I don’t even know if I can call what I’ve been doing a relapse. I feel like I never really stopped.
I’m 39 years old and I don’t want to keep feeling how I do. I don’t want my daughter to see me drinking anymore. It’s never falling down, throwing up, forgetting my obligations drunk. I support my family and meet my commitments but I’m sad and I’m tired and I can’t seem to stop myself from opening another bottle of something.
I know where it ends because of how many times I’ve started. I just want to be done.
It’s 2 AM and I don’t feel well, again. I’m going to wake up and go to work with an upset stomach, again. I’m going to swear today I won’t drink and I’ll go to bed early, again. But how do I make that last one actually happen? The ones that hurt me, I can choose. Why can’t I choose to help myself?
I just think it’s really beautiful that you mention your daughter and wanting to do this for her. My partners father is an alcoholic who recently turned on all his kids and it’s been a very sad thing to watch. Something that’s helped me kick some unhelpful habits is just being grateful for everything they helped with. Everyone turns to something to help, and there’s no shame in recognizing that it DID help, but it just doesn’t serve you anymore and there are more benefits to going without it now.
Just remember your daughter, be grateful for her and remember why you ever looked into getting sober in the first place. Recovery isn’t linear, there’s going to be more relapses, it’s a life long battle and I hate this phrase, but learning to just cope and accepting yourself as you are are super helpful and important. It’s like stretching a muscle, the more you do it the easier it will become to get back on the horse when you do fall.
I just wanted to add, you are a living, breathing human being who deserves to feel their best, you deserve love and kindness and to not feel so sad and tired all the time. Someone on here is rooting for you, no matter how many times you think you mess up
That one, I don’t have a textbook answer. I don’t think there is a textbook answer. Personally I think it’s like learning to swim. You dip your toe in the water, you go deeper, farther into the water; you float first - no swimming, just floating - then you kind of wave your arms around and experiment, and you find what works to move you this way, then that way, etc etc.
It’s not like flipping a light switch. It’s messy and it’s not elegant. It’s always one tiny step at a time, one day, one hour at a time.
It’s evolution. You’re evolving:
Take care and don’t give up. Have you checked out some of the resources on this list?
Have you consider medical options? I am familiar with the struggle you speak of, the constant spiral of shame and sadness and needing to drink to drown that out but feeling worse because you’re drinking again. Someone mentioned it in the comments above but it’s worth saying again: it’s okay to acknowledge that alcohol was a coping tool you needed to get this far. You needed it for a time, it got you here, and now you’re ready to let it go and use a different, healthier coping technique.
I knew my body had built up a reliance on alcohol so I was also nervous about quitting cold turkey but, try as I might, I could never get myself to cut back. Eventually I found a substance abuse psychologist who has helped so much. He prescribed me meds to help with detox initially and now I take neltraxon which significantly helps with the cravings.
Not saying medication is the right way for everyone but when it came to me, even though I was in weekly therapy and trying really hard, the chemical pull was too much. The medication shuts down those receptors in my brain so the temptation isn’t as strong. Now, this does mean you have to make yourself take the meds so you don’t drink but it’s maybe an easier first step to make?
I echo @Thirdmonkey. I couldn’t help myself either. I had to completely surrender and ask for help. Countless times I woke up feeling like shit, saying I’m not doing this again tonight and by 5pm, I’m back at it. It wasn’t until I finally got sick and tired of being sick and tired did I seek help. I found that help in the rooms of AA.
Welcome back, this post I could have written. I always wanted to stop for my kids…I didn’t want them to see me as a drunk mother but ultimately I had to stop for myself. I would wake up at 2 am too and wouldn’t be able to fall asleep anymore to get up damn hangover and just makeing it horribly through the work day to just continue this cycle again when the night came. I did this for so many years not knowing how to stop. I would buy sober programmes, even an online hypnotherapy course and nothing helped. I did go to AA once in a while and envied all these happy people and wanted what they had just sitting there and waiting that the miracle happened. I went out of many meetings just finding myself drinking again. But I always came back to AA and never gave up. Now I finally found the right sponsor who I call every day. I gave up fighting every day. I do pray in the morning and at night I thank someone out there (I don’t like to say God because I’m not very religious) that I have made the day sober. Before I started to really work AA the cravings were so unbelievably bad I just had to drink. I couldn’t not drink. Since I do the AA actions every day I can stay sober. I never ever believed in it but once you start believing it really really works. On day 41 and this is a fucking miracle because I could not stay sober for a day in the past! I wish you really all the best. Go to meetings and go back there and talk to the people. You can do it if I can …
as you undertake this journey.