What are the long-term benefits of quitting drinking
Better when never is never
Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Wisconsin near Twin Cities
Posts: 1,745
What are the long-term benefits of quitting drinking
I saw this question inside another thread. I know what the short-term benefits are and I have a general idea about the long-term benefits. However, I would really appreciate hearing from the long time sober people about their personal experience regarding the long-term benefits that accrue with sobriety.
Member
Join Date: Apr 2012
Posts: 590
-Alcohol already took my wife, and I know I'd be dead as well had I not stopped.
-I have more money now and can do things I enjoy instead of what the drink wanted me to do.
-I haven't been in jail since I stopped.
-My sons talk to me again.
-I no longer have to listen to the whispering "If he didn't drink he wouldn't be in this mess".
Those are a few of the benefits I've experienced, and there are SO many more.
-I have more money now and can do things I enjoy instead of what the drink wanted me to do.
-I haven't been in jail since I stopped.
-My sons talk to me again.
-I no longer have to listen to the whispering "If he didn't drink he wouldn't be in this mess".
Those are a few of the benefits I've experienced, and there are SO many more.
EndGame
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: New York, NY
Posts: 4,677
Not losing everything and everyone dear to you in life, and becoming much less susceptible to a premature death. Or accidental homicide.
On the plus side, we have a better chance to live the life we always wanted to live.
On the plus side, we have a better chance to live the life we always wanted to live.
Member
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: Wisconsin
Posts: 98
You will get to experience REAL happiness! Different than any high from a drug. You will feel at peace. You will feel like your life has meaning and you are living the life you were meant to live.
I have only had a taste of this life but I want more!!
I have only had a taste of this life but I want more!!
Adventures In SpaceTime
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Ottawa, Canada
Posts: 5,827
As time passes season following season I appreciate my place in the universe. I'm finally grateful for what I don't have just as much, and maybe even more, with what I do have today.
Gratitude is experienced as a real sensation, and not simply an idea and a desire born from hardship and trials of my life journey. Happiness is something I can now share with others simply enough within a smile, a touch, a word, a common experience with friends as the seasons pass.
Loyalty and fidelity mean more to me now sober then ever was possible when I was drunk. Endurance and strength of purpose carry me through troubled times like a comfort I have earned by my years of sobriety.
Sanity for its own sake, and for its own worth, is the pinnacle experience I enjoy with my seasons of continuing sobriety. Sanity likewise brings me freedom in abundance to choose to be the best me I can be no matter how surreal was my past broken life.
Gratitude is experienced as a real sensation, and not simply an idea and a desire born from hardship and trials of my life journey. Happiness is something I can now share with others simply enough within a smile, a touch, a word, a common experience with friends as the seasons pass.
Loyalty and fidelity mean more to me now sober then ever was possible when I was drunk. Endurance and strength of purpose carry me through troubled times like a comfort I have earned by my years of sobriety.
Sanity for its own sake, and for its own worth, is the pinnacle experience I enjoy with my seasons of continuing sobriety. Sanity likewise brings me freedom in abundance to choose to be the best me I can be no matter how surreal was my past broken life.
EndGame
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: New York, NY
Posts: 4,677
Ahh...You're a gem, Robby. A real gem. 
Originally Posted by RobbyRobot 
As time passes season following season I appreciate my place in the universe. I'm finally grateful for what I don't have just as much, and maybe even more, with what I do have today.
Gratitude is experienced as a real sensation, and not simply an idea and a desire born from hardship and trials of my life journey. Happiness is something I can now share with others simply enough within a smile, a touch, a word, a common experience with friends as the seasons pass.
Loyalty and fidelity mean more to me now sober then ever was possible when I was drunk. Endurance and strength of purpose carry me through troubled times like a comfort I have earned by my years of sobriety.
Sanity for its own sake, and for its own worth, is the pinnacle experience I enjoy with my seasons of continuing sobriety. Sanity likewise brings me freedom in abundance to choose to be the best me I can be no matter how surreal was my past broken life.
Gratitude is experienced as a real sensation, and not simply an idea and a desire born from hardship and trials of my life journey. Happiness is something I can now share with others simply enough within a smile, a touch, a word, a common experience with friends as the seasons pass.
Loyalty and fidelity mean more to me now sober then ever was possible when I was drunk. Endurance and strength of purpose carry me through troubled times like a comfort I have earned by my years of sobriety.
Sanity for its own sake, and for its own worth, is the pinnacle experience I enjoy with my seasons of continuing sobriety. Sanity likewise brings me freedom in abundance to choose to be the best me I can be no matter how surreal was my past broken life.
Member
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: Wisconsin
Posts: 1,572
I have not physically hurt anyone.
I have not hurt myself.
I haven't woken up anywhere but in my own bed. (Including jail)
My blood pressure is better. Lots.
I can bike for miles without getting winded.
I've lost twenty pounds.
My back hurts less.
My digestive tract has healed.
My ulcers have healed.
My scars are still there.
The dents in my car are still there.
Relationships are getting better. Slowly but surely.
I have not hurt myself.
I haven't woken up anywhere but in my own bed. (Including jail)
My blood pressure is better. Lots.
I can bike for miles without getting winded.
I've lost twenty pounds.
My back hurts less.
My digestive tract has healed.
My ulcers have healed.
My scars are still there.
The dents in my car are still there.
Relationships are getting better. Slowly but surely.
Member
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Canada
Posts: 729
Originally Posted by jazzfish
I saw this question inside another thread. I know what the short-term benefits are and I have a general idea about the long-term benefits. However, I would really appreciate hearing from the long time sober people about their personal experience regarding the long-term benefits that accrue with sobriety.
Fat-over 40 pounds. Sexy again!
A healthy kick. I eat better and work out.
New hobbies.
New Life.
New outlook.
I healed mentally and physically. I feel 10 years younger.
But I fear being sober has cost me-
My anxiety
My depression
My lost ways.
I will never go back.
Member
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Eastern Us
Posts: 1,366
Originally Posted by thisisme
Did you mean fortunately?
Member
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Singapore
Posts: 737
It's really hard to explain the immeasurable gift that sobriety has been to me and my family. Existentially, sobriety has given me LIFE, full stop. As a drunk, I was certainly not living, I was in 24 hour service to my addiction. Towards the end, I honestly hoped I wouldn't wake from the next blackout. Every single time I drank. That was not living.
Knowing that each path I take now, sober, is being guided purely by my own free will, and not the nagging itchiness/lunacy of intense craving, or the debilitating shame/guilt that always came from satisfying that craving, it's invaluable.
Someone in AA told me once that alcoholism was no different from slavery. I found it an offensive comparison at first, but now I can SO see that to be accurate. Because in a way, lasting sobriety is a feeling akin to how a slave might react in their daily life, being freed from bondage, after decades of forced servitude to an increasingly abusive master.
Sometimes I still catch myself reaching for a deep breath, expecting only pain and shallow gasps of burnt air, but then reality sets in, and I remember that the furnace I was chained to stopped working long ago, the size 13 boots of my oppressor have been removed from my chest and throat, and my slave-master is dead and buried.
Poor description though, really. There's no real way to account for the sober time I've been fortunate enough to experience. It's full of nuance, subtle 'tells' that occur almost daily which consistently remind me of the monumental paradigm shift I've undergone. Of course I can always list off the negative circumstances that won't occur now, or the health benefits, the clarity of purpose, e.t.c... but to any grander scheme, that only scratches the surface.
It's really no longer about what I no longer have to worry about OR how much better I may look and feel (even though they are extremely good reasons). At this point in sobriety, it's more about knowing intimately that I can trust myself, and I can be trusted. Moreover, that whatever comes my way will be faced with the clearest, most focused, adult version of me possible; not some half-in-the-bag emotionally stunted idiot, distracted from anything and everything possible by a miserable secret, a pressing prior daily commitment ... to slowly drink myself to death.
Guess what I'm trying to say is that the change is really SO much better, real.... just... MORE... that to try and explain it will not ever do the thing justice.
Knowing that each path I take now, sober, is being guided purely by my own free will, and not the nagging itchiness/lunacy of intense craving, or the debilitating shame/guilt that always came from satisfying that craving, it's invaluable.
Someone in AA told me once that alcoholism was no different from slavery. I found it an offensive comparison at first, but now I can SO see that to be accurate. Because in a way, lasting sobriety is a feeling akin to how a slave might react in their daily life, being freed from bondage, after decades of forced servitude to an increasingly abusive master.
Sometimes I still catch myself reaching for a deep breath, expecting only pain and shallow gasps of burnt air, but then reality sets in, and I remember that the furnace I was chained to stopped working long ago, the size 13 boots of my oppressor have been removed from my chest and throat, and my slave-master is dead and buried.
Poor description though, really. There's no real way to account for the sober time I've been fortunate enough to experience. It's full of nuance, subtle 'tells' that occur almost daily which consistently remind me of the monumental paradigm shift I've undergone. Of course I can always list off the negative circumstances that won't occur now, or the health benefits, the clarity of purpose, e.t.c... but to any grander scheme, that only scratches the surface.
It's really no longer about what I no longer have to worry about OR how much better I may look and feel (even though they are extremely good reasons). At this point in sobriety, it's more about knowing intimately that I can trust myself, and I can be trusted. Moreover, that whatever comes my way will be faced with the clearest, most focused, adult version of me possible; not some half-in-the-bag emotionally stunted idiot, distracted from anything and everything possible by a miserable secret, a pressing prior daily commitment ... to slowly drink myself to death.
Guess what I'm trying to say is that the change is really SO much better, real.... just... MORE... that to try and explain it will not ever do the thing justice.
Realising my life
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Dorset, England
Posts: 3,656
Originally Posted by Peter G
.
At this point in sobriety, it's more about knowing intimately that I can trust myself, and I can be trusted.
At this point in sobriety, it's more about knowing intimately that I can trust myself, and I can be trusted.
I don't know if 6 months can be classed as long-term sobriety, but, for me, one of the most wonderful benefits has been knowing that the person who gets up from the dinner table will be the same person who sat down; that I'll still be truly present with my partner and won't simply be going through the motions entirely focused on the next glass.
Grateful
Join Date: May 2013
Location: NC
Posts: 1,763
*I know a new freedom and a new happiness.
*I do not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
*I comprehend the word serenity and I know peace.
*No matter how far down the scale I have gone, I see how my experience can benefit others.
*That feeling of uselessness and self-pity has disappeared.
*I have lost interest in selfish things and gained interest in my fellows.
*Self-seeking has slipped away.
*My whole attitude and outlook upon life has changed.
*Fear of people and of economic insecurity has left me.
*I intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle me.
*I suddenly realized that God is doing for me what we could not do for myself.
All of these have either completely come true for me (most of them) or have come true to some degree. Not very original by me but it's actually true. Most of the meetings I go to read the promises at the beginning or end of the meeting. I always thought to myself, I hope those come true for me some day. Well some day happened by the time I started working steps 10-12 daily and started making the amends on my list.
*I do not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
*I comprehend the word serenity and I know peace.
*No matter how far down the scale I have gone, I see how my experience can benefit others.
*That feeling of uselessness and self-pity has disappeared.
*I have lost interest in selfish things and gained interest in my fellows.
*Self-seeking has slipped away.
*My whole attitude and outlook upon life has changed.
*Fear of people and of economic insecurity has left me.
*I intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle me.
*I suddenly realized that God is doing for me what we could not do for myself.
All of these have either completely come true for me (most of them) or have come true to some degree. Not very original by me but it's actually true. Most of the meetings I go to read the promises at the beginning or end of the meeting. I always thought to myself, I hope those come true for me some day. Well some day happened by the time I started working steps 10-12 daily and started making the amends on my list.
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