Why did/do we think it was so great?
 

I'm 110 days sober and well into feeling great about my sobriety. I found that the first month, I was in withdrawals, sick and had no interest for alcohol; I was depressed alot. The second month was hard for me because the horrors of boozing were not so fresh in my mind. I was bargaining with myself - " Well maybe I can drink when......." You know the deal :)......the third month was somewhat similar than the second but to a much lesser degree. In my fourth month, all is clear. I have moments of pure joy and thankfulness. I feel happiness that I have not felt in many, many years. I feel in control of my life and when I think of drinking now, it has no appeal to me. I know how easy sobriety can be lost ; I take it day by day. When I feel sad or anxious, I know it is just a feeling and it will pass. For anyone trying to get sober, believe me when I say that I KNOW the first couple of months suck royally but when you get past that, it's pretty awesome. It really is......alcoholism is so exhausting and draining on every level. It robs you of your dreams and your ability to succeed. It kills your spirit and your body. It solves nothing and destroys everything. Sobriety gives you back everything that you lost; it really is a wonderful place to be. I hope everyone is having a great day!

Thanks, I needed that! I've been sober before, but I'm still in my first week back, and I'm so disappointed sometimes that I am still feeling blah and blue and my mind is all cloudy and trying to trick me into drinking. It helped a lot to read what you wrote!

Great post and thanks!

I can't remember anything about drinking being fun. There were many fun occasions were drinking was involved but the occasions were fun regardless of whether or not I was drinking...in hindsight they probably would have been more enjoyable without the booze.

I enjoyed the feeling of being drunk. It made me happy. Of course, I'd then pass out or black out, then wake up with a terrible hangover, drenched in urine, and sometimes regret some things that I put on facebook or texted to friends. Those few minutes/ hours I felt happy just didn't seem worth the days of regret that it caused.

I'm curious Chris...how do you define "Happy"? I remember being entertained when I drank but where I a today, I see true happiness as something very different.

What a thought! I am so GLAD that I was not on Facebook when I was drinking LOL

Yes having a great day or Yes had a great day thanks ( it is past my bedtime here in Australia) :c031:

I probably could have defined that a little better, but I felt good drinking. It made the problems that I had go away. Of course, it most of the time created other problems.

Alcohol was a gateway to friendship for me. Pretty much the only time I spent around other people was when I was drinking and/or using drugs. That's what has been so hard about sobriety for me. I'm 79 days sober now, and I am learning how to be friends with people without alcohol.

Romantic relationships...yea. I am really excited about being in a sober relationship for the first time in my life, but that is going to be an enormous mountain to climb. All of my previous relationships revolved entirely around drugs and booze, so I have to figure out how to date like normal people.

I have absolutely no desire to drink whatsoever, and I am very confident that I will stay alcohol-free for the rest of my life. However, part of me wants to experiment with smoking weed again, while dating someone who is completely sober. But, I get the feeling that starting weed again just isn't a good idea.

That's how I would have defined happiness while drinking too (well at least in the early days:))...but it really is closer to escapism than true happiness I think.

Just a thought:)

There were 2 parts of drinking that I liked.
The first one is I liked the numbing sensation that would wash over my body. Seemed like every little ache and pain went away.
The second one, is I am too uptight when it comes to sex and it took it away for me.
Problem was...I consistently started drinking beyond the initial sensations it gave me and became nonfunctional...so defeated the whole purpose...but I kept drinking.

I sought the "numb" which allowed me not to confront or have to deal with anything. The issue with that is the problems and difficulties don't go way they just keep piling up and growing.

This is an incredibly pertinent question, and in my experience, gets to the real nature of alcoholism.

Why, after experiencing the would anyone ever go back to drinking?

Yet, any look at this forum, any treatment program followup, or the rooms of AA, reveals that many, many alcoholics do just that. They go back to drinking after some number of months sober where they experienced a much happier and fulfilling life. Who would choose this? You'd have to be insane to make this choice, wouldn't you?

But, everyday, we see someone do exactly that. When I examined my own drinking, and my seemingly endless cycle of short term relief and relapse, I had to take a real hard look at just how much power I really had to not pick up that drink. I could find a hundred reasons and a hundred excuses, but the bottom line was that after a time of a much better life, I still picked a drink up. In spite of things being so much better. In spite of anything.

I know..even yesterday was at the store and I said to my boyfriend I'm gonna drink tonight. Not I would like to have A drink, but I'm gonna drink tonight. He started heading to the alcohol section, and I'm like- what are you doing?! You trying to kill me?! I'm just talking ****! It pisses me off I still want it, even though, like you say keithj, my life has been so much better without it.
And I know....it would be me killing myself.

My life was so much better for the little time that I did remain sober recently. Those nineteen days really made me feel as if I was getting somewhere. I began thinking about school again, (every time I have enrolled I drop out either a short time afterward or right before the end of the semester due to a hangover) my spirituality, my writing, life in general.
So why on earth did I head to the bar after nineteen days?
We say insanity, and it just could be.

I've been on a two night bender, today I'm sober. I'm wondering why this happens and how on earth to stop it. Seems like people do so well... beer is really all I think about some days. This is awful.

Who knows knows what people think ;). I had a drinking problem that no matter what I thought about it, like; it was a living nightmare, a horrible experience. Mattered little compared to what behaviors I was willing to change. Alcoholics are masters of rationalization. They can come up with some way-out explanations for why they drink as with some pretty common causes to drink. Legitimate reasons or not to drink, nothing changes until I make behavioral changes...and I did.

Euphoric Recall and the nature of the disease is to drink and use.
Sobriety is in my experience then an unnatural condition to be living in.

I fell off the wagon after two years of sobriety......I am well aware of the power alcohol can have and how it can draw you back in.......it just blows my mind when you think about the grief and hell it causes yet we have all went back to it for comfort ( I use the word comfort very loosely as it causes horrific discomfort )......I just get up and deal with the day ahead....I don't say the words "I will never drink again" because I've been there. One day at a time.....that's how it goes for me. And I don't act impulsively anymore......when I do crave, I think it out and play the whole scenario out in my mind. When I get to the part where I am hungover, depressed and dry heaving, the desire is gone. I haven't had a craving in a while but I know it will happen again. That's all we can do.....we just have to deal with it in the right way.

For any Lord of the Rings fans out there, I sort of feel like the King of Rohan after the Gandalf removed Saruman's spell.

"Better the devil you know than the devil you don't."

(This is about how it sometimes feels to me anyhow.)

i've been wanting to cut little inspiring quotes out of books and articles about alcoholism - or write down some of the ones that i've read on this site - and tape them to my wall next to my bed so that i can see them every morning and remember that we're all in this together.