What’s not simple is that alcoholism cannot be treated with willpower, in my experience. But properly treated, alcoholism can be kept in check and its symptoms, drunkenness and self absorption, need not be expressed by the sufferer.
In my experience, we are granted a release, given a free gift, of the moment of clarity. The moment when we embrace our helplessness and hopelessness and then turn to each other and to our higher power to abandon the ego driven fight against ourselves.
It is then up to us to apply our willpower to fully participate in our recovery. I do not stand brave and confident ready to take up arms against my alcoholism. I accept that on my own I am powerless.
If I think “I got this”, I have an extensive track record of failure to disprove it. What I can do is not so much to choose to intend to not drink today as to commit to doing what is needed today to participate in my sobriety. Alcoholism grows in me by denial. It is crushed by acceptance that it exists and will kill me and accepting help from people and the spirit that pervades us all.
Every time I drank, I chose to drink. Every day I stay sober, I choose to do the things I find that work for me. I do not now, nor have I ever, stayed sober on good intentions alone without positive action to give those intentions expression.
Hope and determination are not plans of action and will not keep you sober. What they can do is motivate you to put in the work. And let me tell you, getting and staying sober requires a lot of work. But it’s worth it.
I pray you all find the willingness to put in the work and get sober.
Great job julie! I don’t know why so many people feel the need to come to this thread and tell anyone what to do. I’m glad you are here and figuring your way through to sobriety. So am I. We can achieve our goal.
@anon35096624 Surely this requires u to back up why u should say that! Otherwise it becomes a flippant comment thrown out to stir attention! And if that is the case it begs the question of your purpose to b involved in this forum!!
So you are telling someone they shouldn’t be involved in this forum because they have a different opinion than yours? I’m honestly confused and just asking for some clarification. Thanks!
Offering your path to sobriety is a great way to help people. Telling people what they need to do is quite another. I have not found your posts to be offensive in any way. Although I am speaking to people that speak at people about what they have imagined are the reasons they are here resetting.
I have reset, AGAIN, and back to Day 1. This struggle is real… For me, it’s been an up and down battle for the past two years. I gain my momentum and pick myself back up mostly from reading this thread, reading my literature, and staying busy. I think accountability is important and see that it may help many of us who are flying solo. Resetting is never an easy thing to do. But necessary? Absolutely…
I havent reset yet since I’ve had this app, been around for like 500 days on the app and like 540 days of being sober. This is my second real attempt at getting sober, of doing more than just not drinking, and saying I’m done with drinking.
I said I was done with drinking and tried not picking up hundreds if not thousands of times. I just didn’t have a nice little app to reset every time I did it. Who knows, maybe it woulda helped maybe nothing would have changed.
If you’re comfortable trying and resetting and trying and resetting, keep doing what you’re doing, you’ve got the experience that will tell you you’re likely outcome.
If you’re ready to do more, and work on more than just not picking up a drink, there’s plenty of info in this thread and this entire forum in which you can glean info and experiences of others for stuff that has worked and continues to work.
Keep trudging, keep struggling, keep trying. You are the key to your own lock.
My experience is this. I first joined TS in 2016 and I didn’t drink for most of that year. I did a lot of mental/ psychological work, thinking through my relationship with alcohol. Then I got lazy, stopped doing some of the things that helped, and started justifying to myself going back to semi moderate drinking. I did that, but I kept the app on my phone, as a reminder of what I half acknowledged — that I wasn’t making the best choices. I wasn’t. I reset a lot. It wasn’t about recovery; it was about denial. Now I’m more serious again. I’m ready to do some therapy, work through the smart recovery workbook, be mindful and make some changes. For me, at least, constant relapsing is a signal that I’m not really doing the work. I can’t do the same thing and keep expecting it to turn out different.
This is the heart of it and well put. Pure insanity, doing the same thing and expecting it to be better or different than it has been.
This why we share our experience, strength and hope. Some it can be construed as demanding or talking at someone instead of too them and some can be construed as simply being supportive and encouraging. We all want to help each other, we all go about it differently.
Sure there’s hundreds of ways to get sober, sure we’re all unique and our situations are different. I don’t care what you do to get sober, JUST DO IT. Do more than you were doing. If you keep doing the same things, why would anything change.
I’m referring to this statement. What is a true alcoholic? Someone worse than me or not as worse as me??? There is no true alcoholic. You and only you can decide whether or not are an alcoholic. @Bethan_Davies I’m sorry if you feel attacked by me but in no way I am backing off this app because being on this app helps me to stay sober every single day. So I wish you well on this journey. And I never wanted to wish anyone anything bad. But I can see that those people attacking me here are clearly not getting the message this apps wants to offer. So I’m getting off this thread and sticking to threads where people understand me…
No…that’s not true…I’m almost five months, have not slipped up, and don’t plan on it. It doesn’t make us stronger or those who relapsed weaker, it’s a lot of different factors but relapsing is definitely not part of recovery.
. Signing out for now