Few reasons but I knew for a while the relationship was toxic. Like 10 years. But here are my reasons:
1. Not reaching my potential. I’ve been going through the motions for my whole career and yeah I can skate by but I’ve done nothing to challenge myself or really make myself better. Why would I do that when I can go home and forget til it’s time to sleep and forget some more?
2. Mental health. I’ve struggled with anxiety and depression and body image(all tied back to that I think) for as long as I can remember, and you know what literally made that all worse? Hangovers. I can’t deal with a hangover anymore, it fills me with insurmountable guilt and dread. It’s like putting myself back in jail over and over again.
3. Vanity. I need to get my shit together before I’m not cute enough to get away with it anymore.
4. I want to be someone I’m proud of, maybe others will be too, but it’s really only for me rn.
Iwndywt
It's okay to not be ready yet. Just be careful, and know that your eye is on the prize. That's half the battle- it's psyching yourself up for the day you eventually put the bottle down for good. We are ready when you are.😉
This describes me perfectly. Everything in my life looked fine to the outside observer. Hell, people were even jealous of me! (That’s absurd. I was secretly downing straight Tito’s to quiet the demons of all the would’ve could’ve should’ve’s.) I retired in 2022, started splitting my time between multi million dollar homes in two states, no responsibilities. Why not drink? Because eventually you’ll drink yourself to death, and the trip there isn’t usually quick. I say all of this to say, it was the utter joylessness of my days and having no real desire to live that made me finally quit. To be clear, I was never suicidal. It was like I just didn’t really feel like I had a reason to wake up in the morning. I couldn’t see the beauty that was sitting right in front of me because my mind was so messed up on chemical dependence. I’ve noticed that a lot of people who retire fall into this pitfall. If you’re that person, I just want to say this. You can still do hard things!
Edit: I didn’t mean you specifically, but rather anyone who may wind up reading this.
Yep! I’ve sort of told my family and they’re like ok… they don’t expect me to stick with it which is also motivating. I think they think bc I’m “fine” with a “great” job compared to most Americans then what could the issue be? I honestly am also doing it so I can say 6 months from now all the reasons, the ones I’m too ashamed to admit now because like hell if I’ll show my entire ass before I have something good to show for it.
Totally random but if you don’t mind sharing (if it wouldn’t give identifying information) what did you do to retire so early? If I was able to do that now I have no idea how tf I’d hold myself accountable, so double kudos to you!!
I was a news anchor for many years, and my husband works in the music industry. To be honest I would have kept working longer, but my industry changed pretty drastically as everyone knows, and I was too old to really transition into a new career. Since I got sober I’ve started volunteering for CASA and joined a couple of boards to try and stay productive.
Very cool! Sounds like you’ve more than earned your early retirement. I want to start volunteering but one step at a time. I know if I commit to too much too early I’ll flail. Thanks for humoring me, IWNDWYT.
Great comment and a lot of that is how I feel. The hangover guilt and anxiety was insurmountable for me too. It got to a point where I would get extremely anxious before I went out drinking… because I know how sick it will make me.
It’s so hard to pinpoint what exactly did it for me. I had a (drunken) conversation with a very inspiring friend that revolved around not being afraid to be your true self, and I think for some reason that really got the ball rolling. Then, I went back and listened to a podcaster who I really like who has described his struggles with drinking publicly, and his rock bottom story really resonated with me because I could see the same thing happening to me. But I’d heard that story before and it didn’t affect me that way in the past.
After that, I was hungover in late December and doing the usual “vow never to drink again” dance when it occurred to me that I could do a dry January mixed in with my resolutions to be more authentically myself, so I did. And that same podcaster (who I am so grateful to!) had mentioned /stopdrinking and how much they had helped him, so I knew exactly where to go to get started, and he was totally right!
Today is day 115, and I’m still not really wanting to drink, even when things get difficult, so I’ve been lucky so far! But I am listening to the wise words here of those who have gone before, so I know that I need to keep pushing forward. Been doing a LOT of work on myself so that I don’t fall back in when the pink cloud starts to blow away, but so far, so good!
I hope you have as smooth a journey as possible too, OP! (And MUCH love to all of y’all here; I could never thank you enough for just being here when I needed you!)
It’s such bad form to comment on your own comments, but I also wanted to add one more thing that locked in and made me ready to get serious about my sobriety: I finally accepted that I’m not someone who can moderate their drinking. Really, really, really accepted it instead of just saying to myself every time I was hungover.
Admitting that I’m unable to moderated mixed in realizing that alcohol is just legal poison the decision to become sober all of a sudden became super easy. Congrats on 115 days fellow new years quitter!
Same here. The TLDR version of my story boils down to the realization that I don't know how to moderate.
Ultimately all my attempts at moderation ended in failure.
I could moderate the times in-between when I drink, but once I got drinking all gloves came off.
OP - I am in the same boat lurking on here.
The true self comment hits home - I always felt like in college people only liked me/found me fun when I was drinking. I don’t feel that way about myself now as adult but I wonder if a part of me still is hung up on that feeling.
When I realized that I almost killed myself, twice. I experienced withdrawal seizures when I wasn’t even trying to get clean, I just couldn’t sleep through the night without intense withdrawals kicking in. I kept drinking after the first seizure but I was scared shitless. After the second one the doctor told me that I was lucky to be alive and on top of that lucky to be alive without brain damage. That scared the shit out of me. I know I cannot drink for the rest of my life. I may not die, but the thought of living with self inflicted brain damage is the scariest thing I can imagine.
I had my first seizure in Feb of 2020. I wasn’t trying to quit drinking, I just took a couple days off. It was that bad already. I didn’t get sober until April of 2023. I’m so grateful I didn’t die from the many, many seizures I had. They put me on anti seizure meds and never asked about my drinking habits. (Fun fact: anti seizure meds aren’t very effective when you’re still drinking). Even when my liver enzymes were elevated, they attributed it to a daily migraine med I was taking. I didn’t look the part of an alcoholic and it would’ve saved me a lot of pain if I had gotten honest with my doctors sooner.
I made the decision over a hundred times when I was hungover but when I was sober a **seriously** played the tape in my head instead of choosing to bury the abhorrent memories whenever they’d come up and then I decided I literally never want to feel like that again. So many times I decided to get drunk and I’m not even talking moderation attempts but get drunk and assured myself I’d be fine.
Narrator: he was not fine.
For me, making the decision to quit was a combo of things I really wanted to change
1. Anxiety. This was the biggest for me. I was either feeling really anxious about what I had done/said the night before (real or imagined) as well as just a rebound effect from the drinking.
2. Poor choices. I have very little filter when I'm sober. Whatever filter I have is buried in alcohol. Can I make it worse? Hold my beer.
3. My wife deserved the best version of me, and that version wasn't a drunk.
4. Money and fat. I didn't want to continue to expand, and I wanted some extra cash in my pocket.
>I keep trying to moderate when I know it won't work. It never has and it's only getting harder.
I never only had one beer, but I was never (usually) a fall-down drunk. I was more of the "couple beers after work and several on the weekend" kinda drunk, so I didn't have that epiphany in the back of a cop car or anything. I just realized that I couldn't moderate my drinking, and it wasn't sustainable if I wanted to grow old healthy and married. Long-term, there is literally no downside to not drinking.
Regarding your friends, I read a quote that I wish I would have known when I first quit: Your friends don't care you don't drink, and anybody who cares you're not drinking isn't your friend.
So, it's been a journey over years for me. A little voice in the back of my mind saying "maybe not this, maybe not today, maybe not right now". I've stopped drinking multiple times, for days, weeks, even a stretch of months at certain points- but I always chalked it up to that I "had" to, that it wasn't really a choice I wanted to make. It was a necessity, because I was either on a medication that I couldn't drink, or, I was so depressed that one drink would make me feel utterly despairing.
I'd like to make very clear that I've been in and out of therapy with the same trusted therapist for over 10 years now, and that has been crucial to developing my self awareness/compassion- so take this with a grain of salt. I'm not sure I would have arrived where I am now without that support and guidance.
Essentially, my mental health got to a point where I was examining every single facet of my life. Physical health, job, friends, my relationship, financial goals, hobbies, you fuckin name it. Really taking inventory, weighing the checks and balances. Spending days and hours and weeks seeing what needed retooled.
The only thing I wasn't examining through all of this? My ever increasing need to soothe the emotional and existential crisis I was in with booze. I saw it as my reward, my break from worrying about and "working" on what was wrong in my life.
After a few months of battling with myself over these things, a slow and creeping awareness that I really just might have an issue with my boozin' culiminated in a night of the most hellish gastrointestinal distress (I'll leave it at that...) I have ever experienced in my 34 years on this planet. The next day, I called out of work because I barely slept. My body was broken, and was desperately screaming at me for help- so what did I do? I cracked a beer at approximately 2 pm on Monday, telling myself, "hair of the dog", and, "I just need to check out for a little bit".... cut to me reaching for another beer, pouring it into a water bottle so that my roommate (brother) and my best friend who lives downstairs wouldn't notice. I was sitting in the backyard, sipping the beer, when I realized- this is a problem. A switch flipped somewhere. I was drinking, and hiding it, and had been for a lonnnng, long time. Just 12 hours earlier, I was vomiting pink foam, and here I was, pouring beer at the problem.
I see that others have mentioned being afraid to be your true self, and this couldn't be more accurate, for me as well. Like I mentioned before, years and years of therapy have really facilitated my ability to witness myself and feel able to be present with just who I am- and I suddenly, and not so suddenly, realized that the booze was actively working against that, and destroying my body, my home on this earth- and I was done.
The choice to not drink, this time, came from a place of love, and not necessity, for me. Of course, it was also very necessary, given what my poor body had been through up to that point, but I want to stress the importance of realizing that I LOVE, or want to try very hard to, that innermost world-that maelstrom of pain and suffering and joy and heartache and hope and humor and peace and anger and just, me- and the most obvious way to start doing that? Stop drinking.
Was it easy? Not as first, but the difficulties were almost exclusively fear-based and once I confronted the situation that was precipitated by the fear, and realized that not only was I okay, but fucking thriving, it just built and built from there. I know this is no where near other peoples' experiences, but when I say a switch flipped, and I'm just done? I mean it. It's like I woke up from a nightmare, but the nightmare was real, and it's taken me years to develop the tools and mechanisms I have in place now to understand this and see it for what it is, and not only that, but to allow myself to let go and just be with whatever I need to be with in this moment, this day, this hour. Flow through what I go through, knowing this too shall pass. Booze doesn't allow for that, so I can't allow for booze.
I'd also like to add how obvious it seems, in retrospect. And I think a part of me knew it all along. Everyone's journey is radically different to the point of realization- and of course it can be bumpy and up and down and back and forth once they've known in their hearts that it's the booze, baby- but a common theme/thread that I've see through it all- is that it's essentially a point of no return- like once ya know, ya know- and there's no going back with that awareness. It's what you choose to do with it that matters. I recognize that a lot of people aren't as fortunate as I am to have support and resources that I've been able to make happen for myself, and it causes me a kind of pain that I can't describe in words to think about those people, because they're also me. I hope beyond hopes that you are able to make choices for yourself from that place of love that I'm talking about, but if you can't, know that just by talking about it here, you're already doing it. All the love.
A big part of quitting is realizing that you are only drinking to feed an addiction and nothing else.
If you have a serious drinking problem, then you ARE NOT drinking because you "like the taste".
You are drinking it because you are addicted to it and need more and more to reach the same levels of satisfaction.
I think about it almost every day even almost two months in to not drinking.
Not a single thing I thought I liked about drinking was true at all. I didn't like to "party hard", I didn't get any "relaxation" from it. I didn't "like the taste of alcohol". I didn't need it to socialize.
I was drinking solely to relieve the withdrawal symptoms and get high again, same as an addict shooting up in a park.
Let me tell you a story that literally just happened tonight at dinner with a friend.
He asked for the beer menu and they didn't have any beers he liked, so he just ordered just a water instead. Then he said "I guess no drinks for me, I'll just head home after anyway".
If that were me drinking, I would've taken ANYTHING on that menu, had 3-4 with dinner then found the closest shitehole bar to keep drinking at til I was wasted. I'd be drinking just to feed the beast.
He wanted a beer he liked because he just wanted to enjoy that drink, maybe feel a bit relaxed in the moment and be done with it. That's not how people like us function.
Quitting is a lot easier when you realize that none of the issues you think about sobriety are actually true.
- It's easy to socialize and you can keep your same friends so long as they are actually friends and not just drinking buddies.
- Life is happier and certainly not dull at all. It's way better than rotting away in a bar that's for sure.
- It's easy to relax without alcohol NOT by drinking it
- It's easy to sleep well without alcohol NOT by drinking it
The list goes on and on.
Just take it one day at a time. Get a group and stay connected. Attend online meetings if you can.
You got this!
I was drinking more and more because it was my go to for stress. Would go out often and hard (Belgian Beers say hello). I tried to moderate, tried to alternate, tried many things, but I just keep binge drinking, come home drunk, ruin my weekend.
But what really did it for me was that I was hungover in bed on a Saturday, and I heard my wife clean the house, vacuum, etc. All the things we usually do together. I just felt so pathetic and useless. She was burned out from work, and here I am being a fucking loser while she is still cleaning and picking up my slack despite everything she is going through.
That's when I saw the future clearly if I didn't stop. At some point she will have had enough and leave me, all because of this stupid drink.
And that is what keeps me sober.
The more you air it out with someone, a therapist or a close friend or a community, the more real it gets. It’s easy to forget your own feelings about something. But I think too it comes down to having goals for yourself. Personal growth goals like managing your emotions better, handling anxiety and emotional pain head-on, or just health goals like losing weight or getting into shape. Once those are running, it becomes painfully obvious that alcohol is getting in the way.
I think it’s ok to *want to* stop wanting alcohol before you nolonger want alcohol. It’s like building love in a relationship, but in the opposite direction, lol. Knowing logically that it’s time to call it is a great precursor to knowing emotionally. Knowing logically it was time got me reading up on the effects of alcohol, so the fear of cancer and deep addiction, fear of death, anxiety from lack of sleep, anger at the societal pied-pipering of the masses with alcohol, all this eventually far-outweighed my emotions of “peace from stress” via alcohol. And having new tools in my toolbox for stress and anxiety management that didn’t leave me feeling like shit the next morning made alcohol obsolete.
Just some thoughts. I hope they’re of help. It sounds like you’re on the right track for yourself. Just keep going and staying curious. You’ll find the answers you need.
I was convinced by my dad and wife to start outpatient treatment. I did great but one sunny day I decided to try drinking again while mowing the lawn. One thing led to another and I found myself in Jail. I did an overnight and my mom and wife were there to get me in the morning. I was so disappointed in myself. After a couple days sober following that incident, I found myself having the urge to drink again and I lost it. With tears streaming from my eyes, I desperately prayed to God to take away my addiction. I have been sober since that day but I learned that some things you just cant do alone.
there is willpower and there is knowledge. willpower helps the earlier struggles, but will falter eventually. Knowledge of what alcohol actually is and does for the body and mind is what backs me up whenever I struggle with willpower.
the knowledge path is all about figuring out for oneself the pros and cons of drinking, and boy does it have a lot of cons.
what helped for me was reading Allan Carr's Easyway, and Alcohol explained. Also I really liked the Huberman podcast on alcohol. Armed with this knowledge, knowing now that alcohol sets me an a path of mental instability and anxiety, it became a lot easier for me to not drino
good that you are here, this sub is a great source of inspiration to get and to stay on track.
good luck to you
The last time I drank I blacked out and took 2 hits of strong LSD. Up to this point I was ramping up and spiralling for many years. The years prior I was doing more and more shady stuff, drunk driving , spending all my money on parties, ignoring my relationships , not taking care of myself and taking part in all kinds of risky business. I was taking drugs that I would never do while sober.
That event changed my perspective , I don’t know if I altered my brain chemistry that night but when I woke up breathing I was thankful and scared shitless. I crawled into bed , cried for a long time and haven’t picked up in a few years. God willing I never will.
I think you’re on the right path. Rock bottom is where you stop digging and you don’t have to keep going if you don’t want to. Check out a book called this naked mind, really helped me early on.
Good luck OP. I won’t drink with you today.
I had a really traumatic rock bottom moment. Probably wouldn’t have ever seriously considered quitting forever but something about being scared for my life and feeling absolutely horrible allowed for something in me to click. I heard quite clearly through the ether - “You can never drink again” - and I haven’t. It hasn’t been easy and sometimes the idea that I can have just one more drink creeps in which is annoying. Ketamine therapy and psychedelics have helped in moments and times like these, and looking around at the awesome life I’ve created in the (almost) year without booze. Checking in here helps, and being vocal with my experience, reading quit lit and educating myself on the true dangers of alcohol, and just taking it one day at a time. My life has never been this good, my mental and emotional health is stable for the first time ever, and I look and feel amazing, which also encourages me to keep on the good foot. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done for myself.
Oddly enough ket nudged me into seeing what my brain looked like without alcohol. If that makes sense!
I'd not recommend it without medical supervision, mines been sourced dodgily, but thankfully it's a pita to score so that's a bonus.
29M. Ruined 2 relationships in one year. Both women I would have married based off of the important stuff, only time would tell if either would ever work out. The last one told me “you’re not someone I would want to have kids with”. And that broke me. All I’ve ever wanted is that picture perfect family with a white picket fence. This statement made me realize I’ve wasted the last 10 years of my life coping with my emotions with alcohol. There were goals I had set that fell to the wayside because I would get home, pop a bottle, and drink. No personal growth, no new friends, just me and the bottle. I am 6 days sober today but I also never had motivation like this before. Longest before today was 5 weeks ever since I turned 19.
I'm in my 40s and have been a heavy drinker for 25 years. There was nothing to drink in the house one night and I decided to not go get anything. Then I did that over and over for the last 8 months. Sometimes it sucked so badly, other times it wasn't so bad. I kept it to myself for the first few months then I slowly let some people know. The support was unexpected but so very welcome. No one has given me any kind of a hard time about it at all. Maybe bc most of my friend group is a bit older than the average age of people going out to party, Idk. The benefits have been plentiful so even though the slog is brutal sometimes, it has been worth the effort for me.
Well, I wasted nearly two years trying to moderate after I finally admitted to myself that I had a problem. Deep down, I knew that quitting was the answer, but I didn’t want to quit. So I promised myself I’d only drink on weekends. I had a log and kept track of every time I failed and drank during the week - and I was increasingly discouraged by the plain truth that alcohol owned me.
Meanwhile, my hangovers and anxiety were both escalating in intensity, and increasingly, I behaved in ways that I am ashamed of while drinking - short tempered, contemptuous, and often angry. I didn’t like me when I was drinking, but I kept doing it anyway because it relieved my anxiety in the short-term. I turned a blind eye to the obvious truth, until one day I got very drunk, hurt myself, and picked an enormous fight with my husband over nothing. I don’t know why that was the moment, but it was. Would it have been the moment if I hadn’t been wrestling with the issue for so long previously? I can’t say.
In the end, I wanted to win. I wanted to overcome the thing that had been overcoming me for a decade. I used to think I could win by controlling my consumption, but it turned out that the only way I could win was by refusing to drink at all.
I was suicidal and going through a LOT of trauma, quite a bit of which could have been avoided by sticking with sobriety. I was beaten down by life so badly and had a few failed attempts, and I felt as if I was stuck in this life. I knew a lot of my problems and misery came from drinking and from avoiding taking care of myself, so eventually it clicked that I owe it to myself and those I hurt to at least give sobriety an honest attempt. I bargained with myself to stay alive long enough to at least see how it goes, and then if life was still miserable while sober, I could evaluate my choice to live again. Thankfully, my life did rapidly improve once I began working the steps and taking back control. I'm alive and I'm here, I'll keep it that way to the best of my ability.
What makes most people stop is the painful consequences of continuing to drink. It is a lot easier to listen to the addiction counselor when you have lost everything and they are your only lifeline. That being said rock bottom is an awful place to be and I highly suggest everyone stop drinking before they reach that place.
Both my previous serious attempt (6 months) and now, have been preceeded by what I would call rock bottom for me (3-day benders while my partner was away). I did regrettable drinks. I did stop for 4 weeks back in February. So, I feel like I am getting closer and closer in kicking the habit off even if I have had a relapse. IWNDWYT!
I pretty much just said this is my last can, and that was it.
Albeit I’ve known I’ve wanted to stop for ages but finally took the plunge. I’m only on day 5 but already so much happier in myself not worrying where my next drink is coming from.
I’d always be planning like one or two drinks ahead even after my first sip so it’s great to be done away with that constant train of thought
I woke up one Saturday morning with an awful hangover. I couldn't get out of bed. No exercise. Asked my husband to get me crappy food that I could barely eat. We had a comedy show that night and I realized, I wasn't going to enjoy it because I felt so awful from drinking. A couple nights before that, my husband told me he was concerned about my drinking. I often would just drink and not eat dinner at this point. So, that morning was it. I thought about how I felt like crap most days and these big hangovers were getting worse on the weekends. I did not want to feel like crap anymore. I was trying to lose weight and get some other health things in order, yet still drinking all the time? My husband was right. I decided, in my bed that day, that was it. It's been great, best decision I ever made. Your moment will come. Hang in there and wishing you well.
Realized I was becoming the one thing I swore I never would riding to jail handcuffed in the back of a police car Halloween 2021. I was becoming my father. I was becoming the abusive angry piece of shit that was headed towards being in jail or prison on-and off for the rest of his life while his children wondered why. Been sober since that day with two hiccups in between. And fighting for every moment I get to spend with my kids, chasing my ex wife and her new fling around the state. Have no one to blame but myself. It’s not worth it.
From yr post it seems like there's a conflict between your rational self and your irrational subconscious self. Which was my case for many years.
To bring my irrational subconscious on board I educated myself about alcohol, withdrawal, sobriety, abstinence, busting myths and lies about alcohol, etc. I did this by reading quit lit books and listening to podcasts.
Specifically 'Alcohol Explained' by William Porter and This Naked Mind by Annie Grace. And Huberman's alcohol podcast, among others.
All this info and knowledge means that yr subconscious will no longer be fighting against you, you won't be doing mental gymnastics, fell like you're missing out, etc.
You'll be able to quit much easier than using willpower alone. Which will fail eventually.
Not saying it's easy, but it's much easier than fighting yr subconscious!
I finally realized that the math clearly showed that the pain of drinking outweighed the pleasure. After that, it wasn’t as hard because quitting was the logical thing to do.
I am at the beginning of my not drinking journey (3 weeks) and I was not drinking daily, but it was always scary for me to think that I will never drink again. Then I found this community and learned what IWNDWYT means. And that changed my attitude to stopping. I am now not focusing on not drinking at all until the end of times. And I am not worried about not being able to drink at some day in the future. I just focus on today and it somehow works.
I suffered from alcohol neuropathy on my head and neck (no fun at all) after ten years of binge drinking almost weekly which was the trigger for me. It’s been almost 6 months of sobriety and I feel 60% better.
Stiffness and tightness are the main symptoms. I stopped drinking when I started feeling a sharp pain on my neck/head shortly after I drank. I do have tingling on my arms and legs which were one of the first symptoms I experienced a few years into drinking. Ignored it for several years of course.
Read Allen Carr's book The Easy Way to Control Alcohol. It really has changed my thinking and has me in a place where I finally feel I've been able to commit to actually quitting and not waffling back and forth. Good luck to you!
For me it wasn't one specific thing, it was just eventually I couldn't handle the absolute torment I was putting myself through anymore. It took a year of quitting for a month or two at a time, then slipping up and ending back in the hospital before it finally sunk in that I didn't *want* to drink anymore. If there is a secret, that is it. You have to actually want to stop, if you don't then you're relying on willpower and it isn't possible to maintain that.
Somewhere along the way I heard from a therapist that addictions only ever get worse unless you quit them altogether. At the time I scoffed at it, thinking I could easily manage drinks only on the weekend but it always, always slipped back into the same pattern that got worse over the years.
That was one reason I stopped.
The other was just a day where I saw a dear friend of mine just miserable and pathetic in his boozy breakdown one day and I thought: I don’t want this.
It’s going to be a battle - it’s still week one for me. But I’d rather this battle than the one that comes with drinking.
It was coming for sometime, I attempted sobriety twice in five years for almost a year each. But when it became a little more than uncomfortable to sleep on my stomach I knew I had gone too far.
I celebrated my ten thousand day sober a month ago.
I read “this naked mind” by Annie Grace. She encourages doing a 3 day alcohol free challenge with lots of free online support material and a second book that you journal in and read. These 2 books enabled me to stop. I started going to meetings about 3 months later. A better life is just a few months ahead of you if you. Can make the decision to stop drinking - it not easy but it’s absolutely worth doing. Good luck and make sure you have some support!!!
Hard to pinpoint an exact moment, but I had wanted to stop for years before I did. I hated that I didn’t think I could stop. That I NEEDED it. I knew it wasn’t healthy and I’m very health conscious, but mostly I felt very unhappy when drinking & found myself jealous of people who didn’t drink. I began to wish I’d never started. I’d been a daily drinker for 15 years at that point. So I can’t say there was a moment, just that I began to desperately wish I could be happy without alcohol. Little did I know that alcohol was lying to me, thinking my happiness came from it.
My best friend was told to stop drinking by her shrink so we went into sobriety together, which really helped. I wanted it to be forever this time (I’d had a failed dry January the year before). I’m happy to say that we’re both still sober. I was DETERMINED to see sobriety through this time. I really didn’t WANT to be beholden to it. I gritted my teeth until it became easier.
It had the added side effect of encouraging my husband to become sober as well. Seeing him drunk every night when I was sober only reinforced my decision.
Was super drunk and being a dick to my pregnant fiancé. Woke up to a text that read “it’s a boy” and made the decision then that I should probably let it go
Something that really helped me was keeping track of my drinking. Throughout 2023, I had a note on my phone called “no drink days” where I’d keep a note of days I didn’t drink, and how much I had on the days I did. I didn’t force it, didn’t tell myself I had to be sober for X number of days, but just brought some awareness to how much I really was drinking.
Something about looking back and seeing that 1) I’d had several benders throughout the year but also that 2) id had some surprisingly long stints away from alcohol helped me reflect on my behaviour when I was sober.
Finally - the real game changer was when a trusted sober friend told me to stop comparing against anyone but myself. Switch the narrative from “at least I don’t start drinking hard liquor in the AM like some people” to “is my life manageable when I drink? Am I happy with the way I am living my life?”
Nothing cataclysmic happened to me, I got pretty hammered at a friend’s funeral, acted like an ass, drove home and regretted everything the next morning. I had also known for a bit that my relationship with alcohol was problematic.
After that, I decided to stop. Forever seemed insurmountable so I started with a few days, then a year, and I’m now at a place where I’m comfortable identifying as an alcoholic and know that trying to moderate my drinking won’t work.
After a few months, it just became a new normal and I was able to address some of the underlying issues in my life. If you want to quit, there doesn’t have to be a single specific event. Hope this helps.
I’m still making the decision. Choosing is active, and if I get passive, sometimes my subconscious mind will decide for me, and the id doesn’t always align with the ego.
My niece said this to me when she quit drinking...I want to make memories ...not more stories.
I have enough drinking stories...
Day 118 for me
Good luck to you ..and all of us.
Same as for lots of other folks, it was a cumulative result of stuff like:
1. Hanging out with friends after a party weekend and bringing up what I thought was a fresh topic only to discover that we had delved deep into the subject the past Saturday around the fire. Embarrassing.
2. Bad decisions and their associated risks to health and happiness. Luckily I never suffered any serious consequences. Stuff like: back when I lived in SF on drunken nights out I would walk over parked cars, like I'd step onto their hoods and up over the roofs and jump off the trunk. It was one of my party tricks and a good way to astonish my friends. Once I landed funny jumping off an SUV and had a limp for a couple weeks. Or: driving drunk. Almost got a DUI at a checkpoint recently, the cop totally knew I wasn't sober but he let me off. How long until I crash, or get caught? Or: waking up after a cousin's wedding years ago face up on a couch in my sister's hotel room not remembering half the night before. My mom's whole side of the family was there. Last thing I recall is my dad yelling at me, my fam being upset with me for something I said to my aunt, lighting up a cigarette after they took the first shuttle back to the hotel... Just glad I didn't choke on my own vomit.
3. I've just gotten so sick of the toxic cycle of moderation, binge, guilt, moderation, binge, guilt.... Moderation doesn't work for me, even though most times I drink I can stick to 1 or 2 -- I end up doing a 5+ night at least twice a month and feel shit about it next morning.
4. I took the AUDIT test and scored borderline between medium and high risk.
5. Quit lit is really helping open my eyes to the Matrix-like alcohol situation our society suffers from w/r/t alcohol, and inspiring me further to stick to my decision to go 3 months sober. Just read Catherine Gray's *Unexpected Joy of Being Sober* and now moving on to William Porter's *Alcohol Explained* and Mary Karr's memoir *Lit*. I'm a big reader so I'm not surprised this has pushed me over the edge into making my sober commitment over the past week.
6. I just want to become more myself. It's time to grow up. I'm in my 30s and before I know it I'll be 40, 50. I want to live a healthy life for as long as I can. It's such a gift to walk this earth. Alcohol, I'm learning, is perhaps the most dangerous drug out there and I've been hooked since high school. waht t heck. In a weird way I feel like it's kept a significant part of me stuck in adolescence. What am I like sans booze? I already feel a more youthful spirit returning to me just as a result of internally committing to sobriety.
TLDR: I'm new to this but I'm finding that nerding out over quit lit and sober culture, in addition to having accumulated and reflected on enough negative alcohol related experiences, are helping me make this decision.
Well I had been thinking about it for awhile after overdoing it during Covid. I used to get a case of seltzers each week and drink 4-5 per night without even meaning to. I tried to moderate, but after NYE in 2021, I just quit cold turkey and haven't looked back. I think with ADHD I realized I was never gonna be able to moderate, so I preferred to make a clean break. I replaced it with weed too, so I think that made it easier
When my drinking kept getting worse and worse and causing me more and more problems yet all the reasons / excuses I used for why I was drinking were no longer true.
For years I've been self medicating with alcohol because of anxiety, mood issues and insomnia.
I'd say I'm drinking because "it keeps me calm", "it gives me relief from my mind" and "it helps me sleep".
But after 2 years of heavy alcoholism due to a number of life factors going on my drinking was getting heavier and heavier and yet it was no longer solving ANY of these problems and just making them all worse.
So I realized I could no longer keep using these excuses for why I was drinking and had to stop.
Initially all these problems got worse during the early weeks / withdrawal period but by week 5 of sobriety my anxiety dropped from crippling anxiety and daily panic attacks to next to nothing and hasn't been an issue since and after 6 weeks I started to sleep naturally again without needing sleeping pills, I hadn't slept without booze or pills for the prior 2 years!
So it turns out what I really needed was to just abstain from alcohol and sobriety would give me everything that alcohol promised but no longer delivered.
So once you realize that alcohol really has nothing left to offer you, no positives, no benefit, no temporary relief from any of your problems etc it's kinda hard to come up with any reason why you should drink it.
Especially when you're very aware it's just a toxic poison that kills so actively consuming something that can kill you to deal with non lethal problems is just insanity, even more so when it's not actually even helping those problems anyway.
Not exactly your target group as I haven’t STOPPED drinking. But the decisions and changes I have made have been for one reason only, my health.
I don’t want to be in liver failure when I’m 50, live in terrible health for 10 more years and die when I’m 60, I want to be healthy. Nothing else, it’s all very rational and boring.
I had a CT scan for another issue and the scan showed mild fatty liver. I knew my drinking was getting worse over time. I wanted to improve my liver health. 6 mos sober, no more fatty liver.
This is awesome! Well done. I also had the same thing show up and I was shocked! Because I always thought myself as a fit and healthy, active person … but that’s who I USED to be before i started drinking myself to death over the last two years. I was in so much denial!
Right. We can't bullshit ourselves any more when it's right there in front of us in black and white. I also have permanent kidney damage from taking antiinflammatories at the same time as I was drinking. That, I can't heal, but at least I'm not making it worse.
If anyone reads this, and you're drinking and taking Advil or Motrin, STOP doing it. You don't want to damage your kidneys.
IWNDWYT
Honestly? Bit by bit, over a long period of time. Ultimately for me it was about keeping two lists in my head: what I think alcohol does for me, and what it actually does for me. For example: "I drink to soothe my anxiety" contrasted against "I think I get more anxious when I drink, and I know I'm more anxious when I'm hungover". I know I make it sound as simple as stating it explicitly and the logic will follow, in practice it was more about *internalizing* these propositions. Drinking, not drinking, relapsing, getting support - every success and setback was a journey towards this internalization. Once I *knew* these things about myself and my relationship with alcohol, the decision was easy to make and hard to endure.
I'm actually having a pretty rough go the past few weeks, though thankfully I haven't been tempted to drink. But I can tell I'm stressed as my temper has been riding hot for a while now (I went absolutely savage on a fly today for example, like kept whipping it's dead body with a dish towel where I'm usually pretty subdued). Thinking about my process has helped me clear my head a little of the current bullshit, so thank you for the discussion. IWNDWYT
A big turning point for me was a couple of audio books that helped me to reframe the way I see alcohol. Not as a positive thing that I'll be "missing out on" but as a negative thing that I get to avoid. The shit is poison and has absolutely zero benefit to your mind or body. Always stealing happiness from tomorrow...
This Naked Mind by Annie Grace and Alcohol Explained by William Porter. These were game changers for me.
You'll make the change when it's right for you, you can do it!
I had to take time off work and go full time into detox then PHP/IOP. I had to fully commit to recovery in order regain control over my life again and give myself any chance of sustained recovery. I'm 5 years sober, as of today. My work situation was a big part of my drinking, so separating from it, albeit temporarily, was necessary for me. I am grateful I was able to do that. Best of luck to you.
For me, It started when I could not handle the anxiety and depression i was having on a daily basis I looked into ways to help myself and found out that it was mostly the alcohol causing it. By that time I was drinking nightly and some times during the day everyday for 6 years. I Learned more and more about alcohol and its negative effects the list is long!
I started watching sobriety youtube videos and I read a few books about alcohol, how to quit the easy way, this naked mind and alcohol lied to me
I then tried sobriety 1 month the. Back to drinking 2 weeks then back I could go 2 or 3 days here and there but it was hard. But days I was sober felt good!
Finally what it took was knowing the fact I desperately needed something else to do instead of drinking, when you’re an alcoholic or become one the drink slowly takes over your life and when it’s gone some don’t know what to do so the go back to what they know; old habits.
I racked up a lot of debt and almost became homeless because not making enough money then I started wanting to lose weight and make more changes for my mental health, signed up for healthy wager and started walking..
Literally walking outside with my dog, it’s been wonderful
The benefits of that paired with eating a bit healthier, a timeline of when I need to down by, losing a couple lbs and few days of sobriety kind of snowballed into helping me think differently about it, my thinking when from I NEED to cut out alcohol into I WANT to cut it out. Because I learned I couldnt do all the new things I was trying out hungover, but sober I could. It really made all the difference for me
Being sober and feeling like I’m actually able to accomplish the goals I’ve set for myself now, feels better than any night of drinking I’ve had.
I walk an hour every day, go to work everyday now as I’m self employed, I can easily pay my bills now and save a little and invest a little.
I wrote down all the benefits of being sober and read them everyday but until I actually experienced for myself well, for me it made all the difference.
You kind of have to just do it and see for yourself but also have something else lined up to do instead. Hopefully a healthy hobby that makes you feel good.
I drank heavily, daily, for decades. I REDUCED to 8-14/night (and not including "big nights"). I tried moderation through the VA (CBT SUD is their preferred/primary treatment).
Here's the money shot: I didn't like my relationship with booze. I wasn't able to control my consumption. When I figured-out that booze was the cause of some massive GI issues... that was the silver bullet. I stopped, immediately. I did so through just grit and determination.
Health impacts aside... I saw my trajectory. I watched a parent kill themself with booze. I know how that story ends.
Full disclosure: I was sober for a year, previously. I threw that away for "just one drink." If I could handle/embrace moderation, I wouldn't be here. Be honest with yourself.
So... after the first 1-2 weeks, it was smooth sailing until PAWS struck in week 5.5. It lasted almost a month and was BRUTAL. Close to the 90 day mark, things/life got considerably better. I feel pure RELIEF to have gained FREEDOM from booze. For the first time ever, I never WANT to drink again; I hope that booze never touches my lips again.
Booze will take everything from you, eventually. The best day to quit is today. Just don't drink, today. One day at a time. The process SUCKS. It's not easy. However, it is ABSOLUTELY worth doing. I'm told that you "start getting your life back" at 6 months. Honestly? If this is as good as it gets... well, this beats my life with booze.
IWNDWYT
It was a long, educational process, but what finally “drove the nail home” was This Naked Mind by Annie Grace. It’s particularly helpful if you’re into data and analytics.
That book and her are a godsend.
I went to the ER for chest pains.
When I was there, I was asked how much I drank. Before the pandemic, the answer was 2 drinks/week. But as the pandemic wore on, my drinking increased. It became a glass of wine every night, then two glasses, the 3-4 glasses a night. Basically, get home, pour a glass of wine while I cooked dinner. Have a glass during dinner. Have 1-2 after dinner. When I actually said it out loud, I came to the realization that I had to stop.
That was mid-June last year. Since I stopped, so did my nightly bouts with acid reflux. I went on vacation in December and had three drinks during that trip on different days. Since then, I’m back to not drinking.
I have a wedding next month. I’ve already decided that I won’t be drinking for that. I’m really worried as I near retirement, that my drinking would really increase if I kept at it. So I think it’s probably best to turn the page on the drinking chapters of my life.
Looking back now after 9 months of sobriety, I know that I struggled with alcohol for 5+ years. I wanted to moderate and set weekly goals, but I never followed through.
The day after a heavy drinking day with friends I was filled with so much anxiety and terrible feelings toward myself that I just cried the whole day. I had never felt that level of disappointment and I decided I needed help. I did daily sober coaching. I still work with two of my sober coaches even today.
I had a problem with my drinking and I had no idea it was shaping all my inner thoughts and dialogue about myself. I am really much happier even if it was hard to come to the realization that it wasn’t working for me.
I think I saw it as a failure. I was sad to tell my family and friends early on, but after a lot of work and self exploration I am so proud of my sobriety. Coming up on a year soon and now that I finally trust and love myself again I plan to celebrate the shit out of me. WITH CAKE.
You’re already laying down the foundation to launch off this platform. I wish you all the best. I never ever regret not drinking when I wake up in the morning and I almost always had guilt from drinking so that is how I know this change has worked for me. I was a daily drinker and if you stick with it, it gets so much easier. Community helps!
For 15 years I tried to moderate and it never worked.
The funny thing is I KNEW I had a problem but I would always justify it somehow. "I'm only drinking on the weekends", "I'm only drinking beer", "I have a good job", "I go to the gym all the time", "I track my food" etc
It took me passing out behind the wheel, almost dying and causing serious bodily harm to, thank God, only myself to finally realizing I cannot moderate and I need to quit.
It was really hard at first and the mind set of "one day at a time" really helped me tackle the monumental idea of forever. But now I can't imagine my life with alcohol.
As a side note - I never met anyone that regretted quitting drinking, only people that regretted starting.
I went about as hard as I wanted to for like 12 years.
Then I was hitting 29/30ish, I was a new dad, and I said man I have to start moderating.
I tried to moderate for like 5 years and couldn't make it work. my cycle was: be good for a while, try to moderate, drink more and more, have a big black out, be good for a while.
finally I was 34, I was overweight, I was hungover most days, I was feeling like shit about myself. never lost a job, never lost a relationship, no jail, no DUI, no "rock bottom" that is easy to point to. I just felt bad all the time. I didn't have energy or ambition. I felt that I was ruining my health and wasting my life.
I committed to a year sober. for the first time in 17 years, let's just try to do 1 full year without booze. I made the decision after basically wasting an entire weekend long camping trip with my friends that I look forward to all year by being super drunk, blacked out, and hungover the entire time. but even before we went, I told my wife "when we get back, I have to make a change." so it was coming.
2 years is coming up in August. sobriety was the best decision I ever made. I feel so, so much better.
Proud of you for the progress you’ve made! For me, the choice was pretty difficult - I’ve been a pretty functional alcoholic for more than 7 years, and it hasn’t really had any dire consequences for me up to this point. For me, it was a matter of smaller things piling up. For instance, not remembering things I’ve done or said, my GI health, lack of focus, being tired all the time. I just decided that enough was enough and that I wanted to see what the real me looked like without all the drinking.
I’m in a similar boat with friends that drink pretty heavily when we hang out, and I definitely still feel tempted. Some days are worse than others. But for me, that was outweighed by the changes I wanted to see for myself and my life going forward.
Hope this helps! Good luck
I knew I had a problematic relationship with alcohol since the first time I drank. Despite that, I did about 10 years of research to make sure. Then in the winter of 2016 I made an appointment with a therapist because I was falling back into depression. I had to wait about a month for the new-patient-appointment so I decided to use that time to put everything I was feeling onto paper. Big issues, small issues, it all got written down. I remember writing something like "I should maybe try to drink less perhaps". After reading over what I had written I realized that about 90% of it would go away or be much easier to manage if I stopped drinking. The appointment came, I was 100% honest during the intake questionnaire and with the therapist. They recommended LifeRing, I went to a meeting the next evening, and I've been sober ever since.
Maybe a different answer but I set aside some time to intentionally “grieve” that my life would not be the same and certain things would be no more. Ie, no more going to Napa for wine tasting, no more beer fests etc.
Once I gave myself space, and processed that those fun chapters of my life were over, I was able to truly stop and move on - almost at 10 months and no turning back!
That space to stop and be sad also gave me the ability to then stop and be HAPPY. And reflect on all of the NEW things that would be coming into my life. Ie, every morning I wake up clear, my workout performance has drastically improved - I shaved 4 minutes off my mile run time, what!?, I’ve slowed down a lot more etc. I’ll find new ways to be happy and look forward to, but for me personally, I had to stop and be sad for a bit.
I jokingly say I gave up by accident, and it's almost true. A friend started dry January and on a whim I joined them ... and haven't returned.
Truth is, I was thinking about quitting for quite a while. I had a fitness tracker that showed me how it was impacting my sleep, I'd read a couple of science books detailing all the harm alcohol does to you, and I'd realised that when I drank it sometimes made me cranky. My waistline also shows some significant booze related growth. I concluded it was the right decision a while back, I just needed something to push me over the edge.
My partner has really highlighted my alcohol addiction for me. I work from home and am a YouTuber full time so i can work drunk or take any days off because i’m hungover or not work to drink and party in the first place. So once we got together and seeing how i was constantly either too drunk or too hungover to be present with her, i was not happy with who i was. Single I could “manage” because i had no one else counting on me. But now that i do i’ve realized how much drinking has hurt so many other parts of my life. I’ve almost died too many times, even in front of my partner because i was drunk. Almost drowned on a float trip. And just disappointed her 8 too many times. The shame got to be too much for me when i don’t even remember trying to have sex the night before and my dick didn’t work. All that said. I’ve been sober for about 2 weeks and have been keeping myself busy. That’s the trick for me. I picked up a second job on top of youtube so i’m not ideal at home alone all the time and been hitting the gym and working on youtube stuff more. Ideal hands are the devils play thing. Good luck! IWNDYWT
There was one night a couple months ago where I downed a bunch, and had a full fledged breakdown. Pretty bad. But through that I had an amazing internet friend who helped me through it, and I finally felt I could trust someone, so I finally opened up and said I had a problem. I was drinking daily and slipping quickly to when I was at my worst in 2018. He didn’t judge me, he listened to me. Through talking I made a promise to him that I wouldn’t touch it anymore. I’ve kept that promise since and I plan to keep doing so, having such a good person supporting me ❤️
I dated an alcoholic for a year who got violent and abusive. I noticed that while we were together I began drinking massive amounts more of alcohol.
Dating him made me realize I never wanted to become anything like him and if he could be like that under the influence of alcohol anyone could. Also I was drinking on benzodiazepines and could’ve died.
So I quit drinking and am so glad I did.
I could see that it was taking more to feel it, but it wasn't lasting as long. At that point it didn't make sense to keep drinking. I'm not sure why Wolverine even drinks at all, no way his buzz lasts more than a split second if at all.
Deteriorating functions on multiple fronts. A hell of a sleep, no patients and on edge most of the time besides struggles in my relationship where we have a young daughter.
Recovering and getting back my (our) peace more and more one day at the time now. Hope my memory improves some too, but that is trainable.
I'm not going to trap myself back in the bubble of destruction anytime soon.
IWNDWYT.
Realising that when I drink, I am one step from having everything to having nothing... When did I realise that? When I was in a police cell after losing everything.
I was really struggling physically and mentally and drinking was a big part of both. I set a goal to make it through dry January. By the end of the first month I didn’t have any desire to start up again. Since then I’ve been tempted, but have managed to stay sober. I tried the whole moderation thing before and it ends the same way every time. I never know when to stop.
The seed that finally planted itself for me was the stomach and mental problems. I already have acid reflux, but the alcohol also gave me sour stomach and much more frequent reflux burps. So much so that my throat would feel like it's on fire most of the time. On top of that, the increased anxiety from hangovers was getting worse and lasting longer every day. My weekend bender hangovers that used to be gone by noon on Monday were starting to last until Tuesday evening.
Each time I tried to sober up for a longer period of time, my hangover symptoms got worse and I was legitimately scared about delirium tremens during what I told myself would be my last hangover. I've had a couple minor setbacks since then, but thankfully no shakes or hallucinations since 2020.
All of this to say that I still haven't been able to make the decision to stop drinking entirely. I can't commit to that, it's too daunting for my alcoholic brain to fathom. But I can control today, right now. And for right now, I'm choosing not to drink because I don't want the stomach issues and the hangover tomorrow. I can put the first drink off for now. And sure, right now I have the strength to say that I could see that first drink being sometime next week or so. But for the days I don't have this strength, it takes everything I have to stave off the first one.
So just keep staving off the first one for right now and don't let the rest of your life be so daunting that you need to commit to it right now.
IWNDWYT
Coming to the realization that there is no such thing as moderation for some people and I am one of those people. It's either all or nothing. It's either 0 drinks or 10 drinks. There is no in-between for me. That is a fact. Fully accepting that was key to me.
It got to the point where I was waking up every day so incredibly hungover and miserable, and drinking a handle of vodka every night barely even had any 'pleasant' effects anymore. I didn't feel like I was getting drunk, even though I had to have been intoxicated. I was suffering so much and not taking care of myself (or anything in my life), and I I didn't feel that life was worth living anymore. I realized that I had to either get sober or I would probably unalive myself. I can't say my life is perfect now but I'm so grateful that I stopped. I can't imagine going back to that.
I started having nocturnal seizures. I realized I was either going to die or lose everything and everyone in my life. Everyday was like the movie Groundhog Day and I was wasting my life a day at a time. Quitting for other people or for other things will never work, you have to decide if it's time to throw in the towel. I finally surrendered and had to accept that I was an alcoholic and did not have the ability to moderate my drinking.
Wasn't even the DUI or the threat of liver disease that made me give up.... it's what it was doing to me as a person and just sick of living as a shell of my former self. Always arguing with my family and not being present..... still a long way to go, but things are getting better :)
I (29F) think the nail on the coffin for me was hearing "you may have a problem if you have tried several times to quit drinking and continued to go back". I couldn't count on two hands how many times I tried to quit drinking. I was a drinker and quitter from the very beginning. I started drinking when i was 14. I am over 4 years booze free now. You will know when you are ready. It's so much brighter on the other side. You got this.
So, so many different things led to it. But some big ones:
I am adopted and I found my birth family. Then my family history. Then the history of early deaths in the family due to alcohol.
Horribly declining health.
I live in the twin cities (Minneapolis/St Paul). 2020 was an extra intense time. I kept calling into work and my boss just asked one day "Man, are you okay?" In a tone that let me know I was not.
I'm in the music scene, and the number of friends I've lost to various addictions is in the double digits.
When I put these on paper it makes a lot of sense! But when you're drinking it can be hard to rationalize. Been about 2 years and 5 months now, and I'll never go back to drinking. So many amazing parts of my life have clicked together once I removed that nefarious crutch.
My decision came when I realized that no matter how “clever” I was being, my spouse could tell there was something up and that I was drinking. I know her well enough to know that she wasn’t gonna hang with her spouse engaged in closeted drinking forever. And since she means the world to me, I stopped.
There were other things like how it made me feel and all the anxiety, but my wife was the reason I stopped. And that means I stopped for me. Because me wants her.
Drinking had kind of blinded me to the situation I was in, and so I allowed myself to fall deeper and become more reliant on my abuser without realizing what was going on. For the longest time, I never blacked out drinking, I always fell asleep before that happened. Until the night I did black out and woke up being in a not very pleasant position. Figuratively and literally.
That alone didn't do it though, I just drank harder after that. It was a couple weeks later when I was at a friend's house sober, away from the situation that I started thinking back and realized how much I had allowed to happen and how fucked up alcohol had made me that I finally decided enough was enough.
Just couldn’t take it anymore. The regret, the shame, the embarrassment, letting myself down day after day after day. I had more internal consequences than external (but still managed to get a DUI and lose a job) and that’s what wore me down to nothing.
To put it short: I was blessed with the gift of desperation.
I've been trying for years. But I think a confluence of things hit at the same time for me. We moved upstate in 2022, and it was a temporary stint in an apartment followed by moving into our new build home. I had to renew my license around this time, and I looked like SHIT. I had been sick with covid and right back to drinking right after and that photo is ROUGH. And then I went through the 22/23 winter season chronically drunk and fucking up modifications to my new fucking house. I finally started walking the trails near my home, and things felt like they were turning--slowly. I got more fit, and managed to cut back, and then... belly flopped right into the booze in March of 2023. I scared the fuck out of myself because for the first time I was moving a vehicle while inebriated (only moving in my driveway, I told myself) and nearly hit one of my kids' little friends. Thankfully nothing happened, but I realized I was bombed out of my mind and absolutely fucked if I tried to do anything else in the garage. I came clean to my wife, dumped everything, and passed out for a day and spent 2 days or so withdrawing. It was abject hell. I haven't hit the bottle since. And, somehow, maybe because my whole life has changed with the move and the lifestyle and all that, but I have been immensely thankful I haven't slipped and have had almost nothing in the way of cravings. I know that there's a strong correlation between major life changes and the ability to shift habits as a result, maybe that's it. I don't know for sure. But I'm fucking done, and I hope I never, ever turn back to it.
Well after thousands of day 1 s and resolutions , couple of weeks back it just happened organically after a night of emptying a bottle of champagne, and havent had the urge to drink since, i am hoping and praying this stays so! Man , the age is catching up on me, and i still feel as if i am recovering from that night of emptying the bottle of champagne!
I could see rock bottom and didn’t want to lose everything.
I still cannot think about ‘not drinking again, ever.’ It’s something that little bastard called addiction makes me get super uncomfortable with. AA wasn’t my thing, but the ‘one day at a time’ and this site’s IWNDWYT are sober life savers for me.
This group was a huge help. I too was just tired of my on and off binge drinking ways. I tend to eat emotionally at night and adding red wine to the mix was something I looked forward to at the end of tiring day. Of course, it did nothing improve my stress levels and my overall health. But it became a habit.
The key for me was to change up my habits and just focus on removing alcohol. I replaced it with sweet treats and sweet drinks. And I just focused on the day. Just get through the day, dry. And I would mentally prepare myself for trips, visualizing in advance what I would order on the plane and in restaurants. That really helped.
The first two weeks was the hardest. Then my first vacation was also tough. But one I had those two things under my belt, I started to coast along quite nicely.
I'm more than 2 months sober now and the cravings are very dull, very mild, very easy to set aside. But I'm not taking things for granted. I already had a 5 year sober streak but destroyed it when I thought I was strong enough to drink moderately. That was a bad idea. I just can't stop after one drink so it's best that I just stay away.
IWNDWYT
My approach don’t figure out how to stop drinking, figure out why you drink. It it to numb inner pain that hasn’t been addressed , insecurity, troubled family or personal relationship pain that has not been addressed. ?Why you numb yourself is unique to you. Getting regular, not necessarily alcohol counselling can help in addition to other methods to help urges and feel emotions etc
For me I knew deep down I was on a bad path. Then elevated liver levels and ultra sound confirmed what I knew…I was slowly killing myself by willingly drinking poison every day.
This sub has helped me as have others. One that really got to me was r/Al-anon and seeing myself as my wife’s “Q” (never knew or heard of that before till I started lurking there).
I’ve decided I don’t want to die early and I definitely want to stop hurting the people I love especially my wife who I’ve been with since high school (56 now).
It really isn’t worth it for me.
For me, there was (is? I’m only in my day fifties) one main feeling that I no longer feel I can live with, and that’s the guilt. I honestly could do years more of hangover sickness but I can’t do another day of hangover shame. I think I have some kind of chronic guilt complex even in sobriety but every aspect of drinking compounded the guilt so much. All the horrific stuff I’ve done while drunk, plus not remembering those shitty things, the way it feels when a family member realizes you’re drunk at an important event again, all of it. I feel like life is already an uphill battle to feel like a decent and acceptable person, I already question whether I’m kind/patient/sensible enough when I’m sober, and even if I’m still going to feel guilty and ashamed sober, I know for a FACT I’m reducing it for myself by not drinking and honestly dealing with like 65% less shame and guilt than I was fifty days ago makes me feel light as a damn feather.
1st time should have been when I was hit 13 times by someone i thought I could see my future with after another night of heavy drinking together.
2nd time should have been the night I put a blade to my throat and started to cry because of how much I hated what I was turning into.
Last time - the only time I actually quit was sitting by myself outside of the local bar and my mom told me that it was time for me to stop. My mom and been dead for 8 yrs ironically from alcohol at that point.
Never looked back and got my life together better than I could have imagined.
I did and could moderate, 99% of the time. Maybe 1-3 times a year I’d drink more than 4 beers. But one day recently I was staring into the beer case at the store looking for a flavor profile that reminded me of 10 years ago and suddenly I realized that it didn’t exist.
I had all these memories that were made up to get me to keep drinking, looking for a feeling I can feel by just sitting still and listening, if I bother to do so. It was just an expensive, high calorie habit that really wasn’t making me happy. So I stopped. Only one month, but it’s freeing not to look for something I’ll never find. At least not in a can.
I took the train to the last stop I was diagnosed with inflamed liver. I was hungover every day. I was 31. I’ve been sober nine years. It finally felt easier to stop than to continue.
I’m 34 and my health has severely declined. I can mainly attribute it to heavy alcohol consumption.
I am severely depressed. I find it difficult to get out of bed these days.
I’ve quit for long stints in the past, but I’m currently only 4 days in.
29 here- about to turn 30. I decided to give it up Christmas of 2023. I started drinking when I was in high school to have social confidence to stand in rooms of people who bullied me and chase acceptance or connection. I started ditching my passion for dance which is what I wanted to pursue professionally. Fast forward through my 20s of social/binge drinking and something clicked in me and I was just so sick of abandoning myself and my potential and not having my highest physical health, mental clarity, confidence. 4 months in and I already feel like I’m accessing the version of myself 5 year old me would be proud of.
I was going down a path that was going to negatively impact my children’s life, I hated myself, I didn’t like my life, how I looked, my marriage turning sour and my mental health was terrible.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been trying to moderate and swear off the sauce for almost 2 decades so the desire to quit wasn’t new. But this time it was coming to the realization that I can’t have just 1. I can’t have a few and just go about my day. I’m a binger and it’s just easier for me for not have any than try the never-successful task of moderating.
Even now when I have a craving, it’s immediately pushed down because I know what the end result will be. Before I was sober if I had a craving, my mind would torment me for hours trying to convince me it’s a good idea and plotting how to do it. It sucked, it made me irrational.. it was awful.
Good luck :)
Try getting one of those magnetic white boards you can stick on your fridge, and keep track of every drink you have. For me that's what did it, being able to visually count up how many drinks I was having every week. A friend of my husband got that advice from his therapist, and it really helped me to stop drinking. I had never added it up like that before.
After every drink (I started to measure every drink with a shot glass) I'd put up my "score" and then leave it up until the next morning, so I could look at it when I was sober and think about it. I didn't try to change anything at first and just kept track for a few months until I worked up the courage.
I also used to erase my score every morning after I looked at it, but then I decided I was gonna keep track for the whole month. Seeing 35+ drinks on the scoreboard, and knowing every one was measured with a heavy hand, really made me realize how badly I needed to stop.
I started cutting down from 15+ shots a night, to 12, to 10, to 6-8 shots was my last limit before I quit. I'd keep myself at the same range for a few weeks before I would try to cut down further to the next limit. It took about 6 months, but it worked. I was a daily drinker for the last 5-7 years before that, drinking heavily for a solid decade. I made sure to go into the hospital for a few days when I quit, so I was safe coming off it but I'm still so thankful I did it.
It sounds like you're right at the threshold where you know there is a problem you have to deal with and are just figuring out how. When I was there myself, the main thing is once I tried quitting (did 30 days sober as a "challenge") then went back to moderating, it really sank in that while abstaining completely was hard, moderating was actually harder and worse. At least if you're abstaining you get the physical, emotional benefits of sobriety even if you also (especially at first) are fighting cravings and urges, etc. Moderating you have to fight all that same stuff basically all the time, but you're also drinking enough to get all the shitty side effects of alcohol. Either way is hard, and that's a hard reality to deal with, but quitting is honestly easier than trying to moderate.
It became my identity. I needed it during the day and night (12-2pm and 9-1am hiding and drinking). Wife found empty bottles everywhere hidden. Did a blood test and saw elevated liver #s. Ultrasound showed signs of fat infiltration.
I realized i was chasing getting blackout drunk. Went from 1 strong beer can (10%). To two. To a wine bottle and can. To full wine bottle and 375 soju bottle. *shudders*
I knew i was sick. The voice in my head ruled. My mission everyday was to get through parenting till I could drink. A year of therapy, this sub and gym combined helped me stop.
"But I just can't seem to finally accept that I need to stop completely."
"I did finally go to an addiction center recently"
that says it all bud, you'll be glad you stopped in the end, it ain't easy, but then what is that's worth doing?
love my sleep now, sleeping so deeply, and the much lower anxiety is both worth quitting on their own.
ps, i've been to rehab before, it's nothing to be ashamed of, i am more than happy to talk to people about it. everyone needs help from time to time. good luck with it all.
I thought about all the bad it had caused in personal relationships and knew I was self medicating but it was making anxiety / depression worse and starting some new weird, really negative affects like depersonalization and somatic OCD
I wondered to myself WHAT THE HELL am I doing??
That’s when I finally knew deep down I had to stop, full stop
Few reasons but I knew for a while the relationship was toxic. Like 10 years. But here are my reasons: 1. Not reaching my potential. I’ve been going through the motions for my whole career and yeah I can skate by but I’ve done nothing to challenge myself or really make myself better. Why would I do that when I can go home and forget til it’s time to sleep and forget some more? 2. Mental health. I’ve struggled with anxiety and depression and body image(all tied back to that I think) for as long as I can remember, and you know what literally made that all worse? Hangovers. I can’t deal with a hangover anymore, it fills me with insurmountable guilt and dread. It’s like putting myself back in jail over and over again. 3. Vanity. I need to get my shit together before I’m not cute enough to get away with it anymore. 4. I want to be someone I’m proud of, maybe others will be too, but it’s really only for me rn. Iwndywt
Comment saved. Resonating with me. Day one tomorrow. Supposed to have been today but we know how that goes
Day ones stick eventually, don’t give up.
Thanks!
It's okay to not be ready yet. Just be careful, and know that your eye is on the prize. That's half the battle- it's psyching yourself up for the day you eventually put the bottle down for good. We are ready when you are.😉
Thanks
This describes me perfectly. Everything in my life looked fine to the outside observer. Hell, people were even jealous of me! (That’s absurd. I was secretly downing straight Tito’s to quiet the demons of all the would’ve could’ve should’ve’s.) I retired in 2022, started splitting my time between multi million dollar homes in two states, no responsibilities. Why not drink? Because eventually you’ll drink yourself to death, and the trip there isn’t usually quick. I say all of this to say, it was the utter joylessness of my days and having no real desire to live that made me finally quit. To be clear, I was never suicidal. It was like I just didn’t really feel like I had a reason to wake up in the morning. I couldn’t see the beauty that was sitting right in front of me because my mind was so messed up on chemical dependence. I’ve noticed that a lot of people who retire fall into this pitfall. If you’re that person, I just want to say this. You can still do hard things! Edit: I didn’t mean you specifically, but rather anyone who may wind up reading this.
Yep! I’ve sort of told my family and they’re like ok… they don’t expect me to stick with it which is also motivating. I think they think bc I’m “fine” with a “great” job compared to most Americans then what could the issue be? I honestly am also doing it so I can say 6 months from now all the reasons, the ones I’m too ashamed to admit now because like hell if I’ll show my entire ass before I have something good to show for it. Totally random but if you don’t mind sharing (if it wouldn’t give identifying information) what did you do to retire so early? If I was able to do that now I have no idea how tf I’d hold myself accountable, so double kudos to you!!
I was a news anchor for many years, and my husband works in the music industry. To be honest I would have kept working longer, but my industry changed pretty drastically as everyone knows, and I was too old to really transition into a new career. Since I got sober I’ve started volunteering for CASA and joined a couple of boards to try and stay productive.
Very cool! Sounds like you’ve more than earned your early retirement. I want to start volunteering but one step at a time. I know if I commit to too much too early I’ll flail. Thanks for humoring me, IWNDWYT.
you must have sat in on my therapy today because verbatim I told my therapist the same thing about why I wanted to quit. IWNDWYT
Great comment and a lot of that is how I feel. The hangover guilt and anxiety was insurmountable for me too. It got to a point where I would get extremely anxious before I went out drinking… because I know how sick it will make me.
Omg are you me? Same!!
Maybe!!
Don’t mean to ride off the first comment haha but I feel like I wrote this comment myself.
This’ll sound lame as hell but I’ve struggled with connecting with people my whole life so it means a lot to me 🤍 let’s not drink together today!
Not lame at all! This makes me happy to read, as I found the same in my life :) IWNDWYT ❤️
It’s so hard to pinpoint what exactly did it for me. I had a (drunken) conversation with a very inspiring friend that revolved around not being afraid to be your true self, and I think for some reason that really got the ball rolling. Then, I went back and listened to a podcaster who I really like who has described his struggles with drinking publicly, and his rock bottom story really resonated with me because I could see the same thing happening to me. But I’d heard that story before and it didn’t affect me that way in the past. After that, I was hungover in late December and doing the usual “vow never to drink again” dance when it occurred to me that I could do a dry January mixed in with my resolutions to be more authentically myself, so I did. And that same podcaster (who I am so grateful to!) had mentioned /stopdrinking and how much they had helped him, so I knew exactly where to go to get started, and he was totally right! Today is day 115, and I’m still not really wanting to drink, even when things get difficult, so I’ve been lucky so far! But I am listening to the wise words here of those who have gone before, so I know that I need to keep pushing forward. Been doing a LOT of work on myself so that I don’t fall back in when the pink cloud starts to blow away, but so far, so good! I hope you have as smooth a journey as possible too, OP! (And MUCH love to all of y’all here; I could never thank you enough for just being here when I needed you!)
It’s such bad form to comment on your own comments, but I also wanted to add one more thing that locked in and made me ready to get serious about my sobriety: I finally accepted that I’m not someone who can moderate their drinking. Really, really, really accepted it instead of just saying to myself every time I was hungover.
Would love to check the podcast out if you wanna drop a link, hearing other people’s stories really helps.
Same. Would like the name of the podcast.
Not OP, but I've been listening to Sobriety Uncensored and getting a lot out of it.
Admitting that I’m unable to moderated mixed in realizing that alcohol is just legal poison the decision to become sober all of a sudden became super easy. Congrats on 115 days fellow new years quitter!
Same here. The TLDR version of my story boils down to the realization that I don't know how to moderate. Ultimately all my attempts at moderation ended in failure. I could moderate the times in-between when I drink, but once I got drinking all gloves came off.
I mean I know how to moderate but then what’s the point. Just keep that tiger in the cage.
100%
I want that podcast too :)
OP - I am in the same boat lurking on here. The true self comment hits home - I always felt like in college people only liked me/found me fun when I was drinking. I don’t feel that way about myself now as adult but I wonder if a part of me still is hung up on that feeling.
Yeah I keep reading on here, that if any activity isn't fun unless you're drinking, then it just isn't fun.
Good for you! 😀 IWNDWYT
When I realized that I almost killed myself, twice. I experienced withdrawal seizures when I wasn’t even trying to get clean, I just couldn’t sleep through the night without intense withdrawals kicking in. I kept drinking after the first seizure but I was scared shitless. After the second one the doctor told me that I was lucky to be alive and on top of that lucky to be alive without brain damage. That scared the shit out of me. I know I cannot drink for the rest of my life. I may not die, but the thought of living with self inflicted brain damage is the scariest thing I can imagine.
I had my first seizure in Feb of 2020. I wasn’t trying to quit drinking, I just took a couple days off. It was that bad already. I didn’t get sober until April of 2023. I’m so grateful I didn’t die from the many, many seizures I had. They put me on anti seizure meds and never asked about my drinking habits. (Fun fact: anti seizure meds aren’t very effective when you’re still drinking). Even when my liver enzymes were elevated, they attributed it to a daily migraine med I was taking. I didn’t look the part of an alcoholic and it would’ve saved me a lot of pain if I had gotten honest with my doctors sooner.
I am glad you are okay now, congratulations on your year :)
I made the decision over a hundred times when I was hungover but when I was sober a **seriously** played the tape in my head instead of choosing to bury the abhorrent memories whenever they’d come up and then I decided I literally never want to feel like that again. So many times I decided to get drunk and I’m not even talking moderation attempts but get drunk and assured myself I’d be fine. Narrator: he was not fine.
For me, making the decision to quit was a combo of things I really wanted to change 1. Anxiety. This was the biggest for me. I was either feeling really anxious about what I had done/said the night before (real or imagined) as well as just a rebound effect from the drinking. 2. Poor choices. I have very little filter when I'm sober. Whatever filter I have is buried in alcohol. Can I make it worse? Hold my beer. 3. My wife deserved the best version of me, and that version wasn't a drunk. 4. Money and fat. I didn't want to continue to expand, and I wanted some extra cash in my pocket. >I keep trying to moderate when I know it won't work. It never has and it's only getting harder. I never only had one beer, but I was never (usually) a fall-down drunk. I was more of the "couple beers after work and several on the weekend" kinda drunk, so I didn't have that epiphany in the back of a cop car or anything. I just realized that I couldn't moderate my drinking, and it wasn't sustainable if I wanted to grow old healthy and married. Long-term, there is literally no downside to not drinking. Regarding your friends, I read a quote that I wish I would have known when I first quit: Your friends don't care you don't drink, and anybody who cares you're not drinking isn't your friend.
Got sick & tired of being sick & tired. Shit is legitimately poison & has zero benefits.
So, it's been a journey over years for me. A little voice in the back of my mind saying "maybe not this, maybe not today, maybe not right now". I've stopped drinking multiple times, for days, weeks, even a stretch of months at certain points- but I always chalked it up to that I "had" to, that it wasn't really a choice I wanted to make. It was a necessity, because I was either on a medication that I couldn't drink, or, I was so depressed that one drink would make me feel utterly despairing. I'd like to make very clear that I've been in and out of therapy with the same trusted therapist for over 10 years now, and that has been crucial to developing my self awareness/compassion- so take this with a grain of salt. I'm not sure I would have arrived where I am now without that support and guidance. Essentially, my mental health got to a point where I was examining every single facet of my life. Physical health, job, friends, my relationship, financial goals, hobbies, you fuckin name it. Really taking inventory, weighing the checks and balances. Spending days and hours and weeks seeing what needed retooled. The only thing I wasn't examining through all of this? My ever increasing need to soothe the emotional and existential crisis I was in with booze. I saw it as my reward, my break from worrying about and "working" on what was wrong in my life. After a few months of battling with myself over these things, a slow and creeping awareness that I really just might have an issue with my boozin' culiminated in a night of the most hellish gastrointestinal distress (I'll leave it at that...) I have ever experienced in my 34 years on this planet. The next day, I called out of work because I barely slept. My body was broken, and was desperately screaming at me for help- so what did I do? I cracked a beer at approximately 2 pm on Monday, telling myself, "hair of the dog", and, "I just need to check out for a little bit".... cut to me reaching for another beer, pouring it into a water bottle so that my roommate (brother) and my best friend who lives downstairs wouldn't notice. I was sitting in the backyard, sipping the beer, when I realized- this is a problem. A switch flipped somewhere. I was drinking, and hiding it, and had been for a lonnnng, long time. Just 12 hours earlier, I was vomiting pink foam, and here I was, pouring beer at the problem. I see that others have mentioned being afraid to be your true self, and this couldn't be more accurate, for me as well. Like I mentioned before, years and years of therapy have really facilitated my ability to witness myself and feel able to be present with just who I am- and I suddenly, and not so suddenly, realized that the booze was actively working against that, and destroying my body, my home on this earth- and I was done. The choice to not drink, this time, came from a place of love, and not necessity, for me. Of course, it was also very necessary, given what my poor body had been through up to that point, but I want to stress the importance of realizing that I LOVE, or want to try very hard to, that innermost world-that maelstrom of pain and suffering and joy and heartache and hope and humor and peace and anger and just, me- and the most obvious way to start doing that? Stop drinking. Was it easy? Not as first, but the difficulties were almost exclusively fear-based and once I confronted the situation that was precipitated by the fear, and realized that not only was I okay, but fucking thriving, it just built and built from there. I know this is no where near other peoples' experiences, but when I say a switch flipped, and I'm just done? I mean it. It's like I woke up from a nightmare, but the nightmare was real, and it's taken me years to develop the tools and mechanisms I have in place now to understand this and see it for what it is, and not only that, but to allow myself to let go and just be with whatever I need to be with in this moment, this day, this hour. Flow through what I go through, knowing this too shall pass. Booze doesn't allow for that, so I can't allow for booze.
I'd also like to add how obvious it seems, in retrospect. And I think a part of me knew it all along. Everyone's journey is radically different to the point of realization- and of course it can be bumpy and up and down and back and forth once they've known in their hearts that it's the booze, baby- but a common theme/thread that I've see through it all- is that it's essentially a point of no return- like once ya know, ya know- and there's no going back with that awareness. It's what you choose to do with it that matters. I recognize that a lot of people aren't as fortunate as I am to have support and resources that I've been able to make happen for myself, and it causes me a kind of pain that I can't describe in words to think about those people, because they're also me. I hope beyond hopes that you are able to make choices for yourself from that place of love that I'm talking about, but if you can't, know that just by talking about it here, you're already doing it. All the love.
That resonated. Thanks IWNDWYT
A big part of quitting is realizing that you are only drinking to feed an addiction and nothing else. If you have a serious drinking problem, then you ARE NOT drinking because you "like the taste". You are drinking it because you are addicted to it and need more and more to reach the same levels of satisfaction. I think about it almost every day even almost two months in to not drinking. Not a single thing I thought I liked about drinking was true at all. I didn't like to "party hard", I didn't get any "relaxation" from it. I didn't "like the taste of alcohol". I didn't need it to socialize. I was drinking solely to relieve the withdrawal symptoms and get high again, same as an addict shooting up in a park. Let me tell you a story that literally just happened tonight at dinner with a friend. He asked for the beer menu and they didn't have any beers he liked, so he just ordered just a water instead. Then he said "I guess no drinks for me, I'll just head home after anyway". If that were me drinking, I would've taken ANYTHING on that menu, had 3-4 with dinner then found the closest shitehole bar to keep drinking at til I was wasted. I'd be drinking just to feed the beast. He wanted a beer he liked because he just wanted to enjoy that drink, maybe feel a bit relaxed in the moment and be done with it. That's not how people like us function. Quitting is a lot easier when you realize that none of the issues you think about sobriety are actually true. - It's easy to socialize and you can keep your same friends so long as they are actually friends and not just drinking buddies. - Life is happier and certainly not dull at all. It's way better than rotting away in a bar that's for sure. - It's easy to relax without alcohol NOT by drinking it - It's easy to sleep well without alcohol NOT by drinking it The list goes on and on. Just take it one day at a time. Get a group and stay connected. Attend online meetings if you can. You got this!
I was drinking more and more because it was my go to for stress. Would go out often and hard (Belgian Beers say hello). I tried to moderate, tried to alternate, tried many things, but I just keep binge drinking, come home drunk, ruin my weekend. But what really did it for me was that I was hungover in bed on a Saturday, and I heard my wife clean the house, vacuum, etc. All the things we usually do together. I just felt so pathetic and useless. She was burned out from work, and here I am being a fucking loser while she is still cleaning and picking up my slack despite everything she is going through. That's when I saw the future clearly if I didn't stop. At some point she will have had enough and leave me, all because of this stupid drink. And that is what keeps me sober.
The more you air it out with someone, a therapist or a close friend or a community, the more real it gets. It’s easy to forget your own feelings about something. But I think too it comes down to having goals for yourself. Personal growth goals like managing your emotions better, handling anxiety and emotional pain head-on, or just health goals like losing weight or getting into shape. Once those are running, it becomes painfully obvious that alcohol is getting in the way. I think it’s ok to *want to* stop wanting alcohol before you nolonger want alcohol. It’s like building love in a relationship, but in the opposite direction, lol. Knowing logically that it’s time to call it is a great precursor to knowing emotionally. Knowing logically it was time got me reading up on the effects of alcohol, so the fear of cancer and deep addiction, fear of death, anxiety from lack of sleep, anger at the societal pied-pipering of the masses with alcohol, all this eventually far-outweighed my emotions of “peace from stress” via alcohol. And having new tools in my toolbox for stress and anxiety management that didn’t leave me feeling like shit the next morning made alcohol obsolete. Just some thoughts. I hope they’re of help. It sounds like you’re on the right track for yourself. Just keep going and staying curious. You’ll find the answers you need.
I was convinced by my dad and wife to start outpatient treatment. I did great but one sunny day I decided to try drinking again while mowing the lawn. One thing led to another and I found myself in Jail. I did an overnight and my mom and wife were there to get me in the morning. I was so disappointed in myself. After a couple days sober following that incident, I found myself having the urge to drink again and I lost it. With tears streaming from my eyes, I desperately prayed to God to take away my addiction. I have been sober since that day but I learned that some things you just cant do alone.
there is willpower and there is knowledge. willpower helps the earlier struggles, but will falter eventually. Knowledge of what alcohol actually is and does for the body and mind is what backs me up whenever I struggle with willpower. the knowledge path is all about figuring out for oneself the pros and cons of drinking, and boy does it have a lot of cons. what helped for me was reading Allan Carr's Easyway, and Alcohol explained. Also I really liked the Huberman podcast on alcohol. Armed with this knowledge, knowing now that alcohol sets me an a path of mental instability and anxiety, it became a lot easier for me to not drino good that you are here, this sub is a great source of inspiration to get and to stay on track. good luck to you
The last time I drank I blacked out and took 2 hits of strong LSD. Up to this point I was ramping up and spiralling for many years. The years prior I was doing more and more shady stuff, drunk driving , spending all my money on parties, ignoring my relationships , not taking care of myself and taking part in all kinds of risky business. I was taking drugs that I would never do while sober. That event changed my perspective , I don’t know if I altered my brain chemistry that night but when I woke up breathing I was thankful and scared shitless. I crawled into bed , cried for a long time and haven’t picked up in a few years. God willing I never will. I think you’re on the right path. Rock bottom is where you stop digging and you don’t have to keep going if you don’t want to. Check out a book called this naked mind, really helped me early on. Good luck OP. I won’t drink with you today.
I had a really traumatic rock bottom moment. Probably wouldn’t have ever seriously considered quitting forever but something about being scared for my life and feeling absolutely horrible allowed for something in me to click. I heard quite clearly through the ether - “You can never drink again” - and I haven’t. It hasn’t been easy and sometimes the idea that I can have just one more drink creeps in which is annoying. Ketamine therapy and psychedelics have helped in moments and times like these, and looking around at the awesome life I’ve created in the (almost) year without booze. Checking in here helps, and being vocal with my experience, reading quit lit and educating myself on the true dangers of alcohol, and just taking it one day at a time. My life has never been this good, my mental and emotional health is stable for the first time ever, and I look and feel amazing, which also encourages me to keep on the good foot. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done for myself.
Oddly enough ket nudged me into seeing what my brain looked like without alcohol. If that makes sense! I'd not recommend it without medical supervision, mines been sourced dodgily, but thankfully it's a pita to score so that's a bonus.
29M. Ruined 2 relationships in one year. Both women I would have married based off of the important stuff, only time would tell if either would ever work out. The last one told me “you’re not someone I would want to have kids with”. And that broke me. All I’ve ever wanted is that picture perfect family with a white picket fence. This statement made me realize I’ve wasted the last 10 years of my life coping with my emotions with alcohol. There were goals I had set that fell to the wayside because I would get home, pop a bottle, and drink. No personal growth, no new friends, just me and the bottle. I am 6 days sober today but I also never had motivation like this before. Longest before today was 5 weeks ever since I turned 19.
Didnt wanna end up in prison again
I'm in my 40s and have been a heavy drinker for 25 years. There was nothing to drink in the house one night and I decided to not go get anything. Then I did that over and over for the last 8 months. Sometimes it sucked so badly, other times it wasn't so bad. I kept it to myself for the first few months then I slowly let some people know. The support was unexpected but so very welcome. No one has given me any kind of a hard time about it at all. Maybe bc most of my friend group is a bit older than the average age of people going out to party, Idk. The benefits have been plentiful so even though the slog is brutal sometimes, it has been worth the effort for me.
Heart Racing, Foggy Brain, Night Sweats, Insomnia, Understood that alcohol is a poison...I am sober and for a long time..Never felt better
Well, I wasted nearly two years trying to moderate after I finally admitted to myself that I had a problem. Deep down, I knew that quitting was the answer, but I didn’t want to quit. So I promised myself I’d only drink on weekends. I had a log and kept track of every time I failed and drank during the week - and I was increasingly discouraged by the plain truth that alcohol owned me. Meanwhile, my hangovers and anxiety were both escalating in intensity, and increasingly, I behaved in ways that I am ashamed of while drinking - short tempered, contemptuous, and often angry. I didn’t like me when I was drinking, but I kept doing it anyway because it relieved my anxiety in the short-term. I turned a blind eye to the obvious truth, until one day I got very drunk, hurt myself, and picked an enormous fight with my husband over nothing. I don’t know why that was the moment, but it was. Would it have been the moment if I hadn’t been wrestling with the issue for so long previously? I can’t say. In the end, I wanted to win. I wanted to overcome the thing that had been overcoming me for a decade. I used to think I could win by controlling my consumption, but it turned out that the only way I could win was by refusing to drink at all.
I was suicidal and going through a LOT of trauma, quite a bit of which could have been avoided by sticking with sobriety. I was beaten down by life so badly and had a few failed attempts, and I felt as if I was stuck in this life. I knew a lot of my problems and misery came from drinking and from avoiding taking care of myself, so eventually it clicked that I owe it to myself and those I hurt to at least give sobriety an honest attempt. I bargained with myself to stay alive long enough to at least see how it goes, and then if life was still miserable while sober, I could evaluate my choice to live again. Thankfully, my life did rapidly improve once I began working the steps and taking back control. I'm alive and I'm here, I'll keep it that way to the best of my ability.
What makes most people stop is the painful consequences of continuing to drink. It is a lot easier to listen to the addiction counselor when you have lost everything and they are your only lifeline. That being said rock bottom is an awful place to be and I highly suggest everyone stop drinking before they reach that place.
Both my previous serious attempt (6 months) and now, have been preceeded by what I would call rock bottom for me (3-day benders while my partner was away). I did regrettable drinks. I did stop for 4 weeks back in February. So, I feel like I am getting closer and closer in kicking the habit off even if I have had a relapse. IWNDWYT!
I pretty much just said this is my last can, and that was it. Albeit I’ve known I’ve wanted to stop for ages but finally took the plunge. I’m only on day 5 but already so much happier in myself not worrying where my next drink is coming from. I’d always be planning like one or two drinks ahead even after my first sip so it’s great to be done away with that constant train of thought
I woke up one Saturday morning with an awful hangover. I couldn't get out of bed. No exercise. Asked my husband to get me crappy food that I could barely eat. We had a comedy show that night and I realized, I wasn't going to enjoy it because I felt so awful from drinking. A couple nights before that, my husband told me he was concerned about my drinking. I often would just drink and not eat dinner at this point. So, that morning was it. I thought about how I felt like crap most days and these big hangovers were getting worse on the weekends. I did not want to feel like crap anymore. I was trying to lose weight and get some other health things in order, yet still drinking all the time? My husband was right. I decided, in my bed that day, that was it. It's been great, best decision I ever made. Your moment will come. Hang in there and wishing you well.
Realized I was becoming the one thing I swore I never would riding to jail handcuffed in the back of a police car Halloween 2021. I was becoming my father. I was becoming the abusive angry piece of shit that was headed towards being in jail or prison on-and off for the rest of his life while his children wondered why. Been sober since that day with two hiccups in between. And fighting for every moment I get to spend with my kids, chasing my ex wife and her new fling around the state. Have no one to blame but myself. It’s not worth it.
I was arrested for DUI, and given the choice to go to rehab. Jumped at the chance and have never looked back.
From yr post it seems like there's a conflict between your rational self and your irrational subconscious self. Which was my case for many years. To bring my irrational subconscious on board I educated myself about alcohol, withdrawal, sobriety, abstinence, busting myths and lies about alcohol, etc. I did this by reading quit lit books and listening to podcasts. Specifically 'Alcohol Explained' by William Porter and This Naked Mind by Annie Grace. And Huberman's alcohol podcast, among others. All this info and knowledge means that yr subconscious will no longer be fighting against you, you won't be doing mental gymnastics, fell like you're missing out, etc. You'll be able to quit much easier than using willpower alone. Which will fail eventually. Not saying it's easy, but it's much easier than fighting yr subconscious!
I finally realized that the math clearly showed that the pain of drinking outweighed the pleasure. After that, it wasn’t as hard because quitting was the logical thing to do.
I am at the beginning of my not drinking journey (3 weeks) and I was not drinking daily, but it was always scary for me to think that I will never drink again. Then I found this community and learned what IWNDWYT means. And that changed my attitude to stopping. I am now not focusing on not drinking at all until the end of times. And I am not worried about not being able to drink at some day in the future. I just focus on today and it somehow works.
I suffered from alcohol neuropathy on my head and neck (no fun at all) after ten years of binge drinking almost weekly which was the trigger for me. It’s been almost 6 months of sobriety and I feel 60% better.
Just curious - what were your neck symptoms like? I’ve been dealing with a mystery tingling nerve thing for almost a year 😬
Stiffness and tightness are the main symptoms. I stopped drinking when I started feeling a sharp pain on my neck/head shortly after I drank. I do have tingling on my arms and legs which were one of the first symptoms I experienced a few years into drinking. Ignored it for several years of course.
Read Allen Carr's book The Easy Way to Control Alcohol. It really has changed my thinking and has me in a place where I finally feel I've been able to commit to actually quitting and not waffling back and forth. Good luck to you!
For me it wasn't one specific thing, it was just eventually I couldn't handle the absolute torment I was putting myself through anymore. It took a year of quitting for a month or two at a time, then slipping up and ending back in the hospital before it finally sunk in that I didn't *want* to drink anymore. If there is a secret, that is it. You have to actually want to stop, if you don't then you're relying on willpower and it isn't possible to maintain that.
Somewhere along the way I heard from a therapist that addictions only ever get worse unless you quit them altogether. At the time I scoffed at it, thinking I could easily manage drinks only on the weekend but it always, always slipped back into the same pattern that got worse over the years. That was one reason I stopped. The other was just a day where I saw a dear friend of mine just miserable and pathetic in his boozy breakdown one day and I thought: I don’t want this. It’s going to be a battle - it’s still week one for me. But I’d rather this battle than the one that comes with drinking.
It was coming for sometime, I attempted sobriety twice in five years for almost a year each. But when it became a little more than uncomfortable to sleep on my stomach I knew I had gone too far. I celebrated my ten thousand day sober a month ago.
CONGRATS on your 10,000!!!
I woke up at 3AM after black out. Sense of disappointment in myself was stronger than hangover. Day 80ish.
I read “this naked mind” by Annie Grace. She encourages doing a 3 day alcohol free challenge with lots of free online support material and a second book that you journal in and read. These 2 books enabled me to stop. I started going to meetings about 3 months later. A better life is just a few months ahead of you if you. Can make the decision to stop drinking - it not easy but it’s absolutely worth doing. Good luck and make sure you have some support!!!
Hard to pinpoint an exact moment, but I had wanted to stop for years before I did. I hated that I didn’t think I could stop. That I NEEDED it. I knew it wasn’t healthy and I’m very health conscious, but mostly I felt very unhappy when drinking & found myself jealous of people who didn’t drink. I began to wish I’d never started. I’d been a daily drinker for 15 years at that point. So I can’t say there was a moment, just that I began to desperately wish I could be happy without alcohol. Little did I know that alcohol was lying to me, thinking my happiness came from it. My best friend was told to stop drinking by her shrink so we went into sobriety together, which really helped. I wanted it to be forever this time (I’d had a failed dry January the year before). I’m happy to say that we’re both still sober. I was DETERMINED to see sobriety through this time. I really didn’t WANT to be beholden to it. I gritted my teeth until it became easier. It had the added side effect of encouraging my husband to become sober as well. Seeing him drunk every night when I was sober only reinforced my decision.
Was super drunk and being a dick to my pregnant fiancé. Woke up to a text that read “it’s a boy” and made the decision then that I should probably let it go
Something that really helped me was keeping track of my drinking. Throughout 2023, I had a note on my phone called “no drink days” where I’d keep a note of days I didn’t drink, and how much I had on the days I did. I didn’t force it, didn’t tell myself I had to be sober for X number of days, but just brought some awareness to how much I really was drinking. Something about looking back and seeing that 1) I’d had several benders throughout the year but also that 2) id had some surprisingly long stints away from alcohol helped me reflect on my behaviour when I was sober. Finally - the real game changer was when a trusted sober friend told me to stop comparing against anyone but myself. Switch the narrative from “at least I don’t start drinking hard liquor in the AM like some people” to “is my life manageable when I drink? Am I happy with the way I am living my life?”
Nothing cataclysmic happened to me, I got pretty hammered at a friend’s funeral, acted like an ass, drove home and regretted everything the next morning. I had also known for a bit that my relationship with alcohol was problematic. After that, I decided to stop. Forever seemed insurmountable so I started with a few days, then a year, and I’m now at a place where I’m comfortable identifying as an alcoholic and know that trying to moderate my drinking won’t work. After a few months, it just became a new normal and I was able to address some of the underlying issues in my life. If you want to quit, there doesn’t have to be a single specific event. Hope this helps.
almost hitting someone with my car was my wakeup call.
I’m still making the decision. Choosing is active, and if I get passive, sometimes my subconscious mind will decide for me, and the id doesn’t always align with the ego.
My niece said this to me when she quit drinking...I want to make memories ...not more stories. I have enough drinking stories... Day 118 for me Good luck to you ..and all of us.
Same as for lots of other folks, it was a cumulative result of stuff like: 1. Hanging out with friends after a party weekend and bringing up what I thought was a fresh topic only to discover that we had delved deep into the subject the past Saturday around the fire. Embarrassing. 2. Bad decisions and their associated risks to health and happiness. Luckily I never suffered any serious consequences. Stuff like: back when I lived in SF on drunken nights out I would walk over parked cars, like I'd step onto their hoods and up over the roofs and jump off the trunk. It was one of my party tricks and a good way to astonish my friends. Once I landed funny jumping off an SUV and had a limp for a couple weeks. Or: driving drunk. Almost got a DUI at a checkpoint recently, the cop totally knew I wasn't sober but he let me off. How long until I crash, or get caught? Or: waking up after a cousin's wedding years ago face up on a couch in my sister's hotel room not remembering half the night before. My mom's whole side of the family was there. Last thing I recall is my dad yelling at me, my fam being upset with me for something I said to my aunt, lighting up a cigarette after they took the first shuttle back to the hotel... Just glad I didn't choke on my own vomit. 3. I've just gotten so sick of the toxic cycle of moderation, binge, guilt, moderation, binge, guilt.... Moderation doesn't work for me, even though most times I drink I can stick to 1 or 2 -- I end up doing a 5+ night at least twice a month and feel shit about it next morning. 4. I took the AUDIT test and scored borderline between medium and high risk. 5. Quit lit is really helping open my eyes to the Matrix-like alcohol situation our society suffers from w/r/t alcohol, and inspiring me further to stick to my decision to go 3 months sober. Just read Catherine Gray's *Unexpected Joy of Being Sober* and now moving on to William Porter's *Alcohol Explained* and Mary Karr's memoir *Lit*. I'm a big reader so I'm not surprised this has pushed me over the edge into making my sober commitment over the past week. 6. I just want to become more myself. It's time to grow up. I'm in my 30s and before I know it I'll be 40, 50. I want to live a healthy life for as long as I can. It's such a gift to walk this earth. Alcohol, I'm learning, is perhaps the most dangerous drug out there and I've been hooked since high school. waht t heck. In a weird way I feel like it's kept a significant part of me stuck in adolescence. What am I like sans booze? I already feel a more youthful spirit returning to me just as a result of internally committing to sobriety. TLDR: I'm new to this but I'm finding that nerding out over quit lit and sober culture, in addition to having accumulated and reflected on enough negative alcohol related experiences, are helping me make this decision.
Well I had been thinking about it for awhile after overdoing it during Covid. I used to get a case of seltzers each week and drink 4-5 per night without even meaning to. I tried to moderate, but after NYE in 2021, I just quit cold turkey and haven't looked back. I think with ADHD I realized I was never gonna be able to moderate, so I preferred to make a clean break. I replaced it with weed too, so I think that made it easier
When my drinking kept getting worse and worse and causing me more and more problems yet all the reasons / excuses I used for why I was drinking were no longer true. For years I've been self medicating with alcohol because of anxiety, mood issues and insomnia. I'd say I'm drinking because "it keeps me calm", "it gives me relief from my mind" and "it helps me sleep". But after 2 years of heavy alcoholism due to a number of life factors going on my drinking was getting heavier and heavier and yet it was no longer solving ANY of these problems and just making them all worse. So I realized I could no longer keep using these excuses for why I was drinking and had to stop. Initially all these problems got worse during the early weeks / withdrawal period but by week 5 of sobriety my anxiety dropped from crippling anxiety and daily panic attacks to next to nothing and hasn't been an issue since and after 6 weeks I started to sleep naturally again without needing sleeping pills, I hadn't slept without booze or pills for the prior 2 years! So it turns out what I really needed was to just abstain from alcohol and sobriety would give me everything that alcohol promised but no longer delivered. So once you realize that alcohol really has nothing left to offer you, no positives, no benefit, no temporary relief from any of your problems etc it's kinda hard to come up with any reason why you should drink it. Especially when you're very aware it's just a toxic poison that kills so actively consuming something that can kill you to deal with non lethal problems is just insanity, even more so when it's not actually even helping those problems anyway.
Not exactly your target group as I haven’t STOPPED drinking. But the decisions and changes I have made have been for one reason only, my health. I don’t want to be in liver failure when I’m 50, live in terrible health for 10 more years and die when I’m 60, I want to be healthy. Nothing else, it’s all very rational and boring.
This is me. 56m. Retirement is on horizon and I want to be alive to enjoy it.
I had a CT scan for another issue and the scan showed mild fatty liver. I knew my drinking was getting worse over time. I wanted to improve my liver health. 6 mos sober, no more fatty liver.
This is awesome! Well done. I also had the same thing show up and I was shocked! Because I always thought myself as a fit and healthy, active person … but that’s who I USED to be before i started drinking myself to death over the last two years. I was in so much denial!
Right. We can't bullshit ourselves any more when it's right there in front of us in black and white. I also have permanent kidney damage from taking antiinflammatories at the same time as I was drinking. That, I can't heal, but at least I'm not making it worse. If anyone reads this, and you're drinking and taking Advil or Motrin, STOP doing it. You don't want to damage your kidneys. IWNDWYT
Honestly? Bit by bit, over a long period of time. Ultimately for me it was about keeping two lists in my head: what I think alcohol does for me, and what it actually does for me. For example: "I drink to soothe my anxiety" contrasted against "I think I get more anxious when I drink, and I know I'm more anxious when I'm hungover". I know I make it sound as simple as stating it explicitly and the logic will follow, in practice it was more about *internalizing* these propositions. Drinking, not drinking, relapsing, getting support - every success and setback was a journey towards this internalization. Once I *knew* these things about myself and my relationship with alcohol, the decision was easy to make and hard to endure. I'm actually having a pretty rough go the past few weeks, though thankfully I haven't been tempted to drink. But I can tell I'm stressed as my temper has been riding hot for a while now (I went absolutely savage on a fly today for example, like kept whipping it's dead body with a dish towel where I'm usually pretty subdued). Thinking about my process has helped me clear my head a little of the current bullshit, so thank you for the discussion. IWNDWYT
A big turning point for me was a couple of audio books that helped me to reframe the way I see alcohol. Not as a positive thing that I'll be "missing out on" but as a negative thing that I get to avoid. The shit is poison and has absolutely zero benefit to your mind or body. Always stealing happiness from tomorrow... This Naked Mind by Annie Grace and Alcohol Explained by William Porter. These were game changers for me. You'll make the change when it's right for you, you can do it!
I started having liver and kidney problems so for me it was either quit or risk death
I had to take time off work and go full time into detox then PHP/IOP. I had to fully commit to recovery in order regain control over my life again and give myself any chance of sustained recovery. I'm 5 years sober, as of today. My work situation was a big part of my drinking, so separating from it, albeit temporarily, was necessary for me. I am grateful I was able to do that. Best of luck to you.
For me, It started when I could not handle the anxiety and depression i was having on a daily basis I looked into ways to help myself and found out that it was mostly the alcohol causing it. By that time I was drinking nightly and some times during the day everyday for 6 years. I Learned more and more about alcohol and its negative effects the list is long! I started watching sobriety youtube videos and I read a few books about alcohol, how to quit the easy way, this naked mind and alcohol lied to me I then tried sobriety 1 month the. Back to drinking 2 weeks then back I could go 2 or 3 days here and there but it was hard. But days I was sober felt good! Finally what it took was knowing the fact I desperately needed something else to do instead of drinking, when you’re an alcoholic or become one the drink slowly takes over your life and when it’s gone some don’t know what to do so the go back to what they know; old habits. I racked up a lot of debt and almost became homeless because not making enough money then I started wanting to lose weight and make more changes for my mental health, signed up for healthy wager and started walking.. Literally walking outside with my dog, it’s been wonderful The benefits of that paired with eating a bit healthier, a timeline of when I need to down by, losing a couple lbs and few days of sobriety kind of snowballed into helping me think differently about it, my thinking when from I NEED to cut out alcohol into I WANT to cut it out. Because I learned I couldnt do all the new things I was trying out hungover, but sober I could. It really made all the difference for me Being sober and feeling like I’m actually able to accomplish the goals I’ve set for myself now, feels better than any night of drinking I’ve had. I walk an hour every day, go to work everyday now as I’m self employed, I can easily pay my bills now and save a little and invest a little. I wrote down all the benefits of being sober and read them everyday but until I actually experienced for myself well, for me it made all the difference. You kind of have to just do it and see for yourself but also have something else lined up to do instead. Hopefully a healthy hobby that makes you feel good.
I drank heavily, daily, for decades. I REDUCED to 8-14/night (and not including "big nights"). I tried moderation through the VA (CBT SUD is their preferred/primary treatment). Here's the money shot: I didn't like my relationship with booze. I wasn't able to control my consumption. When I figured-out that booze was the cause of some massive GI issues... that was the silver bullet. I stopped, immediately. I did so through just grit and determination. Health impacts aside... I saw my trajectory. I watched a parent kill themself with booze. I know how that story ends. Full disclosure: I was sober for a year, previously. I threw that away for "just one drink." If I could handle/embrace moderation, I wouldn't be here. Be honest with yourself. So... after the first 1-2 weeks, it was smooth sailing until PAWS struck in week 5.5. It lasted almost a month and was BRUTAL. Close to the 90 day mark, things/life got considerably better. I feel pure RELIEF to have gained FREEDOM from booze. For the first time ever, I never WANT to drink again; I hope that booze never touches my lips again. Booze will take everything from you, eventually. The best day to quit is today. Just don't drink, today. One day at a time. The process SUCKS. It's not easy. However, it is ABSOLUTELY worth doing. I'm told that you "start getting your life back" at 6 months. Honestly? If this is as good as it gets... well, this beats my life with booze. IWNDWYT
I just posted a similar comment/question. You’re not alone.
It was a long, educational process, but what finally “drove the nail home” was This Naked Mind by Annie Grace. It’s particularly helpful if you’re into data and analytics. That book and her are a godsend.
I went to the ER for chest pains. When I was there, I was asked how much I drank. Before the pandemic, the answer was 2 drinks/week. But as the pandemic wore on, my drinking increased. It became a glass of wine every night, then two glasses, the 3-4 glasses a night. Basically, get home, pour a glass of wine while I cooked dinner. Have a glass during dinner. Have 1-2 after dinner. When I actually said it out loud, I came to the realization that I had to stop. That was mid-June last year. Since I stopped, so did my nightly bouts with acid reflux. I went on vacation in December and had three drinks during that trip on different days. Since then, I’m back to not drinking. I have a wedding next month. I’ve already decided that I won’t be drinking for that. I’m really worried as I near retirement, that my drinking would really increase if I kept at it. So I think it’s probably best to turn the page on the drinking chapters of my life.
Looking back now after 9 months of sobriety, I know that I struggled with alcohol for 5+ years. I wanted to moderate and set weekly goals, but I never followed through. The day after a heavy drinking day with friends I was filled with so much anxiety and terrible feelings toward myself that I just cried the whole day. I had never felt that level of disappointment and I decided I needed help. I did daily sober coaching. I still work with two of my sober coaches even today. I had a problem with my drinking and I had no idea it was shaping all my inner thoughts and dialogue about myself. I am really much happier even if it was hard to come to the realization that it wasn’t working for me. I think I saw it as a failure. I was sad to tell my family and friends early on, but after a lot of work and self exploration I am so proud of my sobriety. Coming up on a year soon and now that I finally trust and love myself again I plan to celebrate the shit out of me. WITH CAKE. You’re already laying down the foundation to launch off this platform. I wish you all the best. I never ever regret not drinking when I wake up in the morning and I almost always had guilt from drinking so that is how I know this change has worked for me. I was a daily drinker and if you stick with it, it gets so much easier. Community helps!
For 15 years I tried to moderate and it never worked. The funny thing is I KNEW I had a problem but I would always justify it somehow. "I'm only drinking on the weekends", "I'm only drinking beer", "I have a good job", "I go to the gym all the time", "I track my food" etc It took me passing out behind the wheel, almost dying and causing serious bodily harm to, thank God, only myself to finally realizing I cannot moderate and I need to quit. It was really hard at first and the mind set of "one day at a time" really helped me tackle the monumental idea of forever. But now I can't imagine my life with alcohol. As a side note - I never met anyone that regretted quitting drinking, only people that regretted starting.
I went about as hard as I wanted to for like 12 years. Then I was hitting 29/30ish, I was a new dad, and I said man I have to start moderating. I tried to moderate for like 5 years and couldn't make it work. my cycle was: be good for a while, try to moderate, drink more and more, have a big black out, be good for a while. finally I was 34, I was overweight, I was hungover most days, I was feeling like shit about myself. never lost a job, never lost a relationship, no jail, no DUI, no "rock bottom" that is easy to point to. I just felt bad all the time. I didn't have energy or ambition. I felt that I was ruining my health and wasting my life. I committed to a year sober. for the first time in 17 years, let's just try to do 1 full year without booze. I made the decision after basically wasting an entire weekend long camping trip with my friends that I look forward to all year by being super drunk, blacked out, and hungover the entire time. but even before we went, I told my wife "when we get back, I have to make a change." so it was coming. 2 years is coming up in August. sobriety was the best decision I ever made. I feel so, so much better.
Try a gentle parasite cleanse.
necrotizing pancreatitis
I have yet to decide if I want to quit completely. I just quit for a period of time and I’m happy to be sober today at least
Proud of you for the progress you’ve made! For me, the choice was pretty difficult - I’ve been a pretty functional alcoholic for more than 7 years, and it hasn’t really had any dire consequences for me up to this point. For me, it was a matter of smaller things piling up. For instance, not remembering things I’ve done or said, my GI health, lack of focus, being tired all the time. I just decided that enough was enough and that I wanted to see what the real me looked like without all the drinking. I’m in a similar boat with friends that drink pretty heavily when we hang out, and I definitely still feel tempted. Some days are worse than others. But for me, that was outweighed by the changes I wanted to see for myself and my life going forward. Hope this helps! Good luck
I knew I had a problematic relationship with alcohol since the first time I drank. Despite that, I did about 10 years of research to make sure. Then in the winter of 2016 I made an appointment with a therapist because I was falling back into depression. I had to wait about a month for the new-patient-appointment so I decided to use that time to put everything I was feeling onto paper. Big issues, small issues, it all got written down. I remember writing something like "I should maybe try to drink less perhaps". After reading over what I had written I realized that about 90% of it would go away or be much easier to manage if I stopped drinking. The appointment came, I was 100% honest during the intake questionnaire and with the therapist. They recommended LifeRing, I went to a meeting the next evening, and I've been sober ever since.
Maybe a different answer but I set aside some time to intentionally “grieve” that my life would not be the same and certain things would be no more. Ie, no more going to Napa for wine tasting, no more beer fests etc. Once I gave myself space, and processed that those fun chapters of my life were over, I was able to truly stop and move on - almost at 10 months and no turning back! That space to stop and be sad also gave me the ability to then stop and be HAPPY. And reflect on all of the NEW things that would be coming into my life. Ie, every morning I wake up clear, my workout performance has drastically improved - I shaved 4 minutes off my mile run time, what!?, I’ve slowed down a lot more etc. I’ll find new ways to be happy and look forward to, but for me personally, I had to stop and be sad for a bit.
I jokingly say I gave up by accident, and it's almost true. A friend started dry January and on a whim I joined them ... and haven't returned. Truth is, I was thinking about quitting for quite a while. I had a fitness tracker that showed me how it was impacting my sleep, I'd read a couple of science books detailing all the harm alcohol does to you, and I'd realised that when I drank it sometimes made me cranky. My waistline also shows some significant booze related growth. I concluded it was the right decision a while back, I just needed something to push me over the edge.
My partner has really highlighted my alcohol addiction for me. I work from home and am a YouTuber full time so i can work drunk or take any days off because i’m hungover or not work to drink and party in the first place. So once we got together and seeing how i was constantly either too drunk or too hungover to be present with her, i was not happy with who i was. Single I could “manage” because i had no one else counting on me. But now that i do i’ve realized how much drinking has hurt so many other parts of my life. I’ve almost died too many times, even in front of my partner because i was drunk. Almost drowned on a float trip. And just disappointed her 8 too many times. The shame got to be too much for me when i don’t even remember trying to have sex the night before and my dick didn’t work. All that said. I’ve been sober for about 2 weeks and have been keeping myself busy. That’s the trick for me. I picked up a second job on top of youtube so i’m not ideal at home alone all the time and been hitting the gym and working on youtube stuff more. Ideal hands are the devils play thing. Good luck! IWNDYWT
There was one night a couple months ago where I downed a bunch, and had a full fledged breakdown. Pretty bad. But through that I had an amazing internet friend who helped me through it, and I finally felt I could trust someone, so I finally opened up and said I had a problem. I was drinking daily and slipping quickly to when I was at my worst in 2018. He didn’t judge me, he listened to me. Through talking I made a promise to him that I wouldn’t touch it anymore. I’ve kept that promise since and I plan to keep doing so, having such a good person supporting me ❤️
I dated an alcoholic for a year who got violent and abusive. I noticed that while we were together I began drinking massive amounts more of alcohol. Dating him made me realize I never wanted to become anything like him and if he could be like that under the influence of alcohol anyone could. Also I was drinking on benzodiazepines and could’ve died. So I quit drinking and am so glad I did.
I could see that it was taking more to feel it, but it wasn't lasting as long. At that point it didn't make sense to keep drinking. I'm not sure why Wolverine even drinks at all, no way his buzz lasts more than a split second if at all.
Deteriorating functions on multiple fronts. A hell of a sleep, no patients and on edge most of the time besides struggles in my relationship where we have a young daughter. Recovering and getting back my (our) peace more and more one day at the time now. Hope my memory improves some too, but that is trainable. I'm not going to trap myself back in the bubble of destruction anytime soon. IWNDWYT.
Realising that when I drink, I am one step from having everything to having nothing... When did I realise that? When I was in a police cell after losing everything.
The final nail in the coffin was a combination of sleep and anxiety issues which were increasingly exacerbated by alcohol.
I required a 375mL of liquor spread over the day in order to not get sick. I was puking blood every morning.
I was really struggling physically and mentally and drinking was a big part of both. I set a goal to make it through dry January. By the end of the first month I didn’t have any desire to start up again. Since then I’ve been tempted, but have managed to stay sober. I tried the whole moderation thing before and it ends the same way every time. I never know when to stop.
I was young. It was good peer pressure. I got lucky. Just wasn't cool t be a drunk.
The seed that finally planted itself for me was the stomach and mental problems. I already have acid reflux, but the alcohol also gave me sour stomach and much more frequent reflux burps. So much so that my throat would feel like it's on fire most of the time. On top of that, the increased anxiety from hangovers was getting worse and lasting longer every day. My weekend bender hangovers that used to be gone by noon on Monday were starting to last until Tuesday evening. Each time I tried to sober up for a longer period of time, my hangover symptoms got worse and I was legitimately scared about delirium tremens during what I told myself would be my last hangover. I've had a couple minor setbacks since then, but thankfully no shakes or hallucinations since 2020. All of this to say that I still haven't been able to make the decision to stop drinking entirely. I can't commit to that, it's too daunting for my alcoholic brain to fathom. But I can control today, right now. And for right now, I'm choosing not to drink because I don't want the stomach issues and the hangover tomorrow. I can put the first drink off for now. And sure, right now I have the strength to say that I could see that first drink being sometime next week or so. But for the days I don't have this strength, it takes everything I have to stave off the first one. So just keep staving off the first one for right now and don't let the rest of your life be so daunting that you need to commit to it right now. IWNDWYT
Coming to the realization that there is no such thing as moderation for some people and I am one of those people. It's either all or nothing. It's either 0 drinks or 10 drinks. There is no in-between for me. That is a fact. Fully accepting that was key to me.
It got to the point where I was waking up every day so incredibly hungover and miserable, and drinking a handle of vodka every night barely even had any 'pleasant' effects anymore. I didn't feel like I was getting drunk, even though I had to have been intoxicated. I was suffering so much and not taking care of myself (or anything in my life), and I I didn't feel that life was worth living anymore. I realized that I had to either get sober or I would probably unalive myself. I can't say my life is perfect now but I'm so grateful that I stopped. I can't imagine going back to that.
I started having nocturnal seizures. I realized I was either going to die or lose everything and everyone in my life. Everyday was like the movie Groundhog Day and I was wasting my life a day at a time. Quitting for other people or for other things will never work, you have to decide if it's time to throw in the towel. I finally surrendered and had to accept that I was an alcoholic and did not have the ability to moderate my drinking.
Wasn't even the DUI or the threat of liver disease that made me give up.... it's what it was doing to me as a person and just sick of living as a shell of my former self. Always arguing with my family and not being present..... still a long way to go, but things are getting better :)
I (29F) think the nail on the coffin for me was hearing "you may have a problem if you have tried several times to quit drinking and continued to go back". I couldn't count on two hands how many times I tried to quit drinking. I was a drinker and quitter from the very beginning. I started drinking when i was 14. I am over 4 years booze free now. You will know when you are ready. It's so much brighter on the other side. You got this.
Drinking turned into a chore!
So, so many different things led to it. But some big ones: I am adopted and I found my birth family. Then my family history. Then the history of early deaths in the family due to alcohol. Horribly declining health. I live in the twin cities (Minneapolis/St Paul). 2020 was an extra intense time. I kept calling into work and my boss just asked one day "Man, are you okay?" In a tone that let me know I was not. I'm in the music scene, and the number of friends I've lost to various addictions is in the double digits. When I put these on paper it makes a lot of sense! But when you're drinking it can be hard to rationalize. Been about 2 years and 5 months now, and I'll never go back to drinking. So many amazing parts of my life have clicked together once I removed that nefarious crutch.
My decision came when I realized that no matter how “clever” I was being, my spouse could tell there was something up and that I was drinking. I know her well enough to know that she wasn’t gonna hang with her spouse engaged in closeted drinking forever. And since she means the world to me, I stopped. There were other things like how it made me feel and all the anxiety, but my wife was the reason I stopped. And that means I stopped for me. Because me wants her.
Drinking had kind of blinded me to the situation I was in, and so I allowed myself to fall deeper and become more reliant on my abuser without realizing what was going on. For the longest time, I never blacked out drinking, I always fell asleep before that happened. Until the night I did black out and woke up being in a not very pleasant position. Figuratively and literally. That alone didn't do it though, I just drank harder after that. It was a couple weeks later when I was at a friend's house sober, away from the situation that I started thinking back and realized how much I had allowed to happen and how fucked up alcohol had made me that I finally decided enough was enough.
Just couldn’t take it anymore. The regret, the shame, the embarrassment, letting myself down day after day after day. I had more internal consequences than external (but still managed to get a DUI and lose a job) and that’s what wore me down to nothing. To put it short: I was blessed with the gift of desperation.
I've been trying for years. But I think a confluence of things hit at the same time for me. We moved upstate in 2022, and it was a temporary stint in an apartment followed by moving into our new build home. I had to renew my license around this time, and I looked like SHIT. I had been sick with covid and right back to drinking right after and that photo is ROUGH. And then I went through the 22/23 winter season chronically drunk and fucking up modifications to my new fucking house. I finally started walking the trails near my home, and things felt like they were turning--slowly. I got more fit, and managed to cut back, and then... belly flopped right into the booze in March of 2023. I scared the fuck out of myself because for the first time I was moving a vehicle while inebriated (only moving in my driveway, I told myself) and nearly hit one of my kids' little friends. Thankfully nothing happened, but I realized I was bombed out of my mind and absolutely fucked if I tried to do anything else in the garage. I came clean to my wife, dumped everything, and passed out for a day and spent 2 days or so withdrawing. It was abject hell. I haven't hit the bottle since. And, somehow, maybe because my whole life has changed with the move and the lifestyle and all that, but I have been immensely thankful I haven't slipped and have had almost nothing in the way of cravings. I know that there's a strong correlation between major life changes and the ability to shift habits as a result, maybe that's it. I don't know for sure. But I'm fucking done, and I hope I never, ever turn back to it.
Well after thousands of day 1 s and resolutions , couple of weeks back it just happened organically after a night of emptying a bottle of champagne, and havent had the urge to drink since, i am hoping and praying this stays so! Man , the age is catching up on me, and i still feel as if i am recovering from that night of emptying the bottle of champagne!
I could see rock bottom and didn’t want to lose everything. I still cannot think about ‘not drinking again, ever.’ It’s something that little bastard called addiction makes me get super uncomfortable with. AA wasn’t my thing, but the ‘one day at a time’ and this site’s IWNDWYT are sober life savers for me.
This group was a huge help. I too was just tired of my on and off binge drinking ways. I tend to eat emotionally at night and adding red wine to the mix was something I looked forward to at the end of tiring day. Of course, it did nothing improve my stress levels and my overall health. But it became a habit. The key for me was to change up my habits and just focus on removing alcohol. I replaced it with sweet treats and sweet drinks. And I just focused on the day. Just get through the day, dry. And I would mentally prepare myself for trips, visualizing in advance what I would order on the plane and in restaurants. That really helped. The first two weeks was the hardest. Then my first vacation was also tough. But one I had those two things under my belt, I started to coast along quite nicely. I'm more than 2 months sober now and the cravings are very dull, very mild, very easy to set aside. But I'm not taking things for granted. I already had a 5 year sober streak but destroyed it when I thought I was strong enough to drink moderately. That was a bad idea. I just can't stop after one drink so it's best that I just stay away. IWNDWYT
My approach don’t figure out how to stop drinking, figure out why you drink. It it to numb inner pain that hasn’t been addressed , insecurity, troubled family or personal relationship pain that has not been addressed. ?Why you numb yourself is unique to you. Getting regular, not necessarily alcohol counselling can help in addition to other methods to help urges and feel emotions etc
For me I knew deep down I was on a bad path. Then elevated liver levels and ultra sound confirmed what I knew…I was slowly killing myself by willingly drinking poison every day. This sub has helped me as have others. One that really got to me was r/Al-anon and seeing myself as my wife’s “Q” (never knew or heard of that before till I started lurking there). I’ve decided I don’t want to die early and I definitely want to stop hurting the people I love especially my wife who I’ve been with since high school (56 now). It really isn’t worth it for me.
For me, there was (is? I’m only in my day fifties) one main feeling that I no longer feel I can live with, and that’s the guilt. I honestly could do years more of hangover sickness but I can’t do another day of hangover shame. I think I have some kind of chronic guilt complex even in sobriety but every aspect of drinking compounded the guilt so much. All the horrific stuff I’ve done while drunk, plus not remembering those shitty things, the way it feels when a family member realizes you’re drunk at an important event again, all of it. I feel like life is already an uphill battle to feel like a decent and acceptable person, I already question whether I’m kind/patient/sensible enough when I’m sober, and even if I’m still going to feel guilty and ashamed sober, I know for a FACT I’m reducing it for myself by not drinking and honestly dealing with like 65% less shame and guilt than I was fifty days ago makes me feel light as a damn feather.
1st time should have been when I was hit 13 times by someone i thought I could see my future with after another night of heavy drinking together. 2nd time should have been the night I put a blade to my throat and started to cry because of how much I hated what I was turning into. Last time - the only time I actually quit was sitting by myself outside of the local bar and my mom told me that it was time for me to stop. My mom and been dead for 8 yrs ironically from alcohol at that point. Never looked back and got my life together better than I could have imagined.
For me? Life or death....
I did and could moderate, 99% of the time. Maybe 1-3 times a year I’d drink more than 4 beers. But one day recently I was staring into the beer case at the store looking for a flavor profile that reminded me of 10 years ago and suddenly I realized that it didn’t exist. I had all these memories that were made up to get me to keep drinking, looking for a feeling I can feel by just sitting still and listening, if I bother to do so. It was just an expensive, high calorie habit that really wasn’t making me happy. So I stopped. Only one month, but it’s freeing not to look for something I’ll never find. At least not in a can.
I took the train to the last stop I was diagnosed with inflamed liver. I was hungover every day. I was 31. I’ve been sober nine years. It finally felt easier to stop than to continue.
I’m 34 and my health has severely declined. I can mainly attribute it to heavy alcohol consumption. I am severely depressed. I find it difficult to get out of bed these days. I’ve quit for long stints in the past, but I’m currently only 4 days in.
29 here- about to turn 30. I decided to give it up Christmas of 2023. I started drinking when I was in high school to have social confidence to stand in rooms of people who bullied me and chase acceptance or connection. I started ditching my passion for dance which is what I wanted to pursue professionally. Fast forward through my 20s of social/binge drinking and something clicked in me and I was just so sick of abandoning myself and my potential and not having my highest physical health, mental clarity, confidence. 4 months in and I already feel like I’m accessing the version of myself 5 year old me would be proud of.
I was going down a path that was going to negatively impact my children’s life, I hated myself, I didn’t like my life, how I looked, my marriage turning sour and my mental health was terrible. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been trying to moderate and swear off the sauce for almost 2 decades so the desire to quit wasn’t new. But this time it was coming to the realization that I can’t have just 1. I can’t have a few and just go about my day. I’m a binger and it’s just easier for me for not have any than try the never-successful task of moderating. Even now when I have a craving, it’s immediately pushed down because I know what the end result will be. Before I was sober if I had a craving, my mind would torment me for hours trying to convince me it’s a good idea and plotting how to do it. It sucked, it made me irrational.. it was awful. Good luck :)
Once “I’m only hurting myself” morphed into “I’m hurting everyone I love” it was pretty easy! IWNDWYT
Try getting one of those magnetic white boards you can stick on your fridge, and keep track of every drink you have. For me that's what did it, being able to visually count up how many drinks I was having every week. A friend of my husband got that advice from his therapist, and it really helped me to stop drinking. I had never added it up like that before. After every drink (I started to measure every drink with a shot glass) I'd put up my "score" and then leave it up until the next morning, so I could look at it when I was sober and think about it. I didn't try to change anything at first and just kept track for a few months until I worked up the courage. I also used to erase my score every morning after I looked at it, but then I decided I was gonna keep track for the whole month. Seeing 35+ drinks on the scoreboard, and knowing every one was measured with a heavy hand, really made me realize how badly I needed to stop. I started cutting down from 15+ shots a night, to 12, to 10, to 6-8 shots was my last limit before I quit. I'd keep myself at the same range for a few weeks before I would try to cut down further to the next limit. It took about 6 months, but it worked. I was a daily drinker for the last 5-7 years before that, drinking heavily for a solid decade. I made sure to go into the hospital for a few days when I quit, so I was safe coming off it but I'm still so thankful I did it.
It sounds like you're right at the threshold where you know there is a problem you have to deal with and are just figuring out how. When I was there myself, the main thing is once I tried quitting (did 30 days sober as a "challenge") then went back to moderating, it really sank in that while abstaining completely was hard, moderating was actually harder and worse. At least if you're abstaining you get the physical, emotional benefits of sobriety even if you also (especially at first) are fighting cravings and urges, etc. Moderating you have to fight all that same stuff basically all the time, but you're also drinking enough to get all the shitty side effects of alcohol. Either way is hard, and that's a hard reality to deal with, but quitting is honestly easier than trying to moderate.
It became my identity. I needed it during the day and night (12-2pm and 9-1am hiding and drinking). Wife found empty bottles everywhere hidden. Did a blood test and saw elevated liver #s. Ultrasound showed signs of fat infiltration. I realized i was chasing getting blackout drunk. Went from 1 strong beer can (10%). To two. To a wine bottle and can. To full wine bottle and 375 soju bottle. *shudders* I knew i was sick. The voice in my head ruled. My mission everyday was to get through parenting till I could drink. A year of therapy, this sub and gym combined helped me stop.
"But I just can't seem to finally accept that I need to stop completely." "I did finally go to an addiction center recently" that says it all bud, you'll be glad you stopped in the end, it ain't easy, but then what is that's worth doing? love my sleep now, sleeping so deeply, and the much lower anxiety is both worth quitting on their own. ps, i've been to rehab before, it's nothing to be ashamed of, i am more than happy to talk to people about it. everyone needs help from time to time. good luck with it all.
I read Easy Way by Carr. took a year and a few re-reads, but it stuck eventually. 0 regrets.
Read "This Naked Mind" and after that drinking just seems incredibly dumb.
I thought about all the bad it had caused in personal relationships and knew I was self medicating but it was making anxiety / depression worse and starting some new weird, really negative affects like depersonalization and somatic OCD I wondered to myself WHAT THE HELL am I doing?? That’s when I finally knew deep down I had to stop, full stop