Worried14

I didn't make it through Christmas. Back to day 1 . Couldn't wait for the wine and went on a bender.
Maybe i'll start a new thread just for me. Seems to help some folks.
So its 4am. in the morning, I'm hungover and one of the cats has come to see me. He's a bit heavy on a sensitive stomach. I think the worst of the sickness is over..

Dee74

I'm glad you made it back Worried.
What do you think made you drink and not come here for help?

D

Kaily

Was it worth it?

Glad you are back

AL48

Glad you made it back Worried.
Etch this feeling into your memory you have this morning, write it down and keep it at hand when that AV comes around again. This is only a blip and don't forget the success of these 4 months you just had.
Good idea on a thread i have my own going and i post in it every day.
Good luck Worried

Stewy1984

That's some great sober time you've banked, 4 months is awesome. Could you consider adding something to your recovery plan or perhaps review it to get it water tight?

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Worried14

Thanks so much for the support ! Its lovely to get responses when you're feeling down.
I think there were a few reasons for me drinking starting with depression.
AL48 I've already tried that, I keep it on my phone. I just didn't lookat it when I wanted a drink.

A thread might be a good addition to my recovery plan.

Stewy1984

Worried, I used to drink and feel depressed at same time
it was only when I established that drinking was contributing to my low mood and not helping me, that I was able to remove it. There was a part of the addiction talk that said continue to booze to lift my mood.

See a gp for low mood if you're concerned about that in itself

Steely

Four months was great, Worried. Christmas and relapse.

Starting a thread is a good idea. Keeps everything together. Following, yourself.

And....Those terrible call of the wine thoughts, do not last.

zenithboy88

Hi Worried,
. I'm so glad to see that you jumped right back into sobriety and started a daily thread too.
Years ago I saw my doctor for social anxiety and depression which I suffered with since I was a teen.
I'm glad I did that as I've been on a med for over 20 years which has really helped and given me a normal life.
What really screwed me up was self medicating with 2 bottles of wine every night.
I'm only going on 3 weeks here but feeling so happy and upbeat with that vinegar tasting crap out of my body!
Use this setback as a reminder,
Heck you had 4 months which is awesome,
Yep, the holidays can be brutal with depression,
But the bright side is that you have a plan.
You can do this Worried!

brighterday1234

There is a solution. 4 months is a great start so add more tools to your sobriety toolkit. 🙏

fishkiller

Glad you came back.
The one thing that kept me straight in the beginning was, Just Don't Drink, No Matter What.

depressed? Angry? Alone? Happy? Friday?
Did not, does not, matter.

I hope you get there

biminiblue

Thing with alcohol is that it works. Depressed? Here, add this dopamine booster. Worried? Here, have a glass of this mind-quieter. Sad? Here, this will lift your spirits. Feeling apart or left out? This will be your social lubricant. There, now you're wittier and better looking. Wait, what?

All that is a valid mind maze to navigate. Sure, it works for an hour. Then it becomes, "I want to stay feeling THIS GOOD all night, drink another one." And we all know the Good Times don't last. Chasing. Chasing. Forever chasing that good times feeling. In bondage to a mind-altering-spirit-crushing liquid. Then the pass out. The horrible sleep, the throwing up, the smelly body and breath, the inability to slow down that thumping heart. The fear/terror, the self-loathing, the anger, the sickness, the endless cycle of doing-that-all-over-again.

Ask me how I know.

There are better and more permanent ways to deal with negative emotions. I pray you find them.

I also agree with Dee, really dig in to the lies you told yourself before drinking. You said you, "couldn't wait," for the wine? Yes you could. We all did. If we did it, you can too.


I wish I could impart to you the absolute peace and joy available to you if you stay away from alcohol.

ToughChoices

What Bimini said!!! Yes.


It was critical for me to 1.) STOP using/drinking and 2.) Analyze, soberly, what was driving my obsession with chemical escape. What was I trying to get away from?

Facing that Truth allowed my “can’t wait for” to dissolve. It took away my desire. It revealed some pain, fear, anger, etc….and showed me that the only way out of that cycle was to abandon the poison I’d been cradling delicately for years.

I don’t need to poison my soul to get through life. You don’t, either. We can soar if we’ll only put our burdens down.

novips

I could not stay sober till I fully committed to the recovery program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I have come to conclude that there is a type of alcoholic for whom A.A. is the only solution. I have no way of knowing whether you are that type, but I hope you'll keep an open mind about it. Feel free to PM me if you want to chat more about that.

Alpine

I have been there way too many times so I understand where you are at. What has helped me is to start my own thread that has been going on since maybe..Jan? Not sure. I try to post everyday..both good and challenging days which surprisingly to me has worked great. I also run that tape both forward and backward of when I drink I do not like what I see. It is a position and ruins who I am to very core. Don't let that av take control, it is not your friend. I found I could not moderate at all so like Fish said, don't drink, no matter what. I send you my absolute very best.

DriGuy

I'm sorry to hear about folding at 4 months, which should be a time where the worst is behind, and success is within your grasp. I understand blowing it at 3 days, a week, or two, but by that time, cravings should start to become manageable. At four months you are not yet out of the woods, but you have taken a giant step toward recovery, and made the early gains necessary for a foundation upon which to build a sober life.

I know this happens to a lot of us, but I think something important is missing from some of our plans, or maybe there was no plan at all. Just "Wanting to do something about our drinking," is not a plan. It's a desire without structure. When cravings subside, that is only a beginning, not a finished job. Actually, recovery's job is never finished. After years of "recovery," we are all one drink away from relapse, not one night out or one bender. Just one drink, and that is the one drink you must avoid at all costs. I suppose a case could be made that you could think in terms of benders, and what you must avoid is that next first bender. But I think it's the first drink that starts the bender.

Obviously, you made a mistake, I can't tell you much about what that mistake was, but at the risk of sounding inconsiderate, the mistake was drinking (reduced to the simplest terms, of course). I think the reason for why we drank are not really relevant, but I suppose there may be a reasonable debate there. I just can's see it, even though I was as guilty as anyone when coming up with reasons for my drinking. I don't do that anymore. I just don't drink. Recovery was 90% a behavior change for me, but again people will forcefully argue against that. For me, I had to quit drinking before I could structure a coherent plan for the rest of my life. It was almost only a behavior change for me.

Now that I think about it, before I quit, I knew I was in trouble, so I sought out an alcohol counselor. At one point very early in our relationship, she told me she would not talk to me unless I quit drinking. I thought that was some "fine how-do-you-do." After all, why would I want to talk to an alcohol counselor if I already stopped drinking? I gave here a D- in performance back then. But in retrospect, she had laid out in the simplest form, exactly what I ended up having to do. When we are drinking, it's almost impossible to see clearly what we should do without alcohol. We must quit before we can start recovery.

Mizz

I can only speak for myself but it took many relapses for me to understand what it was I needed and did not need. Its the rare person who walks away from the alcohol on the first attempt. Its not a failure. Its a chance to start new and to build up those sober muscles. Starting a thread is a great idea. Do whatever it is you think you need to do to remain sober. Nothing is off the table. You can do this.

DriGuy

That is so true. I spent years wanting to do something about my problem and relapsed so many times that it is impossible to count. Sometimes I give the impression that I just walked away from alcohol. And I did, but only after continually failing for years. But at one point, I finally did walk away and started putting my life back together. That point was so different, remarkable, and abrupt, that it's the point I mark as the beginning of my recovery.

silentrun

Glad you made it back. 4 months was a very difficult phase of recovery for me. Fortify your plan and proceed.

ToughChoices

Thanks, DriGuy.

I needed exposure to recovery to start developing the desire for sobriety. I knew it was what I wanted, but abandoning the fascination and desire for substance use took some time and pain. For a number of months I wanted both recovery AND substance (that sounds crazy, but it’s true).

I had to touch the fire again in order to drop the desire.

We are all just at different points in the learning process when we get here. Keep learning!