Dee74

I can only share my experience.

For 20 years or more I was very cynical, negative pessimistic and prone to depression.

I stayed that way for a while after I quit too.

I thought that was my natural demeanour, but over time a more optimistic me began to re emerge - a me I'd forgotten about.

Alcohol and other drugs had really coloured the way I saw the world and myself.

Fair enough if you were never that way to begin with, but I still think you might be surprised at how much alcohol use or misuse has coloured your perceptions.

Outonthetiles

For me, getting sober allowed me too face up to deeper, underlying problems that had been plaguing me for years and allowed me to have a clear mind and some breathing room to start working on my deeper problems. In other words being sober isn't a magic panacea to all of life's problems, but it does allow you to begin tackling tougher problems that had been masked by drinking.

paulokes

Also Cue...Wouldn't want this to sound offhand or flippant but..

Nobody here is trying to convince you to stop drinking. If you want to or think you need to stop, there are folks here who have done the same before you and can help but its not Herbalife, we are not selling a vision of the perfect life and we are not on commission When you say it's hard to imagine the positives and you can see lots of negatives in quitting...well of course I can relate.

But really and truthfully I quit when that changed. When I was honest with myself, in the cold light of day, I couldn't deal with the status quo anymore.

Outonthetiles

I haven't really experienced any regrets or negative consequences after getting sober. I really don't miss any aspect of drinking except maybe now and then the feeling you get between two drinks and four drinks. But for me alcohol stopped working and I was unable to stop after even one drink. consequently I can't touch alcohol ever again.

silentrun

So I hear you saying the bright side is you can continue doing what you are and don't have to change. That's the whole point of getting sober.

To me it seems to be just the opposite. Why wait until you have completely destroyed your life? The sooner the better on this one.

Whoa! Do you see what happened there? Alcohol is now a need. You were right the first time, you don't need it.

I didn't notice a drop in my performance. I had dead air for awhile but it really wasn't any worse than waking up feeling like I was the most worthless person on the planet. You are already 5 weeks in so it's not like you need time off to go through a withdraw. I went to work and when I came home i used the 3 hours I would have spent getting drunk to work on my recovery.

It's not complicated. A person just makes a decision and then searches out resources to help them achieve their goal. People do it every day.

tomsteve

yes, there was a bright side.it was fun.
then i crossed the line into full blown alcoholism. i couldnt not drink.
then the giggles were gone.
then i wanted to die.

my performance at work drastically improved after i stopped drinking. it didnt take long either. about a month.


rationalizing my drinking was a form of denial( and insanity). it was one of the things that caused me to sink deeper into alcoholism and become suicidal.


saying that a bright side of continued drinking is becuase recovery takes a long time it 100%, undeniably, illogical insane statement.

i sure hope ya stick around and decide to stop trying to rationalize to a group of old bullsh*tters, cue.
life sober is pretty good.

theres been a LOT of people in your shoes. on this site alone. quite a few disappeared for years. then came back years later in worse shape than ever.
then theres others we've heard from relatives that they died from alcoholism.

Ken33xx

If you can't relate to the craving for wanting one more after just one more.... then good. You can cool it with the booze when necessary. In which case there isn't much of a bright side to attending a party and not drinking. Because if you're not going to get sh---faced drunk and possibly embarrass yourself... drink and have a good time.

Yeah, I'll go along with that. I was that way for a good ten years. Drinking caused me problems from time to time but I basically kept it together.

Unfortunately, there came a point when I couldn't keep my life straight. People stopped buying my act. Like it or not I felt I had to do something about my drinking.

dwtbd

Yep that's what I was saying. I was challenging the notion that 'sobriety ' is a cure for 'unhappiness', the notion of those you blame for pushing, but nonetheless seem to agree with.
My perspective is that you( the general you here) either drink or not , if drinking is a problem , it is possible to remove that problem permanently.
Billions of people for many millennia have tried to define and achieve 'happiness' , those with a problem with alcohol add one more impediment to the goal, when they don't have to.
Addiction itself is the illusion that alcohol consumption is a net positive to life, once the illusion is broken and the fact that addiction is a net negative is accepted , alcohol consumption can be seen for the waste of life and obstacle to achieving happiness it is.
I'd say you're right 'sobriety ' isn't a guarantee for happiness, how could it be ? It's not a thing , it's a lack of a thing(things), but what has that got to do with drinking? So I agree that when 'they' say it is, they're wrong, but ultimately, so what? I don't agree 'their' wrongness has any bearing on problem drinking.

cue

I won't be surprised, but you're right. Alcohol definitely distorts your experiences and perception. I was never optimistic but maybe I was different in some way. I don't know. There's never been a noticeable change in that when I have had long breaks.

Ken33xx

People are what they are. Some are naturally optimistic and others pessimistic but most people probably fall somewhere in the middle.

I would describe myself more as a cautious person than say optimistic/pessimistic and I attribute this to my job.

cue

The previous post I was replying to is not visible there, which might explain why you misunderstood me.

I did NOT say you should wait for your life to be "completely destroyed" before you do something about your problem. Obviously there's no benefit to that.

However there ARE times where continuing (in the short-term) is a more suitable option, perhaps even the only option. If you're in the middle of something important and you ARE managing it, you can't afford to suddenly be out of play in withdrawal and such. You'll have to find a better time to quit.

This place can be a great help. I just hope you all stay realistic here. Quitting might be simple for some people, and complicated for others. A trivial example case of this is someone who has children vs. someone who does not.

P. S. You are making the assumption that I was referring only to my own (and current) situation. That's not necessarily true. I have been speaking in a more general sense. The topic interests me in more ways that just helping ME.

cue

Not really, but no one suggested that anyway. You took this one thing out of context and distorted the whole. What I said was that sobering up takes a long time AND that "it requires you to completely turn your life upside down..." (plus everything else I said). It is much more complex than simply not drinking anymore. Do you see?

What? Decide to stop what? I am not trying to convince you of anything.

Rationale is everything. Like I mentioned earlier, I won't accept advice that does not make sense. You seem to use the term "rationalizing" as specifically meaning "rationalizing alcohol use". That might be an accepted shorthand at AA or something, but it is incorrect in general usage. In fact, I am trying to rationalize SOBRIETY here. I'm looking for the things that make it good.

cue

I sincerely hope that is true.

What's funny though, is that I have stopped drinking (36 days). What's BAD is that I get easily discouraged if people use the typical nonsense tactics and try to push me. What's the worst is that I CAN'T drink at the moment and the discomfort is real. I NEED a safe, comfortable space. Is this the place?

nez

I know exactly the feeling that you talked about in your initial post. I chased that feeling for years.

The bright spot for me is that I no longer chase illusions. I experience life as it is. Filters and fixes from external sources are band-aid solutions. Real healing comes from within.

A few years back and a few years into recovery, when I moved back to the US from a tropical island, I was afraid that I would never be truly happy again. No more warm water, no sand between my toes, no solitary walks on a deserted beach.

Time has proved me wrong, warm water, sand between my toes, long solitary walks on a deserted beach, these things don't make me happy. They can't, nor can their absence make me sad.

For me, that revelation is the bright spot.

Bob4x4

quitting drinking or any substance isn't supposed to 'make' you happy - quitting is about removing the negative consequences, physical, or psyhological, or financial, or interpersonal / relationships, all or a combination of them ... add a few more you can think of.

make a list of negative consequences, keep it in your wallet for quick access so when you have a craving or wonder why you are giving up something that makes you feel great for an hour... and shi77y for 6+ hours after...

JeffreyAK

But it is, as dwtb points out: It is the simple cure for a drinking problem, and you will have no more drinking problem after you quit drinking. Sometimes we put other expectations on the process that are unfulfilled, and sometimes we are amazed at how many other positive things are enabled by quitting, but all of that other stuff is really on us as individuals. We can blame other people for our drinking problems, and we can blame other people for sobriety not solving our problems, but it's really all on us.

If drinking is not causing you significant negative consequences, then it's harder to summon the motivation to quit, sure. I was in that place for years, a "functional" alcoholic on his way to becoming a completely non-functional alcoholic. "I can quit any time I want to but I don't want to", etc. But by the time we're in that place, rationalizing continuing to drink because it is a kind of "medicine" and it's not causing significant problems, we already have a drinking problem. That's a key understanding. Whether or not we choose to do something about that problem is up to us, but we can be reasonably certain that we've already crossed a line and that it will get worse and worse over time.

paulokes

I hear you friend. But of course noone here is going to advocate drinking...by and large this is a community of people who found drinking so painful they looked to stop completely. That will colour the experience and advice people share.

As far as a safe space is concerned...we cannot control what anyone says except in extreme cases which need forum moderation, handled pretty well I think by Dee Scott and the rest. I have found SR to be extremely supportive. Nobody here expects people to be sunny amd fluffy immediately after stopping. Quite the opposite.

Do YOU feel like you should be happier or more positive having made the decision to stop? Is it possible you are beating yourself up or expecting more from yourself? Do you need to vent or get some support with how you feel?

I'll say without embarrassment. ..it's ok to be negative of course but just be open to the possibility you will be less negative as your sobriety continues because that is the overwhelming experience of folks that stick at it. Especially the ones that dig in and get support with the reasons why they still feel negative.

I'd be interested to know what the "typical nonsense tactics" are or if you feel you are being pushed by folks here (maybe that should be a rhetorical question and something to think about).

I know in my own early sobriety I half suspected that all these happy folks were secretly miserable or just trying to pull the wool over my eyes for some reason I couldn't grasp.

Truth is though I am one happy trucker most of the time today. I absolutely believe it's possible to stop drinking and be content because I've experienced it.

P

Wholesome

I don't think that being abstinent is a guarantee for happiness. I wasn't really unhappy as a drinker tho, I had good times. I know that being sober frees me up to improve myself in ways that I wouldn't have if I'd kept drinking, and being a better version of myself brings me happiness of a more genuine sort. It's like I've come in out of the fog and I can see with clarity now. Everything used to be blurred around the edges...... I would never go back to getting through my life like that. Addiction kept me stuck in a very limited world of rinse and repeat. Being free of that gives me a peace of mind and body that I've never experienced before.

cue

Saying the equivalent of "if you quit drinking, then you will have quit drinking" is redundant ("useless", if you will). I already said this to 'dwtb' and frankly I don't feel like repeating myself many more times. This is as clear as it gets.

I was NOT looking for any kind of advice on how to quit drinking. My first post had NOTHING to do with any of that. So I am frustrated to see people replying with really irrelevant replies.

cue

Continued... (I had to take a break).

The problem, or actually, many problems that I personally have are not related to my alcohol use. No matter how long I stay sober, those problems will still be there. Can you understand this?

Even a large chunk of the problems that are related to alcohol use will not go away by themselves. This has already been validated many times in this thread alone.

Sobriety is a tool, not a solution.

(BTW, this discussion has gone way off track. Please continue with your experiences. What was it eventually for you that made you realize being sober is fundamentally better than being a drinker?)