If you looked at all the days you've lived and divided by 7, this one day is so ...... in the past!

However, that does not mean you can cop out tomorrow. I want you to get up in the morning, make two eggs and two pieces of toast with a glass of OJ or milk, plan a sensible lunch and dinner, and go to a meeting or two or three.

And the next day, repeat.

so sorry. pick urself up, dust urself off and start again tomorrow

Thank you both. Still questioning if I can get back on the social drinking path. Trying but it doesn't look good. First drink tonight was at 7pm. yikes!

You can do it beth. I have on and off the sober wagon so many times, I've lost count. It CAN be done. This is just a minor set back. In the future, if you have a stressful day, is there something else you can do? Go for a walk? Call a friend? Go for a drive? Something.............anything............that will get your mind off the desire to drink. I have found that going to the gym helps me.

Good luck. You can do it. We are all here to support you.

as for aa i havent had a drink in 2 years, before 2 years ago i went 5 years with out, but it is bound for people to have a slip up hear and there throughout time, which i find is ok if you get your self back on track and are aware what happend before. I had my slip when my mom died it was really hard for me to cope with, but i was lucky with in a week the love of my life got me back on track, and he was the cause for me to give up drinking because i loved him so much at 1st sight and i was known to be nasty when id be drinking and i knew it would drive him away at some point. He has a few beers once in a while but never around me and i never seen him drunk , people at a.a dont get how i can be with him thats the only part what frustrates me because i thought we were taught it was going to be in our surroundings such as at weddings restraunts banquets you name it, but know you cant have it because of the problem its been for you. youll be ok just remember what it did to you before and dont want it to happen again.

Hello bethmach,

The big question to consider is are you addicted to alcohol or some way down the road towards being addicted. If the answer is no then you should have little or no trouble with social drinking. It should be easy for you to go for days without any alcohol, go out and have only a couple of drinks and have none for the next few days and to forget about having the first drink at 7 p.m. as you have described. If you are one of those people (like me) who would have considered taking one or two drinks a total waste of time and money and who always needed one more drink then you are probably an alcoholic.

If you are indeed addicted to alcohol you have two choices. You can continue to drink, trying your best to control it and to keep your life together. However, you will almost certainly fail to do this with the result that you will drink more as time goes on and as a result all parts of your life will suffer. Social drinking is never an option for an alcoholic. If you still have any doubts I would advise you to look back at a recent post called: Considering Moderating Your Drinking where there is a link to the tragic story of Audrey Kishline who started a self-help group for people who believed that problem drinkers don't have to give up alcohol. Copy this link into Google and click on: Road to recovery - Dateline NBC - msnbc.com. www.msnbc.msn.com/id/1462744

If you have concluded that alcohol is a problem in your life and that you cannot drink socially you would be wise to consider a second option. The only thing that works for alcoholics is not drinking - we cannot use alcohol safely and one drink will always lead to many more. This is where differences of opinion tend to arise, with some people finding ways to quit on their own without any outside help. For the vast majority of alcoholics, the thought that you can do it on your own is extremely dangerous territory and can lead to tragic consequences. The DIY approach to recovery has been tried by countless alcoholics down through the ages and almost always the result is failure. Therefore, it is likely that you are going to require help and support from some outside source such as Alcoholics Anonymous if you wish to recover from alcoholism.

You have gone seven days without drinking with the help of AA and your family and that is a good starting point. You drank again after seven days and there is a clear reason for that which would be important for you to understand. The reason that you drank again is because you have a mental obsession for alcohol. This means that the mind has learned that when emotions were out of tune in the past and you took a few drinks, the world seemed like a nicer place. The mind remembers and is telling you now that since alcohol helped to solve past problems, why not take a few drinks and all will be well again. For the majority of drinkers this approach would not lead to any problems. However, about one in ten drinkers develop a physical allergy to alcohol at some point of their drinking history. This allergic reaction manifests itself in the form of a strong craving for more alcohol. The result is that one drink sets off the craving and with each subsequent drink it becomes stronger until no human power can resist it.

If the problem for the alcoholic is that he or she is powerless over alcohol then the solution is to find some new power. At the beginning, this new power can be the people in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. It has been my experience that once I accepted that I could no longer control my drinking and that I could not stop on my own, the simple act of going to AA meetings allowed me to do what had been impossible before. I had found some power greater than myself in the rooms of AA and no longer wanted to drink.

Going to AA meetings is an essential part of recovery for many alcoholics but meetings alone are not enough. A change has to occur in the way of thinking, not just about alcohol but about living in general and it takes some sort of programme such as the 12 Steps to bring about this change. Somewhere along the way as you go through those steps, the obsession for alcohol is removed and you will not want to drink again.

My advice to you Beth is to go back to the AA meetings and to make sobriety your number 1 priority. It is recommended that you should go to many meetings each week for the first 90 days. Go with an open mind and be prepared to listen, even if you disagree with what you hear. Look around the rooms at people who have been through alcoholic hell and who now live happy lives. If it works for those other people, it will work for you too.

Beth, look at what you were doing, or not doing when you picked up that first drink, and see if there is anything you can change to avoid being in that situation again. Stay active in your sobriety. Time to get back up and give it your best.