On Sunday night after a wonderful year of continuous sobriety, I put my Higher Power on hold and drank alcohol.
I am tentative about making any comments about this that edge towards revelation, opinion or judgement.
Number one at the moment is that I am willing to get real and honest with the fellowship, no matter how hard. So I am here to "out" myself and hope that something here helps someone else and that I can learn and grow from this experience.
Right now all I can do is relate what has happend and what I am doing.
I have been grateful for this year of sobriety. It's been hard and also brought me much joy. These weeks before I drank on Sunday I had been getting together with AA friends, partly because of my anniversary and because I am beginning to connect with the fellowship. My sponsor was out of town for two weeks. However, she set me up with a surrogate sponsor and made it clear that I was to call her if needed.
A downward spiral started over a couple of things: One, I had been becoming bothered my husbands drinking recently, although I had been able to detach from it all year long. Two, some media things started me thinking in a way that ended up in me distancing myself from prayer and conscious contact with higher power. This happend so subtly. Like I said, I was sticking to step work, meetings and meeting with AA sisters. However, I failed to take direct and concrete action about the dark thoughts until I had fallen pretty far down. I finally did talk to my sponsor and share in a meeting two days prior to my slip, but by then my harmful egotistical thoughts were becoming comfortable like the worn winter coat that you pull out of the closet, thinking, it's kept you warm all these years, so you fail to notice the threadbare and pathetic condition. -You don't recognize how it no longer serves you-.
Negative thoughts void of spirit that tell me I am fucked are centered in ego from what I have learned. Well Saturday was a great day. Really good. So, I am surprized that I drank the very next day, but given all that was going for the weeks prior, I can't be now. It appears clearly that I listened to the demonic gremlin in my head.
(On an aside-my AA sister has since told me that on her sponsor's advice she named her diseased inner entity "Bob", and that she has to remember through prayer to tell Bob to "Shut the F up" when he tries to pop in for a chair at the table).
Work that next night I had a communication issue with another employee that I was supervising that disturbed me greatly. I saw this for what it was and took steps to deal with it. I should have ran out of the restaurant (where I work), because then my shift was done. Well, on a dare, or failing to back down, my co-worker poured a drink and insisted I should have a sip to chill out and relax. (I'm uptight-so rediculous) I told him he didn't get it, that I couldn't have just one and that I was alcoholic. I saw clearly that he didn't understand. I let that drink sit there and knew that letting it sit there was bad bad bad. I made motion to call my sponsor, as I've promised. NO cell phone and NO phone list in purse. Never occurred to me to pick up the phone book ten feet away. I never said any prayers, or tried to connect with God. I consciously take the drink and prove my co-worker wrong. From the first sip it was awful and I almost threw up. I was thinking the whole time about doing something bad because I was bad and also how I could not leave AA becaue I'd die,so I was thinking that this drink would make squirm doing what I am doing now, by having to tell my fellows about it tomorrow and thereafter. I had already made him fill it to the top of the cup, and was reaching for another bottle when he said, why don't you just stop. There is no pleasure or satisfaction in being right here. I explained that after he drove me home I would go right to where my husband hides his stash and drink whatever was there, and do not be surprized if I ended up back downtown for more, if the stashes weren't found. You all know how this goes. I drank more and I want to report for those that don't have to do it themselves that it SUCKED THE WHOLE TIME.
Thankfully I had the preservation to write my sponsor immediately so I might not fully fall into an abyss with no out.
I jumped back in. I have been taking all the suggestions carefully. I thought my program was pretty good, and I did get so much out of the last year. All that is not worthless. I pray now that I choose to learn from the research. I am doing daily meetings plus. Mostly keeping clear that I do not know it all, must always remain a chanel. I did an amends the very next day hungover, althought it was so tempting to crawl into to my cave, which what I would have done prior.
I've been four awesome days sober since then and so appreciative of the firm and loving arms of AA everyday. I changed my date immediatly on the sign-in sheets and have raised my hand as a newcomer no matter how hard it is.
I sought answers for the reason for the slip. This is the answer I feel I got from the universe:
Alcoholics slip because they have a cunning patient disease that wants them to drink and die. All we have is a daily reprieve based on the quality of our spiritual condition. I hope I get this, because my spiritual condition was shit when I took the drink.
I have learned a lot about humility this week, and also that I was at times stuck in a superior, judgemental attitude. I have a stronger compassion for the alcoholic, one that was thinner than it could have been before, despite a strong commitment to service all year.
I still don't know what it is to be human, but I am sure planning to consider that my thinking can often be distorted and twisted by many years of living with the disease.
I love you all so much and I hope to be here on the morrow to continue in a sober journey together,
be very afraid, when i slipped it was 30-60-90-120 days later it got hard and weird, and when the true "insanity" portion of the slip necame apparent, it got VERY difficult, recognize this as normal and hang on as if your life depends on it, because it does
When we slip and don't go all the way to the end it becomes very very hard to come all the way back, that is my experience, my experience is however my slip added to my sobriety, in hindsight of course, but it made me understand how truly cunning, baffling and powerful this disease is, and it made me be able to help and understand others who had slipped in a way I never could as a "factory model", so instead of asking from a place of no experience, "what will you do differently?" I was able to say what I had done differently, I was able to share my experience, strength and hope with others who had slipped after a long time sober
fearless and thorough time kid, has your sponsor worked the steps out of the book? Did you in that year? thoroughly?
If the answer to either of those is no, that would be a good place to start
Welcome back, I will pray for you
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Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night, light a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
Hi Angelove, glad that you made it back. It's amazing to me that you made it a year, living with a spouse that drank. I tried to get sober for two years, living with my x-wife that drank and couldn't do until I separated from her. What kind of job do you have that an employee has booze on the job?
Angela...awesome amount of inventory work for someone who desires to get and stay sober. I related to your slip cause it very nicely describes how I've gone in the past not with alcohol but with some of my other compulsions. What is stunning is the come back the recognition of "oh crap I just fell down" and the getting back up, dusting yourself off and locating the place and time which you tripped on. I slip very similar to you. I actually get the thought and let it take root along with the awareness that "yep very soon I'll be doing it" even while aware of alternatives. Revisiting the "humility" is good for me cause my definition of humility is "being teachable" and it seems you are very...So you still have that year. You haven't lost it and everything that came with it. You got the year and more awarenesses such as how patient our disease really is and yes when we have a go at it again it still is the same as we left it and maybe a bit worse. I learned the gagging and vomiting is my body's way of telling me "hey you've been clean for a long while and I don't like this!!"
Thanks for bringing it back here so that I won't have to attempt it for today.\
Hi Angela -- thanks for being here and helping me. What a powerful share. I too slipped -- in my case last year, November 2009, when I let my meetings taper down, since hey, I was praying every day, so I didn't need to hear the same stories again for the hundreth time.
I look back on that and it was like something out of the Big Book. I just wanted that one drink, that relaxation, that easy company in the pub. I wanted also to prove that after having heard a thousand drunkalogs that I wasn't like those poor people that I had heard in the rooms. I even prayed that I could have one drink just this once.
Next day, I was, I have to say, tempted to stop coming back, to throw it all in, through pride, humiliation, unfulfilled perfectionism, etc. to embrace my active disease, even to the inevitable death or institutionalisation.
Fortunately, I did what you did, got right back into the saddle and redoubled my program.
What I had to do, of course, was stop comparing myself to the "I came into AA, had a blinding flash taking me to the fourth dimension, never even thought about booze from that instant and now I'm in astronaut training while managing my own multi-billion dollar company" crew. Doing that would not help me -- on the contrary, it would undermine my sobriety, b/c I would feel like even more of a useless tool than when I came in. Not saying that everyone should do that, but I did that, and it helped.
I had to listen to the alkies who had slipped, still had bad things happening in their lives, BUT WHO WERE SOBER AGAIN.
This site and people on here were an unforgettable part of helping me get back into the saddle. I got love, support, no criticism.
Most importantly, I got practical ESH from those who had been where I was and who had successfully returned to sobriety. They said, here's how I slipped, here's what happened to me, here's what I learned, here's how I came back and here's what I do now.
Much good thoughts and fellowship going your way from me.
hi honey, i am glad that you did not use the relapse to stay 'out there' Angela. before 8 months sober (the first time) i started entertaining thoughts of drinking wine, my fave. i only half listened at meetings, then went to slippery places for me. i had to end up in jail to let go my fantasies, to become willing to do whatever it takes to not take the first drink. my sobriety has to come first, which means my life belongs to my higher power and he will help me each step of the way. so happy you are willing to be willing. hugs. jj
So happy your Posted, we've talked in PM, so no need to repeat anything......just happy you are back and digging in your heals.......
Cunning Baffling and Powerful......a lesson most of us know too well when we fall down, and for some, As AGO mentioned, it is not always the quick turn around.....
A Gigantic Hug all the way up to Washington from California... See it does work, did you feel it???
PS. Loved how you chronicled the Slip......and how it happens, Easing God Out, (EGO), damn it happens all the time..... Hope you keep the writing out of that.
I glance back on occasion, need to,just to remind myself that if I drink, I die....pretty simple...
It's interesting that you said it sucked. If I were to choose to take a drink, my wish is that it would really, really suck big time. My biggest fear - and the reason I don't do it - isn't because I think it will suck, it's because I'm afraid I'll like it, and I may never be able to stop again.
I didn't experience max suckage from my drinking. That's all on my "yet" list. I still enjoyed my drinking. I just didn't enjoy anything else anymore. I was afraid of success and failure. I drank because I was happy, I drank because I was sad. I didn't have any really specific "triggers". I just drank.
The death of my long time friend, who, having achieved many of his life's goals through at times obsessive hard work, kicked back, popped the cork and drank himself to death in just a couple of years, woke me up to the fatal disease once again, as if I needed a reminder. Guess I do. I really don't know when or where I'll come face to face with a drink in a defenseless condition. I can't predict that. All I can do is stay close to my HP and be willing to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and if it is His will for me, should that moment arise - God's power will step in where mine fails. I'll be the weak little crybaby and He will pick me up.
"However, I failed to take direct and concrete action about the dark thoughts until I had fallen pretty far down."
angela, I can totally and 100% identify with these words you wrtoe. You are not alone. And WE will get better together, one day at a time. I too hope you stay. It is just too hard out there with a "head full of AA and a belly full of booze". I know this first hand as I am recently, as you may know, new again too.
With love and support, Joni xoxoxo
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~Your Higher Power has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
dont forget that the "reaching out thing" works (most of the time) hehe..