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The switch got flipped...

Old 05-03-2018, 02:04 PM
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The switch got flipped...

and I am now an ex-drinker.

I will have cravings, I'm sure they will come.

I have melancholy thoughts about a Thursday night like tonight in my past - sun shinning, no worries at work tomorrow - perfect for two bottles of cold white wine to get my evening "started" -but the thoughts come and even if I feel the pangs, I know I'm not drinking. It's like noticing a kid begging his parent for another candy, just not going to happen.

I've been on these boards a long time - and I've known I have an addiction to alcohol for longer.

But I know, with certainty, in a way I don't think I did before, that I will not drink anymore.

I can go back and read posts I've written here where I was confident then too about not drinking. Still, this is somewhere different.

Maybe I just had to get to 40 years old, I don't know. Maybe it's just that I FINALLY understand that I could lose everything and that I am not the man I want to be when I give into my addiction.

I can't tell what it is exactly.

Anyone else identify that "flipped switch" point in their drinking life where they knew (even conceding the AV doubts) that they were done, that they had paid enough?

How did you know?
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Old 05-03-2018, 02:33 PM
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Glad you are doing so well Less. I can say that I did have a somewhat of an enlightened/transitional moment where I knew that drinking was not an option anymore. I don't know that I suddenly felt that I would never drink again, but I finally accepted that I would never be able to do it at all without serious consequences

I can say that I really don't involuntarily think about whether I will drink or not anymore. Sure, when I'm here on SR I do remind myself of why I'm here and I still find value in interacting with newcomers and learning about addiction in general. But for the rest of the day, I honestly don't even think about alcohol or drinking - or NOT drinking at all. It simply doesn't even register with my conscious mind.
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Old 05-03-2018, 02:36 PM
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Originally Posted by ScottFromWI View Post
Glad you are doing so well Less. I can say that I did have a somewhat of an enlightened/transitional moment where I knew that drinking was not an option anymore. I don't know that I suddenly felt that I would never drink again, but I finally accepted that I would never be able to do it at all without serious consequences

I can say that I really don't even think about whether I will drink or not anymore really. Sure, when I'm here on SR I do remind myself of why I'm here and I still find value in interacting with newcomers and learning about addiction in general. But for the rest of the day, I honestly don't even think about alcohol or drinking - or NOT drinking at all. It simply doesn't even register with my concious mind.
Think you nailed it - might just be as simple as "acceptance" - which was not simple for me, or many of us, to get to.

Thanks for your input all these years. Always straight forward, sometimes the tough honesty that's required, and on point.
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Old 05-03-2018, 02:46 PM
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I think when you own up , fully and with all self honesty, to fact that you have control of that switch and slam it home.

When everything may not hang in the balance, when /if you can imagine a situation with minimal damage or realistically contained and negotiable damages of a one off , or even a pleasant experience with no adverse effects and still know you won’t.
Good , bad or indifferent nondrinkers simply don’t consume alcohol, and I am one Anybody can be one , AV is the only one that thinks it’s an actual ‘big deal’, but of course IT would
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Old 05-03-2018, 04:15 PM
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YES. I knew the day I quit. I had created a giant mess of my life, my husband was furious, I was in withdrawal, but I felt nothing but relief.

I felt the relief before I made the determination, because my gut knew before I did. I was done.
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Old 05-03-2018, 05:41 PM
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I can tell you the exact moment and the exact place I was when I knew I was DONE.
That was it.

And then my program, my recovery work began.

And now, it's a darn amazing life.
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Old 05-03-2018, 09:23 PM
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Yeah there was a moment I knew - not when I quit.... but not too long after

D
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Old 05-03-2018, 10:33 PM
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There seems to be a turning point for almost everyone. Quite a few reach a point where they have had enough and make a solid decision which ends their drinking, and they can make it stick. For the likes of me that could not do that and make the decision stick, we still reach a turning point, one of turning to out creator for help.
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Old 05-04-2018, 05:00 AM
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Originally Posted by Dee74 View Post
Yeah there was a moment I knew - not when I quit.... but not too long after

D
Dee - I think this is exactly it. I can't pinpoint it either. In reality it's more like an accumulation of knowledge and pain that shifted the scales and now I'm on the other side.

Not that I don't think there's always going to be work to be done. But there's always going to be work to be done.
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Old 05-04-2018, 05:07 AM
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Originally Posted by lessgravity View Post
Anyone else identify that "flipped switch" point in their drinking life where they knew (even conceding the AV doubts) that they were done, that they had paid enough?

How did you know?
Life constantly changes. People constantly change.

I have learned in AA to live one day at a time - sure you may think today that you are done with alcohol forever. I felt the same way in early sobriety.

I am now 18+ months sober and I know I can easily fall back into drinking if I don't continue to work my AA program and grow spiritually everyday.

Too many people say they are done forever but go back to drinking.

I am not saying this will happen to you - I hope you make it - but just don't get too comfortable in sobriety. We must always be on guard.
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Old 05-04-2018, 05:28 AM
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Hey LG

Yeah, I relate. For me, however, I've been at this a while. So I'm always somewhat hesitant about making broad brush statements about my abstinence.

I have only been sober, this time, a bit over a year. That's nothing really. But today is everything, so there's that way of thinking too. That mindfulness that goes way beyond not drinking today....yes, that acceptance.

When I remove alcohol I'm left with a person that doesn't cope well. I have seen people like me, the ones that can't cope with life on life's terms, really struggle. I've also seen people who say things like 'I want to go back to the person I was before I started drinking' implying that they were relatively 'ok' prior to booze taking over. I've never been one of those people. So in other words, I'm really learning how to live life. Take away the booze, and I'm still emotionally crippled. I'm doing much better, I am grateful I have barely thought of drinking at all.

Recently I went to take care of my parents. Very stressful and sad. Then I came home to a 17 yr old daughter who is changing faster than I can wrap my head around (think 2 years old....except they are driving...and I don't mean she's behaving like a toddler...I just mean she is changing 'that' fast), a bunch of crap with my house...all involving money, etc etc. I was soooo agitated yesterday. In a way I haven't been for a long time. And I couldn't sort it. BUT what I have learned is that in these moments is where I grow. And that agitation had been building for a couple of weeks. Anyway, stay in the agitation. Accept it. And I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that alcohol will not work. Maybe that's the difference. It will not work. But I've thought that before I think.

So I'm babbling (what else is new?). But by last night, by some kind of miracle, a few of the petty annoyances had resolved. And even tho some of the 'big stuff' is still there, I felt relief. Life always works out. Feelings always change.

I don't know if that made any sense. I didn't sleep last night
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Old 05-05-2018, 12:55 AM
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Reflecting on your initial post a little more I remember a very specific point in my journey where I became absolutely convinced I was on the right track. I was reading some promises in the big book, promises I had read before but never noticed because they were beyond my experience. They were describing exactly how a I felt in the days after I had take the fifth step.

One was “ the feeling that the drink problem has been solved will often come strongly” . And it did and it was. That was my “done for good” moment I suppose, but the action didn’t stop there. The results I was getting inspired me to continue the work. The drink problem was solved by the track I was on and stayed solved because I stayed on the track.
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Old 05-05-2018, 11:33 AM
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Knowing I was done was necessary for my continued abstinence. I'm the past I found that if I don't make a sweeping statement that informs my whole life forward, I drink again. For me, the door can't be cracked open.
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Old 05-05-2018, 04:14 PM
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I think I know the transition you are referring to, LG, as I feel like I've had it half-flipped a couple of times over the years before finally flipping it all the way.

It was a process of elimination: after eliminating everything else in my life (family, friends, former colleagues, vacations, hobbies) besides work and palliative booze--there wasn't anything left to blame for my downward spiral. One day after running into a random acquaintance on the street that I didn't want to run into (and having THAT "what are you up to?" conversation), I just felt ashamed of my life, ashamed that I couldn't function normally and felt I had to hide from everyone, and also suddenly aware that things were going to get a lot worse for a long time if I didn't find some way to get more comfortable with life. I just thought to myself, well sh**, you're not such an idiot that you can't figure this one out. Obviously we need to stop drinking entirely and start normalizing.
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Old 05-05-2018, 11:15 PM
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It wasn’t QUITE an “aha” moment, but close.

I entered inpatient rehab with no expectations. I had never made a conscious effort to get sober, more into consequence management and damage control. I was far too sick and out of it to have expectations anyway, it was more like minute by minute survival. At first I was going to stop for 90 days and see. Then it was 6 month. Then a year.

I guess the big moment was when I heard the ...and our lives had become unmanageable... phrase. I could no longer ignore that drinking was completely and totally out of control. Normal drinkers don’t wake up in medical detox with only fuzzy memories of how they got there. It as suddenly as clear as vodka that there was a pattern of drinking that ended in bad and worsening consequences, and the evidence showed that this was far more likely to happen than not. Maybe not immediately, but within a period of months...and as I looked back at my life, the drinking to great excess times were happening faster, with shorter times in between and with increasing intensity. I may be able to learn to drink like a normal drinker, but why bother? I would miss the flavors and experience of wine, but the intoxication, even in small amounts, wasn’t at all enjoyable once I had reached the serial dependency stage. It wasn’t that I liked alcohol, it was that my body needed it to function. If it was withdrawn, bad stuff happened.

This was no way to live. I very quietly said to myself “I really shouldn’t drink anymore.”

The next 9 months or so was spent trying on different sobriety strategies and rebuilding a life without the possibility of alcohol or other addictive drugs. The more I experienced life unintoxicated and present in the moment, the more I realized how infinitely better was every moment of every day.

It wasn’t completely like a light switch, more like a dimmer. Drinking and using was dark. Gradually turning up the light over a period of a few weeks revealed a far more vibrant and beautiful world.
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Old 05-07-2018, 10:55 AM
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Originally Posted by MindfulMan View Post
It wasn’t completely like a light switch, more like a dimmer. Drinking and using was dark. Gradually turning up the light over a period of a few weeks revealed a far more vibrant and beautiful world.

Yes this is much of what I feel now, almost a month since my last and final taste of alcohol. My AV's lies present white wine a sunny early evening as this sweet escape into pleasure - where the truth is a dark, passed out, nauseous life of real escape from real pleasure and light and love and all the things that we get when we are sober.
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Old 05-07-2018, 11:29 AM
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Originally Posted by Frickaflip233 View Post
Hey LG

Yeah, I relate. For me, however, I've been at this a while. So I'm always somewhat hesitant about making broad brush statements about my abstinence.

I have only been sober, this time, a bit over a year. That's nothing really. But today is everything, so there's that way of thinking too. That mindfulness that goes way beyond not drinking today....yes, that acceptance.

When I remove alcohol I'm left with a person that doesn't cope well. I have seen people like me, the ones that can't cope with life on life's terms, really struggle. I've also seen people who say things like 'I want to go back to the person I was before I started drinking' implying that they were relatively 'ok' prior to booze taking over. I've never been one of those people. So in other words, I'm really learning how to live life. Take away the booze, and I'm still emotionally crippled. I'm doing much better, I am grateful I have barely thought of drinking at all.

Recently I went to take care of my parents. Very stressful and sad. Then I came home to a 17 yr old daughter who is changing faster than I can wrap my head around (think 2 years old....except they are driving...and I don't mean she's behaving like a toddler...I just mean she is changing 'that' fast), a bunch of crap with my house...all involving money, etc etc. I was soooo agitated yesterday. In a way I haven't been for a long time. And I couldn't sort it. BUT what I have learned is that in these moments is where I grow. And that agitation had been building for a couple of weeks. Anyway, stay in the agitation. Accept it. And I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that alcohol will not work. Maybe that's the difference. It will not work. But I've thought that before I think.

So I'm babbling (what else is new?). But by last night, by some kind of miracle, a few of the petty annoyances had resolved. And even tho some of the 'big stuff' is still there, I felt relief. Life always works out. Feelings always change.

I don't know if that made any sense. I didn't sleep last night
Thank you Frick, your post made me cry my eyes out. First time anything about recovery made sense to be in months.....you have really helped me understand my struggle.

Thanks Less, a wonderful thread.
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