This post made me so happy, Mandi! Love the pics and the sober life you’ve created. Thanks for sharing!
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Great replies! I relate and have done everything you all have done to try and make drinking work for me.
I hid behind the illusion of functioning for most of my drinking.
I never lost a job because of drinking. I frequently pushed it to the edge, only to go on “good” behavior for a while.
One time I had a foreman who was concerned about my drinking. I’d show up to work sweating booze.
He told the owners of the company. They had me work in front of their office so they could keep an eye on me.
I did an excellent job and ended up getting promoted and a nice pay raise. Nobody ever said a word about my drinking again.
My inner alcoholic loved that!
My inner alcoholic can make anything into a valid reason to keep drinking.
It’s hard to outsmart what’s a part of you.
After being sober for a long time, I thought I was smart enough to outsmart my alcoholism again.
It didn’t work out.
I’m grateful to be sober!
I’m grateful to have finally realized that I cant outsmart it anymore!
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Its so awesome that you can walk into your back yard your in photography paradise! I love your photos!
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Great choice!! I can promise you won’t regret it. Only good things happen when you choose to give up part time sobriety 
Even bingers can be alcoholics but that is for you to decide not me. However, you are so welcome here and whatever we or I can do to help let us know sound us out! 68 days sober and counting for me after a 30 year relapse. Yes it was a bad one:frowning:! Love and hugs:heart:
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Wow! Yeah, my binges were just getting worse and worse. Days, weeks at a time, black outs galore. It doesn’t serve my greater purpose. Im four days shy of 30 days sober!
You relapsed for thirty years? Or you relapsed after being sober for thirty years?
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This topic and everyone’s comments really resonated with me. I keep telling myself it’s not that bad. I don’t drink and drive. I excel at work. My relationships haven’t suffered. I hide the extent of my drinking from others. I still struggle to admit that I do have a problem with alcohol.
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Great post, I had a similar response to AA. I have tried more times than I can count to outsmart/beat alcoholism I would do things like
-go to store early and buy booze then give my wallet and phone to my best friend so I couldn’t get more
-try to drink something non alcoholic in between drinks to balance my buzz
-count out exactly how many drinks I could have throughout the day
None of it ever worked for me though.
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I have done most of the above. None of it worked. So I started telling myself: “If no one addresses the drinking and talks to you about it, it’s not that bad”. Because then I was clearly still within the limits of social drinking, right?
At the same time I started to avoid being around people who cared enough about me to adress the problem. I would drink alone. Or I would limit myself to two glasses of wine and then leave the family dinners, friends gatherings or work meetups early to fully indulge in drinking at home.
I would cancel social dates the next day, so nobody would smell the booze in my breath. I would go to work later in the day, so I could sober up a bit already.
I went through great effort to hide my addiction from people to avoid at all costs being confronted about it. I missed out on so many moments with people I love, to keep up the lie to myself.
It’s been 126 days since I had my last drink. I don’t even remember what it was anymore. It also doesn’t matter. Today I leave or stay at a social event, as feels good in the moment. One of the great wins of sobriety.
Thank you for this awesome thread @JasonFisher. Such a great way to reflect on patterns of addiction.
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126 days is awesome! 
Its so easy to manipulate ourselves into justifying why we aren’t that bad. When I relapsed, as I was outsmarting my alcoholism again, I quit hanging out with the good people too. Part of it was tricking myself by thinking I wasn’t as bad as my “friends”.
I live in a small town and I saw one of those 'friends" at the grocery store yesterday. Sober cannot stand this guy. I saw him before he saw me. He was at the check out. So I waited around the corner for him to leave, and he and the clerk just kept talking. It felt like forever. I waited it out.
As a drunk I hung out with him often. Now I have nothing in common with him. He had his cheap, high alcohol content shitty beers on the counter. It made me grateful to not be drinking today.
Thanks for tagging me in this thread! it was good for me to read it again!
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