Mike, you know I love you and care deeply about your well-being.
How about a timer for both? I have one for benzos and one for alcohol, then one for completed 24 hours sober. This way you stay accountable to ALL of it.
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Take care Mike. Of yourself, of your little ones, of all the stuff you hold dear. All the best to you.
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Welcome back Mike. I’m glad you’re safe.
Be gentle with yourself. You are not in competition; it’s not a race (and your worthiness is not at risk). It’s always just one day at a time. The only time we ever have is the present, this moment, right now.
You’re a good person who deserves a safe, sober life where you can be your full self. You are safe, and you deserve to be here. Take care brother 
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It all come down to what you define sobriety.
If it was me I would probably say I broke my sobriety stretch.
Although I’d might keep the day counting to motivate me by saying that I am still at day 456 day of recovery. I am recovering since X date and once I’ve drank 4 beers and realize that wasn’t me anymore.
If you drink again then that’s another story.
And if you were day 7 that would be another story too.
But I think a mistake can happen. But the thing is, in addiction, mistake can be mortal. So either learn from this one or don’t, but remember your had the « chance » to not fall off into a bender of destruction…
Although if this isn’t a motivation for you to stay sober (if that’s what you want) then it’s not worth keeping the count.
It’s all going back to what you want and how you define your purpose.
Hope you have a good day,
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Welcome back home, Mike. The progress you made in those 456 days is real and is valuable. And if your adventure back to drinking has reinforced your commitment to sobriety and to bettering yourself, than that’s the positive you can take from it.
At one time, i was just short of 10 months sober, out of rehab and back in my life. That was the longest sober time I’d had in 25 years. I went back to drinking because, in the final analysis, I wasn’t done yet and I thought I could drink without consequences. It was about 7 or 8 years until I got sober for good.
What I’m saying is that I don’t have direct experience with a good foundation of sobriety then a slip and a return to the good sober life. My slips were disastrous and long. So I am relieved to see you back after sorting out (more or less) your thoughts and feelings on it.
Sober works a lot better for me, I can’t handle alcohol or drugs in any amount. And I’ve found a life infinitely more rewarding than the path I was on before. 
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Dang, so does that mean he deleted his account?
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Pretty sure.
I believe he requested to be anonymous and is still around. I messaged with him recently. Not sure though.
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Anonymising deletes the account (I.e. ability to log in) but keeps the posts in place. Of course anyone can still read the open forum but to participate after being anonymised, they would have to create a new account.
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Gotcha! Thanks Sian.
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so I think I will only have a couple of drinks every other day and keep my counter running up the days bc for an alcoholic like me that’s not real drinking.
The counter is there to tell us how long we have abstained from our drug of choice, we pick up we start again. If the days don’t matter don’t have a counter, it’s all irrelevant anyway bc everyday is day 1 for me.
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I enjoyed Mike’s energy and presence. I hope he wasn’t turned off by the lack of co-sign of his behavior. To be fair, it’s a sobriety forum so no one is going to help justify slow dosing on any kind of poison. I notice a pattern that when people take time off from this forum they revert back to old behaviors. It’s sad seeing the good fall. It honestly is eye opening for me and teaches me how truly important it is to always be working on sobriety. It must be maintained daily like showering or flossing.
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That has to be the best analogy I have heard for maintaining one’s sobriety!
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This is a big part of why I came back recently after a fairly long break. I began to notice thoughts here and there creeping in. A bit of bargaining every so often. So as much as the break was good I’m glad I’ve started checking back in here before those thoughts gained any momentum. After just a couple of days of reading posts again I feel better for it.
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I hope you make it back Mike! Its rough out there.
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That’s exactly the same for me… helps so much being present here
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When I look back at my last break, it did great things for me. It took me out of a downward spiral where I was getting involved in all drama on the forum and forcing my opinion on to people. Distancing myself from the, at the time, toxic situation has helped me tremendously. But when I took a 20 day break at the beginning of this year, it fucked me up. There were other factors, but leaving TS caused me not to have a support system. It caused a selfhate bigger than the selfhate I had in active gaming addiction. I had suicidal thoughts at that time.
Leaving TS for a while can be good if you’re obsessed over it, but it can also do a lot of unexpected harm.
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