I love how you had a game plan. I hope to hear about your success in the AM
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Thans @Cjp
The night went later than I wanted to, but all good. The evening was a success. Got the outdoor Halloween decorations mostly up, had a perfect family dinner, got a load of laundry done, did an okay short workout, had a perfect long bedtime routine with my daughter, and tidied the kitchen.
Saturday is a very big day.
Got a morning of daughter time and errands, with two Halloween parties in the afternoon. In the evening I’ll be getting ready for a party we’re hosting on Sunday. My wife is working overnight again tomorrow.
Good thing I’m going to bed sober as planned; hopefully I will set up alright for tomorrow 
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Two notes about recent experiences, positive and negative on my journey:
My birthday was on a Friday in November. My wife asked well in advance if I wanted to have a party that night, but I knew we had plans all weekend, so I wanted a quiet night in. I stayed sober, and at 5:30 the following morning did a 2 hour live peloton ride, and crushed it, with output I’m very proud of. I’m grateful of myself for following through on that goal, and not ruining it by getting into booze on my birthday.
On the other hand, I had a minor reset early in December. On a weekend night, after putting my daughter to bed and having the house to myself, I got into beers that I had bought specifically for houseguests for the upcoming holidays. Awful. I guess for now, my take away is that I can’t be trusted to leave guest beers in my house.
I have four Christmas and/or birthday parties coming up in the next four days. I’m not worried at all about having another reset. I’m comfortable that I will be resilient and stick to my sober plans.
Sober me feels better, and has better nights and days.
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Only you can make the changes to remain sober. It is good you post here. Reread it often to keep yourself on your sober journey. Life is so much better sober for us folks who cannot have just 1 drink.
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You got your tools friend – remember we are right here for you! We do got to stay resilient and focused (especially during the triggering moments). ODAAT 
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Hello!
I’m still on the sober train. Day 55.
Proudly finishing up another successful Dry January. This is either the 4th or 5th time I’ve completed it. I’m more committed than ever to avoiding my next drink these days, and literally everyone external is helping me with it. Almost none of my close friends or family are drinking any more.
A few personal things came up with my wife and I, and have to cut down on nearly every non-essential time use.
I’ll hopefully be back on here more in a month or two.
Peace, and thank you for being here.
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Great to hear from you and see you posting.
So glad to see you doing so well on the sober track.
Wow…how awesome that your friends and family are also supporting you in such a wonderful way.
Hope everything is ok at home 
. Keep fighting the good fight and know we are here if you need us.
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Please be absolutely sure that time invested in your sobriety and recovery is absolutely essential friend. Here or everywhere. Be good and take care.
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Hello! My wife is going away May 5-14 on a well-deserved Europe trip to visit family and friends. I was encouraged to go, but did not want to spend lots of money right now, spending most of the time in locations I’ve been to. It will be me and my 2 year old daughter at home for lots of awesome daddy/daughter time! I feel like I have just the right amount of fun activities planned.
I’m going to put some positive reminder notes on the fridge to not drink.
Not saying anything new here, but it’s finally sunk in with me in the last few months that only positive self messaging works. Negative statements about trying to avoid anything don’t work for me.
Examples of negative statements that don’t work for me:
I don’t want a hangover 
I don’t want a bad sleep❌
I don’t want to waste money and see beer on my credit card bill.
I don’t want to damage my brain and body
I don’t want to avoid having beer breath
Positive statements that DO work for me:
-I sleep better when I go to bed sober. More restful, restorative sleep, and it’s much easier and quicker when my daughter wakes up in the night . 
-My work days start, progress, and finish better when I wake up after not drinking.
I have more energy after work for my daughter, and am more proactive about planning, activities, and meals, when I’ve stayed sober.
-I’m more present for conversations with friends and colleagues when I’m fully sober✅
-I look better sober✅
-My anxiety goes away and my stress drops when I’ve stayed sober
-I have more self respect when I put tomorrow’s needs and wants ahead of today’s wants.
Thank you for being here.
You are all good for my health and future, and I appreciate your update posts, and personal stories on this app.
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I absolutely love this for the both of you. Remember we are here for you as well if you feel urges. ODAAT 
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I have been so tempted…
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Important day on my life journey today.
I got up at 04:15 and was at a park at 05:10 to join up with the local F3 group (an outdoor fitness club with 1000s of groups across North America).
It was an excellent first workout. No doubt my pecs and front shoulders will be on fire for a couple of days. I haven’t done burpees in years, and man, I’m looking forward to getting better at them!
I’m absolutely gutted that I don’t think I’ll make any social connections I would hang out with outside of the workouts. I had high hopes for that. We’ll see. All nice guys, just no one I think I’ll have much in common and similar age with. I’ll stick it out and do a lot least few weeks of Tuesday and Thursday morning workouts.
Today’s significant challenge is that I have a renewed awareness that my local social network of my own friends in my city is severely lacking. I moved across the country in 2020, and spend the two years of lockdowns celebrating introvertedness, and didn’t build or maintain enough local friendships. I played a few softball leagues and a couple of years of Ultimate, but didn’t develop any sustained friendships.
Over the years, I’ve cut out all my friends who let me down, or who I was only around when alcohol was involved. It’s hard pill to swallow every week when I’m reminded I didn’t really do enough meaningful, sustainable development with my life outside of work in my 20s and 30s. My wife and I are not in a great state right now, which I think has put my personal life in a pressure cooker right now.
Better late than never, in my early 40s, though, that I am ripping all the bandaids off, and recognizing all the work I have to do to make myself a better person. I’m grateful for that.
I’m still doing other sober activities like my mountain bike group in the summer, tons of daddy-daughter social sporting activities, and hopefully back to squash lessons in the winter.
Thank you for reading.
Onward and upward we go. 
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Well, I had a misstep and reset last night.
It was my wife’s summer work party, and I met her there. We went separately after work.
I was handed drink tickets on the way in. I should have passed the tickets on to someone else immediately. There was a bar that you literally had to walk around at the front door. On autopilot I had a drink in my hand in under 30 seconds. I remember thinking “a water bottle or a pop are a waste of a drink ticket, and that’s all they have for me”. I have no answer as to why I didn’t just put the tickets in my wallet.
From that point on, my wife’s colleagues kept offering me drinks, and my willpower after that first one was nowhere in sight.
I was exhausted from a very long, busy day, and my critical thinking was in short supply.
There was no buzz, just an awkward awareness that I was impaired, and not feeling as well as I do when I’m sober. It’s a gross feeling I don’t want back. Just glad I didn’t do anything stupid.
There’s no room for a break in vigilance. I need to always have an automatic plan in place to that when circumstances shift, the “no” answer is there like it usually is.
Thank you for reading. Take care of yourself.
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Thanks for the reminder that I need to stick with my program. AA has kept me sober all these years. No reason to change it up now.
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I am grateful that you did not let this slip up take over. You are back here and setting up a plan for any future hiccups / surprises that life is sure to offer. Staying vigilant and in control of our actions is so important.
Maybe also reach out for support and revisit your tools before you attend any gatherings or host any events. It will become second nature to you and won’t feel like work over time and it will keep you on the track of sobriety.
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Im sorry to hear that u relapsed last night. I agree with u that being vigilant is sooo important. Our addiction is constantly in the background waiting for an opportunity to sneak its way back into our lives. Thats why daily work on our recovery is soooo important. We only have a daily reprieve from our addictions.
Do u think maybe not attending would have been the better option? Would ur wife have understood? I know that for myself, i had to put my recovery first, before everything else in my life. Bcuz if i didnt, addiction would take it all instead. I had to distance myself from events and people that drank and used. It was just too slippery of a slope.
Sending u strength and hope right now. Learn from what happened and make thr necessary changes to prevent it from happening again 
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What I just read in the AA big book
At then end of more about the alcoholism is that the only defense we have against the 1st drink is a higher power
If we white knuckle it long enough, eventually that won’t be enough
I’ve been struggling with this thought
At the moment I don’t relaps because I don’t have a choice
I live with my wife and her family with my baby boy
For instance when my baby boy grows up and my wife said going to the bar with a new weed pen was ok and all has been well for a long time, I could forget about even this place and relaps
AA meetings are a constant and stable environments to work a program of recovery
Even if you complete the 12 steps right, you can go through each step over again
We can all always do a little bit better at a easy one step at a time one day at a time pace
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The alcoholic voice is always going to have a reason.
This time it was a drinks ticket, or it was because someone offered you a drink, before that it was guest beers and before that it was someone bringing them over. Add infinitum.
You need to override that alcoholic voice because it’s never going to go away if you keep feeding it alcohol.
Override the voice, cut off it’s supply, and watch it slowly get quieter each time you deny it’s supply.
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I don’t want to sound hypercritical but this is my thought
And hello @PositiveThoughts I highlighted you because I think this could help you and me both
I always have trouble keeping my future a reality.
For instance
I can stay up till 4am and and be out all night as long as I make it to work on time and do my job. I even tested this theory one time in my long ago past. I stayed up for 24hours smoking little bits of crack pull with my 2 best friends. At 6am when the sun was just coming up I snuck in the park and looked for weed roaches. I found the grossest weed on the wet ground. I went back to my friends, smoked and guess what, time for GED class at the cheifis office (those amazing gentlemen and ladies had a program for low income people to study the GED class) I threw up in a trashcan outside and took my class and got home and all was well.
That’s a hardcore example and yes a true story of what I mean
I drink 1 drink tonight
2 the next
12 the next
Fk up
1 the next
3 the next
11 the next
Fk up
Is it the extence of the fk up or is it the amount of drinks or is it both
In freds story about the alcoholic in more about alcoholism he was sick with the shakes. Not much of a fk up though
Aaaaaaaaaaaah I get it
Step 1
WE ADMITTED WE HAD A PROBLEM AND THE LIFE HAD BECOME UNMANAGEABLE
THIS IS THE THOUGHT PROCESS OF A ALCOHOLIC AND WHY I PERSONALLY WOULD NEED AA
@Englishd
Not bad for a drunk huh?
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Hello! I’m going strong, a little over 4 weeks into my current sober run.
Two brief stories:
In August, I had a cousin I’m close with coming to down, and an afternoon of activities planned with our two families, followed by dinner at my house.
He and I used to drink together every time we hung out, including many years of drinking all day and late into the night at a golf tournament went in every year. I was not really looking forward to serving him drinks, but whatever.
As soon as we got back to our house, he told he had just done a 6-month sober streak on the advice of his doctor, and was considering quitting for good.
I was relieved, and happy for us both!
Last night, I had another old friend and his family come over for a BBQ. He and I used to have guy hangout beer chats, and that was the thing we did along with our activities. I took time out of my busy prep and errands day to go to the store and stock up on gluten free beer options for him.
Before he had even come in the house, his wife told me he stopped drinking a month ago. We had a great heart to heart chat all about it while I was BBQing, and he said he’s going to finish dry September, and see how long he can keep his streak going.
This is so awesome. As I have said in previous posts, I have so many long term friends and family severely cutting back, or quitting drinking. Between that, and ending the friendships I had that were centred around parties and drinks during sports, I am continually getting setup better and better for the future on my sober journey. It’s always a bonus when it comes externally on top of my own efforts to work on myself.
Thanks again for reading, and I hope you are in a good place with yourself today.
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