Thread: Class of March 2016 Support Thread Part One
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Old 03-09-2016, 07:52 AM
  # 413 (permalink)  
Magnetic
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Join Date: Mar 2016
Location: Charleston, WV
Posts: 5
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Originally Posted by ColoradoMan View Post
Hi all. I apologize in advance for the long post... This is an introspect that I need to get out...

I have been on SR off and on for three and a half years, mainly as a lurker, but I have never really told my story. I am 48 years old and I have been a professional drinker for the last 32 of those years. See, that is the polite way of telling myself that I have been a drunk since I was 16! I didn't really intend to give it another shot at sobriety this time, I just woke up tired of being tired. I finally had to take stock of the life I had chosen to live. Here goes...

I was a gifted athlete in high school and early college, but that wasn't what turned my crank. I chose alcohol over fame and glory and partied away my chance to continue my career in sports. I have had some of the most beautiful and special people who wanted to be a part of my life. Most of them I let walk away, or I chased them away because alcohol wasn't a priority in their lives and so they stopped being a priority in mine. I never got in trouble with the law, never got fired from a job, so it was easier to lie to myself for most of my alcoholic years into believing that I really didn't have a drinking problem, I just liked beer and whiskey more than most other people did. I have had wonderful things happen around me in my life, that I mostly don't remember all of the details about through the haze of the mass amounts of alcohol that I was drinking while they happened. My children, now adults, grew up thinking it was normal for dad to get home from work, open the first beer by six o'clock and keep drinking past when they went to bed.

Today I woke up with one of the worst hangovers I can remember. But it was not from drinking, it was from my body detoxing for the 8th night of not drinking. See even now the alcohol is still making me feel like ****! I think I am better armed now. I have been WEAK. And I have been AFRAID. Right now I am just PISSED OFF at all of the time I have wasted.

As Forrest Gump would say "And that's all I got to say about that."

I hope you all have a great day!
Coloradoman, thank you so much for sharing your story. I can relate and I'm sure many others can as well.
I'm an alcoholic too and I have the same sort of feelings, things I've thrown away, things I've f***** up, lost memories, wasted time but the past is the past and dwelling on it usually makes me depressed instead of looking positively toward the future.

Two things stood out to me about your post.

1) You are NOT weak, quite the opposite actually because you realize you have a problem and want to change THAT IS STRONG!

2) You have been 8 DAYS SOBER! That is a HUGE accomplishment. I have been 10 days sober myself and I had to go into a detox unit to make sure I'd stick with it (and well, to hopefully not die from my withdrawal...so I feel your pain there)

It's hard to do this on your own so I hope you have a support system, look into meetings or programs in your area because it really does help.
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