Spreading my Wings
Hi .
I my name is Stevie and I am a recovering alcoholic ,I am 9 yrs sober my sobriety date is 12th march 2006 , Stopping drinking is easy ,staying stopped is a lot harder and in my opinion is what must be strived for and is achievable if you learn how to handle sobriety and how to live without alcohol .
People invent many excuses for lifting a drink which is really rationalizing and justifying their action , an excuse is an attempt to find a reason when there is none . I have had over the past 9 years events which are tragic ,heartbreaking ,soul destroying and devastating ,sure there where times I felt like lifting a drink but at the end of the day what I was wanting was oblivion ,yes I wanted to block out the events that were happening to me , reality was it would not have changed anything I would still have to face up to reality and realise that a drink was not the answer .
Every single time I have been faced with upsetting events and not lifted a drink ! has actually strengthened my sobriety , when I stopped drinking I was left with myself and I was not a very nice person ,I was still a liar /cheat / thief / dishonest / unfaithful / abusive/far to many character defects to mention .
Sobriety is about change if I do not change from the man who first stopped drinking ! then I will drink again , sobriety to me was about change it is an inside job ,I had to start living my life with a new outlook and unlearn most of the values and standards that I had held before ,not easy but do-able , it takes time but is so worthwhile , self respect comes through time and respect from others takes longer .
I have made many many mistakes since I first tried to get sober , 20 years at one time and drank again ,simply put I never changed in any way ok I was not drinking ,but I was like a dog without its bone very unhappy most of the time and behaved in the same way I did whilst drinking ,only thing missing was booze .
I learned from that ,only thing you can do about the past is learn from it , sobriety is the most important thing in my life and I absolutely love being sober , hope to meet new friends on here and look forward to it .
Stevie