Hi everyone
I’m back, with a lot of shame. After months of staying sober I did something a few weeks ago that everyone here always warns us not to do. I went to a party and I thought one wouldn’t hurt and it didn’t, not right away. A few days went by and I had another one thinking I was past it but I wasn’t and before I knew what happened I was back and now I can’t stop. I feel like a failure. I was going to the gym, I stopped doing that because I felt so unwell and nasty. I guess it’s true that we should stay away from people who encourage us into relapsing, telling us we’re not fun anymore, we’re bringing everyone down… I’m sorry for whining but I need help. I feel so discouraged for losing all my progress. So many months!! All gone. I feel like I’ll never be able to go through all that again. I have no more “white knuckling” left in me. The worst part of it is that I have another party to go to on Friday so I don’t want to start today because I’m one hundred percent sure that I won’t be able to say no. Is that an excuse? I don’t know. It’s a very dear family member’s party and she even postponed it on my account. What should I do? I need help, please! Thank you 
Maybe try a meeting might help[ wish you well
This is where you are. What is more important to you? Sobriety or this party?
As long as it is the later, there is no way out.
Sobriety needs to be first for you to succeed.
How do you achieve this? How do you change your mindset?
With recovery work. Working a recovery program. There are multiple there available. At no cost. Online and in person.
Join them. Attend daily, Read the literature. Work the steps.
Quite frankly don’t go. Committing to a life style change is what leads to successful soberiety. There are times that white knuckling happens but it shouldn’t be the main experience.
A shift in your perception of alcohol goes a long way. I don’t believe I’m deprived of alcohol, I believe alcohol was depriving me.
Your time isn’t lost you’ve gained experience to forge your path forward. Best wishes to you.
I know you’re right.
I guess the white knuckling part only lasted for me for a month, the first time I mean. It got easier as time went by but that’s because I wasn’t going anywhere but the gym and work. But if all it takes to lose is one drink, then it’s reasonable to conclude that as long as I want to stay sober I have to avoid all the people I love and all social gatherings. How can I live my life then? My choices are stay sober and alone, be weak and hooked if you want to keep you friends and family in your life. That’s a choice I didn’t realize I had to make the first time and it feels impractical. Honestly, I have no idea how everyone here has managed that balance. I also feel like if I start again and months go by and I fall off the wagon again for reasons that are unknown to me now, then it all will have been for nothing and I’ll never bee fixed. What’s more, I realize now that I wasn’t fixed at all! I wasn’t sober, I was an addict on standby… I haven’t changed at all!!! It’s a catastrophe and I wish I could just disappear if this is all I have to look forward to. My apologies for the rant. I don’t know who else to talk to about this right now.
For me, I had to change my relationships. I would say I actually have better and more fulfilling friendships than I had before. They’re more purposeful: I choose who I want to develop a friendship with, and I work on the friendship.
I have had to sever some relationships that were not healthy for me. At the time I worried a lot about cutting that connection but after some time has passed, I realize the friendship was not as deep or as substantial as I thought it was.
These are not the choices I had to make. I suspect they are not the choices you actually have to make, either.
You are feeling very discouraged because of your relapse, and that’s understandable. You are not thinking clearly right now (which is also understandable). No one in your situation would be thinking clearly; you are not alone.
You are doing black-and-white thinking - saying ‘if I can’t drink I can’t have friends’ - and it isn’t helping you because friendships are not black and white. Healthy friendships are about healthy choices. One of your healthy choices is to be sober and to live in recovery. (You’ve tried not being sober and it doesn’t work for you.) This is good because drugs - including alcohol - can be poisonous. You are making a choice to be healthy.
Your next choice is about which friendships you will develop that will support your healthy choice. There are groups here where you can make friends with people in recovery:
Talking Sober is a nice place to meet people too.
Don’t give up. And don’t think black-and-white. Be open to recovery and be open to learning from and meeting new people. You will be surprised at how big the change is for you.
Thank you so much. Reading these does make me feel better. I guess I have no choice but to skip the party. I’ll come back here on Saturday to report back to you. Is that alright? Just so I know that there’s someone to answer to. How I hate my free will right now… Thank you again @Matt 
I’ll check out those resources too
Thank you very much
You’re right. I’ll skip the party and all the other ones that come after this. Although, they’ll probably stop asking me to go when they realize that I keep declining their invitation. Thank you for responding
Really good decision! I had to make similar choices. Your sobriety comes first! Have you thought about telling your friends and family about your addiction? I know it might seem impossible right now, but it helped me tremendously. And I learned who are my true friends, not just drinking buddies. I wish you well on your sober journey!
Yep, what @Ray_M_C_Laren said.
Go to a meeting.
Sharing your story at a meeting would help so many people and quite possibly make you feel better about yourself when you say no to going to that next party. You already know what’s going to happen when you go to that next party.
absolutely not. if you actually engage w yourself, analyse, gradually unearth, face and eventually understand the reasons why you drink, what it is you are running from emotionally, then you overcome these underlying conflicts and you won’t need it anymore. that is how
the choice you have to make is not be sober or have relationships - it is be sober and acutally work on your shit or be drunk and live in the illusion. gym and work/a regular life are nice, and healthy habits - but they won’t keep you sober. they don’t change you deep inside. do the work. if we can do it, you can do it.
yes. and it is great you have that insisght now. now you can get this show on the road. 
Resources for our recovery
pick a few, go through them, learn, really fucking engage and build connection w yourself as well as open yourself up to other ppls recovery stories.
if you can, therapy. if you can’t: AA.
come here every day. I do. it does me good. always did.
don’t go to that party if you cant be sober. it’s not forever. dude. many many ppl in actual long term recovery have no issue being around their DOC after a while. because we worked on the apparent need. alcohol has lost the function we needed it for, because we worked on our underdlying stuff.
best of luck!
ah yes and read this one Your #1 tip for sobriety (over 2 years sober)
I will. The last time I did it, it was in large part because of the amazing community here but I became arrogant and I thought I didn’t need the app anymore. I thought I could pretend like I was normal. Live and learn I guess. I’ll come here everyday from now on. I’ll read the stories again and check out those awesome memes to keep busy, like I did the first time. I’ll see if I can find meetings online. Thank you for your help. The @Dazercat and @JazzyS memes helped me keep busy whenever those cravings kicked in. Thank you so much for those as well.
My mother knows. Most people think “moderation” is key. They don’t understand that some of us really don’t have that off switch, and I don’t think I have the patience to deal with them or to try to make them understand. Not now anyway I think I’ll just stay away for now. Thank you
The best I can manage right now, this very minute, is to go and throw away some expensive poison. I’ll start there. Thank you @MrMoustache
Welcome back and I’m sorry to hear about your relapse. It took me a very long time to accept that I can’t drink. It took even longer to become comfortable with that fact. What helped was staying active on here and doing some serious introspection. I had to really look at my life and decide whether alcohol was bringing any positives to it. Were my happy drinking memories ‘happy’ because of the alchohol, or where they they happy despite the alcohol.
I also had to become comfortable in my skin as a non-drinker. People ask me why I don’t drink, people judge the shit out of me for not drinking, and I’m ok with that. Moderation may work for some. Others might be lying to themselves. None of that is my business. Just as what’s in my glass is none of anyone else’s business.
Don’t go to that party. Work on your recovery. I promise, life without drinking is worth it.
Only one thing to do, get back up on that horse cowboy! Yes, I agree with everyone here, Iyou need to avoid certain situations. I’m kind of surprised that your friends encouraged you to drink. Maybe you are much younger. I remember my first white knuckling experience was when I went fishing. Honestly, I don’t think I have fish without a beer in my hand since I was 15 years old. And yes, my friends were drinking. But one time I jokingly started motioning towards the beer cooler and my one friend put his pole down and physically put his hand on me and said don’t. I said I was just kidding, but I realized that’s a true friend. True friends will be happy for you! And once you get a lot of time under your belt, you’ll be able to go to those things and have a soft drink. One thing I noticed was I didn’t stay as long, but granted, that’s coming from a guy that used to be the first one there and then not leave until the morning. Keep us posted, you can do it! You’re gonna feel way better and you’re gonna be much more available to your friends sober than you were drinking. Best wishes! Bobby
Sorry to hear you followed the slippery slope.
As long as you don’t work on recovery, you will only be a dry drunk as long as you abstain. Sounds your work was gym and isolating from potential triggers aka life. Which never is successful in the long run.
Make a plan, go to treatment, take it one day at a time. No need to discuss being sober with anyone not understanding. I don’t drink is a sufficient quote.
And when someone’s tells you you are boring - tell them to fuck off. You are ok 
Sorry that you relapsed. But there is a lot to learn from what you have said here.
It does only take one drink to lose, but if you want to stay sober the thing you need to avoid is that first drink, not necessarily all the people and gatherings. When we start out though, and we haven’t yet learned how to keep away from that first drink, we often do need to avoid people and situations that we know will tempt us. That doesn’t mean you need to lock yourself away for the rest of your life.
If you want things to be different this time then you have to do something different this time. It’s not enough to rely on sheer will power, as you found out, that can only last for so long.
Why do you drink? Why did you have that drink to relapse? What were you thinking it would do for you? And why did you quit in the first place?
I often drank because I didn’t want to feel the way I was feeling. My automatic brain response was like many other people’s. Feeling stressed, brain says ‘man I need a drink’. Feeling sad, anxious or any other negative feelings and my brain serves up the solution ‘man I need a drink’.
Not a very useful brain when that is how it’s working. What I realised is that that is an automatic response, and not necessarily the correct one. Really, when I was stressed, or whatever way I was feeling, what I wanted was to no longer feel that way. My brain, with it’s old hard coded answer system just skipped to that one solution, alcohol, but really, my brain needed to be updated like an old computer program, so it could serve up other possible solutions.
So gradually, when the automatic thought was served up, saying 'man I need a drink ’ , I began to break that down into something more useful.
Step 1 being the realisation that what I really want, is to not feel how I was feeling. Step 2 being an alternative solution, such as something that would relieve stress like a walk, or run, or meditation or chatting with someone or punch a punch bag. Whatever works for you.
Ever hear of HALT! When you feel like you want a drink, halt, and check yourself. Are you…
Hungry?
Angry?
Lonely?
Tired?
Your time sober has not been wasted, but learn from this. Have you ever tried a meeting of any sort? Is there something you can do this time around to ensure you have tools and an understanding of how to work towards a sober life, one where you don’t just white knuckle your way through?
If you don’t have an understanding of why you relapsed and you say you didn’t change at all , I would avoid the party. It will most likely lead to you drinking because you don’t have the skills yet to be in such an environment and not drink.
Lovely to see you again - you were missed. I am so very sorry that you relapsed. This disease really does make you think you have things under control and that is a total lie as you have learned.
I know this fear well and the thought process that I will quit after this event or after this gathering or I really can’t miss this. The reality is that you need to quit now at this moment and not prolong it. We have to realize that our sobriety is the most important thing and our loved ones will understand. I would stay away from the party. It is just too big of a risk and you need to be selfish here and worry about yourself.
We have missed your memes as well and look forward to seeing your posts. Take it ODAAT my friend and know that you are fully supported here 
Thank you very much for the advice and for the links. You’re right