I found this to be very true. Itās okay to just not know, or just not understand.
@FeelingBetter ong Jean - i am so sorry that you are dealing withvallbofvtgat but oh so happy tobhearcthat you are doing it sober. We will have many messes in our lives and the key is always goung to be how we deal with them- turning to our DOC is never the right solution. You are amazing my friend- hope they fix the leak today.
@GenG i totally get crying for no reason. Been doing that a lot for the past 2 yearsā¦sometimes our body just needs to release EVERYTHING. Hope you felt great after the cry. Have a great weekend
@Mno thank you do much for posting the beautiful pics with your check-ins. Absolutely lovely- have a wonderful sober day
@EFountains a huge congrats on 8 months 
@zzz sorry about your break-up. You have such an amazing outlook. I do belive that the planets have a major role in our emotions which lead to our actions im just not that in tune with how all of that works. I often think if i could study the movement of planets i may be better equipped to handle my emotional shifts 
Hope your heart heals quickly 
Day 217
My day started with me kneeling halfway in my fridge. I found a bell pepper that kinda got liquified and a lemon that used to be yellow and turned fluffy green. It was everywhere.
In the past this wouldāve been a good reason to go buy some alcohol.
Now all is nice and clean and Iām on the way to the grocery store. Today I take the longer route to the city center because the weather is so nice.
Laundry is getting clean already too, the apartment was done yesterday.
Now: me-time 
Have a beautiful sober day friends, stay strong 
Hey all, checking in on day 1,056. I hope everybody has a good one!
Day 340. Happy Saturday everyone, pretty excited as today I am officially a Clinton community college student. Next is just figuring out classes at orientation. Iām nervous as can be lol
Amazing stuff! Sharpen your pencils well and take an apple for the teacher! 
Checking in on day 694. I was at a restaurant for dinner last night and the couple at the table next to us was getting sloppy on giant margaritas. I bet they feel like shit this morning 
. Lazy gray morning with coffee for me. I feel pretty great. Have a lovely day, friends 
Checking in on Day 447
Have a great day everyone!
Checking inā¦ 90 DAYS SOBER!!! I can and cant believe it lolā¦ what a 90 days its been. Beyond thankful for this community of support. Some of you have truly been here for me and i cant thank you enough. Just 4 monthās ago all of this seemed so impossibleā¦ now its impossible for me to go backā¦ i hope everyone is doing wellā¦ heres to another 90!!!
Billy
Yeah Billy- thats huge! Congrats on your 90 days my friend 
CONGRATULATIONS 
Youve been thru alot in those 90 days and uv come thru everything sober! Proud of u!
Good morning, time to get a third weekend under my AF belt! Itās Saturday my body says be lazy but the brain keeps saying donāt be idleā¦ letās see which wins.
Yesterday went downhill fast.,.I was excited my son my son had his first school dance(8th grade and a āfriendā was going with him) he also had a soccer game before the dance. I felt relieved/happy because my worst drinking years have been his 14 years of life and yet surprisingly by his own doing heās turned out to be a good kid. My wife got home before the game and said her cousins going to the game and invited us to a bar afterwards but she politely turned her down bc I was doing well in recovery. Everybody in our family knows of my alcoholism, itās hard to hide after 20 years of stupidness. I donāt know if it rubbed me that she had to say no heās sober or I was just being in my feelings but regardless the idea of going out was now in my brainā¦it ruined about half my sonās game but I was able to fight itā¦at least I thought I did. Last night I had the most vivid dream that we did go drink and I did relapse and the guilt while in the dream was killing meā¦and I started trying to figure out how to drive safe or get away with it and pretend I didnāt drinkā¦but I couldnāt. When I woke it took me a min to realize I was dreaming. Itās been an hour now and I still feel guilty as if I had drank. This sickness is evil. But I am sober! Enjoy your weekend fam, stay positive and smiling!
Woot Woot!!! Congratulations!!! 
You got this!
Congratulations Mike! This is soo exciting! Im really happy for u
I think a simple and acceptable answer might be: you have a strong compulsion. A strong compulsion is when strong forces inside you or rather the forces of yourself, that are very much part of you but are not easily known to you, make the decision rather than your conscious self.
That is why you were on track for relapse from the time you considered going to that yoga class.
You might say that there are reasons for these forces. The reasons lie in your personal history and your personality. They are likewise not easily known to you or each of us for ourselves.
These reasons and the forces of Julia that they drive win over your consciousness every single time ā you relapse. Your conscous mind says: Imma break this habitual association. Your unconscious motivations decide that itās going to go down just like every other time.
You are not going to suddenly come to know your reasons. They are deeply hidden and highly guarded against self-knowledge. They are repressed, because they are linked to a lot of pain. That is universal, that is true for all of us here.
Because you will not suddenly know your reasons, it is unreasonable to expect that your conscious self (willpower) is going to triumph over the power of compulsion all of a sudden. Thatās why you keep relapsing.
But there are things you can do to tip the scales in your favour. That is called going out of your comfort zone.
Firstly, you can do things that will make it possible, in the long term, for your reasons, i.e. the motivations of your drinking, to come from unconscious and deciding for you (=relapse) to conscious and manageable (= living life on lifeās terms in recovery).
That thing is called therapy. It comes in a couple of different forms. The ones that make a big difference are unpleasant to do.
Also, there is such a thing as momentum. It is not necessary to know your unknowable reasons in order to make the decision, while you are sober, to do things that support your sobriety. Such things are: reading quit lit. Going to AA. Going to dharma or whatever. Journalling, seriously. Doing things that have worked for others, even if they are new and uncomfortable for yourself. In such actions the actual desire for sobriety manifests itself. This is what I see you very rarely do. You donāt do things you donāt wanna do, but youāre hoping the things you do enjoy will in the end be enough to carry your sobriety. (Thatās really not the order in which it worked for me, it was the other way around in that the things I love like reading, dogs, lifting I can now truly love with all my life force, but they did not get my drunk ass sober.)
I see you wanna be sober and benefit from a sober life - but I donāt see you actually want to do the things that are necessary to become sober (these things arenāt a specific selection of top ten items chosen by me, but they have the general characteristics outlined above: they give you relevant input, they build habits and networks, they are tried and trusted by others, they benefit your sobriety first, your personal taste second). If that makes sense. Maybe try this thought: sobriety will work out for you, but you gotta work for it first.
Iāve replied before and it wasnāt too well received and I donāt mind that. You are free to take and leave advice and input as you see fit. Iāve partly written this out thinking also of others whom it might also, idk, help to read or whatever.
When I read your question above, it really struck a chord in me. I think it comes up a lot.
Wish you the best. It can be done, but you gotta do it. 
Thank you for taking the time to write such a thoughtout response. I was about to quote my favorite part but its all exactly what i needed to hear. All of it is my āfavoriteā part
Hace a wonderful sober day
