and fess up.
I know the book says the answer to why is "because we're drunks" and not to try and figure it out too much, but it still begs the question.
Had I lost my vigilance and become complacent? Just the fact my NFL team won, another team lost, and I was off until Thursday?
Maybe I needed a final final final confirmation, although one would think after the hundreds of final confirmations I've already had another really wasn't necessary.
Anyway, I'm back. God willing, here's to a sober 2020 and the years beyond. Thanks.

t1psy

At least you are back on track after only a couple days. Some people go back down the rabbit hole for years.

SoberRican

No worries my friend let get back to the drawing board. Find that missing link. Until then one day at a time . ✌

cantsleep123

At least you figured out that the little voice inside you that says "it's fine to drink again, this time will be different" is a complete liar.

ScottFromWI

Check out the bolded statements above - i think you answered all of your questions yourself right in your post. Most likely yes- you were not vigilant with your plan ( or did not have one in place ) and the drinking was something brewing for quite some time. Alcoholics don't just "go buy some beer for no reason". We generally do so because of the same things you list - we don't have a plan in place or we aren't following it.

I'm glad you are back, things could certainly have turned out much worse - but don't brush it off - learn from it. As far as needing one final confirmation - I think you know what you need to know about your relationship with alcohol dont' you? You could have just as easily come here and read some of your old posts to remind you instead of buying a 12 pack, right?

So bottom line - look back at where your plan fell short and fix it. Maybe you need to come here more often. Maybe you need some other support via a local group or some reading/counseling/etc? Making even a daily promise to spend 15 minutes here on SR reading is a good thing - keeps you grounded.

SuficintCrlsns

I was where you're at about this time last year. I had about two months sobriety, made it through Christmas, no problem. Come the 30th, I was stressed about bills, depressed about going back to work after a week off, and a bit of jealousy that others would be drinking on new year's, why can't I? Before I knew it, I had vodka and was off to the races.

Now, almost one year sober, I look back and I'm kind of glad it happened. I think my last slip was necessary because it was when I truly realized that I CAN'T drink, at all. I finally came to terms with my sickness, where before, even when I wasn't drinking, I struggled with the notion that maybe I can moderate.

Think of it as getting one last bender out of your system and now you're ready to make sobriety stick. You got this!

SC

BartShelbyGT

I appreciate the support. I think the main thing I learned in 65 days (and this didn't come about until getting through the first 40 or so) was how much EASIER life is when you don't have to devote time to managing around drinking.
A co-worker plopped an important meeting on my Outlook calendar for 8 am Monday? That used to be a major stress event, trying to plan my weekend drinking so I could function on Monday. Remove booze, no problem.
Thursday is trash day, so make sure you plan to move my stash of empty cans and bottles out without my wife seeing just HOW MUCH I'd drank the previous weekend and then hid in weird places until I was clear headed enough by mid-week to deal with it. No booze, no problem.
Ok, you bought X amount of alcohol, which should get you through Saturday, but be sure to save Y amount to get you through Sunday morning until they start selling again at 11. But not too much, as you have to try and taper into Monday. No booze, no problem.
What's my BP? How's my pulse? Is that liver pain in my right side? Constant anxiety about physical health. No booze, way better. Although those symptoms went away, the lingering anxiety wasn't totally gone.
Yes, there was the rare occasional crave, but mainly sober life is a heck of a lot less stressful.
Ready to get back into the sober groove...….

HeadEast

Thanks for your story, Bart. There are some good ideas above and I wish you the best on getting back on track.

DriGuy

I'm not sure if it was hidden away being unconsciously planned or not. But your anecdote has been repeated millions of times by others. I understand your shame and reluctance to show your face and "fess up," but let's not go there or dwell on that right now.

Yeah, it's not a very satisfying answer, and your need to come to grips with the how and why of the situation is still important. I disagree with much of the Big Book. I'm seldom convinced by it, and am too skeptical to just put my own interpretation into what it means to create a sense of closure.

In this case, it may be a vague attempt to point out that your understanding is not as important as the need for you to commit to abstinence forever. Like you, I simply like to understand things as best I can. But it's also true that deep commitment to sobriety needs to be your number one strategy. By the way, understanding this commitment fits quite neatly into the how and why explanations you seek.

That's a good explanation and one that I would bet on, especially after 65 days. That's about the time you start feeling good about yourself, and let your guard down. Maybe there is another explanation, but loss of vigilance explains it well enough for me.

If this is true, you're going to have to add another commitment to your overall strategy, and commit to never ending vigilance. In fact that could be as important as commitment to simply not drinking again, because at 65 days and beyond is where your AV starts playing an active role in sabotaging all you have gained. It's going to be telling you that you are well and that you don't need vigilance anymore.

Constant vigilance is not as much work as it may seem. Just as the need for willpower subsides as cravings diminish, the need for vigilance will subside as your AV begins to play a less active role. Of course you will always need some degree of willpower and vigilance, but both will eventually become default states you won't have to focus on constantly. This is where your desire to think and understand will serve you well. Learn to recognize the triggers that cause you to drink. At one time I thought that sounded like an insurmountable challenge. Today, I believe there are not that many triggers that personally affect me. I would just recognize them, rather than be fooled by them today.

I'm glad you are here. Getting past your embarrassment was a good choice. We all need help sometimes. So you screwed up? Join the club.

ciowa

Its good that you are back and looking at this in a way that you can learn from. Im sure you're familiar with some of the relapse models such as thought leads to emotion leads to action, urge to belief to action, etc. One thing that was useful to me in addition to looking for triggers was that relapse can happen over a longer period of time, such as a day or even a couple of weeks

One late fall afternoon I was driving home and heard an old song and was immediately filled with nostalgia. I realized this feeling was often a trigger to drinking and understood that if I was not in recovery, this incident would lead to me going to the bar several hours later because I would keep these nostalgic memories alive until had a drink. So it might seem that I just happened to go to the bar but in reality, there was an earlier trigger that I was able to recognize.

Anyway, keep moving forward.

Derringer

The book also refers to "no defense against the first drink"
"Peculiar mental twist"
"Powerless over alcohol"
and is packed with stories of people who relapsed from same.

Lots of people focus on and object to the first step, which is to admit we are powerless.

But miss the fact that the second step mentions a new source of power.

Steps 3-9 are how to manifest that power and steps 10,11&12 are how to keep that power switched on.

If you are at all interested in the AA method of recovery, then just take it that you are still in the process of getting the new power source hooked up.

Soberwolf

A good confirmation would be one is too many a thousand is never enough

Dee74

welcome back Bart

I drank again a million times because I let myself do exactly that.

Eventually I got to a place of acceptance - its the first drink that does the damage not the last, I have a terribly toxic relationship with alcohol and always will, and drinking is antithetical to who I want to be and the life I want.

I joined SR and stayed here through good times and bad and the longer I stayed sober the more I understood what it was it was i was accepting.

60 days is good man - its great- but I think you need more than that to really get how awesome not drinking can be.

Do you feel you've got that acceptance now to be able to say never again?
Have you got a plan this time?

D

Kdon853

Convinced yet? Make it your last drunk.

August252015

So glad you are here and talking Bart.

And I really echo what Scott and DriGuy so eloquently said. Scott put in bold the same things I would have and elaborated on the why.

One thing about vigilance....I sure needed it an grabbed onto it like a life preserver when I started AA and sober life. I talk a lot about how conservative I was on choices and how completely dedicated I was to working the program of AA. To put it briefly, that worked well for me, gave me a chance at a new life and also, importantly, vigilance itself changed into new habits and reflexive ways to "do life"....sure, I keep an "eye on things" now but it is in a different way and not a punishing or exhausting thing.

One thing that I didn't like to hear yet I did is that I simply never had to drink again. I just...didn't have to. That sounded insane and weird and certainly didn't FEEL true when I quit, but it brought relief, too - and reminding myself of that the first months and heck, sometimes even now further in and in the funny way that someone who's been there can say it, it still reassures me.

You can make this your last first time. Hope today is that sober groove start.

Reid82

Anytime I drank again after periods of sobriety the last few years turned into disasters pretty quickly! Not that it stopped me from repeating the cycle, over and over again for quite a while. It does get worse, much worse....