(((Ralph)))

I'm glad to hear from you, although your news are mostly so sad. I wish you that your will to get better wins and motivates you, at least, for the beginning, to stay sober and to think about the values and goals...

Hold on; it's up to you to decide 'how bad will your depression be' - at least if it will be enhanced by alcohol or not. I believe you can do the right decision; you've been already successful for long periods of time.

I am learning that alcohol makes my depression worse, except depression also leads to me drinking. It's a cycle. Maybe this time it will stop. I need to make the decision not to drink but also to work through the feelings that I masked with alcohol.

I see... Vicious cycles are hard to 'break' . But I've seen you 'working through your feelings' (/writing about it) here often and quite successfully .

Good luck!!!

It occurred to me that maybe the advises about dealing with pain (even emotional) Beth and Mark posted here

could be useful also for you - for the moments when you're deciding to "fight" the depression by alcohol...

ok, thanks. I read the suggestions and will give it a try. It's like I have two minds in me though, one that wants to get better and one that wants to drink. It's keeping the second one from being in control that will determine if I drink or not. So far, three days sober though.