cue

I am sure. What I said was that my problems were disconnected from my alcohol use, so quitting would not have made them go away. There are many different kinds of alcoholics. I was never addicted. I also did NOT suggest at any point that alcohol made me happy. It made me able to get by.

Sobriety does not do things for you either. There's a truckload of great food for thought in this thread. Happiness does not look at you, realize you are sober and jump at you.

Berrybean

I spent 6 months sober, and attending meetings and things did improve as far as manageability of finances, relationships, work, etc. BUT, I was still pretty miserable. In fact, more miserable eventually than I was when I was drinking, because I didn't understand WHY I felt so miserable, or why I had so much bad luck, and so many people treats me so badly, etc.ad Infinitum.

Eventually I got miserable and desperate enough to actually get a sponsor and work on my recovery. Do what other people suggested - people who had what I wanted. They wafted some promises under my nose which I thought just MUST be complete bullpoop. Turns out all of those promises came true when I did what was suggested. Amazing!

These were the promises....

The 12 promises of AA:

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through.
We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
We will comprehend the word serenity, and we will know peace.
No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.
That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.
We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
Self-seeking will slip away.
Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.
Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.
We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Those promises coming true are enough bright sides for me anyway.

ScottFromWI

Are you suggesting that you are not an alcoholic? I don't think it really matters what "kind" of alcoholic you are - if drinking is a problem, stopping is the solution in every case.

I would argue that sobriety does give you the chance to change a lot of things that you cannot change while you are still drinking.

cue

Hi.

I also know people who don't drink (never did) and are very unhappy. They are an unfortunate negative example for me, as they happen to belong to the same group of people that have been telling me to stop. I look at how they are doing and go "if becoming sober means becoming like you, I'm going to start drinking MORE!". They've been an obstacle to me seeing the real point behind sobriety that I think was established here By Dee74 -- sobriety is not a solution, it's a tool (a "platform") to go forward with.

About that other thing, what I meant was simply that in my experience the media, newspapers, and doctors are marketing sobriety, presenting it as a simple CURE, which it is not. The reason is obvious, for outsiders alcohol abuse is a simply BAD, to them it causes dui's, fights, abuse and all that and if you take it away all is going to be good.

That one time I refused to go to detox was actually an example of the previous. The doctor basically said "okay, alright, we're going to have to get you off that alcohol" without presenting me with any kind of roadmap or plan, or an idea of what would happen, what would life be like afterwards (how would it be better?). I consider myself a logical person, I was not going to take orders from anyone if I didn't think they made sense.

cue

No (unless I would really like to argue semantics here but I don't). I however did purposefully point out that I AM a different kind of alcoholic in the sense that drinking for me was a choice, not a necessity. I do believe it does make a difference, for example I can not really relate to other peoples experiences about cravings and such, so I need to figure out what works best for ME management-wise.

Your second paragraph I agree 100% with. I would actually agree with that even if I was still drinking. It just makes that much sense.

Bunny211

I was absolutely miserable the first 18 months after getting sober. It was the hardest thing I ever did. Now at 2 plus years, I have a life I never could've dreamed of. No one would stay sober if life didn't get good. No one. It does get good. It just takes time and a lot of intensive work on yourself.

For a long time I never got sober because I thought life would be useless without a drink. If I couldn't drink, I would rather have died. At some point that changed and I decided to give sobriety a shot. I'm forever grateful that I did.

paulokes

By the way ^^ this 100%.

P

ScottFromWI

I understand what you mean and certainly there are people doing what you suggest in "the media". But then again there's people trying to sell you everything in the media from boats to miracle cures to car insurance and much of it is suspect if not outright fraudulent at times. I personally avoid most media, especially social for this very reason.

What really helps IMHO is finding a group of peers to help one recover/improve your life for whatever it is that ails you. Here on SR you can find people recovering from addiction ( of many types), anxiety, depression PTSD, and lots of other things. Finding others that can identify with what you are dealing with is very powerful. Even that in itself won't make you "happy" - but it will absolutely give you a platform & tools to seek happiness.

bullmas

Being happy or not, excessive Alcohol has been my downfall most of my life,
Being sober is not a magic happy cure for me either , but all the past luxuries , Anxiety, Depression, PTSD, Hypertension etc, are moving out of my space.
If the drinking starts again , they will be back.
Cheers

Ken33xx

Is the glass half full or half empty?

Depends on the individual.

applewakesup

This is a fantastic reply! I so much better understand this concept now. Thank you so much for sharing.

BrendaChenowyth

Well.. quitting alcohol is removing something that is preventing you from feeling things, and preventing you from making something of your life that you can be happy about.. it just isn't going to be as simple as quit alcohol and be happy. You have to DO things to arrive at happy. You just can't do those things with alcohol in the way.

HTown

I am happier with myself. Not necessarily happier in everyday life because I am sober. I am prouder inside, my great weakness was alcohol. I was ashamed of my weakness. My inability to limit myself. The promises I broke to myself and people who loved me. The shame. The guilt. Those are gone, in their place is a little light, a quiet pride only I know about, and I only mention here. That alone makes me happy. Happier than I was drinking. I did it today, stayed sober. I thank God for that, and I bask a little in that self-glow.

cue

Ken33xx, I'm not sure what you are going for here. Are you saying outright that if you're optimistic, your life will turn around and you'll become content/happy but otherwise you definitely won't? I would suggest being delicate on this matter, you can't simply decide to be more positive or optimistic. Those things (and a lot more) are part of your personality and any changes are likely to be slow. For example depressed people are too often told to "just cheer up" and anyone who has experienced depression knows it simply doesn't work that way.

Back to the original post, the CENTRAL question I had and am most interested in is "What is really the good, bright side of being sober?" I already know all the typical, obvious things like improved overall physical health, improved coordination, improved cognition - the list goes on. I'm not disputing the reality any of those benefits, that was just not the point. The point was that the common practice of promoting sobriety as a (quick) cure or solution to your problems is counter-productive in many cases, including my own. Like I said, what actually kept happening to me because of that poorly expressed advice was that I was simply not convinced and went back to drinking.

It's probably also safe to assume that a month or two (or even my longest, 6 months) is not long enough to notice or realize the more profound benefits. What's most interesting to me are the experiences of people who have been sober for much longer than I ever have, which would be on the order of years, not months. They are the ones who know what the REAL, long-term benefits are and some of that information has already been shared here. Thank you guys for that.

fini

cue,
other than those quickly-realized obvious benefits (and i'm not discounting those, as they are huge), no, not drinking didn't make me happier. or happy.
not drinking slowly gave me a chance to see just how miserable i really was.

took me a long time, and the understanding grew that, to put it simply, alcohol was my solution, not my problem.
so, when i quit, i needed a real solution.
took me a while to get clear on what the real problem was.

stick around. read , see what makes sense to you of your own experience, what rings true.

am i happy now?
i don't know what that means....i think it's the wrong question. i like yours better: the bright side is that i know, KNOW, that the way i'm going is a good direction. the bright side is that i got my soul back. really, that's shorthand for all kinds of stuff, but is the best way for me to put it right now.

stick around.

silentrun

Hi Cue. Maybe you are asking the wrong question. How about "what's the bright side to continue drinking?" I think one of the things that helped me was breaking the cycle before I NEEDED the alcohol. I had a very strong compulsion but I still hadn't convinced myself I needed it. That day was coming up fast though. I am so glad I got out when I did. No regrets for my 4 years sober, none at all.

As far as being happy my experience was much like Bunny's. Looking back on it now it took me 2 full years to recover. I wasn't miserable the whole time but it's not like it is now. I had thrown myself into a depression with my pint of whiskey a night drinking. I started to become anxious and always felt this impeding doom chasing me. My mind would get stuck on things and I would get angry and spin. That was all caused by the damage of poisoning my brain. When I stopped my mind slowly healed and I was finally able to look at things with a clear head and come up with real solutions. If you do have underlying issues they will still be there but your crippling yourself by using.

dwtbd

Quitting drinking is a cure and the solution , for drinking problems. It is possible to quit for good and guarantee no more problems with consumption.
Everything else is life , if you have a problem with alcohol quitting will fix that and leave you with one less problem . If you have or had a problem with alcohol and don't quit ,it will always remain as a net negative, the bright side is not having a problem with alcohol is a net positive.
Being 'recovered' is a net positive because it removes a negative. Being 'sober' is the natural state , consuming alcohol is an artificial/cultural behavior that can be problematic and if it is a problem permanent abstinence is the cure. A return and a guarantee to always being in a natural state of being.
Achieving and sustaining a sense of happiness in that natural state of being , that's a horse of a different color yeah?

cue

Actually there are (unfortunately) many "bright" sides in continuing to drink. That's why it is so difficult to just stop. For example as has already been mentioned, the recovery takes a LONG time and it requires you to completely turn your life upside down in many ways (having to avoid social situations and friends who drink for one thing...).

Also if you're in a situation where alcohol is noticeably causing you problems, but you are still basically completely functional I would estimate it is much more difficult to quit than... otherwise. If you're still managing to work/study/whatever, it's the alcohol that's keeping you going. If you'd quit, there'd inevitably be a noticeable (temporary, but relatively long-lasting) drop in your performance and it's usually not possible to take weeks or months off to "fix yourself". You would need to plan it in advance, get a few weeks off etc. and you still wouldn't know what the end result would be.

I have a friend who's a perfect example of the aforementioned, a very heavy drinker for over a decade but still able to do his, apparently high pressure, job. I can see the stress and the alcohol slowly eating him up. I don't presume to know if he would even want to quit, but I can see that even if he wanted to, it would be complicated. I think lately he has somehow been able to cut down a bit though.

cue

Quick reply: You're basically saying "If you quit drinking, then you have quit drinking" here. But that has nothing to do with what I was saying.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

PhoenixJ

I have been mulling over to replying.. agreed sobriety does not come the reward of eternal happiness. It does, however give a level playing field that allows me to deal with life. Happiness for me is not the point- peace of mind is.
To rebuild my life without booze means changing everything- because everything I do comes from my thinking, behaviours.