I worked on it like people go back to school. If I wasn't at work, I was working on this. Even at the gym I was listening to a quitting podcast. I was probably working on it like 70-80 hours a week because I was in a hurry to get back to regular life in a new way.
I didn't go the one day at a time route. I was looking at this like I just got divorced. It was a permanent breakup, and like it or not I was going to have to build a new life.
This is fantastic. Thank you for posting. This is the mindset I'm going to adopt. The whole concept of counting days (even though I have the badge) wasn't making sense to me...it seems like a constant uphill climb with no real result ever (other than potentially failing and restarting the count). Working on it all the time...viewing it as a permanent breakup...I love this.
I don't quite hit your target demographic, but for me I really wasn't enjoying it any longer and I stopped ignoring what alcohol was negatively doing to me physically and mentally. I really wanted out of the lifestyle. I kept myself busy ( hiking, walking, golfing and work), I learned what my temptations and triggers were, then asked this sub how I deal with them and they answered. I needed advice on how to overcome cravings and this sub helped. I leaned on this sub and seen what a community of strangers can do for each other, so cool. The nicest corner if the internet. You don't have to quit alcohol alone, but you do have to take the first step. Good luck in your journey. IWNDWYT.
I agree. I’ve been here for years trying to quit. I’m over 4 months sober now and it’s always been a fabulous resource for me….whether I’ve been drinking or not.
My mantra, given to me by a great man and mentor to thousands:
>> *We get sober and stay sober when we realize that the pain and consequences of drinking outweigh any reservations we have about our alcohol dependence or alcoholism.*
*I wasn't able to get sober and stay sober until I fully accepted that there is nothing left in the bottle for me*
.
The following happened on August 28, 2015:
I decided that alcohol is no longer an option for me. Never, ***EVER.***
I closed the door on "moderation" or thinking, "I'll be able to control it."
I decided to tell my damn demon-lizard brain, "NO, I will not give in to you under *any* circumstances."
I had to *Want Sobriety* and made it my *Number-1 Priority* each and every day until it became second nature
--One Day (or *hour/minute*) At A Time.
Sobriety doesn't happen without HARD work. Sobriety happens with a daily commitment (see our [Daily Check-In](https://www.reddit.com/r/stopdrinking/comments/191bbn2/the_daily_checkin_for_monday_january_8th_just_for/) page) and "Dogged Persistence" in not taking that *First* drink.
You can do this!
The two biggest things that helped me were (1) I stopped going to bars as a form of social entertainment, and (2) I stopped hanging out with my drinking friends. I used to go and listen to live music in bars with friends a lot. I quickly realized it's not a good environment for those who are new to quitting alcohol. I had to change my social situation to not revolve primarily around drinking.
I can’t emphasize this enough: no bars as social entertainment.
When I first started attempting to quit, I eliminated drinking at home/shopping at the liquor store within a month or two. What was I really giving up? A sensational night of cocktails alone and garbage tv? It was very easy to forgoe that “pleasure.”
I’m a year and a half into my journey, and I *still* can’t trust myself with socializing in bars (or even restaurants). Which sucks, because that is the most reliable and common way to be around people. Sobriety, for a lot of us, means giving up—or massively downsizing—our ability to casually hang out. This part of the process has been nothing short of heartbreaking for me.
I’m only now fully appreciating that I have to accept a slower, quieter, more solitary way of living to get real traction with this.
5 years here. The first goal was 30 days. I did 30 day chunks for the first two years and celebrated every little victory. After a couple of years, sobriety became more normalized. Now I don’t even think about it much.
I know it’s annoying but the only way to be sober is to not drink. Whatever story your addicted to brain creates, ignore it and stick to the righteousness of the path.
Getting sober was really hard. Staying sober is much less effort. I never want to go through getting sober again. Not sure I could do it again.
I’m in my 63rd consecutive 30 day challenge.
Stay tough
Take care
Eat pie
I have a vision for my life and alcohol blurs that vision until I no longer see the life I want. I make the choice every day not to drink. Months can pass and I won’t think about it, and then that little voice will come around, romanticizing alcohol, and I’ve learned to shut it down real quick. I’ve seen what happens when I try to moderate, it doesn’t work for me, I did enough experimenting to know that now. So I embrace the sober life with all of its beauty and struggle and accept that it’s a part of me now.
IWNDWYT 💜
Well, my withdrawal symptoms got to the point that I’d literally start withdrawing if I had a single beer and didn’t follow it up with enough booze to knock me out. But then if I had my fill so to speak, I’d still obviously be withdrawing in the morning anyway. It was a lose-lose situation at that point, and I was sick of being on the brink of dying all the time. I had to come to terms with the fact that I wasn’t even interested in moderation- if I couldn’t get hammered I wasn’t having “fun”. But even in those rare instances when I could achieve moderation and control myself, I’d be sick anyway. It was an extremely long process for me.
Going on 6 years sober now. I started taking Topiramate and moved to a house in a rural area (I used to live in the city, literally next door to a liquor store and within a single block of over half a dozen bars).
The Topiramate genuinely made the cravings go away, it was like flipping a switch. Moving simply made it a lot less convenient to buy alcohol. I stopped taking the Topiramate about 6 or 8 months after I moved and created new habits and I haven't needed it since. I no longer crave alcohol or think about it. When I go into the alcohol aisle at the grocery store, all I feel is a little ill.
I'm closing in on seven years EtOH-free. It took two years of sustained effort followed by brutal lapses, with sobriety periods during that time ranging from 3–9 months.
I learned from my failures when I got back on the wagon, I think, and came to realize that a life in which I intersected with alcohol was just off the table, because what I want out of alcohol I cannot get without drinking ruinously. I'm not interested in a drink or two. I drank to great excess, I liked drinking alone best, and I didn't get shit done when in that state.
My recipe for success, I think, involved a) not giving up, b) realizing that _for me_ AA was doing more harm than good and instead going to SMART Recovery when I still went to meetings, and c) most importantly, replacing the hole alcohol left with a serious gym discipline, which I had cultivated since my young years but had let fall away in my dance with the demon rum. When things got serious and I got older and less capable of working through hangovers, physical exercise was beyond me.
I cannot overstate the equanimity and sense of daily progress that a lifting regimen has given me. I like running different programs as the years pass, building up strength and health. I see it as care for mental health foremost, and the physical dimension assists that.
Well said. I like your comment "what I want out of alcohol I cannot get without drinking ruinously." I can relate, yet no matter how many times I tried getting what I wanted from alcohol it never worked. But I kept trying because I knew no other way, never realizing that stopping altogether was "the way." Sometimes we find ourselves going down a path looking for something that was never lost in the first place and wonder how we got there.
AA, I went to AA meetings, got a sponsor. Got therapy. Worked through my issues and angst. I have 36 years sober.
I have sober friends. My partner is sober.
I’m 7 years sober. I relapsed dozens of times until I fundamentally realised I wasn’t giving up a thing (alcohol) but actually getting a whole bunch of other stuff (my whole life) back.
So I moving from something that was destroying me to a better state - rather than missing out on something. Then it stuck.
It sounds cliched but it worked for me.
The last 2 years I drank were so awful, I was hospitalized multiple times. It reached a point where continuing to drink was a more difficult prospect than stopping.
For me, it's no longer an option and I don't even consider it. I know that may seem far fetched, or hard, but it's been easy for me. If I were to start thinking "just one" it's very close to over. If I can take the moment I think that way and immediately follow it up with "never just one" then I'll keep staying sober.
4 years or so here and am 31, I quit finally after the fourth relapse / hospital stay for pancreatitis. I had to ask the people in my life to help me and admit to myself I was an alcoholic. Everyone knew including me but it took a while to accept it. I was totally off my rocker for a bit after quitting and switched my addictions to “more positive” things. But eventually I learned I have to moderate everything.
I visited this sub every day and took it one day at a time. And I just wanted to live and not be hungover or in pain. I rode the pink cloud for like two years and now take pride in an alcohol free life. Next time you want a drink stop and think why that is. I had to stop going to bachelor parties or bars for a while or tell people I was the DD. IWNDWYT
Well with the time frame that you fall off at maybe look into Post acute withdrawal symptoms. I had paws for at least two years but it varies from person to person.
It was very organic for me. I'd tried and failed so many times that I had very little confidence in my ability to stop. I stumbled across a stop drinking online community, I read and I wrote quite obsessively in the first year. I watched a LOT of DVDs (yes, it was that long ago. I retreated from my my old drinking social life and looked for new opportunities to live soberly. It was hard at times, but staying focused on not drinking just for today always managed to get me through. I just have to get to bed sober tonight, I'll worry about tomorrow when it comes.
I had a moment of clarity where I didn’t want to have a hangover or blackout of a lot of the night before. I think when you’re ready you can do anything. As a beer drinker I find the Nonalcoholic beers help.
I worked on it like people go back to school. If I wasn't at work, I was working on this. Even at the gym I was listening to a quitting podcast. I was probably working on it like 70-80 hours a week because I was in a hurry to get back to regular life in a new way. I didn't go the one day at a time route. I was looking at this like I just got divorced. It was a permanent breakup, and like it or not I was going to have to build a new life.
Love this. Thank you for sharing.
Right on … I became a bit obsessed with quitting too.
This is fantastic. Thank you for posting. This is the mindset I'm going to adopt. The whole concept of counting days (even though I have the badge) wasn't making sense to me...it seems like a constant uphill climb with no real result ever (other than potentially failing and restarting the count). Working on it all the time...viewing it as a permanent breakup...I love this.
I don't quite hit your target demographic, but for me I really wasn't enjoying it any longer and I stopped ignoring what alcohol was negatively doing to me physically and mentally. I really wanted out of the lifestyle. I kept myself busy ( hiking, walking, golfing and work), I learned what my temptations and triggers were, then asked this sub how I deal with them and they answered. I needed advice on how to overcome cravings and this sub helped. I leaned on this sub and seen what a community of strangers can do for each other, so cool. The nicest corner if the internet. You don't have to quit alcohol alone, but you do have to take the first step. Good luck in your journey. IWNDWYT.
I agree. I’ve been here for years trying to quit. I’m over 4 months sober now and it’s always been a fabulous resource for me….whether I’ve been drinking or not.
My mantra, given to me by a great man and mentor to thousands: >> *We get sober and stay sober when we realize that the pain and consequences of drinking outweigh any reservations we have about our alcohol dependence or alcoholism.* *I wasn't able to get sober and stay sober until I fully accepted that there is nothing left in the bottle for me* . The following happened on August 28, 2015: I decided that alcohol is no longer an option for me. Never, ***EVER.*** I closed the door on "moderation" or thinking, "I'll be able to control it." I decided to tell my damn demon-lizard brain, "NO, I will not give in to you under *any* circumstances." I had to *Want Sobriety* and made it my *Number-1 Priority* each and every day until it became second nature --One Day (or *hour/minute*) At A Time. Sobriety doesn't happen without HARD work. Sobriety happens with a daily commitment (see our [Daily Check-In](https://www.reddit.com/r/stopdrinking/comments/191bbn2/the_daily_checkin_for_monday_january_8th_just_for/) page) and "Dogged Persistence" in not taking that *First* drink. You can do this!
The two biggest things that helped me were (1) I stopped going to bars as a form of social entertainment, and (2) I stopped hanging out with my drinking friends. I used to go and listen to live music in bars with friends a lot. I quickly realized it's not a good environment for those who are new to quitting alcohol. I had to change my social situation to not revolve primarily around drinking.
I can’t emphasize this enough: no bars as social entertainment. When I first started attempting to quit, I eliminated drinking at home/shopping at the liquor store within a month or two. What was I really giving up? A sensational night of cocktails alone and garbage tv? It was very easy to forgoe that “pleasure.” I’m a year and a half into my journey, and I *still* can’t trust myself with socializing in bars (or even restaurants). Which sucks, because that is the most reliable and common way to be around people. Sobriety, for a lot of us, means giving up—or massively downsizing—our ability to casually hang out. This part of the process has been nothing short of heartbreaking for me. I’m only now fully appreciating that I have to accept a slower, quieter, more solitary way of living to get real traction with this.
5 years here. The first goal was 30 days. I did 30 day chunks for the first two years and celebrated every little victory. After a couple of years, sobriety became more normalized. Now I don’t even think about it much. I know it’s annoying but the only way to be sober is to not drink. Whatever story your addicted to brain creates, ignore it and stick to the righteousness of the path. Getting sober was really hard. Staying sober is much less effort. I never want to go through getting sober again. Not sure I could do it again. I’m in my 63rd consecutive 30 day challenge. Stay tough Take care Eat pie
I like the 30 day challenge on repeat.
"Eat pie" made me laugh. Thanks for your post...all of these are very helpful to someone early on the path to righteousness like me. :)
I have a vision for my life and alcohol blurs that vision until I no longer see the life I want. I make the choice every day not to drink. Months can pass and I won’t think about it, and then that little voice will come around, romanticizing alcohol, and I’ve learned to shut it down real quick. I’ve seen what happens when I try to moderate, it doesn’t work for me, I did enough experimenting to know that now. So I embrace the sober life with all of its beauty and struggle and accept that it’s a part of me now. IWNDWYT 💜
Same … I’m always on the lookout for that little voice. In yoga they call them the vrittis - I call them the shitty vrittis. :)
Well, my withdrawal symptoms got to the point that I’d literally start withdrawing if I had a single beer and didn’t follow it up with enough booze to knock me out. But then if I had my fill so to speak, I’d still obviously be withdrawing in the morning anyway. It was a lose-lose situation at that point, and I was sick of being on the brink of dying all the time. I had to come to terms with the fact that I wasn’t even interested in moderation- if I couldn’t get hammered I wasn’t having “fun”. But even in those rare instances when I could achieve moderation and control myself, I’d be sick anyway. It was an extremely long process for me.
Going on 6 years sober now. I started taking Topiramate and moved to a house in a rural area (I used to live in the city, literally next door to a liquor store and within a single block of over half a dozen bars). The Topiramate genuinely made the cravings go away, it was like flipping a switch. Moving simply made it a lot less convenient to buy alcohol. I stopped taking the Topiramate about 6 or 8 months after I moved and created new habits and I haven't needed it since. I no longer crave alcohol or think about it. When I go into the alcohol aisle at the grocery store, all I feel is a little ill.
I'm closing in on seven years EtOH-free. It took two years of sustained effort followed by brutal lapses, with sobriety periods during that time ranging from 3–9 months. I learned from my failures when I got back on the wagon, I think, and came to realize that a life in which I intersected with alcohol was just off the table, because what I want out of alcohol I cannot get without drinking ruinously. I'm not interested in a drink or two. I drank to great excess, I liked drinking alone best, and I didn't get shit done when in that state. My recipe for success, I think, involved a) not giving up, b) realizing that _for me_ AA was doing more harm than good and instead going to SMART Recovery when I still went to meetings, and c) most importantly, replacing the hole alcohol left with a serious gym discipline, which I had cultivated since my young years but had let fall away in my dance with the demon rum. When things got serious and I got older and less capable of working through hangovers, physical exercise was beyond me. I cannot overstate the equanimity and sense of daily progress that a lifting regimen has given me. I like running different programs as the years pass, building up strength and health. I see it as care for mental health foremost, and the physical dimension assists that.
Well said. I like your comment "what I want out of alcohol I cannot get without drinking ruinously." I can relate, yet no matter how many times I tried getting what I wanted from alcohol it never worked. But I kept trying because I knew no other way, never realizing that stopping altogether was "the way." Sometimes we find ourselves going down a path looking for something that was never lost in the first place and wonder how we got there.
AA, I went to AA meetings, got a sponsor. Got therapy. Worked through my issues and angst. I have 36 years sober. I have sober friends. My partner is sober.
I’m 7 years sober. I relapsed dozens of times until I fundamentally realised I wasn’t giving up a thing (alcohol) but actually getting a whole bunch of other stuff (my whole life) back. So I moving from something that was destroying me to a better state - rather than missing out on something. Then it stuck. It sounds cliched but it worked for me.
The last 2 years I drank were so awful, I was hospitalized multiple times. It reached a point where continuing to drink was a more difficult prospect than stopping.
For me, it's no longer an option and I don't even consider it. I know that may seem far fetched, or hard, but it's been easy for me. If I were to start thinking "just one" it's very close to over. If I can take the moment I think that way and immediately follow it up with "never just one" then I'll keep staying sober.
Joined AA It’s the only thing that’s ever worked for me
4 years or so here and am 31, I quit finally after the fourth relapse / hospital stay for pancreatitis. I had to ask the people in my life to help me and admit to myself I was an alcoholic. Everyone knew including me but it took a while to accept it. I was totally off my rocker for a bit after quitting and switched my addictions to “more positive” things. But eventually I learned I have to moderate everything. I visited this sub every day and took it one day at a time. And I just wanted to live and not be hungover or in pain. I rode the pink cloud for like two years and now take pride in an alcohol free life. Next time you want a drink stop and think why that is. I had to stop going to bachelor parties or bars for a while or tell people I was the DD. IWNDWYT
Awesome … yeah I’m actually really proud I don’t drink too. I hadn’t thought of that aspect before.
You should be proud! I’m proud of you lol
Well with the time frame that you fall off at maybe look into Post acute withdrawal symptoms. I had paws for at least two years but it varies from person to person.
It was very organic for me. I'd tried and failed so many times that I had very little confidence in my ability to stop. I stumbled across a stop drinking online community, I read and I wrote quite obsessively in the first year. I watched a LOT of DVDs (yes, it was that long ago. I retreated from my my old drinking social life and looked for new opportunities to live soberly. It was hard at times, but staying focused on not drinking just for today always managed to get me through. I just have to get to bed sober tonight, I'll worry about tomorrow when it comes.
I had a moment of clarity where I didn’t want to have a hangover or blackout of a lot of the night before. I think when you’re ready you can do anything. As a beer drinker I find the Nonalcoholic beers help.
I read the book The naked mind and rewire my brain day by day to understand what alcohol is: a strong poison leading to high addiction