KateeDidnt

Does there have to be a big uh-uh moment to be convinced to stop drinking? I have attempted quitting many, many times and each time was because of a mini 'holy-crap-I-did-something-stupid moment'.

Is there anyone out there that didn't have a pivotal moment? Does one really have to reach rock bottom? What was your catalyst to change?

Regretter

Hey, Katee.

I've not yet had an alcohol issue, but I've had issues with other substances. With amphetamines I had to hit rock bottom to make the choice to quit before I withered away and died. With weed I quit because my guitar became more important and weed destroys my ability to play, and my current issue with codeine became a matter of not wanting to be dependent on it forever just because the withdrawal is pretty tough.

Bit of a mixed bag, really.

My overall catalyst to get clean of all substances is reaching an age where if I don't completely clean up my act my life will continue to go downhill and I'll probably end up a suicide eventually.

Not much else I can say.

Flying4Life

For myself, it was just realizing that there is no chance for happiness or living the kind of life that I feel I am meant to live if I kept drinking. I was far from rock bottom. I just didn't want to wait until I had nearly destroyed myself to work towards becoming well and living up to my potential.

DoubleDragons

My catalyst was watching my mother behave in ways and do things that she (a once very beautiful, dignified, private woman) would never have done and realizing that alcohol addiction had taken her over. (and unfortunately, she hasn't realized it) I took a good, hard look at my lifestyle and I realized that if I didn't change, it was just a matter of time that I would become just like her and it scared me to death. Or should I say it scared me to life, because I have made a lot of positive changes in my life (not drinking is just one of them) and I feel better than I ever have before.

doggonecarl

Like you I had tons of "mini-quits" but I would always return to drinking with a new strategy for keeping it in check. Then, after a night of uncontrolled drinking I had a moment of clarity and saw my drinking for what it was.

My struggles to quit and stay quit proved to me I had a problems. Once I accepted I was an alcoholic and couldn't drink--ever--the struggles got easier.

Ruturn

I had hundreds (thousands?) of those moments of clarity where I knew I needed to change something. I tried quitting many, many times because I knew it was what I should do. Well, should is a word that gets me drunk. I came to the realization that I wanted to stop. For me. Not for anyone else or to stave off a consequence or anything else, simply for me. I hated the person I had become. I had compromised everything I held dear as a drinker, and then hated myself more for doing so, and drank to drown the pain, and it was all this multi-decades long downward spiral. I came to the decision on my own, without any new potential problems or consequences, that I wasn't going to be that compromised person anymore, and that I wasn't going to drink again. I also for the first time in my life believed I could be a different person, and that I could live without drinking. I want it this time, not for anyone else or because I should do it, I simply want it for me.

IOAA2

In my first couple years of trying to stop I went to a lot of AA meetings and many tried helping me who to this day I like and admire. Still I wasn't READY to plug the jug. With going to meetings I sub consciously heard things I needed to hear, like it's never going to get better than it is now. Then one day I got the feeling of being sick and tired of being sick and tired. Then I totally surrendered and started following suggestions on how to get and stay sober. It works if we work it. BE WELL

FeelingGreat

For me it was the realisation that it was getting worse, and I knew I wouldn't be able to moderate. I've seen uncontrolled drinking devastate my sister's family.

jutam

my 20 year old son found me passed out in the neighbours yard with my pants down, after also taking an overdose when drunk.... The end.

It took me a year trying to stop, with worse and worse carnage being created... but there was my glamorous dignified rock bottom.

Change4good

In my case, drinking stopped working. It grew to be too painful.

For me, there is no worse feeling than being hungover and drunk at the same time. That is what my life had become. . .I was either one or both.

I often regret wasted decades, but realize I must live for today. I have heard it said that those who know better, do better. I can't "unknow" that I am an alcoholic.

s492m

my catalyst was the love of my life leaving me because of the drinking. He had simply had enough and didn't want anything to do with me. Yet for the next week I continued drinking like there was no tomorrow and blaming the world for my problems and then I remember waking up on a monday morning passed out on the floor in the kitchen and realising that I could continue on that downward spiral and end up homeless, jobless and broke in the next few months or I could take the right steps to better myself. I am on day 12 today

nomis

I saw the damage and pain my drinking was having on my marriage. And I was exhausted, just tired, tired of living with all that pain, guilt, embarrassment and shame.

I woke up one morning and thought to myself "I can't keep doing this anymore." I promptly got blind drunk that night. Woke up the next morning thought the same thing, had a beer and two glasses of wine that night. Those were the last drinks I've had, 11 months ago. Not very glamorous or exciting, but that's how I quit.

I had been an alcoholic for 18 years, my entire adult life, it was the only way I knew how to live. Sobriety was unimaginable and frankly terrifying. But I realized it couldn't be worse than a life where I was still drinking. So I decided to take it one day at a time and instead of finding excuses to drink that day, I started finding reasons to stay sober instead.

KateeDidnt

Wow, what a bunch of powerful responses! I've gotten a lot out of each and every post above. Thank you.

ejackson

I didn't hit rock bottom. I just grew tired of drinking every day, of waking up feeling so poorly that all I wanted to do was go back to bed instead of living my life. I wasn't finding any joy in my day. And there is so much pleasure in my life if I just feel well enough to enjoy it! So, I stopped drinking. I'm only on Day 3, but something feels very peaceful about it this time. I've noticed so much about myself and the world around in the past 48 hours that I didn't see before.

Anyway, it's only Day 3, but, again, I didn't have a rock bottom. I just got fed up with myself.

Uninvited

I was going to answer that I didn't have a catalyst, because there is no specific cataclysmic event to point to. But the truth is, my catalyst is medical. So thank you for asking this question which started a little debate in my head. In my mid 40s, alcohol seems to be causing a far bigger medical problem in my life than it ever did before.

ejackson

Me, too, Uninvited! I'm noticing a few health issues arise now that I'm in my 40s, not the least of which is depression (which runs in my family). I needed to quit drinking so I could determine what issues are alcohol-driven, and what issues need to be addressed otherwise. I suspect they'll be much more manageable without wine.

hayley86

There were lots of bad things that happened when i was drinking which should have been incentive enough for me stop. It didn't happen that way for me though. Unfortunately i think it was always going to come down to something serious happening for me to quit. I hit rock bottom and ended up in hospital because of drinking and i was told if i carried on i would end up with permanent damage. That was the wake up call i needed to quit and i have not drank in over a year now.

digdug

Waking up from a 2 day coma from alcohol withdrawal and never wanting to go through that again. Not just the coma and life support. But the months of hell that preceded it too.

Never again.

croydonlad

I had tried to stop drinking a few times before over the years but to please other people who were concerned about me and not because I really accepted that I have a problem with drink.

I'm still trying to figure out why I drank but obvious reasons for me right now would be to block out stress, to momentarily lift my mood and just through habit and routine.

In recent months I was growing tired of the depressed and paranoid state I was in due to alcohol, I was fed up of going to work with horrendous hangovers, feeling exhausted and wishing the day away so I could get my next drink - what I saw as the positives of drinking so much we're turning into negatives.

What really caused me to stop was my health and it was one specific event.

I had the usual stomach and back pains from excessive drinking but one day I got really heavy heart palpitations which I needed to get corrected in hospital. They sedated me so I had no clue what was happening and gave me an electric shock to my chest to make my heartbeat regular again. If it hadn't have been corrected it could have been more serious and, while it can be caused by other things, the doctor said it can be caused by excessive drinking.

It's changed the way I think about sobriety now. It's made me think I want to stop drinking because my life was pretty rubbish the way it was and I'm only 28, I don't want to put my health at risk.

I feel that I now want to stop drinking for me rather than because people are telling me I need help.

I'm certainly finding it much easier to keep away from alcohol this time around than when I was just stopping to please other people.