I like when they say “relapse is just part of recovery sometimes!” 
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That is the one that makes me want to throw this damn phone! It’s not! It’s a goddamn detour! The one you wouldn’t have “accidentally” taken if you had listened to the guy at the gas stations directions!
That is all.
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I feel like people who say relapse is part of recovery have never relapsed so bad that they were ready to step in front of a PAT bus, or go off the route 28 bridge in Etna. There was no recovery going on in my relapse. Just a deep and seething hatred of being alive
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Absolutely. And that’s the type of death that will happen to me if I ever drink again. Bottle of benzos, some whiskey, and a dive off of any one of the hundreds of bridges. Because lord knows I’m the type that has to control everything when I’m drinking, even my own way out. It frustrates me to see people willingly going round and round with that type of social, emotional, psychological and physical suicide. Russian roulette was never my jam. I either do it or I don’t. And I think that frustrates me more than anything, that people don’t see their own suicide right in front of them, don’t want to hear that they are doing it to themselves!
Sorry, I’m a bit riled the fuck up today.
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This is perfect
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Not drinking is just the beginning. Life carries on as it always has.
Getting to the root of what led us to drink and use, learning new ways to face life sober… That’s where the magic happens, and not on its own.
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You’re not special. Your addiction isn’t special. Your reasons are excuses. Everybody going through some shit.
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And your excuses are lies you tell yourself.
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Even better said.
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When I read “you got this” I want to throw something!
It’s not even slightly true or we wouldn’t be here. 
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But I do believe…
YOU CAN DO IT!!!
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Thanks; that sounds sincere!
If it’s any consolation, I’m 100% sure I don’t got this. But I’m finding maybe we do.
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I definitely need everyone here on this site.
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Doesn’t have to be either/or.
I needed slaps in the face to wake me up. I dug myself so deep a hole I felt like I could only see a pinhole of light at the top. Whenever I was just about to stop climbing, someone would come along, and tell me “you got this” as I cried on their shoulder. I cried on alot of shoulders.
At the end of the day, I had to hear it ALL because even I didn’t know at the time what would persuade me to decide to save my own life.
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I’m thinking at this point that “we alcoholics can take our big lumps as they come” and that it is the lesser and more continuous problems that get us down. It’s the continuous bit that is trickiest. I need to be consistent, not just vigilant.
Someone in meetings around here says they take the temperature of their spiritual fitness by how they act in traffic. And that seems pretty wise to me.
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I’m three years clean and sober tomorrow. Just tonight on my commute home from work I was pining for drinks and oblivion. I have admitted to myself 1) that I like being drunk 2) that I’ve already used up my nine lives 3) that I am sad and have deep pain that I am working through from my decades of drinking and smoking crack etc.
It takes courage and bravery to be sober AND in Recovery. It’s absolutely a better- the best - life and the best I can be. I am shocked by how much I am learning about me, the human condition and my own weird BS. The thoughts of drinking and of missing it passes. I’m in for the long haul. I got too close to the edge and if I go out I may not make it back alive. Or worse, I may hurt someone else.
Thanks for this thread and for your thoughtful sharing. 
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Best of luck with your book, that’s an admirable goal!
The way I understand the traffic gauge is that I can use it to examine my motives at depth. Am I getting upset with a slow driver because I have a fear of being late and appearing inadequate? Because I do struggle with that fear in many areas of my life. Am I insisting that others allow me to have ‘my’ space in the road instead of conceding 10 feet?
And if I am afraid of another driver’s actions, is reacting with anger how I want to live? Or can I acknowledge my fear, take appropriate, often evasive, action and have empathy for that driver?
The more time I spend questioning my motives and emotional reactions, I become aware that I am most serene and in alignment with my higher self when I detach radically from people and things and conditions.
My soul is always yearning, tugging, to reunite with the Source. My body is composed of the same elements as the stars. In light of these realities, how can I value an abstract concept like money or even a connection with another human above my greater calling? The social instinct, the desires to protect my body, the degree to which I can consider these as expressions of my soul’s yearning to unite with all other souls of all other times is the degree of my serenity. Fundamentally, my life is not my own, this physical expression of human form is not the pinnacle of existence, and I am more spirit, more energy, than matter.
I think about these matters consciously now that I have stopped drinking. Some of my drinking was an attempt to make a spiritual connection, even if I did not recognize it at the time. And I particularly think about these matters first thing upon awakening, as I have done today. Thank you, @Greymook for stimulating this process in me today. 
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A friend of mine says something to the effect of “if I find there are 3 A-holes while I’m driving, then I know that the A-hole is me”
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