I can't. The feeling I have inside is that of utter failure. After I posted here I was excited, this was going to be it, I would finally break free. 11 days went by I was checking in I was watching the videos, I was doing the F2F program. Than it all came crashing down. Back into the darkness, back to the neverending deep black hole of deprivation, a whirlwind of guilt, shame, disgust, and craving. I'm writing here now only because I had a moment of relief and clarity doesn't seem to last long. Help

Dear i.l

I feel your pain! it's so dark and it makes us feel worthless. But my friend, please, this is the YH fighting a battle he knows he has the upper hand, he knows your history, he knows your weak spots, and he won't let you off the hook so fast.

Well, you can show him then you can do this. You had 11 clean days before this fall! How many urges did you have in each of those days? Do the math -  how many successes have you had in these 11 days? Probably more than 1 a day. So hey 11 days of successes have not defined you but one fall does define you? why this that? and never mind you probably told the YH no a few times the same day that you fall, am I correct? so please dear brother, don't fall into despair, you've got this! you can do it! it will take a bit more now to get of this ditch but that's okay, life is challenging. We are here to do the best we can.

A big part of why we feel so terrible after a fall is because we think that now we are back to our old ways and that is a valid concern but only we can determine if that's true or not, and I know that you can get of this. You can grow from this fall. Check your surroundings, what lead to this? can you do anything better? is there anything you can do to avoid this fall from happening again?

Love ya,
Heeling,

Hey, welcome to the family! I'm also new over here but honestly just taking this step to reach out to others is HUGE. To quote what I was told from others, you were in the habit of giving in to your urges for such a long time, it's not realistic to expect from yourself to go clean POOF! Not that Im saying CV its ok or to not even try. 11 days is an awesome accomplishment! Keep us posted!
Flyin like a Hawk (love these animal names the system generates). 

How are doing, my friend? 
Is everything ok?

i.l wrote on 06 Jun 2024 17:15:

An idea taught to me by a friend (which in hindsight after writing this its only Loosely based on what he said) that we sometimes set really big goals for ourselves after a failure the biger the new goal we set the more motivated we feel at the start "dream big" (right?) But in doing so we can be setting the finish line further away and that motivation dies and as we keep trying to renew our motivation with bigger and bigger dreams of grandeur we delude ourselves and then become disenchanted with the idea of setting goals because we fear the failure of dissapointing ourselves again then we come along again once we forget and start over(that cycle). I am not saying to be a pessimistic person or not to dream. He had this idea of u need a strong dream that lasts you years to be honest I haven't found this for myself yet(going off topic)... back to what my friend was saying when we fail to reach our dreams this gives us an excuses to indulge because after a fall well if we Don't believe we can achive the long term goal that short term plesure is better then the nothing your left with. And it can become a cycle he says this is why we must take this and most challenges in life one step at a time.