Hi all,
I am so glad I found this site. My name is Amy, I'm 27, and I've been sober for 5 days after about ten years of heavy drinking. I've tried to quit before, many times, but never with much success. I feel that I am now ready to take on the challenge of sobriety. Without sobriety, I know that I will eventually kill myself with alcohol.
Before now, I believe I was in deep denial about how bad my problem actually was. I was waiting for a dramatic, obvious "rock bottom," and never quite found one. Sure, things got progressively worse as I started drinking more. I lost friends, jobs, and my dignity, but I told myself that at least I didn't burn my house down and I never drank in the mornings. I never got arrested, though I probably should have been. I never had to go to the hospital, though I probably should have on several occasions.
I had heard a lot of different things about alcoholism over the years, all false, but they were enough to keep me drinking because I believed that you couldn't be an alcoholic until you lost everything. Last week I realized I was finally getting really close to that "rock bottom" I had been measuring my own drinking against and it terrified me. I realized that alcohol has been the source of my most significant problems, and I am shocked at the lengths I went to to hide this from myself and others.
Over the past years, I have become more and more isolated, and less and less the person I know I truly am. At 5'4" and 130 lbs, I had been drinking 10-12 drinks every night. Recently I started engaging in some extremely dangerous behaviors, like mixing prescription drugs and alcohol, and last week I found myself actually considering prostitution to support my lifestyle. Last Sunday I came to and had what I guess was a moment of clarity, and I thank God for that. I've never been a believer but I realized that I should be dead by now, and I've come to believe that someone was watching over me during these rough times.
These last few days have been very difficult in terms of detoxing, but I think I'm over the hump now. Alcohol has robbed me of me, and I'm finally committed to fighting it. I've come to understand through my previous attempts at sobriety that this is not an easy process. It's actually a lot of work, who knew?
I am looking forward to working to keep sobriety and my health my number one priority as I relearn life.
Looking forward to meeting all of you, and thanks for listening.
Amy.