justinnn

This may be a long post.. I just need to talk and feel this is a good place.

This is my first post so.. hello everyone. I'm 26 years old and on New Years Day I got my 2nd DUI. Foolishly went out to get some food and about 2 miles from home got pulled over and arrested. It has since sent me into quite a bit of depression and state of shock. Just don't really know what to do. All I want to do is hit the reset button and go back to Dec 31st 2015.

My life was going great last year man. Got a new car, a promotion at a job that I later on left and found another job that's better pay/situation. My mom had a cancer scare late last summer, but upon surgery the doctor found no cancer... was one of the happiest moments of my life.

Then boom. I'm still shocked I made that decision to drive and possibly ruin my life. I say possibly because I know it's not literally going to and I will make it out, but it is really hard right now telling myself that. I'm facing jail time, $$$$$$$$$$$$$, loss of my license, and to make it worse I live 20 miles from work and where I live it would be a hell of a headache taking public transportation to work, if not impossible(I have to do more research on the bus routes).

I have the best job I could possibly ask for right now and I fear the judge is going to look at me with 2 DUI's in less than 5 years and send me away for a month or 2 if not more. As a result of that my boss will fire me and as a result of that I'll have to move back into my parents house or something since I will be making no money and spending all of what I have on lawyer/court fees and everything else. It is hard looking for anything positive here.

My lawyer has told me to stop drinking and attend AA and get them to sign off on each meeting I go to to make my sentence more lenient, but honestly all I want to do is drink. I'm actually drinking right now.

To be honest I know I have a problem and I do want to quit. I'd be lying if I said alcohol hasn't affected me in any way other than my DUI's. Over the past maybe half year I've began to notice issues with my alcohol addiction. Weight gain, mind feeling like it's in a fog, forgetfulness/memory issues....

I'd love to stop and have my old sober self back. Just don't know where to begin. With this DUI over my head and all the stress I find it easier to drink and pass the time by.... I don't know.

I guess the point of this post is to just talk. I know what I need to do, but am just having trouble doing it and feeling like **** at the same time from my arrest isn't helping. Maybe you guys can encourage me some, maybe not... if no one responds it was at least nice to type this out lol..

ScottFromWI

Welcome Justinn! Glad you decided to come and share a little of your story. The madness that is alcholism really takes its toll over time, you are very fortunate to be young and have your whole life ahead of you to make changes.

Getting an attorney to help with the DUI situation was a smart move, and it sounds like the one you found is pretty wise. Quitting drinking and getting into a recovery program is an exellent suggestion, but ultimately only you can make the decision to do so. A DUI is an serious thing, but it's nowhere near the worst things can or will get if you keep drinking.

You'll find a lot of support here if sobriety is what you seek.

JD

Welcome to SR. There's lots of great resources and people here to help you. But you need to do the work. Yeah, 2 DUI's is a bad place to be. But, in time, you'll get through it.

The first step is to stop the drinking and the sooner the better. So stop now and follow your lawyers advice.

least

Welcome to the family. I hope the support here can help you get sober for good. It really is a better way to live.

Fly N Buy

Welcome to SR

No one could tell me to do anything especially don't drink. I had to hit my head hard enough frequently enough with bad enough consequences to say enough!

When I drank pretty much continuously I was in that drunk rubic cube. I couldn't ever get things lined up that made sense. In sobriety it didn't take long to make that old existence seem surrealistic and dreamlike. What's in front of us forms new habits - good or bad I suppose.

Hope you'll stick around and consider making changes that may be life altering.

GroundhogDay

Welcome to SR! Get as much support, and hopefully motivation, from here and those AA meetings as you can. Let this be your wake up call to a happy and sober life. It can happen for you.

JeffreyAK

Something to think about. Alcohol clearly wrecks our judgement, and can lead us to believe we're not drunk enough to get a DUI, or maybe we are but we'll get away with it this time. What will happen when you run out of alcohol tonight? Or maybe the next night you're drinking? DUI #2 is bad, what about DUI #3 within a very short time period? Your lawyer is giving great advice, and sounds like you know it, too.

Dee74

Hi and welcome Justinn

I know nothing about DUIs at all but I know a little about wanting to quit an staying that way.

I hope you'll stick around

D

Zebra1275

My lawyer has told me to stop drinking and attend AA

That's good advice.

AAPJ

Justinnn - You are 26 years old. At your young age you have a huge opportunity. I understand if you don't see it that way as I probably did not think like that when I was in my 20s. But now that I look back on it from my mid 50s I just wonder how much farther ahead I could be today if I had stopped all my drinking in my 20s. Truly your glass is more than half full. Don't keep draining it with more alcohol and DUIs. I wish you the best.

doggonecarl

Are you waiting for an event, one worse than a 2nd DUI, to convince you to quit? Hoping we'll have the words to motivate you? I don't think we can do that. The push must come from within.

Good luck.

trachemys

Time to change now before you end up like me, with 5. I had to sign up for kitchen duty to get out of jail in a reasonable time. Don't try having to wake up at 5 AM every day in jail to cook for the rest of the residents. It sucked. I did have to give up a good job for the last one, too.

Don't be me. Go get whatever help you need to stop.

SoberinSyracuse

Hi, Justinn! I got a DWI in early October and it turned out to be a real blessing. Before that, I really really really wanted to quit but it took second place to other things like work and money and social obligations.

I had to get wrenched out of my little "functional alcoholic" world in order to get the help I needed. I needed outside help.

So, I'd suggest that you take this tough experience and make it pay you back tenfold by using it as your personal "tipping point."

Ken33xx

It`s a wake up call that`s for sure.

I can only share my experience which is problems associated with drinking never went away for me. They continued until I decided I wanted to do something about my drinking.

You`re 26?

I was 35 when I quit.

Good luck.

waynetheking

Hey justinnn glad you came here. I can't give any advice on the dui because I've never had any. There were times I deserved one though. But when you're ready to quit drinking ill be here for ya. Alcoholism destroys lives and families. Killing someone in an auto while intoxicated is 20 years in the pen. Think about it.

Gottalife

There are two ways to look at the AA suggestion.

My old alcoholic mind would say sure, go to AA to get out of this DUI. That might work, but it won't help with the next one and all the other problems that come with active alcoholism.

On the other hand if you went to AA to save your life, then this may be your last DUI, and your life will have many more joyful events than problems.

The real value that AA might have for you will be influenced by the reason you go there.

justinnn

This is a good question and one I don't really have a good answer to.

If it weren't for the DUI I would not be posting here right now. I guess the DUI has just woken me up a little and made me think about just how much I drink.

I'm a little confused on where I'm at. In the end if I get convicted of this DUI I'm going to have to stop for at least a year if I want to get my license back and complete the terms of my probation(which you can damn sure bet one of them is to stay sober and there will be random testing).

I don't want to wait until my conviction to finally stop because I do want to at least be able to tell the judge hey I've quit drinking and have been going to AA, I've learned my lesson.

I don't know.. I told myself last Sunday night that it would be my last night of drinking and it still hasn't been. The moment I do stop I legitimately want it to my last drink and I guess that is just hard for me to wrap my head around. Maybe I'm asking too much and just need to take it one day at a time.

I appreciate everyone commenting though, it really does help. I also hope to keep this thread updated throughout it all as far as my progress or not with sobriety and my DUI case. Hopefully I can look back at this thread and tell myself things worked out OK and it's not always as bad as I make it seem in my head lol.

Hawkeye13

If you keep drinking, expect more of the same but worse.

carl is right--you're not ready till you're ready and it doesn't sound like
maybe you are yet. . .

Try reading around the site a bit more to get a sense of how low the bottom can get.
You're still young and can get out relatively unscathed, even though things
seem tough with a second DUI at the moment.

Wishing you success and sobriety justinnn--

FLCamper

It sounds like you think you need to but you don't really want to. Why don't you go to an AA meeting and see how it goes.

Thumpalumpacus

When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. It's hard, but it's doable, and you can do it. Continued drinking can only make your hole deeper. Understand why you want to quit, and internalize that reasoning -- and then live it day by day, and moment by moment, and needs be.