One year coming up soon...
 

Hello everyone, sorry I have not been on in a while, I hope everyone is doing as well as possible and that people are finding answers to their problems and still working to overcome their addictions. My one year anniversary of quitting drinking is fast approaching and will be here soon, October 5, 2009 to be exact. What a year it's been. It's been the most transformative year of my life, getting sober and getting back in good physical shape. A year ago, I was a mess. Drunk or drinking all the time, addicted to nicotine, constantly smoking pot, messing around with pain pills and other recreational drugs when available, eating crap food like there was no tomorrow, never working out, and weighing in far above my ideal weight. All that has changed! The battle goes on and I'm still working hard at it everyday but to anyone out there who feels hopeless and like it can't be done, I say it CAN if you want it bad enough, are willing to work at it, and just give it some time. Again, thanks to SR for the support over this past year, so glad I found this forum.

Great to see you back and posting!!

Mark

I'm glad you're doing welll!

Thanks for checking in!

:c014:

Keep on keeping on!

Congrats.

HI,

Congrats on your sober time...:You_Rock_

Congrats on your upcoming one year milestone!:You_Rock_

:ghug3

Congrats getr, tell us how you did it!

How I did it?

Wow, that kinda seems like a loaded question. I just posted my way through the journey here so that was VERY helpful and of course all the posts more or less reveal the answer to that question in stages but I guess basically I just really really wanted to improve the quality of my life and free myself from drug & alcohol abuse, dependence, and addiction. I could see that the path I was on led to a bad place that I didn't wanna go. So first I quit drinking, not knowing if I even could or what that decision really meant for me and my future. I just knew I had to try. So I did. Then a month or so after that, I decided I needed to get free from nicotine addiction so I suffered through that for a week or so, and did that. Then shortly after that I decided after much mental wrangling that I needed to quit smoking pot and stop messing with pain pills so I did that. Then I joined a gym and gradually my diet improved to the point where I'm now so careful about what I put in my body; and I was getting back in great shape and really feeling good about myself, seeing the improvements every day on the scale and in the mirror and in how I felt. And I take daily vitamins and herbal supplements.

So that's how I'm doing it.

Not sure I can say I "did" anything yet because I do not claim to be drunkproof by any means or truly out of the woods with any of the other junk I was stuck in. I slipped with a little pot as recently as the 4th of July. Think I might have finally finally learned my lesson there which is that I don't like smoking pot, lol.. So, I know it's still early and that life is long (if I'm lucky and sober) and that it will present more and more challenges in the years ahead but by doing what I'm doing now, I've at least given myself a good chance to succeed (where before I had ZERO chance) and I think I just may be able to hold it together for the long haul.

On top of all that, I got open about my recovery and my sobriety. I talked to people about it, including good friends and family. It became (it is) the focal point of my life, not just something going on in the background, or secretly, or reluctantly. I openly embraced the journey I put myself on and was glad when two good friends, inspired by my decision and by my candor, decided to join me on their own much needed journeys towards sobriety. Any feelings of shame I might have had at having gotten to that low point were replaced by pride for having made the decision to pull out of it, and that pride grows daily. I worked myself back into most if not all of the things I used to do for fun and recreation, I just do them now without drugs or alcohol. Things like concerts, sporting events, vacations, etc.

Congrats on your sober time, getr! I'm a huge Metallica fan as well...it's good to see that you can still rock without having to participate in the lifestyle.

Be well!

Good to see you again getr :)

D

Congratulations Getr on the upcoming milestone.

Wow, I could see a lot of myself, especially in that first para of your last post. I hope I'm writing something like that in a year.


-TB, inspired all of a sudden

I hope you can write something like that in a year as well. I know that at my lowest point I certainly yearned for the day when I could say such things and that they would true, and finally today, they are. In the last year, I drew great strength from the inspiration I provided to others close me and the actions they took in their own lives based on it, and also here on SR the same thing just a little less personal maybe, but who knows what's really going on that I don't even know about. That dynamic might be one of, if not the, single greatest tool I have used to get to where I am today. As I was inspired by James Hetfield, so too do I apparently inspire others and that's just a great thing and, as noted a few posts up, so important to my sobriety.

My one year anniversary is so close, it's hard to believe. 5 days, next Monday marks one year since I quit drinking. I'm beside myself with anticipation for this milestone, it's really an amazing feeling of accomplishment. I also wanted to report that I made a mistake about a week and a half ago. My wife has some Tylenol 3 w/ codeine pills in the house and one day while cleaning I noticed them, and then just left them there but the bad seed was planted in my mind and then a few days later I ate 5 of them in the course of about 3 hours. OK, all I can say is that in addition to feeling sickly intoxicated (hated it, regretted it...wtf am I doing? I don't do "this" anymore...) my stomach hurt so bad it felt like it was gonna explode and I actually vomited. Bad experience to say the least and maybe just maybe what I needed to finally finally teach me that I don't like that feeling and those consequences (side effects) at all. That was like a week or so ago and since then, no desire at all to go down that road again.

But I continue to put it all out there, the good and the bad. The ups and the downs...