This 4 mo mark is always when I start the thinking that I have control. I am digging in, trying to be very self aware, and posting here so I don’t blow it. I feel so close to blowing it. It’s amazing to me no matter how much I realize and trust and know that drinking doesn’t make anything more fun or easier, how sick it makes me feel, how ashamed, I still have that voice get louder, telling me it’s fine to just have one. And I realize and trust and know that it’s never one. And I realize and trust and know that this will pass and I know what I need to do. But here I am, also realizing how easy it is to toss all this hard work away.
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I think all of us need a reminder every now and then. Its good youre aware of how your addict voice will try to weasel its way in. Tell it to shut the hell up and keep doing your sober thing!
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I am a long way from 4 months this time, but yes, same - the mind gymnastics are so exasperating! My brain KNOWS to say no, and still… aargh. 
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I hear you. I’m already practicing putting the defences up against temptation. I’ve gotten to 2-4 months before but never accepted that I wasn’t going back before now.
One thing I have been thinking about- if I COULD just have ONE drink, would I want it? My honest answer is no… I’d want as many as I could get my hands on. I think the day I could genuinely enjoy one drink and not want another… that’s the day I’d no longer be an addict.
You know when that day will come? The day one drink will be enough for me?
Never.
Accepting that helps me overcome the desire.
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Play that tape forward. Picture that first drink in all its “promising” glory. Then the second, the fifth, the eighth (you’re probably stumbling now) then the tenth and twelfth. I usually throw in a screaming fight with a loved one and a solid ten minute fake panic over where I parked my car when I drove drunk just to remind me of all that first drink promises. Really feel that hangover too. Then I stay my sober course. It is a surprisingly effective tool. Stay well.
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I hit a wall at about 4 months three times. Each time I had a new excuse, and had to learn one by one each one was bollocks. What really hit me was after one relapse it took about 8 weeks to get back exactly to where I was before. After the next relapse it took me about 6 weeks. I realized if I relapsed again it would probably only be 4 weeks until I was back. Once I got past that onto 5 months I was so chuffed with myself. At that was this time, now at two something years. You can do it!
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It will never be ok to just have 1 or moderate, never…the sooner you learn to accept that, the better
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Thank you. This was very helpful to me. You are so right- it’s one thing to know something and an entirely different thing to fully understand it. I think my lesson this weekend is that when my thinking starts to be more in my addict brain voice, it’s okay to drop my usual arsenal of tools, re-evaluate, and change what I’m doing. Like change it that second. This was a sign that I need to stay vigilant and responsive and have better emergency tools in place. And somehow I am getting myself into this corner. There is something in my life that, no matter all the work I am doing, is remaining unchanged that causes this kind of crisis. I could see it building. I am feeling so stressed and helpless and alone. That is the breeding ground for snapping and slipping. But how do I keep getting here? Is it purposeful so that I justify slipping? Or am I just not changing what needs to be changed and setting myself up?
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Harsh but true, especially the part about learning to accept it because I know I have accepted it, and I don’t question it ever. But then weekends like this come, and I am gobsmacked at my ability to talk around all of the things I thought I knew so well. Learning to accept it means staying resolute even when I weaken and waver. It means overthinking like I’m doing now and also just simply never questioning the decision. I am feeling pretty down on myself right now. That sure doesn’t help. I spend a lot of time trying to talk myself out of feeling this way. I think I am just going to sit in it for a bit and see if maybe this part of my work and healing maybe needs to feel icky because I am working out something larger than I really want to think about at the moment. Drinking would have been a distraction. Then dealing with the shame of a relapse would have been a bigger distraction. But from what?
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11 days today for me. Thanks for posting this. Great reminder that the road is long but we have to stay the course.
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Congratulations on your days. Part of my daily work is using mantras, and I have an app that sends them to my phone every 15 min. I just got one that made me breathe differently: “I am transforming into the person I want to be.” You and me both, friend. 
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I wasnt trying to be harsh with you sorry if it came off that way, it is true for me that i can never be a normal drinker and ive had to accept that, in a way i kind of found it freeing once id accepted it…that there was no more tooing and frowing at wether i can moderate or just have the one…the option just simply wasnt there anymore and so i have to find another way to distract, soothe etc, just from what i read in your first post it seems like your still treating it asthough its an option…it helped me to think of it as just not an option whatsoever…does that make sense? Try and get to the root cause of why your feeling down on youself and need a distraction i think is key…i think we get used to an ‘easy’ distraction as drinkers because its almost instant but once we are sober things take time and patience to work through. 4 months of fantastic, your doing great and commend you on that and its good to come on here and vent so that you dont pick up, i often do the same. My love to you 
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