You can't go back and undo what happened. You can just choose that today you will not drink, if that is what you want. All you have to do is not drink for 24 hours. If that is too long, then don't drink for 1 hour. If that doesn't work, choose not to drink for 5 minutes. Anyone can choose to not drink for 5 minutes. Then choose again in the next time.

Don't beat yourself up for slipping. You can only live in today. Tomorrow hasn't happened yet, no sense worrying about it and yesterday is over, you can't change it. Just live for today.

I hear and feel your pain and hurt. I'm sorry you are going through this. Are you trying this on your own or are in going to rehab or a twelve step or any other program? AA worked for me, I know it isn't for everyone.

Wishing you peace and luck on this difficult journey.

Karen

Tomorrow's a new day. Put one foot in front of the other and do the next right thing. If it means getting to a meeting, then go to a meeting.

Alcohol beat the shit out of me. This disease is cunning, baffling and soooo powerful. But you already know that.

Once the thought of a drink enters my mind, I immediately replace it with a positive thought. How great I feel. How much better I look. A better sister, daughter, friend, worker. The mental obsession was torture for me.

A Power greater than myself can release me from the bondage of alcohol... if I let Him. But I've got to put in the footwork. It's not going to be handed to me on a silver platter.

What happened, happened. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and, as 2many said, take it 5 minutes at a time if you must. Just keep putting off the next drink.

I truly wish you the best.

Chris

"I can't keep allowing other people to try to help me if I won't help myself."

There's many in your corner, but they can't rescue you. Ultimately, the legwork has to come from you, and there's no quick fix to a problem that's haunted us for so long. You won't know if any program can help you unless you commit to giving it your best shot. One question I asked myself when I was edgy was "Am I doing absolutely everything I need to stay sober?"

HTL, If your drinking to pass out, we can't stop that. You can, although if you're anything like I was, you won't, so I hope and pray you'll find a new day, and the willingness to take action before you pick up the next drink.

Oh Olive, I love ya girl but you're probably about to get pissed at me because I'm not gonna give you that "tomorrow is another day" crap.

It's not a "slip" or a "relapse" after only a few days of not drinking and it's not a "slip" or a "relapse" if you keep doing it every few weeks. You never stopped...

When you want it bad enough, you will find the "determination" to not only "try" to stop, but to actually DO IT.

I hope you find your way love.

There is a sentence in the big book that tells us that self knowledge is no good to us. We can see our powerlessness but knowing it and finding a solution to it are two different things.

Your question "why do I repeatedly forget the pain?" is also answered by the big book which probably puts it better than I do.

It tells us why we are powerless - because at certain times we cannot remember with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of a month or even a week ago. We dont have a reliable defense against the first drink - so we have to find that defense from somewhere else.

This made a lot of sense to me, I have never been able to stay sober based on the pain of what happens when i drink. I am powerless to keep away from the first drink with any certainty.

So I had to find another power - which sounds like an amazingly difficult thing to do! But luckily millions of alcoholics have already done it and most of them in the same way, using the 12 steps.

The point of the steps is to connect us with another power which will keep us away from the first drink.

I tried to help myself in a lot of ways but none of it worked until the efforts were put into the steps. Trying to use my efforts to stay sober didnt work because of my powerlessness. Instead I had to surrender and stop trying it that way and instead but my efforts into a connection with something more powerful than me.

Have a look at the drs opinion and chapters 2 and 3 in the big book - I found myself in those pages and it answered my questions about why i forget the pain, why i cant stay sober. Hopefully you will find yourself too and the solution will start to make sense.

Sometimes I really wonder if it was luck in my case or if my brain was "wired" by the DNA to know a real solution when I saw one.

But the new blurb on the side of this page tells me, "We trust you will do your best to remain positive and helpful."

So I'd love to tell my story in all its ego-smashing details about how I had to hit a very low bottom in order to recognize that solution when it was in front of me. But the exquisite irony is that telling it here would break the rules.

So good luck & all that jazz.... er, I guess.

Nickys experience here is also mine.

SLIP....sobriety loses its priority.

As we know, we take the drink long before we put the drink in our hand so you have to look at why you picked up. To me, it was always what i refer to now as 'the hole in the soul'.

When I was drinking, I used alcohol to try to fill it and it just kept pouring out so I needed more. Then, I stopped drinking. The hole was still there.........I was a dry drunk. I had stopped drinking yet not done anything else. It was not until I started the steps that I began to fill the hole.

I spent 5 months going to meetings and fighting not drinking. Then I got a sponsor, started to go through the Big Book and....today I awake to a new day sober :)

Time for some action. My way never worked. Seems like yours isn't either.

The great thing, when you do the steps, the obsession is removed. Imagine that! A place of neutrality where you don't even have to think whether to have a drink or not! That is the miracle of AA and HP and staying spiritually well.

Oh, and regarding choice, I never had a choice when I was actively drinking...drink took me long before I took it (the threefold illness).

And to forget the pain, yep, rose tinted glasses and denial of our disease.

The great thing, we are not cured yet we do get to recover.

Are you prepared to do the work to recover? That question is yours for answering.

Ya know, it might be a good thing to go backwards and hopefully become teachable. When new I I was out of answers and plans. If I had just one more idea how I could fix my life I probably wouldn't have stuck around and do those seemingly stupid actions which were suggested to me. All you need to begin with is to be honest, openminded and willing.

HTL.....I don't know if you subscribe to the free 'Hazelden' daily emails? .

Todays one incase you don't:-

'Slipping

A common rationalization about not making the program goes like this: "Harry over there slipped ten times before he made it. So what if I slip a few times?"

What is overlooked is that the last time Jack slipped, he slipped into a coffin; the last time Bob slipped, his baby son burned to death in a crib because of Bob's negligence, the last time Ann slipped, she got strychnine poisoning and became blind; and the last time Jim slipped, he tried to kill his wife and nearly did.

We're not playing games here. This is a matter of life and death.

Have I stopped slipping?

Higher Power, let me know that it is not only my life but the lives of others that I endanger by playing loaded games.'

M8bear, how timely!! Powerful message there.

Thanks for that.

Chris

I drank about 3 weeks after I came into AA .Had listened to some speaker cd's and wasn't sure if I also experience that craving they described. Got a six pack beer and drank most of it. It didn't feel different than other times. lol That were my hopefully last ones.

Thanks all. M8 - I don't get those emails, but will sign up today.

Woke up with some determination. I have already been to the gym. Going to get my head straight today.