And so I am on the cusp of my fourth week. This taking it one day at a time thing is the way to work it – for me, at least. And yet today I’ve still been projecting ahead to beyond my 30 days, a holiday in October, Christmas… can I do this? The day to day life without drinking is hard enough; I’m not sure I’ll be able to cope with a lovely trip away, celebrations with the family, because these are times when I look back at drinking fondly. It was the daily stuff which wasn’t working so well.
Are there people out there who don’t drink, but then do drink on holiday? Or at Christmas? Or does it simply not work like that? Can one be really strict with oneself, then let oneself go for a couple of weeks and go back to sobriety afterwards? What are the rules?
I always have so many questions. Sorry.
A Dappled Path 
I don’t think for those of us who like drinking (haha) can drink now and then. The idea of being able to drink during celebrations is a lovely one. I just don’t think stopping after would be as easy as starting. I’m afraid it really has to be all or nothing. My opinion. One day at a time. Again, my thought of those few hours making merry worth the days, weeks, months of getting life back on track. You might not be able to stop the next day.
As Belle would say – stay here 🙂 Don’t think about the future just focus on today. As for me, having a drink on any celebratory occasion would never work – 5 years of trying to moderate taught me that! xx
Hi Path! 🙂
My (not so) humble opinion; if you could moderate, you would not be here having a blog. And on top of that: you would not be writing this right now. You know you can’t. The addict part just tries to get the best of you.
And please don’t reverse these statements by concluding that if you ditch the blog you can suddenly moderate. Or if you don’t write it, it is not there or if you don’t write it I will not get out of my cave and not-so-humble-opinion-you. 😀
Btw: did you do an Allan Carr training? I loved his book on quitting smoking. He teaches where drink think comes in and what it looks like.
Dear Annie, I am feeling for you SO MUCH. of course the answer is a big fat NO, but you are amazing and I know you can do this, so do you really. refer to my blog today, Day 37. I have written about our struggle and mentioned you in my post, I hope it helps!!
lot of love
xx
on day 8 here…thank god it’s almost over and I’m sitting in bed. Went to dinner at my parents house, who know that I’m currently not drinking. I was complaining that I wanted a drink and my father (43 yrs sober through AA) said, “you know what you have to do. And you know
what drinking does”. It was the perfect thing to say.
I asked him about drinking “now and then”. his answer, “Tried it……IMPOSSIBLE. Thats why I haven’t had a drink in 43 years” ……
it makes me sad that “it’s over forever”. So I get how you feel. we know we can’t drink “normally”.😰
I relapsed after 3 years of sobriety because I had one beer! I swore I would only have beer occasionally but never wine which was my demon..you know the rest of the story..of course I got back into wine again. The sober holidays and celebrations were the best of my life and they will be for you too. I look forward to the upcoming holidays as a sober gal. We all think we can be different but in fact we are all the same..we can’t have just one!
You are doing great. Stay on track. Try to leave those big question for later.
For now, have a great sober Monday.
I will say….life, vacations, big holidays…they are all way better sober. Way better.
Anne