Originally Posted by
lovesymphony 
I'm impressed with all those who could just quit by deciding drinking is not an option anymore. That approach didn't work for me. Time and learning new things about alcohol addiction was vital. I wonder if there's just a difference in people's personalities and thinking styles that make quitting instantly easier for some but not others.
To be clear, I didn't just suddenly decide alcohol wasn't an option and quit. I went through a decades long process starting with the state of recovery and alcoholism in the mid 1980s. I acquired a large number of ideas about what was "required" to recover and stay sober. The reasons aren't important, but I came to believe that my sobriety would be delivered to me from some factor that was external to me. I was stuck by this belief for a long time. It wasn't until I fully accept that my sobriety was going to be determined by my decisions and my actions that I began to question so many of the other beliefs surrounding recovery. So, there is a whole lot of background leading up to me "just" making the decision that drinking wasn't an option. I wish I had been taught this back in the 1980s.