It’s incredible hearing all your stories with addiction. People reaching day 1, day 30, day 1000. I am in awe. I just reached day 350. Seems like it was yesterday when I decided to stop drinking. I was at a friends house and his father had just passed away from liver failure. I told myself that I have seen enough devastation from alcohol and I was not going to be one is victims.
Current day, 351, and I would love to have a beer with a friend and not be a big deal. I don’t know if I can have a healthy relationship, but man, I miss it. Coming from the beer industry most of my friends are either brewers or reps and I get so excited when the new brew comes out. I I know I can’t have it, but I feel I can have a healthy relationship with it… I guess I am just tired of constantly struggling with this. Any words of support would be helpful.
We can never have healthy relationship with alcohol. You have to accept it and let it go. Maybe it helps if you think about it as a poison. If you think about it as the cause of all the struggles and bad times you used to have. Alcohol is not a good friend we can hang out with having a good time, but a two-faced sneaky hypocrite, who stabs you in the back and makes you miserable as soon as it has a chance.
Focus on one day at a time, and those days will add up to a „never” by their own.
Try to put your focus into sobriety and not into denying booze. It’s a lot harder to fight against it constantly, than to lack it out of your life as if it wouldn’t exist. If it isn’t in your life, even if it physically is, it’s not a constant struggle any more. If you define your sobriety in opposition to alcohol, it will be a struggle.
No you can’t. I’m sorry. That’s recovery friend. It’s different for all of us but we all have to change our lives. Some more radical than others. Some of us really need to build a totally new life for ourselves.
We’re addicts. Take a look at an heroin or meth addict who becomes clean. Would you expect he or she would keep hanging out with his/her old user friends? Keep hanging around in the same streets where dope is sold? And, if doing so, not struggling with staying clean? We really need to change our lives. That’s recovery. Hard work. But worth it. Changing our lives also means giving up the struggle, stop giving our DOC (alcohol in your case) the power over your life and start living your own life.
Like Tomek says we need to accept alcohol is out of our life. And from that acceptance comes the realization that that fact is actually very good.
Yep, spot on Tomek. Focusing the energy on rebuilding, creating a new life was key for me and many others here I’m sure. It’s hard work, but it can be incredibly rewarding, and might turn out to be the most important thing you ever do for yourself.
Congrats on your (nearly) year @misterwatts Personally my 1 year anniversary was a very difficult time in my sobriety, so it’s really encouraging to see you acknowledging it early. All the best
Of all the times I’ve managed to stay sober - (and it’s been days not almost a year) - what makes me fall off the wagon is me telling myself “look I’ve stayed sober x y z - I can totally manage social drinking and go off it whenever I want”
We know deep down this is lies.
You’ve came so so so far.
Try some AF options if you’d be so willing for the placebo effect and stay strong. You can do this and you will never ever regret staying off it.
Normal drinkers can take it or leave it and not think twice about it. Ask yourself what alcohol has deprived you of in your life. Our addict brains tend to play the victim card, that we’re deprived because we can’t have a drink or our doc. The truth is that shit was depriving us.
You also have a big milestone coming up, shit gets hard around those milestones sometimes. My advice is to stay in the moment, don’t worry about anything other than today. Congrats on 350
I’d imagine if you have put so much effort into getting 351 days af (very well done for that ), you must have had a very good reason for doing that. Maybe now is a good time to remind yourself of that reason.
), you must have had a very good reason for doing that. Maybe now is a good time to remind yourself of that reason.