About
February 18, 2007
This blog is part of stopandstartover.com, and website about recovery from drugs and alcohol. It’s an online community that provides information and promotes engaging in dialogues. So post your thoughts and visit the site!
helping you through recovery
This blog is part of stopandstartover.com, and website about recovery from drugs and alcohol. It’s an online community that provides information and promotes engaging in dialogues. So post your thoughts and visit the site!
February 19, 2007 at 1:54 am
this is a great idea for a blog. i’m an addict and i need to talk online when i can’t get to a mtg!
March 14, 2007 at 10:32 pm
GREAT IDEA!glad i finally found my way onto it. i need
to connect when i can’t do it face to face. doesn’t matter how much time you have. i don’t think that ever changes. thanks for providing this opportunity and i’ll be checking it out regularly and hope to get a dialogue going in the future. best of luck. julia
March 19, 2007 at 2:14 pm
An online community like this is long overdue. There are so many misconceptions and so much misinformation out there that it is hard to navigate and get help…. and we all need help.
Thanks for bringing recovery into the 21st century and carving out a place where addiction and its consequences can be discussed. A place where one addict/alcoholic can share with another; a place where there isn’t any judgement or blame; a safe place. Thanks for the gift. MM
November 3, 2009 at 11:12 pm
Hi, my name is Henry. I am 18 and in recovery. I have been sober for 21 months and was very proud of that until recently. Recently, I had 1/2 a beer, by accident thinking it was N/A. It was the first N/A beer I had ever had and when I told buddies to taste how similar non-alcoholic beer tastes to real beer, they told me it was real beer. I didn’t finish it, but feel really devastated. I live in LA and I am a regular at a lot of young people’s meetings and have been a speaker various times. After this happened I was asked to speak at this teen addiction center, and I did but I felt sick and like a complete fraud but yet I don’t want to start over from scratch. Because so many people know me, I felt like driving 50 miles and taking a newcomer chip. But, then if I am going to start over I feel like then perhaps I should really have a party and do my favorite drugs. Why start over on 1/2 glass of beer, but yet I don’t feel right saying I have 21 months. I worked so hard getting this far, and I am feeling pretty depressed and desperate over it. I know I will disappoint so many people especially my family. Meetings and recovery, which were a very important part of my life, I now dread, and find every excuse not to attend. It is also causing me to believe that perhaps I am not an alcoholic, as have not wanted a drink or to even finish the beer after I drank it. I had huge drug problems, and often times I got drunk while I used, but never was alcohol my drug of choice. I am so depressed and I am ashamed so I am scared to tell anyone. Also, what a whimpy was to have lost my sobriety. I am barely hanging on and since that day, I have not had a drink or used trying to cling to my illusion of 21 months. Has anyone out there ever experienced something similar? Do I need to be a newcomer again? How can I get past this? Feeling pretty desperate. Any advice?
November 3, 2009 at 11:51 pm
First, I would talk to your sponsor about it. My experience is this: i have eaten chocolate with liquor in it without knowing, and shared this at a meeting. others suggested i don’t need to start my day count over if i did not intentionally drink alcohol. i have also accidentally sipped someone elses drink at a restaurant (vodka tonic), but again, it was a mistake. It sounds to me like you didn’t mean to drink the real beer- you thought it was N/A.
DO NOT BE ASHAMED! There are a ton of people who have experienced what you did. The important thing is to be honest about what happened, share it at a meeting. our secrets can kill us!
You will get past this, sober.
November 4, 2009 at 12:37 am
I agree with laramc’s suggestions. Talk to your sponsor, hopefully he will set you straight. Share about it in a meeting, you most likely will get many different opinions. It will help others too who might go through the same situation at some point.
My take on it is this: As long as you didnt keep drinking the beer once you realized it was alcohol, then you dont need to count days again. Many people have had this experience. A friend of mine (with 20 years) took a sip of “mikes hard lemonade” thinking it was a soda! He put it down immediately once he realized it was booze. Its called “getting spiked” and it happens.