Resetting

[felicityfortunate]

After 3 months alcohol free I fell off the wagon last night
Reset to zero?
Or treat it as a blip?

You will get different views. But if your aim is to be AF then I think it’s best to reset to 0. I think you need to feel and learn from the loss of the days. I’m 377 days sober and it’s one of the many things that stops me picking up a drink, losing all those days and going back to day 1.

Reset to zero. Otherwise you will have more blips. Have you tried AA, I found it great to meet other ppl trying to stay alcohol free, moral support if invaluable.

Thank you for replying. Yes, you're probably right and I think I need an irl support group

Why would you want to reset to zero? If you were learning to drive a car and were on lesson 3 and you made a mistake would you insist on going back to the beginning - learning where the brake is, etc.? Or would you figure out what you did wrong and carry on?

If your child came home with a piece of work that had scrappy writing would you send them back to year 1?

So why do we do this with drinking?

Changing your drinking is just a habit you are unpicking. You are going to fail. I encourage people to head towards temptation - put yourself in situations where you may fail then LEARN from them.

I think there’s no right or wrong way. It is the fear of the loss of all my hard work which is one of the many things that keeps me sober. A lot of people who drink after a period of sobriety do not just have a one off blip but fully relapse. I need to live alongside the fear that would likely be my reality if I drank again.

Yep I get that different approaches work but I only offer that a perfectionist way of looking at things - back to day 1 every time - excludes room for any capacity to learn.

Not resetting the total is a bit like pretending it didn't happen.

Giving yourself a really hard time because you had a relapse/blip/gave in to temptation is also a bit like pretending you didn't achieve 90+ days AF though which is massive.

How has this blip changed the way you think about it all?

You can still learn if you go back to day 1 though? I think I’d learn more from the loss of the streak (check me with the trendy lingo lol) but I agree one size doesn’t fit all. I’d reset in the OP’s shoes - but it doesn’t mean the 90 days didn’t happen :)

@LovinglifeAF It's all about the words we use. When we say "back to day 1" there is a connotation with "back to square one", ie back to being a beginner. And it can also feel terrible. So many people tell me "I was up to day 45 and I messed it all up, why oh why?" While everyone's different, I haven't found that to be helpful. When we try to be perfect we end up kind of holding our breath to continue the streak of perfection - that becomes the goal rather than digging deeper and finding out WHY we're drinking. And life isn't about being perfect. My work involves looking at the drinking differently, about finding out what's going on underneath and learning to solve that - rather than concentrating on not slipping up at all with drinking (which, by the way, involves willpower and there will never be enough willpower to do this with ease. You'll always be keeping half an eye open for fear of drinking again and that just wasn't what I wanted for myself). I aim for not even thinking about alcohol at all until it becomes totally and utterly relevant. And I get people there by taking action, failing, learning, taking action, failing, learning ...

Okay this isn't about alcohol but it's a similar thing. I've been doing Duolingo and you keep a streak of days that you have lessons. Several friends and I have been doing it for about 180 days. They individually stopped by accident, just forgot to do it, and they have all struggled to get back on it and it's because they didn't want to start again at Day 1. They found it very demoralising. None of these know each other, this is something that I've noticed in all of them all.

The very last thing you want is to feel demoralised because you could end up thinking oh well I'll go back to it in awhile. Put that day behind you and just keep going.

I don’t wholly agree with you @brightspice which shows there’s more than one way to approach it all :) I haven’t ditched the booze with willpower btw, I’ve put in the work that’s led me to lose the desire to drink.

@LovinglifeAF So great that you've lost the desire for drink. I agree that's the key.