MrPL

Day 65 here and I’ve been thinking a lot about milestones.

From one angle it’s great to use them as motivation for achieving more, but I think there’s a downside to that.

I fell for the trap of getting over excited about milestones before, and that has made me complacent to the point I drank again.

That’s where the “tough advice” bit comes in - reading my old posts, several people here kind of warned me, and it felt like they were “spoiling my moment some times”, but now I get it.

It doesn’t matter if it’s been 1, 10, 100 or 1000 days. It’s all about the next day.

It’s like an unfair war, where there are battles everyday and if you lose a single one it could all be over.

If that’s the case then you always have to focus on the current battle. Celebrating yesterday’s or thinking about tomorrow’s could take your focus away and that risk is too high to take.

The “tough advice givers” are like the Generals, saying extremely useful things in whichever way they think will get my attention, and I’m grateful for that.

Of course, as time goes by things change, we get better at fighting the battles, we get stronger, we start enjoying the fights, but still, we remain at war against addiction.

I do like to see people quoting their numbers and saying what things are like at that point, because this is informative and it helps me understand what I’m aiming for, or where I don’t want to be again.

But I do get scared for others when I sense over excitement, so my aim is to be a “tough adviser” in the kindest possible way.

My “tough love” to you all.

Mr P

Dustitoffman

Hi Mr P

I am just using anything, any tool, any incentive, to keep things going. I will take a milestone and am thankful for any praise and positivity handed out.
I am keeping a bit of a diary so that I can look back at the time and symptoms that I have to recover through which I hope will be enough to keep me from relapse.
i am on day 37 and have been suffering an onset of anxiety which has been accompanied by all of body skin itching.
Could be worse, but it will be down in my diary along with at the opposite end of the scale all of the positive things experienced from sobriety so far.
With so much on the internet about 1,2and3 months sobriety for now I’m going to grab for the milestones for a while.
I think of them like a sacred place to take a breather before moving on. And I have a long way to go!
Got to keep the stone rolling👍

DriGuy

I can't imagine how a milestone would cause a relapse. What kind of excitement to you experience at a milestone?

I think you explained what you have to do (never let down your guard) rather well, and that is true no matter how many milestones you've had, but I don't understand the mechanics of a milestone relapse. Milestones like you are talking about are just arbitrary numbers. Beyond that arbitrary notation, there is nothing special about them at all. The important milestones just happen, and you don't know when they will. These are the moments of clarity, where you gain an understanding or have an insight that creates a major step forward. Weeks and years are just things to count.

We pay so much attention to time, and I do too, but time is not the important measure of sobriety or recovery, where quality of life is the real test. Confidence, contentment, and joy are examples of this. Rational Recovery's Big Plan tells you what you need to do; "I will never take another drink ever." Our task is to make that happen both during times of sorrow, defeat, or great excitement.

LadyBug66

Congratulations MrPl on 65 days!!!! I completely understand what you are saying. I have had thoughts of when I meet a milestone number of sober days I deserve a drink! You hit the nail on the head! My fear is having another day 1. I have to make myself remember how hard that was and I never want to feel like that again. I am such a milestone person and I can see where is has its strengths and weaknesses!
The comments that sting a little bit.... I get that. I was newly sober and I posted that I felt like I wasn't fun anymore when someone posted something to the tune of.... yeah, it's sounds like you were a lot of fun,,, sick, hungover and blackout drunk. I was like ..... ouchy ouch ouch! But it was true and it made me think about the times I was having fun and being fun and having to apologize to so many people the next day. Eye opening
Again.... congrats on 65 days and thank you for sharing this.
LB

Dee74

I think celebrating milestones is usually fine
I think the problem is more thinking the jobs finished when its not.

A lot of people get a good amount of sober time up and confuse abstinence with control... and they go back to drinking 'just a little bit'.

There is no 'just a little bit' for a drinker like me...ever.

D

DriGuy

These are the two biggest explanations that I have for mid recovery relapses. Each could be a corollary of the other. Both are derived from the faulty premise that the condition of alcoholism can be fixed, which is false. The job is never finished, and control will never be possible. What's frustrating is that these facts are hammered over and over in reputable programs and forums, but alcoholics continue to disregard them. What we can do through constant vigilance and reasoning, is change our behavior and mimic the behavior of a normal healthy non-addicted person by never drinking again. But we can never NOT be an alcoholic.

I don't want to admit that people can be so hardheaded or stubborn so as to ignore the advice of millions of alcoholics who have changed their lives, so I will offer one more explanation for mid recovery relapse:
If there is any wisp of belief that maybe, just maybe, they are not actual alcoholics, then there is a reason to drink again when one feels well. Some try to prove this one or two or three times before they finally admit the hard truth about themselves. But we can never stop being alcoholics. The best we can do is to stop acting like alcoholics. And that job is never finished. Trying to continually prove that we have finished the task or learned control is the prime example of "acting like an alcoholic."

There is one more explanation for mid recovery relapse I can offer. It maybe the number one reason, but it so simple that it is seldom considered and hardly ever discussed, and I'm even reluctant to mention it.

Surrendered19

Great post MrPL. Milestones, celebrations, happy occassions - those are my triggers and I actively plan for those events. Early on here on SR - Dee and many others gently warned me and others about making too much of what is, as you and DriGuy point out MrPL - just another day.

My reality is that my dirtly little AV is always going to lurk. These days it stays silent as it knows I don't normally listen. Except when there is a wedding, my two-year sober date, a graduation, a Christmas Eve, etc. Then my AV really makes its push.

I think it is all about what Dee and DriGuy said - it will never be true that we are "cured" of being addicts and that our jobs are therefore complete. That just is not how this works.

Alpine

I needed to read this. This is exactly me.
Thanks for sharing. I need to write this down as a reminder.

Be123

I was sober for 13 months. I told myself I could drink normally. Now, 10 months later I have to start again. I'm ashamed and embarrassed by myself.

(I am starting again but im not starting from scratch. I know what I need to do. I just need to do it, daily. Which today means immersing myself on these boards)

Free2bme888

I had 14 months and confused abstinence with control or cure.

Those little milestones, ‘x’ marks the completed day, got me to those 14 months. They motivated me, and give me strength now as I miraculously crawled back out after over two years of on and off trying to stop.

Thank you for the thoughtful post.

Nonsensical

It's unfair to my opponent, because my authority over the daily outcome is absolute.
I would have to choose to lose.

Congrats on 65 days.
Your post smells like you are cooking something good.
Keep it going!

MrPL

Wow! So many insightful replies here I don’t know where to begin.

I think part of my “non-over celebration” thing comes from doing exactly what Dee said - getting the feeling of “job done”.

That combined with ignoring the “tough advice” from more experienced people here (as pointed by DriGuy) led me to failure and the conclusion I now better invert the cycle, and focus more on what will work in the future than what has worked up to a random milestone, which is the key message I intended with the post.

I guess it can depend on each of us. I personally function better under pressure, so I need a challenge to give it my all, and therefore am trying to find ways to ensure sobriety is always a challenge.

Maybe others thrive better when they feel in control.

Thanks everyone for the long replies, these almost philosophical debates really help me structure things!

biminiblue

I have a challenge for you: When you hit 20 years sober, look back and see how you feel about it.

DriGuy

I understand drinking to celebrate milestones or good days at work. While I was still drinking, I began to analyze what caused me to drink, and I was surprised that it didn't have to be stress, but it was also joy. First, these kinds of things are not actual causes. They are triggers that activate an already predisposed condition (addiction). Second, it underscored for me that the actual cause was addiction (alcoholism). But that final "underscore" did not become actual knowledge until after I got sober. I just went along thinking I drank because I was sad, happy, or of course, a lot of other assorted excuses.

I'm currently reading The Heart of Addiction, where the author outright contradicts my often made claim that reasons why we drink are not important. He is/was a practicing psychologist that works with alcoholics, and so far the book has introduced examples of where uncovering reasons why do sort of seem necessary to recovery. But there are caveats in that (for me). So I'm rethinking my claim, but not yet convinced, because actual reasons or not, my personal solution was not in understanding. OK it helped me understand myself, which is always good, but the actual solution was in changing my behavior. Maybe he will mention that later.

I'm only at the beginning of the book. At this point, I'll say maybe it's true for others. If it's true for me, "why" represented less than 5% of the solution. But rather than turn this into a personal debate with the author, which is unimportant and unnecessary, I think the important thing to keep in mind is that at some point, we have to deal with the behavior issue and hold fast to it forever,... or nothing is going to happen.

MrPL

Hahah. Love it, challenge very much accepted!

biminiblue

DriGuy, go figure. A psychologist who thinks everyone needs to examine their lives before they can change. I call nonsense.

I read it here and I believe it to be true that I couldn't change till I did. If the house is on fire, don't go around fluffing the pillows! Get out the house!

There is a whole lifetime afterwards to reflect and examine and tweak and grow and complain about my past but not with a pickled, sick brain that can't access the parts needed to make meaningful changes.

brighterday1234

The key to lasting sobriety is not to let one’s recovery stagnate in my experience. Celebrating milestones is wonderful so long as one’s recovery remains fresh. Over time you discover what works to keep things fresh. For me it’s a spiritual path 🙏

Alpine

Thanks PL for starting this and thanks to everyone participating. It is helping me and adding more things to my tool box.

DriGuy

I get this. I like responding to a challenge too, even more than I did when I was drinking, but not drinking is no longer a challenge. It just went away, and I'm guessing that happens for all of us eventually. Maybe by the time a milestone comes along, you have met the challenge and declared victory, so there's this feeling that there is nothing left to do but to start drinking again to recreate the same challenge over again. But clearly that's not recovery. I don't know what you call that. From the standpoint of personal growth and physical health, it makes no logical sense. That's just being stuck.

Understand, this may not be you. I'm just creating a scenario that could happen for the sake of discussion, and I believe you are trying to avoid that by figuring out how to take on longer term sobriety, and eventually life long.

But take heart. There will be new challenges to face. But fewer will be about drinking, and if you are like me, the drinking ones will require new strategies. That's where you are right now. The goal is to stay sober. That's the next challenge. Find the strategy. But eventually, What then? Here is the wrong answer to that question; "There's nothing left to do." That is patently false. One challenge would be become alert new things and to spot new things that aren't just a rehash of fighting the old battle with alcohol, which doesn't represent real personal growth at all. I sold my belongings and bought a boat that I sailed by myself to Hawaii, and then to Alaska, and down the inside passage. It took three years. There's always a challenge, and many of them require you to be alert and clear headed enough to do them.

Sobriety keeps getting easier. That's how it's supposed to be. I wouldn't try to make it harder. Find a more exciting challenge.

Hodd

I’m loving this challenge concept, MrP. I always say we need to occupy our alcohol dependent minds, but you’re taking it one step higher.

Not sure I’m brave enough to follow DriGuy’s pacific voyages, but my triathlon attempts are improving albeit slowly and open ended. That’ll be an ongoing challenge, especially the swimming, but I’m in my early 50s. I have to be pragmatic and realise in ten years’ time, I’ll have less muscle mass and flexibility. The time is now.

But four and half years ago, say September 2017, I was drinking (small) bottles of wine in my car. I was obese and couldn’t get out of bed in the mornings due to hangovers and that right rib ache thing heavy drinkers get. I had zero confidence then and wouldn’t have considered any new challenge. Once sober, we’re far better equipped to take on challenges which we’d never have thought possible as drinkers.