Sobriety - is this the life that you were hoping and praying for ? poll
 

Although for many years I deceived myself into thinking that I enjoyed running with the liquid devil, I was actually all along wishing for, longing for and praying for, to be sober.

If you are sober today, is this the life that you were wanting.

Please vote and please explain.

M-Bob

Yes, everything and so much more.

Bob, I voted yes but am not so sure I would have quit if it was still working. I was not deluding myself. I knew full well I was alcoholic at age 19--I was ok with the bumps in the road--and then I was not. I drank myself here. It's more like growing up. I've put away THAT childish thing and many others are just falling away. Regret is useless. Onward!

Sobriety puts us in place where we can grow emotionally and not be ******** by alcohol. For me, growing is what life is - finding the place of honest relationships and a sense of usefulness to others we love. Impossible when consuming poison daily.

Thanks MM for the post!

Yes sobriety has brought me happiness and peace to my soul among many other things

Thanks MMB

I'm reasonably happy with my sober life and the progress I've made during the past year. It's far from perfect and I do have my moments, ...it's a work in progress, and will always be. As long as I keep the dynamic and a relative peace of mind more often than not, I think I'll be satisfied. It was being stuck and going crazy in a state of physical, mental and spiritual stagnation and destruction that had made me utterly miserable during my heavy drinking years.

It is NOT the life I wanted. It is SO MUCH BETTER. I could not have imagined what my life COULD be back then, I just wanted to be sober. There IS a 4th dimension!

Im still in the very early stages, and dealing with the PAWS symptoms and learning to be comfortable in my emotions again, so it is a work in progress. BUT despite all of that, I can say that i am calmer, less insane and generally happier than when under the influence of alcohol.

It has not been an easy road to get to this point, but I can see that life will improve and there are so many amazing opportunities ahead in this life. Not every day is easy, but it is certainly easier than struggling through life with the crushing anxiety and pain of alcoholism.

I haven't achieved long term sobriety yet by, this is a much better alternative than being drunk or hungover.

At first, drinking was fun then, drinking was fun with occasional trouble. At the end of my drinking, all it had become was troublesome.

Life is hard sober but, it's so much worse when you got drunk driving etc. charges always pending against you.

My worst day sober has never been as bad as my last drunk.
I'm very grateful for my sobriety today.

I think you may have a hard time scoring any "No" votes on a website called "Sober Recovery," Bob. :c033:

I voted YES. But it was not because "sobriety" is what improved my life. I felt my life was missing something even at 5 months dry.

My life has improved not so much because I got alcohol out of my life - but because I found something that makes me feel comfortable in my own skin without it. Namely a "Spiritual Awakening".

:Meditate:

I see two questions posed by Bob: 1- Is sober life better than drunk life? and, 2 - Is this the life I was wanting or had in mind?

My answer to the first question is a YES.

My answer to the second question is harder, because I didn't really have a particular kind of life in mind. It was a radical idea to me that I would be experiencing all of life sober. That was about as far as I got. I mean, I have dreams and goals. I think we all do or did at some point. Those didn't change.

The question for me now is: Am I ok with life being this way? We live, experience some things, and then die. That's about all I know. Camus et al. talk about absurdity and futility. This part stands out to me "But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious." I happen to be in one of those rare moments the past few days, and am face to face with death again.

Tomorrow I will probably be happy to be alive again.

A work in progress...
 

With now less than a week short of seven years sobriety a behind me. I can't, I suspect like many provide a definitive answer to this question.

Obviously, in my case, in recovery my life is good when I consider that the only alternative was death by my own hand uuurrrrggghhhhh!!!

As to the other benefits? It's probably best to say that both me and my life, in sobriety are a work in progress. Balanced against my thirty year drinking history, seven years in sobriety has me more than happy to accept that any day spent in sobriety is a good day and it all takes time for whatever and with whoever our goals are.

Remembering that, as opposed to non-alcoholics, who do it the other way around, we alter our behaviour to achieve our goals!

Great thread!

I voted yes but in the beginning, I had no idea what it was like to be sober. None.

I thought life would be just like it was when I drank but without drinking. I could not have been more wrong. Sobriety and not drinking are not the same thing, at least for me they are not.

Sobriety is peace and serenity. Sobriety is letting go of the pain, anger, hurt and resentments. Sobriety is being free from the desire to control and the frustration that goes with that. Sobriety is cleaning off my slice of life in this world and with the best of my ability, keeping it that way. Sobriety is working my recovery program, being a friend and giving back to another alcoholic what was given to me. Sobriety is much more then the definition.

The dictionary says it is a noun, I say it is a verb. A verb is action and sobriety is an action to me.

Nouns answer the question: “What?”, while verbs are action words which answer the question: ‘How?’

Sobriety is my how. Honesty, Open mind, Willingness

being sober is clearly a better choice for me. but is this the life I've always wanted? no not really I have yet to find that nirvana and probably never will. Just when I grasp something I'm after and enjoy it a while there tends to be something else I want to go after or some other thing about my life I'd like to tweek. I'll never be finished.

Since I got sober I've spent a lot of time repairing things in my life. I do think if I tie of a few more the last loose ends however I might find some more contentment. I've made a ton of progress however.

I guess I'd have to vote "yes" simply because I know it is the better life for me...

Am I happier on a day to day basis? Depends on the day.

I feel better about myself. I am not "having as much fun." I am trying to be patient with that and creative and curious...

I quit drinking because I had medical issues which require that I not drink. I still struggled to quit, because I like it. I was not a super-hard drinker, and so didn't have a ton of alcoholic repercussions - except for (invisible and unfelt) damage to my body.

I'm still learning to connect with others without alcohol. I do just fine in work connections (because that part of me has always been sober), and am repairing family relationships that had been damaged. But the friend thing...I have friends in recovery at meetings, and in some ways we share quite openly (which implies intimacy), but we don't just hang out and have "fun." I've tried attending "fun" AA events (bowling, bonfires), and they are different than meetings, more informal, and I enjoy the activity and the food, but it isn't fun-fun the way hanging out with my good friends while drinking was. I feel like I've had to distance myself from my friends who drink - who were not alcoholics (athletes and outdoorsy all), and I feel this as a powerful loss.

So. The quality of my life in terms of happiness is down. The quality of my life in terms of health, mental health, productiveness, and spiritual focus is increased. There was no "sort of - half and half" response on the survey, so I just didn't vote at all...

It's almost a no brainer. But if you had asked me this the first time I stopped I would have said no, life was pure misery. Sobriety, apart from keeping me out of trouble, was a miserable experience..

But I guess you are asking about the last time I stopped. With a different approach which brought about a spiritual awakening, my life changed dramatically for the better. A miraculous and lasting change in the space of a few weeks. Yesterday, I celebrated 35 years sober. Life has had its ups and downs, as it does for everyone, alcoholic or not, but even in the most trying of times alcohol has not presented itself as a solution.

Life is not only better but different, and so much more than I expected.:) I owe it all to the God of my understanding and AA, and I stick around as much out of gratitude as anything else.

Sober life is the only life. You're not living when you're hungover every day.

I am really confused here too. I see two questions:

is this the life that you were hoping and praying for ?
and
is the sober life the best life for you ?

The answer to the first question is no the answer to the second question is yes.