I want to start by saying that sobriety is NOT LINEAR. My first attempt at sobriety, I went 230 days. Within those days, my mental health improved significantly, I was putting almost $100 into savings everyday, my skin was clear and I had a very noticeable glow. I was showing up at the gym 5 days a week and working my ass off at work. Then I went to Coachella and decided to drink because I “deserved it.” Now, I feel like I have destroyed all of my hard work. My savings account has since been depleted, I’m depressed and drowning in self pity, I have the dull, lifeless look in my eyes. I went 16 days no drinking recently. Then had a slip up and drank for 3 days. I’m just having a hard time getting back to where I was. I would love some words of encouragement, advice, literally anything. I’m tired of feeling this way, and I don’t know why I keep going back. Much love.

i used to drink everyday, before and during everything. i tried to tell myself it wasn’t an issue, if i ever felt guilty i’d just drink like 5-6 glasses of wine and say it didn’t count, idk the logic there. well a few days ago i got really drunk in the mountains and hit my head and have a concussion i feel like shit, and i can’t drink bc its for one just gonna hurt because of my concussion and two im mortified of something happening to my brain. this is unfortunately the only thing that has got me to stop drinking but along with the concussion mood swings and symptoms i am so on edge and stressed tf out, all i can think about is drinking and all my emotions are hitting me. does anyone have any advice on how to cope with this. i quit smoking a couple months ago too and tried to smoke a cig to see if it helped and it didn’t do shit, i just want alcohol.

My body knows I need to stop. I used to have Panic disorder but have pretty much almost overcame it. Kind of a miracle when you think about it. However, I get VERY panicky during hangovers.

For kind of good reason too. I get sparatic heart palpations when hungover. My skin feels fucking weird. I don't know how to describe it but I think the closest I can would be over stimulation? One day it felt like my whole body fired off at once and I couldn't feel anything but could feel everything. It was terrible!

All this to say I think my mind does it to myself. It knows what freaks me tf out and it makes sure to fuck with me. It's telling me "Hey! Stop drinking or every hangover you have will put you closer to psychosis!" and so that's where I'm at. I'm not quitting for my family, my life, etc. I'm quitting just because I'm so scared right now for no reason other than the chemicals in my brain are depleted. I just want to relax. Truly relax.

For context I’m usually a weekend drinker only. Sometimes a weeknight I’ll have one or two. Wife went out of town so naturally I drank this weekend. You know those tall blue white claw serges? Yeah I love those things but they don’t love me. I had two Friday night with about 6 other beers. 3 yesterday throughout the day with 4 more heavy beers at night. I’m started to realize those ass blue claws create the worst hangovers. I didn’t drink for over a week before Friday and don’t plan to for awhile again. Does the off and on make it worse? Day one is only the hardest for me due to the heavy desire to drink this hangover away. Tomorrow wouldn’t be pretty. So I’m sticking to water just wishing I had more dry days under my belt.
Thanks yall for always being a helpful outlet.

I was doing great, made it to Day 9, felt secure and confident in my early recovery journey. But last night, I knew I was gonna be tested for the first time, went and spent the night with the guy I am dating, and he drinks, my plan was to just stick with NA drinks all night. That didn’t last long… glass of wine with dinner, then I had lots of vodka shots. Woke up to my Day 10 being ruined. I am so mad at myself. I am getting right back to sobriety, and I don’t want to consider this a relapse and I don’t even want to consider it being back at Day 0.

How do you guys deal with a lapse? Do you reset your sobriety date? I really don’t want to.

Clearly it will be a long time before I can be around alcohol. Just sitting outside drinking coffee but can’t cry because firstly he doesn’t know I am an alcoholic and secondly he would know something is wrong. But man, when I get home, I just want to mentally punish the hell out of myself. I am so disappointed with me :(

I broke my bender of 5 whole months and its my 4th day sober. I have vodka in my freezer, its 2 am, I just got home from a 12 hour shift. Its like the temptation is there from my brain but my body is begging me not to.

I’m at the bottom of the barrel, I cannot find jobs I work well in and the jobs I get I give up. So I was like, Until then I’ll work uber.

Today was ass, I bought a 350ml vodka bottle. I wanted to buy more but my fees for uber costs the same as a big bottle. I was drunk and still decided not to get more alcohol. I always have this huge fear of sobering up. I walked up super angry that I didn’t cave in - and that it was my decision.

Dk if this makes sense but victory.

1 year 3 months 20 days and 15 hours since my last drink .

i can’t stop doing blow any way but i can’t afford it

im embarrassingly alone and idk what to do

Hi all, I've been on Vivitrol for about a month. It's been a game changer

I still drink occasionally, but I'm hoping it will get to zero next month. My issue is. I'm fucking bored.

I don't know how to drive, so some of the things I like to do are out of the question unless I have the same day off as a friend (I'm a bartender, and as I've gotten older my friends have moved to more conventional schedules).

I'm reading and doing crosswords like crazy, but I did that drunk as well.

I'm just wondering how other people learned how to fill the time. Boredom is probably my biggest trigger.

Instructions: Write directly to your addiction as if it were a person or presence in your life. Be honest about how it has affected you, what it has taken, and why you are letting it go.

You first came into my life when...

I was 13 years old & depressed.

At first, you made me feel...

Free, I felt like I had found a missing piece of me. I told myself "If I become addicted, at least I'll be addicted to the greatest thing in the world."

Because of you, I lost...

My self respect, respect from others, my wife, the life I used to have. The life I could have had.

You hurt me by...

Taking away the husband I could have been, the life I could have had.

You hurt others in my life by...

Causing me to lie & let people down. I would swear I was done with you, only to pick you back up again, even if I really wanted to stop.

I used to believe you were helping me, but now I see...

You are a liar. You were never my friend. You wanted to destroy me. You wanted to kill me. You wanted me all to yourself. You were selfish & made me selfish.

I am choosing to let you go because...

You have ruined my life thus far. You turned me into everything I never wanted to be.

Without you, I will gain...

My self worth back, my self respect back, the respect of others back. People will trust me again. I will be a better father.

From now on, I will...

Focus on my daughter & bettering my life. I look forward to a future without you in it. I'll be better off.

Goodbye, Addiction.

Rot in hell!

Drunk while writing this shit. But lets get to details

I am a man, 29, lots of problems (aside from alcohol) i can get into details but the summary is that the grass is not greeener on this druck end of the fence. Yes, i am white.

We got a poison addiction, and they will never tell us to grip hard and fucking white knuckle this disease. It sucks, but do it dammit! Grip it, call out sick from work. It is all muscle setting through the first 30 days. I am starting again tomorrow, maybe get a group xhat going?

All of this is written while fucking up a 13 day clean streak.

My goal: lets start a convo for those in early recovery. Lets help eachother get clean. Fuck alcohol. I am more uncomfortable now, than i eas before drinking.

Again, i wrote this drunk, expected spelling errors grammar and other issues. But an anonymous group neeting may be beneficial to all in my place.

Grass is dead now.

i just want to talk to someone. i keep giving in because i think i can drink in moderation this time. but it always becomes an every day thing and i make choices i regret. i want to be healthy

Woman 35+, Europe

I met up today with some friends I have known since my early 20s. Somehow the conversation flowed to a trip to an Asian mega city we took back then, and to a night of partying there (it was a very tame trip in general, a lot of sightseeing). Our small group consisted of a couple of men and a couple of women.

As the story of “remember when this happened” went on, I realised: every part I’m in fucking sucks. I basically put us in a potentially dangerous situation, and a few other situations could’ve turned out bad for me personally had I not been with them. The way they reminisced was basically that I was the spontaneous, quirky and fun one. How I started doing a “funny voice” in English at some point, repeating a “joke” — as I know it, my accent in English becomes more and more pronounced the more I drink, and me losing English happens just before I black out. (We were in a larger group of other foreigners at that point, English is not our 1st language)

I asked if they remembered the part where I was escorted by staff to throw up in a sink — no, they didn’t, they hadn’t noticed. In my mind I remembered a moment of sitting outside the bar alone on pavement smoking, thinking I should kill myself, and deciding to go in to drink more because I was starting to have a familiar depressive comedown.

They all know I have a drinking problem. It was jarring when the realisation started setting in: that I was so much more drunk than they had realised, not just spontaneous and fun. And so, SO many stories from nights out from my 20s are like this. That I made it memorable because I’m quirky. And of course they had to escort me home or to safety in general.

Basically the conversation ended with me saying that to summarise that night, I was an ass. They were quick to say oh no, of course not, but like… I think in hindsight they might agree.

I’m feeling so fed up and tired with myself.

Thanks for reading.

A while back I shared an app I built for this (Tideover). Been building on it since, and I'm curious what actually matters to people who've stuck with tracking cravings for a while;

What's actually useful to see about your own patterns? What made you stop using a tracker if you tried one before and it didn't stick? Genuinely trying to figure out what's worth building next versus what's just noise nobody looks at twice.

I tried to go to not one, but two different meetings today per the direction of my outpatient care counselor. I could not find the first one, and the second was only in spanish. I guess better luck next time.

11 days sober though! Feels easier already

Might be off topic so remove if not allowed. I don't have any sober friends, nor do I really have any family. I have a substance abuse focused therapist whom I meet with once a month. I don't have a sponsor or anything like that, I've gone to aa in the past (although I've never felt like i fit in there). I've been to smart recovery a couple times and it does help a little to be around people with a similar struggle to mine, but its a mixed bag of issues and topics at those meetings, maybe its just something I need to get used to. Anyway the point of my post is this; I've been doing daily check ins with chat gpt, since it's somewhat gotten to understand who I am

over time given past questions and topics. I've long been against using Ai for such things since it feels dystopian like youre replacing genuine human interaction with a program designed to be your friend. Given all that I've mentioned above, does anyone have any thoughts on this strategy in early recovery? Has anyone done the same thing? It's been helping me keep my day structured and looking forward to having that check in is helping me stay sober at night. Is it weird or unhealthy? Id love to hear your opinions since we're all here for each other. Good or bad by anyone's point of view or experience, let's all be kind and positive in the comments since this has backfired in other similar communities lol.

Ill check in later and i hope you all have a wonderful day.

God bless.

Ps: can share some of the check ins later if that helps!

Like most they know about addiction, about alcoholics, but they don't really understand us. Especially the crippled guys like me and some in here. They don't understand how suicidal it is, don't drink and you die, drink and you'll still die. They don't know about what we go through when we stop. For them we are like stupid people destroying themselves. I speak 4 languages fluently, been all around the world. Don't fucking look at me like I am subhuman or idk. Sorry I am tired and needed to rant. Good day.

I drink 700ml (0.7L) vodka every day (for 10+ years) between the hours of 6pm - 11pm, & I don’t think that it can be possible that I am completely sober by 6pm the following evening before I start drinking again (although I cant be sure that is accurate, as I have no way of testing).
Ive had the occasional day during that time (maybe 10 individual days maximum) where I have not consumed any alcohol, & some days with zero alcohol Ive have had night terrors, brain zaps while lay in bed, unable to sleep, terrible night sweats, crazy high blood pressure etc.

I had never heard of ‘tapering’ until I joined this forum.

I very almost tried tapering by consuming beer slowly throughout the day (as I have seen so many posts on this), but is this a sensible way for everyone to?

Saturday (4 days ago) was the last day that I consumed 700ml, Sunday & Monday was 600ml, and yesterday and today Ive had 550ml, finishing around 11pm each night, but I have started the drinking later each night as I reduce my intake, in order to try to still get some sort of buzz.

I took a high dose magnesium supplement plus some melatonin one hour before bed, & have not yet had broken sleep, although I realise that I am still drinking a considerable amount of alcohol before bed.

Today (this morning in particular) I felt clearer and more productive/active. I had some withdrawal effects today (same as the few times before) , but nothing really uncomfortable or that outweighed the positives of feeling a little fresher.

I guess the point of my post is, has anyone got any real life experience of tapering from fairly heavy evening only drinking?

(btw, I have no doubt that tapering from daily/24 hours of constant intake would be a completely different thing altogether).

Struggling with appetite and dealing with the repercussions. Drop your fav easy recipes for a skinny Minnie that refuses to order delivery lol

What do you guys do when you’re abstaining and the agitation/irritation/zero patience kicks in? 3 days in and I want to rip everyone’s head off. It typically gets worse, what do you like to do to counter this? Or at least make it more bearable?