TeeJayVerm

Six months have passed and I have been on the sobriety/relapse pattern the whole time. Many weeks of sobriety followed by many weeks of relapse! I have made progress in terms of weight loss and health but it is not enough.

Here I sit... one beer left and too drunk to go out and get more even though I want to.

I keep thinking "This is it"... "This is the day"... I want Halloween 2018 to be "The Day". I also said this on Apr 25, May 23, June 27, July 16, Sept 17, Oct 1, Oct 15, and Oct 22.

For those of you who finally quit for good after relapsing on many attempts... when did it "click"?

FlawedNFntastic

I was sober for a little over seven months back in 2015. I figured at that point, I could handle a night of drinking. Just one night, right? A night turned into a weekend, turned into a week, a month, and wham, 23 months of my "just one night" went by.

I was becoming increasingly more afraid of my inability to quit and my constant plans for stopping "tomorrow." I was utterly decimated in shame. I prayed, and raged, and sobbed, and bargained every single morning, noon, and night, and one day, (it happened to be a Tuesday - last December 12), I woke up and it literally clicked. I knew it was the day. And holy wow, it was.

It was hard. It was bitter. I had way more bad days than good for a very long time, but there are these perfect, shining moments that make it all worthwhile. My kid told someone that I don't drink. My mom said she can always count on me. And I'm not bargaining and raging and a mess every morning, noon, and night.

I know I'm still pretty early on in sobriety, but I hold those 23 months up in my head to always remind me of what "just one night" can do for me.

plop

I was quite hopeless. I had tried moderation or sobriety several times and failed, and I thought I couldn't stop drinking even though I knew I should. Then, one day, I suddenly said to myself "this is it, it's over now". I really don't know what happened but I am grateful for it.

I knew the first weeks were going to be very difficult but I knew I just need to get through the withdrawals. In the beginning I had serious brain fog (something I never had when I still drank) and I was afraid I'd never feel normal again. After a couple of months my cravings disappeared and I started feeling physically better. I'm about 19 or 20 months sober now.

Snowydelrico

When I finally admitted to myself one drink wasn’t possible.

Good luck you can do this

Dee74

It clicked when I put action behind my words TeeJay.

Even tho I'd nearly killed myself it wasn't actually that long before the thoughts started again and the idea of just a few drinks to talk the edge off began creeping in again.

I posted here and asked for help and I gave help to others. I played the tape forward and saw that one or two drinks was not going to be the end.

I asked myself what I wanted these drinks to do for me and whether there was another way to get through whatever it was.

I urge surfed., I made sure I wasn't Hungry Angry Lonely or Tired and if I was I did whatever I could to fix that.

I kicked the odd wall, screamed into my pillow and basically sat through some major discomfort but I held firm to my commitment to stay sober.

I discovered that rather than being the weak guy I thought I was, I was actually pretty strong - I learned I could withstand a good deal of discomfort and that discomfort would pass without me drinking.

Over the weeks the discomfort got less and less. I began to find that little things that used to see me off drinking like boredom, anger disappointment, resentent - they stopped making me feel like drinking.

When the major things of life - breakups, fear, change - stopped making me feel like drinking - that was when I knew something had clicked...

events don't break me and feelings don't break me...I have to make a decision to break myself...I knew my resolve wouldn't ever unclick unless I made the conscious decision to go back.

& that's not an option anymore
D

August252015

Glad you are sharing - for me, I had to choose whether to live or die. Literally - (yet another) dr told me I was a dire case and finally the liver dr who flat out told me I had a year, 18 mo if I kept on drinking hit me and I was DONE.

I had known an end of some kind was coming (in retrospect, it is interesting that my username is August252015 because that is when I signed up for SR, and I quit on Feb 21 2016)....I didn't know if I would quit or die but I knew my life wasn't sustainable.

I had to take the leap into the terrifying unknown of the other side of a drunk, unmanageable etc life. By this point, no private rehab or such was an option and AA was "it."

I started doing what I was told, and working the program. AA saved my life at first, then began to create what I call the backdrop of recovery (not just sobriety) that is the very full, clear, complicated, wonderful life I live now.

Dee and others give specifics- least always mentions gratitude and a number of people say they had to want to be sober more than they wanted to drink - my bottom line is that a completely changed life had to happen for me to get and stay sober. Everyone comes to a point, if they are willing to accept it. It is beyond worth it.

Free2bme888

TeeJay—

Care for you deeply! These answers are fantastic and echo my stories as well.

If you look up member lessgravity, he did a post on drinking moderately. It’s fantastic.

I see end stage alcoholics come in for fluid to be drained from their swollen stomachs. The mortality is very high, even though most finally had it click—only too late. It is so sad.

Today, 31 years ago, at 5:23 pm. I quit smoking. I never DREAMED I would have quit this long. Well. I dreamed it. But didn’t have faith. Well. It’s happened. And it will for me with alcohol too.

I don’t want to die that way. It’s horrible. And I don’t want to live that way. I want to be ‘free’. I’m making my own choices, choosing my path. We have a choice which road we follow.

Please choose wisely.

Free2bme888

And please reach out to your class too—may2018–we are aMayzing if I say so myself😍, it’s another thread of support if you wish

Buckley3

I'm not sure if ever really 'clicks.' I've come to believe that's the AV and a tactic we use to procrastinate and remain in denial. "I'll quit when I hear the click" is basically the same thing as "Conditions will be better for me to quit tomorrow."

The best time to quit is always immediately.

What has made a difference for me is inspiration required to make the push through the first few days. It comes in various forms for different people in different situations. It's just urgency. For some it's an accident, for some it's just the sick and tired of being sick and tired, for some it's bad news from the doctor, others it may be a family event. Perhaps that's what you mean by the 'click.'

Whatever the case, it's important that whenever you feel that moment of inspiration you grab it and use it to obsess for a few days/ couple of weeks. Determination and persistence in the early days can not be understated.

Dig deep. Get pissed off. Explore the hurt. Find some emotion that can provide a spark of energy and inspiration. Fabricate it if you have to. But get started now, you won't regret it.

-B

SnazzyDresser

You make it click with your actions! By not drinking every day. It doesn't fall down from heaven in a velvet case and boink you on the head one day.

Bunny211

I'll be honest....for the first 18 months of my sobriety it did not CLICK. I had no idea what I was doing, no faith in what I was doing...but I just did what I was told. I saw other people doing it, and they stayed sober. People said "Believe that I believe" , and so I tried to do that. I went the AA route. I got a sponsor. She made me call her daily. I did that. I went to a meeting every day because I drank every day. I got a home group and a job in my home group. I basically did whatever people told me to do and I stayed sober. It sucked so much the first year, I wanted to drink every single day but I didn't....because I made myself accountable and I showed up and I did whatever I needed to do to not pick up a drink. At around 18 months I realized I wanted to be sober, and then things started to fall into place for me. I started to understand my disease and I started to grow as a person...emotionally, and spiritually. It is still "clicking" for me and to be honest, there are some days where I don't wanna do all the things I do to stay sober...but when push comes to shove I show up and do the next right thing in front of me....that's sobriety. I never had an A-HA moment. I was once in your shoes and I thought every day would be my last day drunk, that tomorrow, surely I would "get it together" and have the strength to stop drinking. That never happened. Instead, someone dragged me off my couch and dumped my arse in detox and told me I better listen up or I'd surely die.

So, I am telling you, believe that I believe you CAN get and stay sober. Why not call AA central service and ask if someone can pick you up and bring you to a meeting?

Free2bme888

Great posts!!!

So very well said.

gettingsmarter

I woke up horribly hungover again after trying to quit a million times and decided that drinking was no longer doing anything but making me miserable. I had finaly accepted that the merry go round will always comes back to the same miserable spot. It was then it finally clicked.

Fly N Buy

All I could hear in my sodden brain for a long time was Clank! No click.

I deceived myself over and over again regarding my obsession and addiction to alcohol. Decades passed.

A final reprimand from loved ones lead me to step into the rooms. 90 days - 6 months - a year. Somewhere in there I had an awakening; I was a real alcoholic and the path was clear. Sobriety or death.

We have to stay sober long enough for things to click in terms of our relationship with alcohol. For real alcoholics it is poison. Read Under the Influence. Here's a local thread https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...influence.html (Excerpts from "Under The Influence")

This use to be pinned as a sticky under Alcoholism forum, I believe - but don't find it there anymore. Easily found by googling Under the Influence Soberrecovery, for future reference. This book clearly explains how an alcoholic's body metabolizes alcohol much differently than non-alcoholics. I found this incredibly helpful during sobriety. However, self knowledge alone had little effect. Accepting we are alcoholics and doing something about the malady are two very different things.

Best,
Fly

Lorie1482

thomas11

I thought about quitting a million times when I was at the tail end of a drinking session. When it clicked is when I started thinking seriously about quitting right BEFORE a drinking session. Point being, if you can work your way through it, there is no drinking session because it doesn't get started. Do this over and over.

totfit

I too went through the same merry go round. I would have months and then decide there was a "better" sober date forever. I would also throw in "other" things/requirements for said sobriety. I worked really hard at staying sober, but really did not have to work hard at all at drinking as it was always a quick drop.

Don't know specifically what happened. I just know that finally none of it made sense. Alcohol for me just became nonsense and not a struggle at all to stay away. Just not for me. After over three years this time, it still just does not make sense or have an appeal for me. My drinking was not appealing at all.

Rustoleum

All of today's posts about "click" really resonate with me...no pun intended. I am not at the pun stage. I am three weeks into my journey.. This is not the first time this year (2018) that I went through withdrawal. I was sober for seventeen days in July and thought that a few glasses of prosecco at the beautiful outdoor spa in our neighbourhood would not cause a significant relapse. How stupid! On October 10th, 2018, I had to go through withdrawal COLD TURKEY, again.. Sweating, nausea, anxiety, insomnia, shame, guilt, depression, inactivity, in other words, a great big nightmare of a pity party. It's Hallowe'en, my favourite holiday, and I want to celebrate with bubbly, so I, too, am still waiting for the click. But I'm not giving up!

Wholesome

It clicked for me when the pain of continuing got worse than the pleasure it brought me, or the fear I had of having to learn to live without it. It was costing me the things in my life that I valued the most, like my health and my family.

The fears were paper tigers though - it was all BS from my AV. Life is much better on the other side.

It became much easier when I decided to turn my attitude around and decided to be excited about creating a life free of that mental obsession. I never had any peace of mind when I drank. I was either beating myself up because I couldn't quit and I knew I needed to, or I was arguing with myself about whether or not to drink, or planning it, or drinking. It was stressful. It took time but I don't experience any of that anymore. All I feel is relief that it's finally over.

You can do it.

TeeJayVerm