Hi Hope,
You have to want it badly enough. You have to be honest with yourself and admit to yourself that you ARE an alcoholic, you DO have a problem, and you REALLY want to change. I call it the "two-by-four upside of the head" moment. Mine came in May when instead of the usual wine or beer, I bought a bottle of vodka instead. Just a couple of vodka-and-grapefruit juices, I told myself. Well you can guess what happened. The next day's world-class hangover prompted a sick day from work and a lot of soul-searching. A google search led me here to this group, and the support from everybody here got me through the rough first weeks, and some of the stories I read here literally 'scared me sober'!
Definitely talk to your psych and be honest with him. AA was an option I avoided for various reasons, but if you have done it, continue. Nobody there is going to judge you, especially if you really renew your efforts to stay sober!! You are not the first one there to be seen struggling!!
Good luck to you!!!

I drank because I liked the effect produced by alcohol. I liked being seperated from me because I didnt like myself. Thru some work I have been able to forgive myself and now I dont have to drink. The thing is alcohol IS a drug. I was dependant upon it. I was hooked. It took a willingness to change everything about my life. I dont go to the bar anymore. I hit a meeting each day. I pray for some help thruout the day.

I will say that it is not easy but it is very much worth it. I dont miss for one moment the pain and humiliation I used to have on a daily basis. But the thing for me was i could quit , I just couldnt stay quit. It took basically just telling myself I am an alcoholic and I need help, thats when the watershed moment occured. The moment I quit fighting and just surrendered. I dont want to ever forget how bad the shame , remorse , and guilt were and so I stay close to the rooms and see the daily parade of people that are struggling and I try to help them, it keeps me sober.

1is2many

Go back to AA. You'll be welcome. If you want it, there will be help there.

You can do it.

You are already doing a pretty good job of motivating yourself! You started by writing this post asking for suggestions. That's taking your recovery seriously! You are going to talk about it with your therapist. That's taking your recovery seriously!

You did not go to detox because your coworkers wanted you to. You went because YOU wanted to go! You could have said no!

Everything you are doing is setting things in motion so you can, once again, experience the joy of having long term sobriety.

Don't get discouraged! You will find what you are looking for, if you continue to work for it!

God Bless

Hello hope2OZ,

The easy option is to wander through life on auto pilot but such a journey can become a very shallow existence. It is a little more difficult to face up to the hurdles and challenges that living present but victory over them brings great satisfaction. Therefore, I would say that you need to ask yourself if you are content to keep going on your present course and face many unpleasant consequences or are you willing to push yourself and rise to the challenge.

If you are an alcoholic, you cannot drink safely and if you continue to try and defy reality, your drinking will get much worse. If drinking is causing you a problem but you are not an alcoholic, you would still be wise to cut it out.

If you choose sobriety, you will have a better chance of success if you do it for yourself, even though your co-workers were concerned enough to persuade you to go to rehab. The secret of getting people to like you better is to get to like yourself. Booze may bring a short and temporary fix but the calmness and self-confidence that comes with inner peace will draw other people to you.

One thing that you can be certain about is that you will always be welcome in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, even more so when you are struggling. My suggestion to you is to go back to the meetings. It is not necessary for you to make many meetings, although there is no harm in doing that. Far more important is to get a sponsor who can help you through the Twelve Steps. In that way you can get to like yourself as well as staying sober.

Remember that alcoholism kills people. Please don’t become another sad statistic.

At. AA we don't shoot our wounded
If you want to go back to AA go.
Here is something someone told me a few years back.
Remember tomorrow what you learned today, lest the problems of yesterday return.

I agree we never shoot our wounded. You need to decide thast you want to be sober and know in your heart you can never drink again. It isn't always easy, but we take it 24 hours at a time if we need to.

The bizarre thing about recover is that only YOU can do it. But, in my experience, it cannot be done alone. I went outside of AA because it was too fundamentalist. I found my own program, and it has worked for me. I learned a lot from AA, but I just can't accept it's rigidity. IF you want to get sober, and remain sober, you can do it with or without the AA brainwashing

BUT you really have to take it seriously. In the final analysis, we're fighting for our lives. If you can't commit to sobriety, you'll be overtaken by the disease/demon/whatever-you-want-to-call-it: it will destroy you if you don't commit to abandoning it, forever.