abraxas69

Hello everyone!

Wow, almost bang on 4 years since I was last here. Where did it go!?

Needless to say I don't remember half of it. The other half I remember very clearly.

Same old pattern... quit drinking for about 3 months, then fool myself into giving "moderation" a go, then before you know it it's a bottle of wine a night (every night) plus a bottle of spirits over the weekend for good measure. 6 months after first quitting, I quit again....

Rinse. Repeat.

BUT, I'm here, and that's a really good thing!

When I wake up tomorrow morning it will be a week sober. Pretty good going considering the wreck that December was! And November. And Oct... oh.

I'm not a big fan of social media, and find it difficult posting here, but hoping to get stuck in, make the most of the fantastic support I know there is here, and give a bit back through my own experiences of success and failure.

Feeling positive, anxious, full of confidence and self-doubt, excitement, dread, and pretty much every other emotion - all at the same time.

Looking forward to learning and sharing over the course of the coming year - let's do this in 2020! And beyond!

Thanks all!

Delilah1

Welcome back! I joined SR in 2012, and had my last drink December 31, 2015.

You can do this!

Anna

Welcome back, Abraxas and congratulations on a week of sobriety.

Dee74

Welcome back and congrats on your week

D

Hevyn

Good to see you again, abraxas. A week is fabulous - and you sound ready to stay free this time.

abraxas69

Thanks for the welcome back everyone!

Just watched the HBO documentary that was linked to in this forum, that's definitely got to be something to think back to when the inevitable difficult moments arise.

Which they will. At least I'm very much well aware of that at last!

I'm having to cope with some pretty life changing stuff atm too, which is proving to be very difficult. And more to the point, is a trigger to drink, despite knowing full well that drinking solves nothing. I'm tackling this from many angles, but knowing I can only get through this difficult moment in life sober is certainly one of them.

Lucinda2

Welcome back Abraxas.

Can relate to the rinse/repeat. Look forward to hanging out with you. Looks like we are going to have an excellent January 2020 thread!

Surrendered19

Abraxas, I am new here. Living in Day 49. Please post as much as you can about what you think causes the waves of slips and relapses. I really appreciate your honesty and want to take advantage of it. What is going to trip me up? I feel so good and am doing well but have all of the usual "moments", temptations, cravings, situations. I got so far along down the road that I think I was flirting with death, so even at Day 49 I am still so physically rewarded every day from sobriety and so motivated to stay sober. It seems mostly easy. But from what I keep learning on here, it creeps up and claims you again. I cry when I think about that happening to me. Tell me what to look for, listen for.

least

A week sober is a great start on a better life.

nez

I was the "don't let this happen to you" poster child. Rinse repeat. Nothing changed until something changed.. and that was everything...everything that I had previously done. My best thinking qualified me for my seat at this keyboard, so that needed to change big time. I needed to listen and learn from other people because what the hell did I know anyway! I knew nothing about living life sober. NOTHING! I had to learn that from a source other than the convoluted corridors of my cranium. I am grateful that people in recovery are willing to share what worked for them and what didn't. We learn from each other. We are all on the same lifeboat. Welcome aboard!

Side Note: What didn't work for me was jumping out of the life boat and trying to swim to shore on my own.

abraxas69

Hi Surrendered and welcome! And big congrats for getting to day 49, amazing!

More than happy to share - I can only talk of my own experiences, hopefully you'll be able to take something from them.

At the most fundamental level, I think I have quit in the past for the wrong reasons. Or rather, quit with the right motivations, but not addressed the underlying causes of my addiction. Motivation is good to get you started, but in my experience at least, it only gets you so far.

So that was my first mistake - relying solely on motivation. For example, the first time I quit 4 years ago, weight loss was a big motivator for me. Quit drinking, watch the pounds fall off I told myself (as did many others, including my Doctor). So when I put on weight instead of losing it (still not sure how - I'd just cut out 10,000 calories a week!), my number one reason (at that time) to stay sober went out the window. And so did the sobriety!

Complacency. A bit embarrassed to admit that - 3 months sober and I thought I had it all worked out....

.... so know your triggers! Have a plan (there's some good resources here to help with that).

In the past I didn't cope with adversity very well. I still don't, but I'm working on it and making some good progress. I now understand that life is sometimes (often!?) rubbish, and drinking isn't going to change that. This time around, for the first time, I have plans in place for coping when life throws me a curve ball. Thy're yet to be tested, but they're there at least :-)

One of my other mistakes in the past was refusing to accept that abstinence was (is) the only way I'm going to make a success of this sobriety thing. Even after a couple of months of not drinking, I'd romanticise the thought of having ONE glass of wine whilst listening to my favourite album. Even six months ago I was doing that, despite having a ton of evidence over the previous 4 years that it just doesn't work for me. 4 years, who am I kidding!? I've (almost) NEVER had just one drink!

So yeah, I'd get to around the 3 month mark, and have, for whatever reason, a glass of wine. Or a cold beer on a hot summer's day. That was always game over for me. Sometimes it would take a month to be back to a bottle of wine a day, 7 days a week (plus the rest). Other times it would take only a few days. Scary.

And finally (for now), stick around here, reach out for support if and when you need it. I didn't, and that was a big mistake.

Hope something amongst my ramblings helps. If you, or anyone else for that matter, wants to dive in to specifics, or take the conversation further, I'm more than happy to engage :-)

Zebra1275

Welcome back!

I'm not a big fan of social media, and find it difficult posting here, but hoping to get stuck in, make the most of the fantastic support I know there is here, and give a bit back through my own experiences of success and failure.

You are anonymous here.

Don't over think this by worrying about what you post. Your job is to get sober, period.

Surrendered19

OK, I hear you. I need to make sure to keep exploring the reasons I drank rather than just basking in the immediate physical rewards of sobriety. Those physical rewards are very motivating to me still, but I was physically healthy when I became an alcoholic, and from what I have learned, it can all happen again no matter how good I feel. Indeed it can happen again precisely because I feel so good. I need to get uncomfortable confronting the real reasons I lost control of alcohol.

MLD51

Welcome back. Sounds like maybe this time, you have accepted that moderation isn't an option for you. I had to get that through my own thick skull, too. I had an Ah-Ha moment and knew with 100 certainty that I would never be able to have "just one." Better to accept that and embrace it as a positive life change than keep banging my head against the wall. And it felt so freeing!

I hope that is also your experience. I have over 5 years sober now, since I fully and deeply accepted that I was not meant to be a normal drinker.

PhoenixJ

welcome, abra

abraxas69

Hi Surrendered! Very well put, and that is most certainly my take on it.

One of the main reasons I drank was to forget my problems, or not care about them. Self-medication as they call it. I have managed to come to the realisation that a much better solution is to (a) accept that life is a struggle and deal with it, and (b) the only way I'm going to learn to resolve my problems is to face them head on and find a way to resolve them.

That's not easy at the best of times, absolutely impossible after a drink!

abraxas69

Thanks MLD51. I have indeed had a light-bulb moment! I think back to that moment I had a drink 4 years ago after 3-4 months sober. It was a couple of glasses of red wine whilst listening to some of my favourite music on a Friday night. I'd yearned for that moment for weeks. Romanticised it, until I could resist no longer. And yes, I stopped after those two glasses (note: two glasses, not one - even my perception of what moderation is wasn't exactly accurate).

And I didn't have another drink until the next Friday. Except this time it was 3 glasses of wine. But at least I'm not drinking every day like I was, I'd tell myself.

Needless to say, within a month (probably less) it was back to drinking every day.

So yeah, moderation clearly isn't for me, and accepting that is certainly a change this time around.