FBL

Moderation was NOT in my vocabulary. Cutting down was not an option. For me, it was all or nothing. My last 7+ years of nothing have really been something.

Mountainmanbob

Claiming time sober should be an honest from the heart thing.
If not, once again we are only fooling ourselves.

Haven't had one drink in 9 years.

If I would have even had just one drink
I would have started a new sobriety date.

M-Bob

Ken33xx

Straight up no bs. Not a drop since 3/6/93.

But I was ready. Alcohol had stopped working for me. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. However, it's hard to explain this to someone who is an active alcoholic and doesn't want to stop.

Many alcoholics can't fathom a life of total abstinence. They don't want to stop completely. They just want to problems associated with drinking to go away.

Bunny211

I tried to cut down so many times and never could.
I did a medical detox and then rehab for 2 months.
Since that time I have not had a drop of alcohol.

stargazer016

I tried to moderate many many times unsuccessfully. Only drinking beer, putting daily numbers on my amount of drinks, setting time limits when I could begin drinking, even switching to alcohol that I didn't like. I was drinking sake' for crying out loud.

When I got to the point that I had lowered my personal bar to not drinking before 10:00am, and failing, I decided to quit cold turkey. I read the AVRT crash course on rational.org and started to lurk on SR and thankfully have made it almost two years.

Wishing you the best Lucky Cat!

Mountainmanbob

If I lied regarding my sobriety date
I might as well have a drink today.
MM

dwtbd

Nope still not a good enough reason, there aren't any, I checked the "Exceptions to the No Matter What list" , it's blank

Acheleus

Once I had one drink I didn't have control of myself or my drinking. This occurred at age 15, the first time I drank alcohol, and it occurred the last time I drank almost two years ago. The last time I drank I had been sober for nine months, and I had one beer in a bar, and after that I continued to drink and black out and the rest of it.

If I have learned anything about alcoholism during my journey in recovery it is that this problem is serious. Today I don't take my recovery for granted and I am ruthless about who I let into my life. The real work begins after the alcohol is gone, when I am left with the reality of my life and the necessity of growing emotionally and spiritually to be able to live life sober. I used to think that I wanted to quit drinking so I could be happy and an amazing person. Today I know that I have to be sober to just be a functional, mature, and responsible adult in society.

Carlotta

I have 4 years and 2 months of continuous sobriety.
I drove myself half crazy "controlling" my drinking, I never want to get back there and it is much easier just not to pick up the first one than play Russian roulette.
I value my sobriety

Poppy79

This a great thread to remind me that it's just not worth taking that first drink. Pure hell will be the result.

TheLuckyCat

Amazing responses and a real eye opener for me.

Reading how many of you were sober for so many years, to be utterly set back into drunken chaos again by that one drink.

I can safely say the majority here have taken the all or nothing approach.

I truly think it's the only way for a lot of alcoholics.

Really thank you everyone, and keep them coming. I love to hear people's stories. :-D

MarkTwain

Tommy and Ringo have me beat! I have only 27 years behind me without a drink. My last alcohol was two (!) draft Coors Lights in a bar with the fellas after our basketball game on a Thursday night. I didn't even know those would be my last drinks. If I had know, I might have gone out in style! Like a whole bottle of expensive anisette.

Since that night, I am without a single drink. None. Not one. No way. Not worth it.

SoberCAH

I got sober ~6 weeks after Tommy did.

Those were not fun times.

They seem to be as if they were from a different lifetime and a different person.

Chronic drunkenness is not a fun way to live.

Sobriety is.

Db1105

Not one drink since Christmas Eve of 1977. I stopped at some friends just to say hi on my way to an AA meeting. Then I was going to have just one beer, then that's all I remember. It taught me what powerless really was.

Bunny211

My best friend from rehab, was one day "ahead" of me in sobriety as we got sober the same week...she relapsed last month after 22.5 months sober. She lasted a week and is now back in detox. One drink...it just doesn't work for us.

Alan6154

I was a pretty hardcore daily maintenance drinker. For the last 10 years of my drinking I was rarely ever what I would consider drunk, but then again I was never sober. Toward the end I bought a breathalyzer and my waking BAL was normally about .08, I never checked it at night because by then I didn't care. But many of you have been there. Two shots and a beer in the morning so you can brush your teeth without vomiting maybe another beer so you can hold a coffee cup with steady hands. The first time I tried to quit cold turkey I ended up in the hospital on the third day for three days worth of sedatives and IV's. The doctor told me later if I hadn't come into the ER I would have been dead by dark. This time around I tapered myself down which was still pretty uncomfortable over 10 days and the quit. That was December 14, 2016. And moderation doesn't work. There is probably 1000 years of experience and effort trying to make it work on SR right now who've found that out. When you get to a certain point there is SOBER and there is DRINKING. There is absolutely nothing in between.

bloss

Tried cutting back, different days to drink on, times, type etc...didn't work for me. Had to not take the first drink, no matter how bad the urge, no matter what.

Done4today

Since my sobriety date, not one drink. But I tried to moderate, limit, drink less for 30 years prior. Abstinence has been the only way I can achieve happiness with sobriety.

youbetcha

No alcohol or drugs, except nicotine (which I still struggle with) since July 1991.