Rare is the person I meet who decides to cut back their drinking and nails it on their first try.
What is far more common is slipping up, starting over, making mistakes, repeat.
It can be tempting in those moments to make it all mean something horrible about yourself – that you are weak, that you will never be able to do this, that there is something wrong with you.
But try looking at it from the perspective of your future self. The one that doesn’t drink more than she wants to, or has quit completely. Do you think she cares that along the way she didn’t do it perfectly? Or did she learn a little something each time that made the foundation of her current sobriety that much sturdier? What builds greater resilience? Falling and getting up or never falling at all?
Sometimes we move forward. Sometimes we move backward. But as long as we’re learning, it’s progress.