Originally Posted by
Lingus 
I know I have addictions and abstinence is the only way to recover. I'm scared that I'm condemning myself to a life without choice, escape or vice and that I'll be bored and resentful. Why can I not be happy with the blessed life I have? Why is it not enough? Why am i compelled to act recklessly and risk the future of my family and myself?
Because you are addicted and that is the terrible rat on a relentless wheel feeling we all had.
I knew I had to stop drinking too, but the thought did not grow any more than knowing it had to stop, the pain was relentless. I took no action for a good few years.
Then one day, I called in sick with a hangover for about the millionth time, and my heart, something in it, just the shame of all the lying and what I'd become - telling my boss yet again I was sick and coming down with something, was just too much. My very morals were being eaten away before my eyes.
Stayed home and downloaded a heap of books on alcoholism - that word I'd dreaded facing for so long. My head was aching, but somehow, I managed to not drink that weekend, and I can safely say it was most likely the most scariest times in my life.
2 years have passed, and I've had a couple of slips, but I love my life now, there is no gap or chasm that I thought would never be filled when I gave up alcohol.
It takes time, it's scary, and I've cried and cried at how gripped I was by this creature called addiction/alcoholism....but I love who I am now, I love me, I have no shame, nothing is hidden in my life.
I consider my life was most likely saved - I can't see where I would be if I'd drank for a further 2 years. 80% of me is convinced I would be dead by some sort of blackout accident.