My slip up.....

cramcj01 · Senior Member

My slip up.....

StPeteDean · MIP Old Timer

Hi CJ, glad that you made it back, and kudos for coming clean about the incident. I'm hoping that you told your sponsor/ home group, and picked up a white chip. I know how it feels, it took me 3 years to get a year.
We still love you.

cramcj01 · Senior Member

I also thank God that those beers did not make me feel better (though even if they would have, it would have been short lived) because with the type of probelm that I have with liquor, I would have binged. I am just SO greatful to be sitting here typing this SOBER. Thank you LORD!!!! But I kick myself in the ass everyday for those two dumb beers. GGGrrrrrrrrrr.....

Mike B. · MIP Old Timer

CJ,
Thank you for the honesty. Don't beat yourself up over the slip. Put the bat away. Nothing went wrong during this incident that I can tell. Just a little guilt and shame. Your diesase wants you to wallow in this self pity. That's where it likes us... vulnerable..

The great thing is you made it back in one piece. Chalk it up as experience. This diesase is cunning, baffling and powerful.... without help it is to much for us. Like Dean; I bounced in and out of the halls for 3 years while I needed a further beaten from alcohol. I've learned I'm pretty deviant............

Please keep coming back and help us stay sober. smile

Dave Harm · Senior Member

For me, I truly believe that I would have never had long-term sobriety if I didn't have a slip. There would have always been that little voice in the back of my mind that would say, "Maybe you're not an alcoholic."

I needed that slip to remove all doubt...

Jerry F · MIP Old Timer

Aloha Crystal...I've always heard that it is "progress not perfection" in the rooms.
I've also heard that we can ill afford resentments. Since we suffer from a disease
and not a moral issue it is better for me to accept that I am alcoholic and a child
of God rather than as a bad person with a drinking problem also.   I think I can
remember "drinking at" my alcoholic wife or someone else a time or two but all
that did was waste some good booze and maybe one good time drinking. I didn't
have too many "good" drunks that I can remember.   You're here, you're okay and
you've been sober another day. ( Kill your ego...crush your pride...damn that was
a great sponsor. )   smile

Aquaman · MIP Old Timer

Only one perfect being has ever walked the earth...and you see where it got him.

Some days I feel that the only reason I haven't relapsed is that I haven't been pushed far enough yet. What would I do if I got that far? It didn't happen today, so that's one more day of Grace.

Rob

Sobrietyspell · MIP Old Timer

Great to see you posting & sharing so much right now, Crystal. It is beautiful to feel & be a part of. I am grateful your slip can be put down to experience & you're back in your sobriety saddle. Today is the most important day especially with however you're putting into it. I found that it is the steps at all costs that keep my sobriety at the forefront of my priorities. An added surprising gift for me is in now having something consistant to give away & help others which so deeply helps me. I came into A.A. with the intention to learn about alcoholism & help others.

I got the shock of my life when I realised this was no theory & that I was very much afflicted & in a worse state than I ever suspected. The second shock was how much I had to put into this to stay sober just for myself. My ego deflated repeatedly & eventually my hardwork did pay off, I came full circle & ironically I AM able to help other alcoholics today. Not by telling anyone what to do but in telling them how I did it, how it works for me. You strike me as a loving & caring person. Yes, we do this for ourselves but the great gift for me today is actually being able to live & pass on this program for others in inspiration & energy.

If you are having any doubts on making the kind of effort required to get into this spiritual program let me assure you that there is so much more for you just ahead. Do whatever it takes. Your experience becomes your best asset & having an understanding & discipline for this program is a wonderful present. More is being revealed for you. Keep on & level up to new determinations my loving sister. Yours in ever faithfulness & recovery, Danielle x

-- Edited by Sobrietyspell on Wednesday 14th of October 2009 07:54:07 PM

turninggrey · MIP Old Timer

Hey Crystal,
I liked Jerry F's "Progress not Perfection" line. I know we need some measure of our sobriety, so we use months and years, but I think some times it puts undue pressure on us and adds lament if we should have a slip. It sounds like you may have slipped off the horse, but that you slipped under his belly and came up on the other side back in the saddle.
Hang in there,
Tom

SteveP · MIP Old Timer

I've heard it said a few times in the rooms, "the person here with the longest sobriety is the one who woke up earliest." ODAT.

pinkchip · MIP Old Timer

I had 4 months sobriety on my own before I even became willing to go to AA. It was when I picked up again that the disease was so much worse than it ever was. So, while I haven't relapsed from AA, I had that experience before I ever came in and it was so friggin awful. I too do not think I would have put any sobriety time together without it because it fully erased all reservations I had left about being an alcoholic. It does say in the BB we have all tried countless ways of controlling our drinking and failed. In essense, that makes every single one of us relapsers because that is the nature of the beast. Before getting sober, all of us tried to stop, tried to slow down, tried whatever...and it didn't work. So basically, all of us have relapse within us and all of us have done it. Knowing that, it takes all of us together to say sober. Sounds like you are being really courageous now Crystal. Thank you for sharing all that is happening to you with us.

Mark

bikerbill · MIP Old Timer

Just back from an afternoon meeting - Living Sober Meeting - I heard someone share that when you're ready to beat yourself up, ask how you would treat someone else who'd done the same thing, then treat yourself like that.

Or in a short form, put the bat down and pick up the feather.

Avril G · Senior Member

I remember going back to a meeting after picking up again after six months dry feeling pretty much as you did, guilt, remorse, shame, beating myself up for being so damn stupid, lots of us have been there, done that and got too many T shirts, but on my return this oldtimer told me, 'You know, Avril, a drink can be used as kick UP the steps rather than a kick down them, and if this has been your last drink, it's the best darn drink you ever took'

That must have been on July 10th 1990, and up until now that WAS my last drink, BUT, I never forget I am not 19+years AWAY from a drink, I am as far away from a drink as anyone else who is sober today, who knows what life might throw at me on any given day, and who knows how well I will be to deal with it sober?

Get back into the middle of the lifeboat, best chance of you falling out again that way.