Thank you and to everyone who has commented. I appreciate all of it a whole lot.
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This made me giggle! Thanks. She brings me so much joy.
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Honestly, I’m really grateful to get this message and so many others. I wasn’t expecting a whole lot so it is nice! Thank you.
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I’m a few days late but just saw this and cannot scroll past without sending you big love and congratulations lovely lady 
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Thank you my friend!
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Gonna give writing here a go again. Saw this today and it fits so well! Here’s to progress, not perfection!
Some homework from therapy has been to spend more time recognizing, appreciating and celebrating my successes, no matter how small. I decided to join in on the “post your transformation” thread as a result of looking back through old photos as a way to see my journey in the last several years. While the photos I focused on were not from my last major relapse (which I talk about on the first post of this thread) they do represent what I see as the first time I realized I was desperate to not be what I was, where I was, a completely broken person hiding from the world and myself, too. I recognize this change I have worked hard on, to not retreat so completely when I am struggling and hide from my problems, from my feelings, from my fears. I have made a lot of progress here, more to come, but I am proud of that! Just to help keep things in an accessible place for me, I’ll link that post here. Something else we are talking about in therapy is diving deep into the why - why did I drink in the first place and how did that why change over time. This is a way to start looking at trauma in my life and my response to it and then to other typical life stressors as a result. I’ve spent countless hours thinking about this and writing in my journal or on here about it, but it will be really helpful to look at this with a therapist. Doin’ the work!
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Our life’s work for sure!!! 
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@RosaCanDo I struggle with these thoughts too and the guilt and shame then comes over me for having these thoughts. They are not actions anymore though. Before I got sober I would have those thoughts and carry them out. Now I just have the thoughts but then use my sobriety tools to ensure I dont act on them.
What you said about telling your work from home husband that you had to run errands and then go buy alcohol and sneak it home and drink it alone…that was exactly me!!! I would go so far as to empty a non alcoholic wine bottle and decant real wine into it so that the family didnt realise I was drinking real wine again.
I know you wrote this thread a long time ago but it has been so inspiring to go on this journey with you. Thank you for sharing with us 
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@RosaCanDo I just reached this post! OMG! You reached a whole year of sobriety! I have gone on this journey from the beginning of this thread and have seen how much growth and change you have experienced! I am so proud of you and your achievement! Well done
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Thank you so much for your kind words and for sharing how you can relate. It honestly never gets old hearing from people here that their experience is similar and for that I am grateful you responded. Much appreciated! We really aren’t alone. I still have thoughts/feelings romanticizing drinking at times, usually when I’m struggling with my mental health or chronic pain, but I am so glad to have built healthier ways to cope. Hugs your way!
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Yes, we are always moving the goalpost, aren’t we? Now that I achieved xyz, I can work on abc…and so on.
We get focused on the striving, which keeps us from being present.
Good stuff there Rosa, thanks for sharing!!
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Heads up - long read.
This morning, while perusing old journals I found an odd page with seriously messy writing and it was an interesting read. It must have been from either my last relapse or a prior one but based on the content I think it’s the last one. I’ll post a pic but it reads as follows:
“Tips on Moderation
Did I get your attention? I hope so.
Celebrations, sure!
My dog died, I need it.
My dad has major surgery. Yup.
I usually drink while I cook.
It’s sunny out! It’s snowing!
All reasons to drink.
The big red flag was when I stopped counting my days. Was working on my mental health issues more than alcohol dependence.
“Fuck it,” maybe should have been the biggest red flag.
Lots. So much. Why can’t I stop myself.”
Well, damn! Am I grateful I felt the need to write that down in the midst of a relapse or what!?! Pretty poignant stuff, nothing new of course, but here are my thoughts on it. I said the big red flag was when I stopped counting my days. Well I am still not counting my days (technically I have a counter going but not actively doing so). So what changed? I believe what changed was that I got back to working on myself in a whole person, whole hearted way. Instead of saying, oh, this is the real problem, let me just focus on that, I tried something different. I wasn’t doing as much work on my tendencies toward alcohol dependence aka binging whenever I found the right “reason.” I set that aside thinking I was safe if I worked on the root causes of alcohol use and that simply isn’t the case. I have to look at my whole self and not just what I perceive as my “problems,” either.
Some of what I changed:
-Accepted that I have a substance use disorder in conjunction with my mental health issues, one is not more important to deal with than another.
-Sought professional help for both my mental health and substance use issues.
-Am working on building my feelings of self worth and self love and identifying my strengths.
-Looked at a whole person approach to working on being a better me with a growth mindset not a fixed mindset.
-Started to work on my codependency with my partner.
-Confronted my trauma history and shared it with my loved ones after hiding it for 20 years - big one!
-Started to look hard at my emotional triggers, how to identify my feelings, and also look at patterns in how I respond to them.
I am so glad I found this information recently and posted about it. Here is the link to that:
It’s ok to be triggered, being triggered is a normal part of life
“It’s what you DO when triggered which makes the difference between growing and staying stuck.”
I think I had not done the work on identifying emotional reactions to triggers and how they had been connected to a draw to use alcohol in the past. My list of reasons to drink in my mid-relapse journal entry was not connected to that in particular, just random stuff - though not wrong in a general sense, what reason does one ever need, right? It’s about the reasons not to drink. But I do think how I react to a trigger is a really important thing for me to look at in general to help me be a better me. Whether it’s how I respond to my partner, how I treat myself, how I treat others, etc., it’s important to me to look at it in a balanced way (not over analyzing but staying curious).
I’m glad I took the time to write this out. Still initial thoughts but it was worthwhile. Keep a journal, folks!!!
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Wow, this note is treasure. Than you for sharing it with us.
This happened for me in steps, like I can tell you different situations which directly sent me into wanting to numb me and I am blessed to have been given the chance to get a foot between thinking emotions and actions. Like a movie in front of my eyes and I observed it instead of acting on it. In one situation I was caught in the middle of a traffic jam in my car which somehow have me time to figure out what happened in my head at this very moment.
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Thanks, amiga. I was a bit surprised when I found it, as you can imagine, but it is important. And thank you for sharing, too. I think for me it usually played out more in a dissociative way where something would trigger me emotionally and I wouldn’t recognize it right away and then eventually I would robotically go through the motions of obtaining booze and drinking it.
(Sorry @Diamonster i just kept writing here, it’s not exactly directed to you but just didn’t start a new post)
I went back and read my initial post again and was like DUH…it’s all right there, I knew back then basically what I needed to do but it really took me so long to take action and continue to follow through on certain things. Like the online therapy I did and went through three different therapists and got super frustrated. It was the deep part of the pandemic, and I ended making some progress with the third one. I did go to the doctor, but I didn’t follow through with my wellness plan and I’ve regressed with symptoms. And it took me forever to really work on some emotional stuff, especially with my husband. Now I see I am beating myself up a bit. Where I am now is because of what I was realizing then back in August of 2020 (
) and even with some set backs I keep going and don’t stop. 
I need to read through this whole thread again. I also was trying to figure out when I wrote that note and my best guess is mid summer of 2020 when I hit a real low point. The thing about my dog dying threw me off big time, I didn’t have a major relapse after Chucho died, but then I realized Lupe had had her major health scare in 2019 and I was pretty obsessed with worrying about my dogs dying. Yup, that makes sense.
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Exactly! And such is life, at least for me. We all progress on our own timeline and each is valid.
Love your longer post above, and your journal entry. It seems all the ‘answers’ are always waiting on us…we just have to get there.
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Thanks for sharing this Rosa. I’ll try to journal again. Never got very far so far. As to the quote: for me there’s no difference. Dependence is part of my mental health. I know you know that too. X
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Thanks Sassy. I really appreciated the post with “things I wish I had known sooner,” like that things can hurt for a long time and that it’s normal for old feelings to resurface. The latter is actually a big lesson I received this year and has helped a lot when the shame spiral starts. I’m not starting over because old hurts come up again or I see myself falling back on old patterns. But that learning curve that can happen if we keep pushing is the beautiful thing to recognize in those moments of hurt. (But also in appreciating moments of joy!)
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And maybe that’s what I was trying to say, too. My approach wasn’t working, anyways!
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