6 months sober today

[psyk0]

6 months ago, scared and feeling absolutely hopeless, I decided to try and not drink for 1 day.
Now, 6 months later, I'm posting this.
It seems surreal.

My life has changed SO much.

I've been drinking heavily for about 10 years, I even lived on the streets for about a year when I was 21 ( I am now 28).
Actually being homeless and living on the streets, sleeping in parking garages and train stations and stealing food.
Pretty weird for a guy who was going to study at university level nearly two years before that.
But let me skip that and just sum up the past few years:

Everything I did revolved around alcohol. If I worked (that's if, and not when) I had to be home at a certain time to drink. Otherwise it would feel as if I was gonna lose my mind. It was really quite sick, when the clocks changed during summer or wintertime I would be pissed off because I would have to reschedule my drinking.
I really thought of it as medicine. As a way of dealing with life.
Towards the end I didn't care and just drank at work, I needed it.
I used to sneak into the toilet carrying a black waterbottle and guzzle down what I needed during coffeebreaks and before work.
Needless to say that didn't last very long.

During the last 4 years, after my girlfriend who I lived with broke up with me because of my drinking and bad temper due to alcohol, it got really bad. I didn't keep my "schedule" any longer to "avoid hangovers" (the controlled drinking phase) and just drank whenever I could.
I think I've had 7 jobs during that time. None of which lasted longer than one month.
The past 4 years were spent living at friends places, in over 10 different cities since I could hardly work and couldn't support myself financially in any normal way. I really outlasted my welcome everywhere, and they were all glad to see me go.
I even tried moving abroad and spent some time in England (I live in The Netherlands) and thought the change of scenery would do me good. That didn't even last a month.
It never actually occured to me that the problem was not my surroundings, or life being "unfair" or anything like that, but that it was ME and specifically ME in combination with alcohol.

Then in november last year, a friend of mine went to Paris for 6 months and asked me if I wanted to live in his place for the time he was overthere. This was ideal for me. I moved in there with another alcoholic friend of mine, and basically all we did there was drink.
It got so bad that I was either vomiting or passing blood every day, and I would hardly leave the house. The only times I left was to buy more booze, and I could hardly do that even.
Standing in line at the supermarket shaking and dreading it, many times I had to drink right there and then, thinking I would pass out or go crazy otherwise.
It was horrible. I had basically given up all hopes of a normal life, and I'd often wish I would be able to live without needing booze, but also knew that I couldn't.
It really affected my social life too. I would have to be drunk to even be able to have a normal conversation and I'd get into so many arguments and fights because of my drunken big mouth that people started to shun me.

I spent last christmas alone, like quite a few christmasses before, surrounded by empty bottles and cans, not wondering how or why this was the case, but cursing the fact that I had finished all my drink already and that the shops were closed....

Then, on march the 1st this year, I was walking through town and I felt really, REALLY bad.
For about the first time in my life I actually thought I would be better off dead. I looked at the people walking by, and how happy they looked, and I felt so hopeless and overwhelmed by negativity that I actually had to sit down somewhere. I walked into the nearest bar and ordered a drink. I realized something had to change. I had to change.
That was the last drink I had.

I went home after that and decided I would try not to drink that day. It was a scary time, but at the same time it felt that I was doing the right thing.
During my detox I wrote down a whole bunch of stuff that I still read sometimes now. I wanted desperately to help me remember what HELL it was, and what hell my drinking life was. Whenever I get cravings I read it back and it really helps.

I remember when I was detoxing that I spoke to a friend of mine online, I hadn't seen her since before christmas when we got into a fight because I was so drunk, and being the drunken aggressive idiot that I was I had really scared her. I remember telling her I was trying to quit and that I felt as if I was "losing my personality". She told me that it was the real me coming back, and that she'd like to get to know the real me (she'd never seen me not drunk).
That remark really got me through that day.
After that I've heard many of my friends confirming what a total a##hole I was when drunk.

Anyway now, 6 months later, almost everything has changed.
I feel great getting up, and feel great going to bed.
No more shakes or crazy fears or vomiting blood. My nerves seem to have calmed and healed completely, I don't feel like I'm about to go crazy or have some kind of seizure all the time.
I have a job I really like, I have my own place and just recently bought my own furniture.
People actually like being around me! (this I never would have thought)
My outlook on life has improved 100%, and although I still have issues (don't we all!) I try to analyse them and write them down for what they are.
It's strange, many of the things I wished for when I was drinking, I have now achieved.
It took time though, something I would have never been able to do in my alcoholic life-is-so-unfair-I-want-it-all-and-I-want-it-now frame of mind.
I find that if I do my best, and try not to drink doing my best, things tend to actually come my way.
I am now 28, and am finally slowly coming to terms with life the way it is, and although I sometimes feel like an adolescent in the body of a 28 year old (where did the time go?!) I'm still learning and growing spiritually and starting to accept things.

Sobriety is the best gift ever given to me. And I wish it on every alcoholic still drinking.

Thanks for letting me share

[HopeTo180]

psykO,
Thanks for sharing your compelling story. If how I feel at day 13 is any indication of how I will feel at 6 months I'm not sure I can handle the jubilation. Prayers

[CarolD]

Forward we go ....side by side

[miss communicat]

6 months is awesome! Congratulations on your new life!

[gravity]

Congratulations and thank you for your post. You sound strong, the promises are coming true for you.

[lizw]

Congrats.



And as the say the best is yet to come.

[Rowan]

Well done. Powerful message.

[RufusACanal]

...and the miracle continues! Congrats psyk0 on today, this New Life comes one day at a time and you are growing and learning; what more could we ask for? If I can help you in your New Life, please PM me@!

Mighty proud of you!

Ron

[digderidoo]

Thanks for that share. It was moving.

Happy 6 months birthday!

Paul

[barb dwyer]

Congratulations!
6 months is HUGE!

[tyler52]

6 months is great. I am really envious

[beingjenagain]

Thank you Thank you for your post! It speaks volumes to me and I'm sure so many can relate. Your life sounds great now and I am sure that it is! Sobriety is amazing!!! I'm right behing you, I'll have 6 months on the 12th.