Hey! For the last few years, I'd do five months of sobriety at the start of each year. My drinking got much more noticeably out of hand towards the end of last year, and I subsequently failed to maintain a sober stint at the start of this year, and that then rapidly spiralled into reckless drinking, endangering my job and further damaging my financial situation.
That sort of scared me, along with some other symptoms and a general sense of unease, and so I committed to a year of sobriety. I chose a defined timeframe to keep my goal achievable and give myself an actual defined target, but am secretly hoping to "trick" myself into seeing how sobriety feels for a long enough time to want to maintain it afterwards.
I've been journalling, and I've been working hard on improving the small things in my life I neglected while drinking, and the big things that I believe could have been contributing to my drinking. I do feel much happier, much more in touch with myself, much more grounded, and the people around me have commented that I seem happier and calmer. Things feel like they're moving in the right direction.
I went tonight to a party for a friend, celebrating an anniversary. I had a fine time, chatting and joking, but I couldn't stop thinking about drinking. I know the cravings will pop up at random times, and I've made an effort to stay social during this stint and have been in situations with alcohol and not caved. However, the temptation just did not stop building tonight. I was already trying to work out ways to justify drinking. I played the tape forward, I tried to think about how embarrassing I can be when I get drunk, I tried thinking about everything I was proud of, I tried changing the group I was talking to and joining a new conversation to get some dopamine and distraction, but I couldn't shake it.
Eventually, I resolved to make my excuses and leave. There was no drama or anything but I just felt, and still feel, pretty defeated. It was weird. It was worrying.
I spent the whole journey home catching myself fantasising about drinking when my year is up, or even before. Romanticising the idea of going out into the city, to some quiet bar one random night, and having "a few". I know what a lie that is, and how it's not real, and how I don't want to blow up my life any more, but it's just really got its claws in me tonight, by the looks of it.
I'm asking here for a few things, really:
- Is there anything I should or could be doing to solidify my sobriety and build a stronger foundation? Relying on my own willpower seems like it'll fail at some point inevitably.
- Should I be pushing to solidify my current sobriety if I'm clearly so conflicted about it? Am I even actually conflicted?
- Do you ever stop missing it? It's not even just that I miss the "good" parts. I miss the bad parts. I miss the miserable hangovers, just feeling like absolute shit after torpedoing my finances and sabotaging my plans for the day. It's so weird.
For context, my last drink was April 21.
Sorry for the long post. Thank you all for reading, and for the work you're all doing in this community! IWNDWYT!
Sometimes it is better to avoid the party or those situations where you will be around drinks and feeling tempted. I know it sucks to miss out on things your friends are doing but it is not worth the mental anguish as you have experienced. It takes over and controls your mind and makes it nearly impossible to resist.
It sounds stupid but it did actually help me quit in the beginning. I got one of those tracker apps that would count up the days that I was sober and maintaining that streak and seeing the number going higher helped me to want to maintain it even more. Then if I did fail it would give me a new goal to shoot for. "Alright I did 2 weeks last time so I'll beat that this time!". 2 weeks turned into 3, 4, etc and eventually it never reset. That was almost 4 years ago that I finally had my last failure. I still have the app on my old phone so the count should be around 1200 days or so by now. No way am I giving that up! I think the app was called quitzilla.
I'm not sure about that. For me I had to be done with it. I flip flopped a few times trying to quit and getting sucked in, doing the reward thing you are talking about. "Oh I'll just drink on my birthday" or Christmas or whatever bullshit excuse it was. but one day I finally had enough of feeling shitty and wasting my money and having random crying outbursts where I'm worried about the alcohol controlling my life.
Short answer, no. I still think about it some days and really want a drink. I know I can never have one. I always want to believe I can just have 1 but I know that 1 will be an extremely slippery slope that I have to fight back. So I just never give in. I can't because I'm afraid I'll go down that hole again and might never make it out. And back to the thing from #1 I still have that lingering count in the back of my head. I don't physically need to look at it anymore but its always there, counting up. Making sure I'm staying on track. Another thing that helped me was being honest with friends or family. Telling them I had a problem helped me to hold myself accountable. I was able to hide my drinking and perform my job and never got in any trouble or anything but being open and honest about it has helped to keep me accountable. I can only imagine how horrible it would feel to have to tell my mom that I started drinking again.
I don't think setting an end goal is a good idea because it gives you something to look forward to and makes it harder for you to fight off those urges for other random reasons. "Well if I can drink on new years day to celebrate, why can't I drink on Christmas too? Its just one more day" and eventually you rationalize it back to weekends and nights and youre back in the hole again. Unfortunately its a decision you need to make and continue to make every day. Some days are harder than others, but nowadays for me, most days are easy and I don't even think about it. Even when being bombarded with advertisements, drinks in movies, video games, stores on every corner, somehow it has become easier for me with time. Like all addictions we must realize it's bad for us and we must do everything to overcome it, when we decide the time is right. Knowing myself, I know I can never do that to myself again because if I do, I don't think I'm coming back again.
Hopefully any of this helps, I know it sucks being where you are but many of us have been there and you are not alone. Like I said before communicating about my problem to people I trust was an important step in holding myself accountable and maintaining my sobriety. Making this post asking for advice is a good step, please don't ignore it. Continue to ask for help when you are struggling and eventually, you too can look at your past self and go "damn that sucked and I was an idiot back then but I made it out and now I'm all the stronger for it"
When I was doing those five-month stints, I found that I was basically just getting through them by isolating myself from social events entirely to avoid temptation, which did work but made me thoroughly miserable. This time around, I'm still trying to be social which is why I'm going out still - but you're right, maybe I should pick my battles. I am generally fine in one-on-one or small-group settings at pubs (I've just got back from an evening at a pub with friends actually), but maybe parties are too much for right now.
I think maybe we work differently in terms of goals. I did try to approach this without setting an end date but found it to not work for me. I need a goal to aim at, which is "to get 1 year under my belt" in this first instance. I'm hopeful about my mindset at the end of that year! But I am glad to hear that you found what works for you, too!
It did help! Of course. Thank you, I appreciate your time and your advice!