4thdimension86

than you had boring friends, did the wrong drugs, or you are just lying. I heard two people at a meeting claim that their worst day sober was still better than their best day using. I wish I could say that. I can't. I had FUN in the begging of my active addiction. If it wasn't fun I wouldn't have kept doing it. I wasn't sober in my early 20s but my life was really good then. It was better than my first two years of sobriety. Sobriety doesn't mean that we have fun and that life goes the way we want it to. Life can suck really badly in sobriety. Mine did until recently. I am sorry but if you claim that your worst day sober was better than your best day using than I am really glad I never partied with you. I also think that you are probably just lying. Shooting heroin feels great!!!! It just doesn't feel so great after a few years of doing it. Towards the end of my active addiction it was all consequence and no fun.

mfanch

Same here. The love of my life, the needle, was there for me. We had a lot of amazing times together. But it starts to get jealous and want more and more of you.

Coming out of that room (the drug)....that place that is warm, painless, and happy, and stay out was the hardest thing I've ever done. Reality in that room was a facade. It wasn't real reality.

I don't romanticize my drug past. I always remember clearly that it tried to kill me and would kill me if I let it. IF I LET IT. I won't let it.

Maybe we have it harder, I don't know. I hear that saying, too, about the best day drunk/high, etc. and I just shake my head inside. I think wow, not me.

Ken33xx

If your worst day in sobriety was better than your best day using


O.k. than wasn't my experience and I had plenty of fun times in which drinking wasn't an issue

However, I tend to interpret the above to mean my worst day in sobriety is better than when the days prior to entering the rooms of AA.

PurpleKnight

Depends on the interpretation I guess, if I'm being specific and chose my "worst day Sober", then that would be at the start with withdrawals etc and trying to figure out what I was doing, or what I'm going to now do with my life, there have been many down days pondering life Sober I'll admit.

The problem though with my "best days drinking", is that in the moment, yeap it was great, numbing and zoning out from life, a quick fix in a bottle, though it also added another day onto the gradual spiral of chaos that my life was descending into, in the moment it may have been fantastic, but it was all adding up, and something eventually had to give, whether it was my health, my job, or finally committing to Sobriety as a sustainable way forward!!

The phrase is probably used more in the general sense rather than the specific!!

4thdimension86

I get what you guys are saying. The truth for me is that if I could drink and use drugs without consequences I would. I had a lot of good times in active addiction and made some great memories. I have done the same in sobriety as well. I view my active addiction as part of God's plan for me.

Caldus

I like your post. It's very honest. I hear that a lot in meetings and wonder if people are for real. I would say that in my earlier days of drinking (and even a few times later on), I had a complete blast. Alcohol was the only thing that could ever get me to open up more around people and be more social. Being a super shy and introverted person, it made me 'alive'. I could talk to people. I could date women. And not feel so utterly lifeless and bored like I do sometimes even now. But like you, I discovered that the consequences were becoming bigger than the rewards and I simply just had to stop. I still struggle with this even today ... the thought of 'did I really need to stop so soon?'. I know I was in bad shape though. Otherwise, I wouldn't have walked into AA meetings. So that should be a reminder about what it was really like.

As human beings, we are wired to remember pleasure better than pain. The truth is that I experienced way more pain than pleasure throughout my drinking career. I just don't remember a lot of it because my brain wants to remember the good times instead. That's why I need to go to meetings. So I can see other new people walk in and being utterly miserable ... and remember that I was once that guy or girl. By sharing my experience with them, it makes me finally remember why I'm in AA and that God is in my life for a reason.

Mountainmanbob

I agree with you here

may I put it another way

I would not trade my worst day in sobriety
for the best day in my drinking and using days
why
because there is a freedom in sobriety that I never knew using

guess that makes sense ??

M-Bob

PurpleKnight

That's very well put M-Bob!!

I think the consequences is the key point, drinking in isolation on it's own can have it's benefits, people who drink normally may do so because it has benefits without consequences, and of course we would still be drinking if we could do it in moderation, because we would never have stopped to question our drinking if it was in the normal category!!

Because we can't drink without the consequences that's why we're here!!

Tommyh

p 120
You will lose the old life to find one much better

yep,that`s me.I have a much better life today than I ever had drinking and drugging

Sugah

If I look at my worst day sober in the larger picture of sobriety, with all its blessings and gifts...

...and then look at my best day using in the larger picture of active alcoholism, knowing that I can't drink or use any other mind/mood altering substance without soul-sucking consequences (no matter how much I wistfully I imagine I could)...

...then it becomes a little harder to say that the day at the lake where everybody had a great time was better than the day my mother died.

Context is everything.

Peace & Love,
Sugah

4thdimension86

Being a heroin addict was hell towards the end of my run but I really had a lot of fun when I just smoked weed and drank occasionally. My life wasn't unmanageable when I just puffed the whacky weed and drank a little hooch from time to time. I had great times with goods friends that I'll never forget. Some of those friends are sober today and some are not. If it wasn't enjoyable I wouldn't have kept coming back.

fraankie

"I had FUN in the begging of my active addiction."

you know, i remember being on the carpet at work, the big boss was telling me my work was coming back, they had to send another guy to complete the job, etc
i told him "i'm the best installer in new york"

in recovery, when i qualified
sometimes i would mention this
and add how alcohol gave me the illusion i was great
same with fun
whether you spike you arm, pop a pill, drink
you are basically destroying yourself, your brain cells, your internal organs, etc
waking up with a couple of shots left in a quart vodka bottle
not remembering when you fell asleep
waking up, needing a drink
no family holiday dinners
no money, etc

doesn't seem like fun to me

i was helping a newcomer
he was going thru a divorce, court dates
needed a lawyer
behind in co op payments

one day, after talking for an hour, i told him
;if you were drinking
it would have taken you 3 months to do
the things you did this week"
he agreed


best frankie

FeenixxRising

It may be more appropriate to say my worst (month, 6 months, year) sober was better than my worst period (month, 6 months, year) while drinking. I had many fun times during my drinking days. My best days drinking were much better than some of my worst sober days. However, in total, my sober time is much better than the later periods of my active drinking. And that's what counts IMO.

WMJ1012

It might depend on how fast people got into the steps once in recovery.
I had to have many horrific days without alcohol that were much worse than my jest say using in order to get the willingness to seek - and keep seeking.

1drinktohell

I heard an old timer at a meeting say, "If your worst day sober was better than your best day drinking, then why the heck did you drink for so long."

I started to crack up.

some slogans don't make sense, but they're said because there's a grain of truth to them.

LastMistake

It's hard to remember a sober day at this point, where I wasn't coming down off of something or hungover, planning to drink more. I know that my worst sober days will be better than my best drunk days because the drinking at a certain point was just hurting myself. Yeah I had "fun" on some of those days, but I don't know if it was fun or I just got off on ignoring all the s*** I didn't want to deal with. That's not real fun at all

4thdimension86

Once they invent dope that gives a person hope and coke without consequences I'll be done with AA. My last two years in active addiction were hell and my first two years in recovery weren't to much better. Recovery for me has been a process of digging myself out of the poo pit that I landed in. Getting out can be just as messy and falling in it. Now things are looking up.

Grungehead

Metaphorically my worst day sober is definitely better than my best day drinking. Because my best day drinking was a delusion and my worst day sober was real. Once I started drinking alcoholically I always had to pay the price for those "fun times" even if it wasn't right away. All of those "fun times" kept adding to the toll I would one day have to pay. A bad day sober seems to work the opposite, they seem to strengthen me over time.

FeenixxRising

Well said.

DoubleBarrel

This expression makes no sense to me at all.
I loved getting ****** up. Had some of the best times of my life using, and I wished that the party never ended.
I'm sure that if things didn't turn so ugly I would still be out there now.

I'm grateful to be sober, and having another chance, living life on life's terms today, but Im not gonna lie. I loved the feeling of being high and drunk.