Inafishbowl

Question here. I'm hearing a lot of horror stories from people and the consequences of their drinking. I am in the middle of my own personal horror story, but it doesn't seem as bad as some of the stories I'm reading/hearing.

So I'm wondering and hoping.... Did anybody quit drinking and stay sober before horrible consequences? Or do there have to be those consequences before recovery can happen?

Thanks for taking the time with this newbie and indulging a possibly offensive or stupid question.

Anna

I definitely think people can quit before things get 'terrible'.

I also believe that intervention can work well - if it done with love and with the help of a professional.

That said, my addiction happened really quickly, and by the time I became aware of what was happening, it was too late to be able to make a decision to stop. I needed more consequences before I stopped.

Dee74

Hi inafishbowl

We pretty much run the gamut here I think.

I believe your bottom is that moment when you simply cannot live that drunken life anymore - and anything, even sobriety, has to be better.

Some reach that point comparatively early...others don't.

D

BadCompany

This disease is an internal condition. The external stuff, divorces, jail and whatever are just decoration. I didn't have much in the way of "wreckage" to deal with when I sobered up at 27. Small "whiskey bumps" on the cars, only minor run ins with the law. Between the white noise in my head and the horror of waking up to another "groundhog day" of alcoholism with no prospects of change on the horizon left me with few options.

artsoul

Most definitely it's possible..... One thing that's so great about this forum for me is that I get to read what would have/will happen if I continued to drink. My own personal rock bottom was more emotional/mental, and maybe it was it's own kind of horror, but I never had a DUI, only had one blackout in my 20's, didn't suffer the relationship or financial issues because of my drinking.

In some ways, it was probably as much luck as anything. I have had hangovers, though, and got sick to my stomach a few times. But for me, it was the constant obsession, the control that alcohol had over me that was scary enough to convince me I wasn't going to "outgrow" or control this.

I asked myself "what are you waiting for?" And with that, I decided I didn't have to end up in the hospital or in front of a judge. SR really helped me face the inevitability of those things if I didn't stop.

Maybe I'm a wimp, but I'd had enough.....

Manz

Hi Ina,
In my case, I've had some horrible consequences happen since giving up that can in a large part be attributed to my drinking.
I tried giving up many times and would hear all the horror stories from others and think...nah..I'm not that bad.... i don't need to stop and would start again. But I have given up now... not after the worst consequence(although it was after a spectacularly embarrassing blackout moment).

I knew that things if left would have got far worse, like all the other stories I've heard.

So its fantastic if you have given up, and I'm sorry you're having a hard time.... but just know that its great to have stopped before any true horror could happen. Because I believe it would should I/we continue.

well done and I hope you find as much support here as I have.

Hugs

sevenwindows

Hi! I actually think that's a great question. I think that unfortunately, it often takes a horrible situation to open the eyes of many of us who refused to see the truth of what we are doing to ourselves and to those we love. That said, a horror story is in no way a necessary part of recovery. Some of us are fortunate enough to catch ourselves (or be caught!) before we are hurled off the edge, so to speak, into disaster. Just my observations from the many stories I've heard. I pray that things get better for you! :-)

mesh12121

I'm new here as well and asked the same questions in the chat room...my life sucks right now but i didn't have that OH MY GOD moment. I just simply want to quit after 20 yrs of being a functional alcoholic i' simply took the functional part out of the equasion and that's that....i quit . done. Shoulda been in rehab today.

least

I so much agree. I didn't have any horrific, ie, legal consequenses, illness/death or family break ups or anything like that, but the hell inside my own head was too much to bear. I'd have to say I recovered during a horror story, rather than before...

sevenwindows

Hey Badcompany... GREAT comparison to Groundhog Day. That's exactly what my drinking life was like!

LexieCat

I still had my home, car, driver's license, important government position (not bragging, it's true), never got arrested, never went to the hospital for a drinking-related event (though I did crack my ribs falling into a steamer trunk).

It was, however, a life of quiet desperation, steadily growing to unbearable proportions. I seldom left the house except for work. I was getting some scary alcohol-related symptoms. I was feeling hopeless, like my life was over and it would be steadily downhill from here. I drank to live and lived to drink.

It was bad enough, but it could have gotten a WHOLE lot worse.

Stevie1

Very good question. I don't think a "horror story" is a necessary component. It's more that...alcoholism is so pervasive and sneaky, that for many people it really takes something truly awful to give them a wake-up call. And, what is "truly awful" for one person isn't a deterrent to another.

I have in many respects been very lucky. I will be 53 years old a week from tomorrow and the first incidence of my drinking is a photo in my aunt's wedding album. I am two years old, chugging champagne, with a circle of smiling adults around me. Isn't she cute.

I went from fairly heavy drug use in my late teens and early twenties to being your basic fun party girl, but back in my mid 20s had periods where I would drink heavily at times and hide alcohol. I went in and out of periods of heavy drinking ever since; always pretty functional until it morphed gradually into solitary to black-out drinking in my 40s, always with periods of being sober-ish. It is a very gradual and sneaky disease.

I have never had a DUI, never been committed to hospital, never been in rehab, never jailed, never physically hurt someone else and as far as I know my liver is fine, I never get sick and am apparently blessed with the constitution of an ox.**
However it is a complete bloody miracle that I don't have a real "horror story" to share, it really is. All the times I drove blind drunk, stumbled home with strangers, the hundreds of gallons of booze I've poured through my body...sheer luck I haven't killed someone or wound up ill, badly injured, or dead.

However I have had countless...COUNTLESS...mortifying drunks, waking up in strange places and with strange people. I crashed my truck into a parked car while black-out drunk. I've had hundreds of mornings, maybe thousands, waking up sick and wondering what the hell I did the night before. I ruined a marriage by being horrible to my now-ex drinking and being unfaithful, I am currently pretty much alienated from my (dysfunctional anyway but still) family, I have sent nasty and vile emails to people and said nasty and vile things to people that I cannot even comprehend sober.

Here's the thing. It doesn't have to take a single, horrible, discrete incident to make a person realise they are an uncurable alcoholic. If you're thinking that you really need to "hit bottom" with a tragedy to quit, don't count on it. It can be cumulative...one day you realise several decades have gone by with all these shameful, harmful incidents piled up in a lifetime tsunami of alcoholic behaviour. I would be much, much better off had I quit in my 20s or 30s.

**My father was as well...he was a long-time "functional" alcoholic and very physically active and healthy, until he died of liver cancer at 64. Not sure how old you are; if you are young, 64 may seem ancient but it's really not.

caribbean

Sober just over four months here. My worst consequences, thank goodness, were all social -- wrecked relationships and awful reputation -- rather than physical or legal. But I did quit before anything broke that couldn't be repaired. Bottom is different for everyone; I have a friend who got sober before anything "really bad" happened but went back to drinking again and is physically dependent on alcohol once more... pushing his luck, out of fear. Hopefully he can make it out again.

eddie73

I think so. A horror story for one person could be a usual day in the life for a hardened alcoholic. It depends on how far down the rabbit hole you have gone and how much you are aware of this. I have heard stories of people who have finally lost their sanity so they are not fully aware of their horror story.

My latest relapse I felt less insane than when I was in the middle of my last binge before it. But given another week, I would have been worse I would guess. I think that stopping before it is too late is stopping before the true horror story begins.

Sugah

I know people who've gotten sober without any serious material consequences (still have the job, car, house, family; never been arrested), and I know people who've been through horrible, horrible consequences and continued to drink. Me? I've been through some rough stuff, but I don't think that's what it's all about.

I think the real bottoms happen in our hearts. When something happens, or nothing happens, and it hurts so much that drinking just doesn't fix it anymore. I had plenty of material consequences, but they never deterred me. That feeling of dying inside was what brought me my "moment of clarity."

I've read the account of your blackout and arrest. You said you spoke to your daughter in a way you'd never speak to her sober. Drinking took you there. You humiliated yourself and your family in front of the neighbors; you went to jail. That felt pretty horrible, didn't it? Enough to make you want to never do it again? That's your bottom--if you want it to be. Don't minimize what you've been through. I've seen so many do that--compare themselves to others, say "I'm not that bad," and then continue to drink.

You are in a very blessed position right now. Every alcoholic facing her or his own heart is. What you do with it determines if that blessing takes hold and grows.

Peace & Love,
Sugah

LexieCat

Sugah,

You nailed it. Lovely post.

FrothyJay

When we talk about unmanageability in the first step (our lives had become unmanageable), more often than not the discussion centers around external unmanageability-- the DUIs, embarrassments, physical consequences. The challenge with that interpretation, as you are pointing out, is that it invites comparison, as opposed to identification. And if we can always find someone who's had worse consequences than we've had, we'll always have a potential reason not to get better.

I prefer to think of unmanageability as internal. We've lost the ability to sanely run our own lives. We are restless, irritable and discontented. Terrified, bewildered, frustrated and full of despair. We are living lives run on self-centered fear, and the results-- both when we are drunk and sober-- are bad.

I've known people with absolutely tragic external consequences who never could get the internal manageability, and I've known people who drank 3-4 glasses of wine every night and yet were completely convinced of their alcoholic insanity.

I try to listen for the insane thought process that preceded the trauma, as opposed to the specifics of the trauma.

Supercrew

Horror stories are relative to the individual. My horror story or at least one of the things that made me stop, was fear of a real horror story occurring and embarrassing my son. I was detoxing during a Little League game my son was playing in and I didn't medicate properly and started going through a withdrawal, I honestly thought I was going to have a stroke or a heart attack, but I made it through it. The fear of having that happen during a moment where my son was supposed to be in the spotlight, and the embarrassment for him if it were to have happened got me to seek help and find SR.

Looking back, that might not of had an impact on someone to help push them to find help, but for some reason it really put things in perspective for me.

LaFemme

I never experienced any of the negative consequences that would constitute a bottom to most people. I bashed my shin horribly, hurt my finances and got a couple minor dings in my car.

But I was consumed by depression...physically addicted, overweight, bloated, hurting physically. Since July all of that has disappeared and I am living joyfully. Drinking again is not an option to consider. Its just not on the table.

ReadyAndAble

So LexieCat is Dick Cheney—I knew it!

Seriously though, this is a great thread (thanks inafishbowl). For me, the biggest horror story wasn't a humiliating or shameful moment; I had many of those and kept on drinking. The real horror was when I began to question if I could ever stop. Thank God for all of you, because SR gave me reason to believe I could.