groundhoggirl

How do/did you make the commitment to quit drinking? I know I need to stop, and some days I want to stop. But most days I want to drink. How do I commit to quitting when the thought of spending an entire day drinking wine by myself in my apartment sounds like the perfect day to me??

kevlarsjal

For me it started by realising that my life wasn't how it could be, how I wanted it to be. I admitted to myself that things got out of my control and that I needed help. When looking for help what I heard from all sides was that I'd have to stop drinking in order to work on my problems and to finally get better. I had a hard time accepting this but eventually I did.

After I making that decision it was helpful to detach myself from the part of me that wanted to drink. That was no longer me. It was the addiction inside of me, wanting to trick me into drinking, lying to me, trying to destroy me.
When I realised that I would never get better and maybe even die from my drinking if I kept listening to that "voice" it made very clear to me what to do. I wanted to survive, to get better, to save myself.
And every thought that suggested something else wasn't coming from me but my illness/ addiction/ alcoholism/ the beast/ the AV whatever you wanna call it.

doggonecarl

If you at a difficult stage. You can't make the simple decision to quit, meaning there is some degree of alcohol dependence, and you think drinking is fun.

So right now your commitment is to drinking.

Anna

You have to be ready to change your life and commit 100% to recovery. I was about to lose my family and my health was not good. In the end, it was an easy decision.

tomsteve

couple things i did
1- got out of denial and stopped rationalizing it was fun
2- asked myself if i wanted to live or die
3-wanted to live and wanted to stop drinking
4- asked myself if i was willing to go to any lengths to get sober

"...spending an entire day drinking wine by myself in my apartment sounds like the perfect day to me??'
reread this a few times and think how how oh so much fun it honestly isn't.

thomas11

I don't mean to sound flip, but when it gets bad enough, you'll want to quit more than you'll want to sit around the apartment and drink all day. If sitting around drinking sounds like the perfect day, you probably will have a difficult time quitting. But you might want to consider it while it is still a choice. Some folks don't have a choice. It progresses to where if they drink they die.

MicroMacro

That's only half the battle. I committed to stopping 1000 times, but I never committed to staying stopped. I still haven't. I learned that as soon as I say I'll never drink again - the urge to drink throws itself in my face. Instead of committing to not doing something, I committed to doing something else instead. And so far it's working.

After my last stay in residential treatment this past May, I left knowing I had to do something big if I wanted to stay sober. I'd already tried everything else. So, I decided to attend a coaching program to become a life/recovery coach. I don't even remember where the idea came from. Throwing myself into this has refocused all of my energy. I think about it, study it, attend class three times a week and I'm preparing for it. And within another year or so, I'm going to move back to the city to be closer to clients. I had to do something completely different with my entire life -and so far so good.

I used to drink wine all day every day. I started at 9:00 AM with Little House on the Prairie and drank until bedtime. And I always made sure I had at least two bottles for the next morning. I'd learned the hard way that going to the store for wine in the morning during the onset of withdrawal is no fun. Talk about hell. If that life wasn't hell - it doesn't exist.

The answer you're looking for rests in your heart. Only you know what's going to work for you. It might take a minute for you to find your answer though because life has a way of forcing us into it. What I mean is that you might have to find the answer through the process of elimination.

It took me 11 years. Maybe you'll find your answer sooner.

Best

dwtbd

Realize that the part of you that wants to make the commitment can ,even and especially in the face of 'wanting to continue to drink', Realize the idea that that commitment is somehow out of reach or mysteriously attained, is the addiction throwing up a smoke screen and allowing you put off the commitment.

The desire to drink doesn't necessarily disappear after making the commitment, the commitment means that you will no longer act on the desire.
It is a non mysterious solution ,a simple and straight forward one. The most difficult part is the leap of faith required to allow the belief that is becomes easier, it gets better. Simple and straight forward, not easy.

I found the ideas and perspectives I gained from learning about RR/AVRT to be very helpful with the 'not easy' part. There are great threads on these ideas here on SR in the Secular Connections forum, I recommend checking them out.

wish you well and hope to see you around

Calicofish

I agree with Thomas11 that you won't quit drinking as long as you find it fun. The fun was long gone for me. Sure it may have seemed like fun as I was consuming the first drink or two, but in the morning the fun was replaced by horrible pain.

The day I made the choice to quit drinking, I actually let out a sigh of relief. I knew that my suffering would come to an end. And it did. Sure I had to ride out the withdrawal, the anxiety - all that crap, but day by day, week by week, month by month, it got better.

My life is so different now and 100 percent better than 2 years ago. I might have some boring days but they are so much better than any wine soaked evening followed by that horrible Day 1.

MIRecovery

For me I knew things couldn't continue as they were. I was told all I had to do was stay sober today. Eventually the fog started to lift with the help of AA and finally I realized I just didn't like being a drunk because my sober life was so much better

PhoenixJ

For me- being just smart enough to require proof- I waited for that proof by creating the perfect rockbottom. I literally died and was relifed back into a living hell. Even I had to pay attention then.
Hopefully mine and other stories will motivate others to learn from our mistakes.

bluedog97

Are there any consequences to your drinking? Financial, health, career, family, social, etc. problems? I've heard many people say if they could drink without repercussions they would still be drinking. Unfortunately, I've yet to meet an alcoholic that didn't have some collateral damage associated with it.

We drank because we liked the effect of alcohol. Sitting around all day getting drunk used to seem like the perfect day to me too. Until I realized if I continued on like that it would eventually be either jails, institutions, or death. That's what they say in AA.

I had to relearn that there is life without alcohol. That delusion that tells you that you can't live without it is a lie.

FreeOwl

Here were some things that I know held me back from really making the commitment and the choice;

Choosing in Secret

This is probably the single biggest one. Because choosing to quit drinking "tomorrow" by saying to myself "tomorrow, I'm NOT gonna drink" - never ever worked by tomorrow. And with accountability to nobody but my own inner promise, it was really easy to just shift tomorrow to tomorrow again once tomorrow was today.


Saying "I've GOT to" - instead of owning "I WANT to"

There was for me a huge and fundamental difference between having to stop and WANTING to be free of the cycle of addiction. It took time, it took focus, it took a conscious effort to WANT. Which leads me to another key point....


Being stuck on what I'd be losing, instead of relentlessly focusing on what I'd gain

The biggest reason for hanging on, besides just plain being addicted, was the clinging to the beliefs that I was going to lose out in life. I wouldn't be cool, I wouldn't be fun, I wouldn't be 'normal', I'd be "missing out". As long as I remained in that space - I didn't fully commit. I had to focus intentionally on building lists in my mind, on paper, in journals, of all the things that would be GREAT about sobriety. I searched out role models in popular culture and in my personal life as sources of inspiration. I envisioned the good, positive, cool, awesome, present, meaningful, joyful, rich life I'd have in sobriety. That shift was essential. We create what we visualize. For a long time, I was visualizing myself right back to a drink with my unconscious thoughts and beliefs.


NOT HAVING A PLAN

It's one thing to say "I HAVE to stop" or even "I WANT sobriety" - but it's a whole other level to also look yourself in the eye in the mirror and say: "Today I will act in honor of sobriety, and if I should crave a drink - I will go and workout instead. If I should be offered alcohol in any setting - I will smile and say "no thanks, I'd love a mineral water though". If I should find myself feeling anxious or depressed or off-balance or emotionally volatile, I will call ___(name of specific friend)___ or will go to an AA meeting" or whatever your specific plan is.... Often our commitment is derailed by our lack of preparedness to change. Addiction is HABIT. To change HABIT, we have to change behavior. To change behavior we have to anticipate our common responses to life and then identify an alternate behavior we will choose instead.

It turns out, a lot of sobriety isn't even about drinking at all - it's about conscious attention to life and our responses to it, and working to deepen our experience of it every day.

You can do it

MLD51

I wonder why it's a perfect day for you. Maybe figure out why that is - do you enjoy the drinking itself (getting drunk)? Enjoy being alone? Enjoy getting out of your head? Enjoy not having to face the real world? Enjoy numbing your feelings? Maybe it's a combination of all of these, or something else. To me, it sounds like avoidance of something in your life - I could be off base. Before my life started to fall apart from drinking, I liked it. Or thought I did. What I really liked was the escape from a reality that wasn't so great. Escape from my own feelings and my loneliness and my low self-esteem. When I realized the drinking was making all of that worse, and that I was ruining any chance I had of making a BETTER life for myself, it became clear that the only path was to quit and start building a new life for myself - one that didn't make me want to run and hide.

HTown

You reach a point where it is not fun anymore. You just are not there yet. But you are here with us, so you must realize you have a problem with alcohol.

It really only ends one way if you stay on this course. Fortunately, a lot of people here can tell you what lies down that road. You don't really want to go there, you may think it is fun further along, but you need to turn around now. It isn't fun much longer. good luck

groundhoggirl

Thanks for the replies and insight. It's not that I find it "fun," I just meant when I think of what I want to do on the weekend, or after work, I want to sit home and drink. Eight and a half bottles of wine since Friday night, and I feel like garbage. I don't want it to get any worse.

HTown

You just need to find new things with your time. That was hard for me at first. I was bored not drinking. Now, I never have enough time. Crazy, but true.

grayghost1965

I can absolutely relate to thinking that that is "the perfect day," especially if I had a day off, my wife was at work, and I had a full bottle of rum (half gallon, no fifths for me). This only led to loneliness, exacerbated by the booze, and "activities" that led to serious marital strife.

I'm new to sobriety, but it sounds (just from your post) like you aren't ready to give it up. You don't mention any dysfunction or negative effects on your life, and sadly, in many of our cases, it has to get really bad before we make the decision and COMMITMENT.

You posted on here, so you feel like there's a problem, apparently. Go with that feeling.

Nonsensical

Keying my boss's car sounds like a good day to me.
I would also like to eat 6 hostess apple pies for lunch. They are delicious!
Oh, and don't even get me started on running those idiot drivers into the ditch. How awesome would that be?

Not so shockingly, I won't be doing any of those things today. I won't be drinking either. Just wouldn't be right.

Best of Luck on Your Journey.

Outonthetiles

For me, I made a 100 percent commitment. I approach sobriety like a mission. I am completely serious about my recovery and it's worked.