soberbythesea

I was playing beer pong at a friend's house. They are heavy drinkers and I got pretty loaded. On the way home my husband was driving and we got in a fight and I started trying to hit him - obviously very dangerous, aside from being unacceptable behavior. When we woke up the next morning I apologized and told him I was quitting. Haven't touched a drop since. Coming up on three years soon.

MisterChill

I've been thinking about drawing the line in the sand for 4 years but the weak attempts during that time never kept me sober for more than a week.

Nothing special the day of my last drink. I did my usual 6 pack and a couple big glasses of bourbon on a Sunday night. I had a physical done the previous Friday with blood work. I was a little worried but didn't have the results back.

Got an automated email Monday afternoon from my doctors office that my results were in. Logged in, looked, my heart sank, and I drew the line. This was 17 days ago. My liver ultrasound was this morning. Results aren't back yet but regardless of what they show I'm done. I've been worried about my blood pressure and a host of other things for a few years now. 10 years of binging followed by 10 years of heavy daily has done enough damage. I prefer to live sober vs drink and die from it. The path I was on = early death riddled with health problems. Nothing is worth that.

thisisme

It had been several weeks since he passed. I was struggling with the reality of it all and my future.
I was determined to find the answer in the bottom of a bottle.
By bottle #5(of wine) I had decided to end my life.
The only clear thought I remember is reading how if you hang yourself you can decapitate and how my remaining kids may find me that way the next day. I could not bring myself to do that to them.
I googled "I want to quit drinking" and ended up at a forum site, WQD.
I posted some long crap drunk out of my mind. I'll never forget the almost immediate answer to my post.
"Hang on Andrew, the others will be here soon"
They came. I was not alone.
That was June 2, 2006, 9 years ago today.

Mountainmanbob

That's pretty cool that you saw the writing on the wall.

for,

A Happy King makes for a Happy Queen.

And in my case,
my Queen was not happy with my drinking.

MM

Mountainmanbob

Congratulations with your 9 years sober.

It shows us all that long term sobriety can be achieved.

M-Bob

Mountainmanbob

Last drunk -- just a reminder for me.
Once more crashed and totaled a vehicle (motorhome).
In trouble once again with the courts and family and neighbors.
Back to a 18 month drunk driving school.
Lose of license for over two years.
I think that I have heard enough for today I will not drink.
Bob

Bunny211

My last drunk was a 2 week long tear where I don't think there was an hour where I was not legally intoxicated. By this point I had lost my job. I would wake up, drive to the liquor store shaking and sweating and dry heaving, buy nips, first one would come right back up. Sometimes I would be able to open my car door fast enough, other times I'd projectile vomit all over the dashboard. Go home, drink til I passed out. Wake up, repeat. Anyway, I had been in AA and my old sponsor called me and told me to come to a meeting. This was Thursday, June 4, 2015. I managed to get to the 6:45 AM meeting. I was shaking and dry heaving and had to leave halfway through to vomit in the sink. I was covered in bruises from having fallen and slammed my head against the coffee table in a blackout. I was also in hypertensive crisis (I found that out later) and had a nose that was pouring blood. A physician , who was a member of that meeting, pulled me aside and strongly advised I go to detox. I refused and he gave me his number and the number for an outpatient detox and asked me to call them and use his name. I didn't. I later learned that he called my old sponsor and told her that she needed to get me to a hospital or "that kid isn't going to live much longer." The next day, Friday June 5th, my old sponsor showed up at my door and said I either let her take me to the hospital or she was going to call 911. Her friend, also in AA, drove and my sponsor sat in the backseat with me, cradling my head while I had a seizure in the back seat of the car. When we arrived at the ER her friend ran in and a bunch of people (Doctors and nurses) came out with a wheelchair, threw me in it, and wheeled me in. I was too sick to be moved to detox. I was admitted to the hospital in critical condition. My pulse was 160 beats per minute, BP was something along the lines of 180/120 and I was bleeding internally. 5 days in the hospital. That was my last drink. Really glamorous, huh? I am still alive, by the sheer grace of God. So happy to be sober!

Soberpotamus

It was just another drunk for me. Not something I like to remember or dwell on. I am thankful those days are over, and that I'm no longer that person.

GnikNus

I remember drinking heavily and watching a movie. My drink of choice toward the end was seas of beer fortified with red wine ( terrible, but I wasn't exactly going for taste). The next morning the host of familiar symptoms reared their head- among them, panic attack. It felt like the ground was about to swallow me up and that death was coming. Later that night I googled symptoms of the panic attack due to alcohol, and it led me to this site. I left behind 16 years of drinking and all the harm it had done to my life. In the nearly year and a half since, I have realized how much of a burden alcohol was to my mind, body and spirit. I have learned to live a fuller life. I have become a better person. I have become more at peace. I have experienced a jump in cognitive function. I have become less afraid of inevitable conflict and can deal with it more effectively. I have become more able to stand up for myself without "drinking at a problem" and never dealing with it. I have felt better and had more clarity. I have been a sober parent to two small children (one born the week I quit drinking). I have stepped out of a fog and have become better about planning and anticipating things. I have saved thousands of dollars. I have become comfortable in my own skin

And I realize that I can either have all of these things, or I can drink.

nomis

Cool thread.

It wasn't my last drunk, but it was my last drink. 2 glasses of cheap box wine and a beer. All I thought was, this crap isn't making me feel better. In other words, my pain had become such that my self-medication attempts just weren't working anymore.

I knew, with the few options I had left, drinking wasn't one of them. I thought about it long and hard, decided I wasn't ready to kill myself. Sobriety seemed only slightly less terrifying, but it was least bad of a few bad options. Needless to say, best decision I've ever made in my life. Nothing else even comes close.

least

I had six months sober and blew it by drinking for two days. Woke up feeling horrible and hating myself again. That was my bottom. I went thru detox alone and have been sober since. That was almost six and a half years ago. I can never forget it as I never want to go back to that dark place of despair.

Turtle76

I went to sushi with a friend. We were getting together to share pictures and stories of a friend who had just passed from liver and kidney failure. I told myself I would have one or two drinks (like always). We proceded to split 5 or 6 large bottles of sake at dinner. We then went to a bar afterward where I had another 3 or 4 glasses of wine. At this bar I told my friend that I was questioning my relationship with alcohol. Our close friend had just died from alcoholism, my boyfriend was in rehab, and I was still drinking. I knew something wasn't right about this. I went home and drank a can of miller lite. i remember sitting on my couch thinkning "I dont even like beer. Why am i drinkning this?"

The next morning I had an awful hangover. I read my horoscope and it told me to avoid excessive behavior and to make personal changes to alleviate the turmoil in my life. I started crying and felt the universe screaming at me to wake up. I thought I would just take a break, but its been over 100 days now, and I have zero desire to return to that lifestyle.

JeffreyAK

I don't remember my last drink, but it was the end of a 3-week nonstop binge that I remember little of except driving to the store every morning when I was least drunk but not yet shaking badly and buying a day's worth of beer, 18 or 24 packs of Bud, at the corner 7-11. Wife had moved out but came to visit, and after my last beer but before I woke up from passing out again, she poured out the rest and told me, I'm gone for good if you go out for more, it has to end now.

I knew it had to end too, I was at the point where I knew deep down it was either stop and maybe get my life back, or push aside the last help I would get, keep drinking, and die soon. So I resigned myself to going through what would be the worst detox of them all, spent at home with no meds, that would go on for 3 days before I was stable enough to take a shower and leave the house. I re-entered outpatient treatment at that point, and that last drink was really the last, 12/29/2010.

kittycat3

My last drunk was 28 days ago. I bought beer to a coworkers house for a small gathering. The whole way there I was feeling the conflicting anxiety I've felt before - I was only going to have a couple, and yet another voice in my head was warning me of the impending doom. A few beers turned into wine and my memory is spotty for the rest of the night - but I know I was acting out of control, my coworker was flirtatious with me, and I was flirtatious with another person there. I was told I attempted to drive home, and my friends put me into an uber with my keys. I left my keys in the uber and got locked out of my home. I spent a miserable 45 minutes or so trying to break in and ended up calling a second uber to go back to my friends, crashed on the couch, and had to have a locksmith let me inside my house the next morning. I was able to be reunited with my keys later in the day thankfully. I was hungover for 3 days, was totally ashamed of my behavior, and wasted a gorgeous weekend inside recovering from the mess. I did not leave my house and barely got out of bed for 2 entire days. I bailed on plans I had with a friend to go to a show later that weekend, plans I had been looking forward to for months, because I was too down and depressed to leave the house and to pretend like I was ok at a concert. All in all it was a very expensive endeavor in many aspects.
In some ways it's remarkable and some ways it's not - it wasn't the worst drunk I've had in terms of consequences, and it could have been much worse, but it got me to call AA and to go to a meeting that following Monday. I now have a sponsor and I'm working the steps and I'm so grateful to never have to feel that way ever again.

Mountainmanbob

Thank you all for sharing. These stories told remind me of what could be waiting for me (if) I would be foolish enough to take another dance with Queen Alcohol.
Bob

Carpathia

Thanks for posing the question, Bob.

I took my last drink, a glass of red wine, while reading a text message from someone who wrote, 'your offspring must really love you'. I broke down and cried because I couldn't say for sure whether or not my child loved me.

Went to my first-ever therapy appointment the next day.

Admitted to the therapist I had a drinking problem. She handed me a list of AA meetings. And my life changed.

tomsteve

my last drunk was really no different than hundreds before, i got drunk,blacked out, passed out.
the next morning, for some reason was, and i dont want to forget it. being told some of the things i had done and said by my ( by that time ex) fiance while in that blackout then telling me," get the f*** out!!" had 4 things hit me- the 4 horsemen of Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration and Despair. i had never felt as low as i did at that time.

No words can tell of the loneliness and despair I found in that bitter morass of self-pity. Quicksand stretched around me in all directions. I had met my match. I had been overwhelmed. Alcohol was my master.

it was then i gave myself 2 choices-aa or suicide.

today i can say im very greatful for that drunk. it led me to the solution and gave me the willingness to get into action.

Zebra1275

My last drunk was over 6 years ago.

I don't remember it being much different than any other drunk over my last year of trying desperately to quit drinking. I was on the verge of losing things in my life that I cared about, family, marriage, employment, . . .

I finally got the courage up to go to AA and I also found this website. Both of those helped me to turn my life around.

My last drunk was over 6 years ago. I've found that memories fade and I can rationalize that "it really wasn't that bad." Before I know it I will think that I'm "cured" and can now moderate my drinking. I did that once after 5 1/2 years sober and that was a year long disaster.

I don't need to remember my last drunk anymore. Logging on to this website and going to AA meetings allows me to hear the struggles of others and vividly reminds me of why I never want to drink again.

tomsteve

im thinkin the "rest of the story" here would be interesting to read.
for some reason pictures of robin williams' movie RV come to mind.

kittycat3

It's hard to continue to revisit the past but this was helpful - I still have a lot of guilt regarding what happened now 29 days ago, and I don't want to forget how important it is for me to remain sober. Usually around that 30 day mark my brain conveniently forgets the bad and only remembers the good and I am lured back into thinking I can handle drinking.
So thanks for letting me share.