Posting for accountability

The title explains it. I reset today. I’m not posting to complain about my poor choices. I’m a big boy and knew exactly what I was doing. I reached out to my good friend @Naturehippy a few days ago and she helped me through that particular day. The bottom line is I never truly recommitted to recovery after my last relapse. I haven’t felt strong enough to deal with my marital problems sober. The problem is the drinking only made things worse. It’s crazy how much worse a person I am while using. I didn’t lose control or black out like last time. I didn’t lash out or make things worse between the wife and I, but I certainly made no progress. All I did was poison myself for several days and make myself miserable. It’s poison in so many ways for me. The last few days all that went through my mind were negative thoughts, thoughts of jealousy and hopelessness. I love my wife so much. The last few days I’ve felt angry, resentful, and untrusting that she really wants to work things out. It’s unbelievable that we do this to ourselves willingly. The truth is all those emotions are my own insecurities and self doubt. Luckily I didn’t emote those feelings and kept them internal. I believe I’m ready to get back to business. I have a lot of positive things on the table right now. I landed a good job. The wife really does want to work things out. I need the sober me back in control. I feel greatful I don’t start my new job until the 28th. I have time to settle down and filter out the negative. The positive thing is I’m ready to get back to recovery and at least I can say 70 out of the last 80 days have been sober ones. My journey continues.

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Filtering out the negative/irrational thoughts and replacing them with positive/rational ones is a sign that you have great strength! It is so easy to be afraid and what we can’t control or what we don’t know for certain. It’s hard to not let your imagination go crazy with uncertainties… I am a huge catastrophizer and it’s really hard to reign it in.
I found two great worksheets through SMART recovery for this very thing. ABC Problem Solving Worksheet and Challenging My Unhelpful Idea. Even if you’re not into worksheets, they are still full of great questions to ask yourself when you’re having a hard time sifting through the negative thoughts.
Hang in there, I’m sorry you’ve been having a rough time. My thoughts are with you, you got this!

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Thank you @Gemstone123. I appreciate your kind words Haddy.

Thank you so much for telling us how you are feeling. It shows how much you really DO want this. But I totally get what you mean about not fully committing after the last relapse. I know after I relapsed I was constantly hitting “reset” that it got so frustrating so I finally just deleted. After another few days I knew it was time to come back so I started back from scratch.

I’m glad you reached out to Naturehippy…I’m glad you felt there was someone you could trust that way.

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Someones gotta believe in and trust Unicorns Lol.

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You picked the best unicorn you could ever turn to :smile:

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I think we reached out to each other. The beautiful thing about this forum is that I can relate to almost everyone in some way or another and the longer I’m active on here the more I see what strengths we all have too offer! We are ALL tools to each other in this toolbox forum.

When I need a level, a hammer, sandpaper, or even a saw, I know on here I will find the words to help realign or reinforce my foundation… thank you for being such a big part of my recovery toolbox.

You know personally that I’ve had a pretty shaky couple of weeks too- but it has forced me to dig deeper into myself and really start peeling away the layers of qualities that no longer fit and replace them with intentionally sobering thoughts and sobering intention. Thank you for being a part of my journey and allowing me to be a part of yours. Stepping stone or milestone… let’s just avoid the stumbling blocks.

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Ahahaha I hope so…

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@alpine_1975 thanks for your honesty and glad to see you back! Congrats on having that job coming up. IMHO it’s so important to self-image and sobriety. I would give anything for a decent job again, I messed up on my last one, and everything went very downhill after that. Keep focused on the job and sobriety, there is usually time to work on other issues.

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This post kept me going strong @Dan_Alexander, your words of encouragement were profound even though not directed at me :kissing_smiling_eyes:

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25, and probably seen enough shit in your life to cover twice as much … But we can only try and better ourselves and move forward. Do you have a relapse plan?

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Hope your okay my man it’s been too long

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Everyone misses you too!

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Hey brother. I’m back as of today. Life has been good save the drinking. I met a beautiful girl 2 years ago, but unfortunately she also is an alcoholic. Together we have chosen to go down this path of sobriety together. It is time…

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Dude hell yes. Keep checking in. Life has changed so much for me the last few years but I’m still hanging in there. So good to see u

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