EndGameNYC

Your list is admirable ConfusedGuy. And perhaps a little bit overwhelming.

I've seen people write pages-long lists here and then either disappear, continue to struggle, or get worse. In a very real way, how people go about getting sober is none of my business. Beyond crippling despair and a genuine inability to function, I cannot tell you how I stopped drinking. You may get something out of my retelling of how I stay stopped, but I don't know that the information would make any difference.

There is no single item on your list that will get you in trouble. It includes things that many people do every day as a matter of course, to keep up with living our lives. But consider that the kind of list that you posted may also be rife with potential failure. As human beings do, we may skip some of our self-appointed tasks, dismiss or devalue one or more of them over time, or just stop doing them altogether.

Creating lists can also make us vulnerable, if not also attracted to, a state of mind that confuses activity or over-activity with making progress. This can be a fatal mistake that prevents us from getting sober over a possibly longer period of time than otherwise. Getting up and doing something, anything, besides sitting around and brooding, sitting alone in the dark or in front of an anxiety-provoking TV, or drinking can be a temporary game-changer. But doing so seems to require that we continue to build on our experience. After all, most of us have never lived a sober life with long-term consequences. For me to have assumed that I knew how to do that was a red flag for me (but not right away) that I didn't know what I was doing.

The last two items on your list, "Try to contact AA" and "Look at if rehab is possible" are concerning because, well, they're the last two items on your list. It's as easy to contact AA as it is to order batteries from Amazon. If "trying" refers to a kind of emotional or mental resistance, now you know what you're up against. Resistance is pain; a stalling tactic that uniformly makes things worse.

I learned that it wasn't as important where I got help as much as it was that I reached out for it. Decades of research support the reality that the very act of asking for help -- from real people -- is itself a transformative experience. But the next step after that is crucial: What it is that you do and how rapidly you do it. I don't know about you, but I earned an honorary PhD while I was drinking in talking myself out of doing things that might have changed my life for the better, sometimes dramatically so, because those things also often scared me, were different than what I was used to doing, or seemed to be too much effort for what I projected they were worth. They made me uncomfortable, an insidious version of underlying terror for me. Destructive procrastination leads to irredeemable regret.

You'll do the best you can do. Recruiting the help and support that I needed -- something that terrified me and that I had sworn not to do, ever, long before I put down the drink -- made all the difference, both while I was getting sober and for a long time afterwards.

Our bodies are built remind us of what our hearts are missing. Some people read or hear things about reaching out for help with real people, and experience a chill or a shudder -- or even an eye roll -- if they've not been asking for help while also continuing on a downward spiral. I've seen people withdraw, disappear, or become enraged in response to the suggestion. The only thing you have to lose is your isolation, your unmanageable life, and your fear.