Cunning Baffling Powerful. Is how AA describes booze.
I struggled to get sober again after I slipped. Today, it's one day at a time. If a day is too long, break it down into smaller chunks. There were days I had to take it an hour at a time.
Today I am almost fourteen years sober. I remember how awful I felt that first day, the guilt, the shame, the just feeling like shit mentally, physically, spiritually. I remember so I don't have to go there again. As the days accumulated, I started to feel better, my head wasn't such a bad neighborhood any longer and in time, I no longer thought about "escaping sobriety".
Life is good today, one day at a time. You are not alone, I care :)

I had the same addiction so judging you or feeling like you let me down is the farthest thing in my mind. Actually I’m proud of you for your honesty. Because ultimately that’s what really matters here. Every ‘lesson’ in life that I have actually learned I had to be beat over the head with through many, many failures to have it sink in. For me, especially the ones that hit close to home, I resist like my life depends on me wriggling out of accepting what’s real. This is a behavior that I learned a long time ago and, like my shadow, goes everywhere with me. This is the trap I dug for myself and blindly walked right into when I took my first ‘productive’ drink.
In your last post you asked what’s real. Only this moment is real. This is the Golden Lesson that pales all others. It’s the only one that gives us our life back. I’m not my past or my fantasy about my future. Just here now and the lesson is that this is enough. Might seem mundane sometimes (who are we kidding, most times) but it’s the only time I have available to actually exist. Everything else is just a thought and I haven’t been able to think my way to feeling alive. The Golden Trap. Every day I stop many times and take a breath and reset myself into here. And a minute later I’m off and running with some other random thought until I reign it in and recognize again who I am. I can only be here now.... This is the only freedom and it’s worth pursuing for ever.
I had a huge advantage when I quit. One and done. The reason I was able to do this was that I was a month into recovery from a serious fall that broke me physically and emotionally. Broken bones and nerve damage that was like broken teeth (actually included three of those too) for over a year. Couldn’t sleep to get away from it. Somehow was wise enough to not take any pain meds other than Advil and I stopped that too because twenty a day was wrecking my stomach.
I was coming undone and wanted to drink it all away but something clicked in my brain and I knew that I was on the precipice. The fear of being broken for ever outweighed the urge to drown my pain. It was my window of opportunity.
After all the surgeons did what could be done I have permanent severe carpal tunnel, knees that can’t run and hips that feel like I’m always sitting on cold pointy rocks. ‘But you know me, I can’t complain’ (Big Lebowski)
The only thing that keeps the serious pain at bay is daily stretching , walking and workout. Along with a near perfect vegetarian diet and lots of water.
‘Fear is like a wilderness, stepping stones or sinking sand’ Joni. I have come to prefer the plunge into fear than the covert sneaking around it trying not to feel it too much but never getting through it. That life kinda sucks.
My big weird fear is that I will actually succeed and be an adult. That’s such a radical change from my past twisted perception of what I am and deserve that I feel that contracting urge to freeze in the headlights and wait for the bullet. Fucking crazy ass behavior that is fading away finally. You know, we all know it.... that’s what got us here.
Walk right into those high beams and say FY hunter bitch and keep on walking.

I remember going through outpatient treatment. I learned exactly what happens when we choose alcohol for an idol. For the one above me, it was a fall that nearly killed him. With me, it was 3 days in the hospital with renal failure which nearly took my life. With my mother, it was a disfunctional marriage which triggered her disease and she left this earth at the age of 52 having succumbed to her disease and leaving behind a very heartbroken faimily including the youngest which was me. They gave me a new label! I am now an adult child of alcoholic parents! (ACOA for short) That's how the disease of alcoholism spreads to the kids. I was so ashamed of their drinking, that I didn't dare bring any of my friends over to my house! Having never had parents present in mind, it was like growing up all alone, but yet I didn't grow up. Having used addictions for most of my life to bury those hurt feelings of loss and isolation, I was never able to heal it until I went through therapy for my addiction to drugs and alcohol, much later in life.

Having lived through it with my parents, the stress of watching them commit a slow suicide with the bottle.......knowing there wasn't a dam thing I could do to stop the madness....... triggered my own addiction to drugs and alcohol but I got help when I reached my low. When I lost everything and had nothing. I lost my job, I had lost all my money in the stock market, my wife kicked me out and I had nowhere to go......so I drove myself to the ER and asked to go into detox. As bad as that sounds, I have heard people at AA meetings talk about their own tragedies, like taking someone's life while driving drunk. She was the first AA speaker I ever heard, too. 6 years of this young woman's life spent in prison, away from her kids.

Long story short, drinking is like being on train that's guaranteed to crash at the end of the line. I reached a point where I was about to crash and I had a choice. I could either stay on that train a little longer and die at the end....or I could decide to do everything it took to stay sober, which, for me, meant going through 4 days of detox, followed by a 3 week IOP (Intensive Outpatient Treatment) followed by 3 months of relaps prevention, group counseling, followed by 3 AA meetings per week. That was 12 years ago. Today I have a great life and I have never been happier.

I have a great book which I would be willing to send you for free, or you can find it used on Amazon for a few dollars. It's called, "The 12 steps for everyone who really wants them" I also have a small pocket addition of the AA big book you can have......... If you're interested. PM me your address.

We will keep you in our thoughts and prayers.

God Bless

.....wilderland..... sorry Joni:) rhymes better with sand.
Every time I do something that doesn’t work out so well I say to myself; well, now I know. I’m sure you will think about this too.

Tomorrow is a brand new day........................you slipped, now you get up and start again, no judgement, you were honest - we are all here to support you, dust yourself off, one day at a time x

Sounds like you could use an introduction to AVRT, or addictive voice recognition technique. Do a search for it on YouTube.

You didn’t give your “disease” and angle to work with, you just wanted to feel good. So you drank. Problem is, you have drama associated with every time you drink. When I finally called myself out for having made an excuse to drink out of something that happened to me at work, I finally had my moment of zen.

Are you done? Only you know that answer. Perhaps you need a different angle to look at drinking and addiction. AVRT, take a peek and just maybe you will make the decision to finally take responsibility for your addiction.

Choose Freedom, Choose Never Again!

Puckchaser

She was America in that moment, wretching the poisons that roost in the crowd. She wretched for the damage that had been done. She wretched for the damage to come. She wretched for her lost purity, that glimmer in the monument that testified the truth from a God's perspective.

That was a lot of reading! My mind is blown, quite frankly. I am moved as to how direct all of you are. I will check out addictive voice recognition technique and 12 Steps if u really want them.
It is terrifying that one can be in the mouth of the monster and not see the danger till it's jaws snap shut. I am a neurotic person. I want to be constantly doing stuff, even if it's picking at my face. Which i do. A lot.
I know there's a more evolved creature in this animal i exist, just need to not rip her to pieces.

Chicken Marsala F that

Alcohol is a drug. Your body is addicted and needs the drug. Why ? Because in the past it worked to make the world go away. But the point comes where the body is addicted and the world just gets worse with each drunk.

Wow you helped me remember those times I would think about drinking Marsala.

I quit a bunch. I quit and then without fail would pick up a bottle again within a short time. Why? I was addicted. I was a drug addict.

Alcohol is a drug.

The only way I made it 7 years is I went to find some help. See I didn’t know a lot about alcoholism. I learned from others about how and why my body was different when it came to alcohol.

Again thanks for the reminder , f that s