question: how many attempts to get sober did it take you until it actually "stuck"? or i guess, until you reached your longest milestone?
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Three relapses in a nine month time frame between when I started trying to get sober and rehab. Been sober since rehab 23 months ago.
thank you for sharing. 23 months is incredible and hard work. happy for you
So nothing external could get me sober and nothing external can keep me sober. It's an inside job. Relapses occur when you come up with any excuse that sounds reasonable to you and then you off on your own sh*t and use. Relapse is not part of recovery. When you decide that of you put any mind altering substance in your body, you can't stop. I had to loose my opinion on what I needed to do to stay sober and did whatever my sponsor said. He had the experience of not being sober and being sober. The work I do to stay sober is attend AA meetings every day, got a sponsor, read through and discuss AA big book going paragraph by paragraph, take a meeting into detox facility, etc and hope that is enough to keep me sober. It has for 9 months and I didn't think I would make it more than a couple days..,
this is insightful. thank you for sharing your thoughts and experience. it makes sense that you have to put the trust on the what/how in someone else’s hands and follow their lead. trusting someone else in that way, in a sense giving up the pride of feeling like you know what to do when you really need help, can be a really hard thing to do it seems. at the same time, like you said, it’s an inside job.
forgot to mention—congratulations on 9 months. that’s an incredible accomplishment
Thanks. It really wasn’t that hard once I started being honest, realized that I needed help, and figured out that broken people help broken people. I went to tons of meetings, got a sponsor, and started working a program. Sobriety gets easier and easier, as long as we always put our recovery first. You don’t want to give yourself permission to relapse, but if you do just get yourself back into the program and out of your own head. Learn from it.
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At least 6 times, I was sober for 3 months then relapsed and wound up in jail for a dui, my third. That was rock bottom enough for me…but everyone is different. Day at a time, I’ll never say I quit drinking as there’s always work to be done.
Many now 6 years sober
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It's hard to remember when I decided i was drinking too much. Over the last 6yrs i relapsed 3 times. The longest sober about 2+ yrs. They got shorted and messier. The last relapse i lost my license and i promised myself i would never drive drunk. I'm now 136 days clean and should get my license back maybe the end of next month. I think i have it this time. I think this site along with AA is the accountable hepl i need. May an Angel be at your side on this journey.
For me there are no reason to drink.no excuses.I it meetings very heard .first year.every day.it very heard.now with less meetings in person.make it harder.we need people.
I was court ordered in the late 80's. I relapsed many many times. I finally got my very first year of uninterrupted sobriety December 11 of 2003. I had almost 9 years but I relapsed again in 2011. I currently have 7 years. It takes what it takes for all of us to get here. It's different for everyone.
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I relapsed 3 times over the last maybe 6 yrs and now just short 5 months sober.
If you are looking for justification for your own slip up don't. It doesn't make much of a difference because we are all different with our reasons. You must focus on you and honestly do the best you can. Best of luck on your journey. Reach out anytime just as you did. We will help the best we can.
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Took one time for me, and I had a 6 & a half year, wonderful sobriety. Then I let my sobriety take a back seat because of a family crisis, which eventually led to a relapse. I spent another 6+ years in hell, and tried a few times to quit. I had a spiritual awakening in May, I’ve been sober ever since, almost 5 months now, and while it will always be one day at a time, I plan to be sober when I take my last breath, whenever that happens to be. 2 lessons from my relapse:
- never let sobriety take a back seat to anything
- have compassion for those who are suffering, you don’t know their story
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Still working on it 
- getting through those physical withdrawals is the hardest part for me. I’m such a sissy when I think about it, but going 2 or 3 days with no sleep, no appetite, anxiety, restlessness etc… I cave. I managed to do it once before, I know I can do it again. I just have to accept the pain of withdrawals, go through it and live a respectable life again! 
It took me as many times as it took until I finally admitted to myself that I couldn’t do it alone.
If we are counting all the mornings I swore I would never drink again, hundreds. If we are counting times I made it a full 24 hours, dozens. If we are counting times when I couldn’t drink because of hospital or jail, 4. If we are only counting the time I actually made it a few months, 1. But none of that feels like failure anymore. Because I didn’t know better. I had no tools of sobriety. I believed in willpower back then.
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First time. 34 years
My first sobriety attempt was when I was 19, I managed to stay sober for 9 months, but fell back into it. I had small bouts of sobriety of the next decade, but nothing concrete. Last year I went to rehab near the beginning of the lockdown because my drinking had become a 24/7 thing. I stayed in rehab for 91 days, left in an emotionally charged state and relapsed, ended up getting a dui within 72 hours of leaving rehab. I immediately went back after getting out of jail, I stayed in rehab for another 50 days, I left again thinking I was gonna fight my dui case because I wasn't driving. I got another dui within 48 hours of leaving rehab for sleeping in my car drunk. I ended up in jail for almost 2 months, got out, got into recovery housing and have a year of sobriety now. It's been a long journey since my first attempt with too many relapses to count, but I finally got rock bottom and had a spiritual awakening.
Good point
Too many to count.