Relapse….A Guest Post From Debbie….

Hi Everyone,

I had not heard from Debbie for a while but then she got back in contact. Here is what has been going on for Debbie;

I haven’t checked rp for a while. I saw your most recent post and had to write. I didn’t want to  but here goes.

Just shy of six months of sobriety, sometime in mid November, I relapsed. I started drinking again. At first it was a bottle of wine and I recall feeling really glad that the alcohol didn’t affect me the way that it used to. And then I went back to my old best friend gin and things have been slowly but surely going downhill.

What you said about routine really struck me because when I was off work, I woiuld get up, journal and go to the gym. And having that routine allowed me to create habits that resulted in nearly six months of sobriety, a weight loss of 20lbs and much better financial management.

While I have been glad to get back to work, it has thrown my routine. Coupled with the fact that my roomates computer is on the fritz….well. Journaling allowed me to work things out without acting out and to talk myself out of drinking. I never realized how central it was to me staying sober. I’ve never met you in person Madison, nor have I met any of the people who read your site but I felt accountable to you. I still do.

I stopped paying attention to my sobriety and fell off the bandwagon. I’ve been working again for a month and drinking for about the same amount of time and this isn’t the script that I wanted to write. I wanted to be clear headed for this job. I still am though it won’t last for much longer I know if I don’t get sober. I’m glad that I was sober for five months I learned some emotional skills that are still serving me well. I need to find a healthy routine again. I made some mistakes at work and its been pretty hard to keep at it and keep trying my best at work although the crippling anxiety is gone (I think in large part due to heavy doses of Wellbutrin) and better emotional skills. Before I was sober I think I would have chucked in the towel by now and have started trying to surf the internet all day.

Sometimes I think that the posts on sobriety websites can be a little repetitive but that’s important because I think you need to constantly remind yourself WHY you need to stay sober and keep your view forward looking rather than looking down at your feet. Basically to propel yourself into long term sobriety.

I’m working on a new sobriety date. I have school in 3 weeks and I know that drinking and studying didn’t work out for me at all so I have to knock it off before then.

I don’t want to be the person who just never got it together.

Debbie

-

Tags: alcohol didn't affect me, bottle of wine, Long Term Sobriety, posts on sobriety, Relapse, six months of sobriety, Staying Sober

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 21st, 2010 at 9:42 pm and is filed under Get Sober. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.