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Where would you be if you had kept drinking?

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Old 10-13-2022, 06:31 AM
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Where would you be if you had kept drinking?

I think about this often.

I don't think I'd have ever started a grad school program on top of my work/parenting. I wouldn't be this healthy and fit (not by a long shot, alcohol always threw off my progress). I think I'd be struggling, more anxious. It's one of the things that keeps me moving forward in sobriety with confidence.

I actually don't know where I'd be if I haven't quit. In a best case I'd be less healthy and going through the same moderation and "bad weekend" game. But there are far worse cases, too.

Grateful every day for sobriety.
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Old 10-13-2022, 06:40 AM
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Where would you be if you had kept drinking?
Scarry to think about. My continued drinking and my drug taking would have me homeless, with a deteriorating mental/bodily state, and headed to the grave. wrighting this out is making me weep.
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Old 10-13-2022, 08:00 AM
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I would be dead. I was starting the process of convincing myself that my family would be better off without me. I was on a collision course with suicide.

My daughter was 16 when I pulled out of the spiral. It's painful for me to contemplate what would have happened to her if I hadn't.
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Old 10-13-2022, 08:08 AM
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Its hard to say.
Im really happy I quit drinking and started the journey to recover from active addiction. Freedom is an amazing feeling!
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Old 10-13-2022, 08:27 AM
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Unhappy and Ashamed.

Now I am sober, resilient and learning what it is to allow myself to be happy.
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Old 10-13-2022, 10:21 AM
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I'm sure I wouldn't be here typing this response. I'd be long gone. I was driving when I shouldn't have been, passing out, putting myself in dangerous situations. I was completely dependent on it and the end was near.

I'm so thankful we are free of it.
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Old 10-13-2022, 11:05 AM
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I actually think about this from time to time. I'm positive I would as miserable as I was at the end of my drinking career.
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Old 10-13-2022, 05:17 PM
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After my last hitting bottom I believe I would die. Sneaking just one and then falling into the abyss. I’m grateful I lived last time.
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Old 10-13-2022, 05:29 PM
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I’d be at the bar, or worse….I shudder to think …
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Old 10-13-2022, 07:05 PM
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I expect I'd either be dead or, if not, desperately wanting to be dead because of my quality of life/brain damage/stroke or something.
Sounds dramatic, maybe, but its true.

D
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Old 10-13-2022, 08:47 PM
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Not here, now.
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Old 10-13-2022, 09:10 PM
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I would either be a dead man walking or a dead man taking a dirt nap six feet under.
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Old 10-14-2022, 04:49 AM
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Either dead or so sick that I'd want to be dead.
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Old 10-14-2022, 02:01 PM
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Dead. No doubt about. Every night I prayed that I would not wake up
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Old 10-14-2022, 04:36 PM
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dead and six feet under
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Old 10-14-2022, 07:27 PM
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Dead or wishing hard for it. Near the end of my drinking days I was pretty hopeless and certainly unhealthy, I was resigned to not surviving another year. Maybe that’s me being dramatic, but I believed it then, and I still feel that was accurate. It’s pretty remarkable how much things can change in a relatively short time, Thank-you, SR.
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Old 10-15-2022, 09:47 PM
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I think during the lockdowns I would’ve gone from weekend binge to daily drinking. Being home all day, alone, with IPAs in the fridge & vodka on the shelf? Yeah, I would’ve been in trouble, probably lose my engineering job, and that would be yet another excuse to drink.

Damn, I’m glad I quit drinking when I did in 2017. The lockdowns were bad enough, I can’t imagine how miserable I would’ve been if I was still a drunk.
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Old 10-15-2022, 11:57 PM
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If I had kept going the way I had been and didn't quit, I'd be dead by now.

If I had kept going the way I had been for a few years longer and then quit, I'd be dead by now.

The time lost while being a practicing alcoholic is time you can never get back. So, the only thing one can do is add to what we have left by quitting. Obviously, the sooner, the better. The problem with what I just said is that when I was a practicing alcoholic, there was a time when I couldn't quit no matter how hard I tried and no matter how much I wanted to. Even the fear of dying wasn't enough to help me quit. Drinking cured all the horrible fear it caused me to have about drinking and dying because I was drinking. A paradox.

Oh! Such an insidious and under-handed monster alcohol is! But we all know that.
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Old 10-16-2022, 06:38 AM
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Dead, simple as that.
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Old 10-17-2022, 05:06 PM
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Originally Posted by spen71 View Post
Dead. No doubt about. Every night I prayed that I would not wake up
I did the same thing. Don't miss that at all. Even thru the hardest days of recovery I never again wished for that.
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