It wasn’t QUITE an “aha” moment, but close.
I entered inpatient rehab with no expectations. I had never made a conscious effort to get sober, more into consequence management and damage control. I was far too sick and out of it to have expectations anyway, it was more like minute by minute survival. At first I was going to stop for 90 days and see. Then it was 6 month. Then a year.
I guess the big moment was when I heard the ...and our lives had become unmanageable... phrase. I could no longer ignore that drinking was completely and totally out of control. Normal drinkers don’t wake up in medical detox with only fuzzy memories of how they got there. It as suddenly as clear as vodka that there was a pattern of drinking that ended in bad and worsening consequences, and the evidence showed that this was far more likely to happen than not. Maybe not immediately, but within a period of months...and as I looked back at my life, the drinking to great excess times were happening faster, with shorter times in between and with increasing intensity. I may be able to learn to drink like a normal drinker, but why bother? I would miss the flavors and experience of wine, but the intoxication, even in small amounts, wasn’t at all enjoyable once I had reached the serial dependency stage. It wasn’t that I liked alcohol, it was that my body needed it to function. If it was withdrawn, bad stuff happened.
This was no way to live. I very quietly said to myself “I really shouldn’t drink anymore.”
The next 9 months or so was spent trying on different sobriety strategies and rebuilding a life without the possibility of alcohol or other addictive drugs. The more I experienced life unintoxicated and present in the moment, the more I realized how infinitely better was every moment of every day.
It wasn’t completely like a light switch, more like a dimmer. Drinking and using was dark. Gradually turning up the light over a period of a few weeks revealed a far more vibrant and beautiful world.