cathydoll1

I found this site, because I don't want to discuss this with any of my family or friends, and I am too embarrassed to go to a public meeting of AA. I have read some of the posts, and thought I'd go ahead and join.

I started drinking too many wine coolers, and now, too much wine, after the death of someone I loved very much. I never drank anything before in my life. I never lost anyone I loved that much before in my life, either, I guess. I remember clearly, the night of the visitation, we went out to dinner. I ordered my first glass of wine. I had about 4 that night, and numbed every feeling I had.

Now I seem to not be able to quit. I keep telling myself, 'tomorrow', 'this is the very last glass of wine', 'i will stop monday', etc. Then I tell myself 'ok, just ONE more night...'.

I hope some of you with more experience can give advice. How do you make yourself take that first step, and NOT go to the liquor store after work every night? It seems like it should be so easy...

Thanks in advance for any advice.
cathy

thirtybubba

Welcome, Cathydoll, to SR.

It seems like it should be easy, but it's not--I know all too well. You just have to up and do it one day. The next day it's easier, 'cause you've already done it once. It's never easy--for me at least--all the way at day 17. I don't know anything past that, others will be along to tell you more.

Maybe make tonight the first night you don't? Giving yourself excuses now is giving yourself ammunition for later...

Stay around and read/post... lots of support--if you want to stay sober, this is a good place.


-TB, as Welcome Wagon

ElegantlyWasted

You need to figure out a way that best best makes sense to you. Take into account your own personality and resources. Look into aa, smart, cbt individual and group sessions. Google and this site can be your new initial best friends. Clarify your reasons for wanting to quit vs wanting to continue. Welcome. Best of luck... A lot of great people here.

Anna

Hi Cathy and Welcome,

I can surely relate to what you've posted. For awhile, a very short while, alcohol helped me to cope. But, before I knew what happened, it was controlling my life.

I think that when I drank, I knew I was not solving any problems, merely ignoring them. So, the thought of stopping drinking, and taking that first step, was SO hard on many levels. Drinking was a bad habit and I clearly needed to find some way to fill myself and fill my life in other positive ways. But, I also knew I was going to have to deal with all the feelings that I had numbed. And, that was really scary.

Take the first step and don't drink today. Get rid of the alcohol in your house. Drive home from work a different way. Plan to be doing something else during the time of day when you would be drinking. Changing daily routines helped me a lot at the beginning.

Know that you can do this!

tommyk

Yes, just for today.

Dee74

Hi CathyDoll

Welcome to SR

Anna's post is especially right on.
We can put off change again and again...but each day makes it harder to do so.

But it's never too late
Change your routine up. Sit on SR...read, post...lean on us.

Take it day by day....make today Day 1

D

Firehazard

I'm not sure what area you're in but AA meetings are a good safe

zone. Plus you'll eighter be to inspired or disgusted to drink afterward. The

meetings have ruined my drinking career.

PurpleCat

Welcome cathydoll.

I'm not particularly interested in AA either. What I did (I'm on day 8 now) is do a lot of research about what alcohol does to you, what quitting does, etc. I read a lot here and started posting. Getting into a good group of posters (both August and the September groups) helped a lot because I learned from their experiences. It also gave me people to go to when I needed help.

It took me a couple of months from the start of my research (and finding this site) to my quit day. In that time I also had a talk with my doctor and a session with a therapist.

Hope that helps - come and join our September group!

CarolD

Sorry to know you lost a loved one...

Depression is why I decided to quit drinking.
And yes...mine did lift with abstinance

I had to make drastic changes for my sobriety
You might find that true for you too.

I suggest you begin to change your routine.

I took taxi's home after work so I would not
be walking past restaurants.bars.
I packed away crystal drinking glasses
bought a Therma mug for my Diet Coke.
I ate immediately when I got home.

Welcome to SR..

bohemianzen

welcome cathy!! glad to have you here-it's a great place.
i agree with purple cat-join the september thread (the month threads are for what month your day 1 is) i'm in the august group and they have really been there for me--very very supportive. don't be afraid to open up and don't think you are the only one who has done __ or thought __. there's bound to be someone else on here who shares your experience and that really helped me. also come on over to the living in sobriety thread - first rate people all around.
anyhoo.... keep reading and keep posting.

Tazman53

I hit the point where I was at a fork in the road, keep drinking and die, or ask for help. The first step I took was to see a doctor who specialized in drug and alcohol abuse, I told him the whole truth about my drinking, he suggested I go into detox, so I took my second step into detox. In detox they told us repeatedly that if we wanted a chance to have long term sobriety to go to at least 90 AA meetings in 90 days and get a sponsor.

Well I was desperate, I knew that after years of trying to stop drinking and finally becoming so physically addicted to alcohol that I had to be medically detoxed that my will power alone and my knowledge alone could not keep me sober I needed to find a way that worked for other people. I took the third step into AA even though I was convinced that AA was not for me, I went and I kept going, I got a sponsor and I took the steps, the steps resulted in my obsession to drink being lifted.

There are several types of AA meetings among those are "Open" & "Closed" meetings.

"Open" meetings are for any one interested in AA.

"Closed" meetings are strictly for alcoholics.

The one thing all AA meetings have in common is anonymity!

If you saw some one you knew in an AA meeting would you tell anyone? No, because then they would ask "What were you doing there?" Well they respect your anonymity as much as you respect thiers.

I have been going to AA meetings for 3 years in a fairly small city and the only people who know I go to AA are people I have told.

Trust me, almost every single person in an AA meeting was scared to death and embarassed to go to thier first meeting. The fear of the great unknown. WHat I found in AA was a group of people from every walk of life helping each other to stay sober and to learn how to live life on lifes terms sober.

How many people do you know who are in AA? If you do know some one in AA did they tell you they were in AA or did some one else?

keithj

It is easy, Cathy, if you're not an alcoholic. It's as easy as don't go to the store, night after night, until you're out of the habit of drinking. This is the 'one day at a time' approach that works for many non-alcoholics. Hell, it may even work for some alkies as well.

For a lot of us alcoholics, however, we found we needed something way more life altering in order not to drink.

I know exactly where you are coming from. I would make that 'I won't drink today' promise on a yearly, monthly, weekly, daily basis, and I would always break it. Seriously, I would promise myself every day I wouldn't drink that day, and by 5 o'clock or so, I'd be heading to the store.

I was very delusional in thinking I could stop by willpower alone. I drank like that for years, always with the delusion that I'd somehow get a grip on it.

And one day that delusion was shattered. I had a moment of clarity where I knew in my heart that I would never get it under control. I knew that it would keep getting worse and I would drink no matter what the consequences were.

So on that day I called a guy who talked about a spiritual awakening as the result of AA's 12 steps. I followed his directions as I launched whole-heartedly into AA's program of action. The light came on for me and my whole perception of life and my relation to it changed dramatically.

Don't drink. Don't go to the store. And if that doesn't work, you can seek out a solid AA member who talks of the necessity of a spiritual solution.

Zencat

to SoberRecovery cathydoll1

I found that I needed an alcohol addiction treatment plan to start with. My plan includes plenty of resources like SMART Recovery, being here at SoberRecovery, therapy, therapy groups, peer support at AA and DRA, learning about addiction and the like. I have to be fully committed to my treatment in order to make it work. I found for myself that in treatment there are times when I struggled with relapses yet I maintained my focus on continued addiction treatment. As time goes by I have been making steady progress in my sobriety efforts 'just for today' I have serenity and lots of hopefulness.

Wolfchild

Welcome to the Sober Recovery community.
What worked for me was to surrender to a
power greater than my addiction/alcoholism.
It was a decision i made to stop using and to
follow that up with finding a new way to live.

ToABetterMe11

I just set a date, In this case I picked the 1st day of school. I figured the kids would be gone for the whole day & I could start to detox & work on myself getting better. Its not easy by any means. I know I did the whole Tomorrow, Next Week, Next month, etc.

I hope you can find the strength, maybe if you put it out here, the day that will be your 1st sober day, and you will have to post to update and be accountable.

All the best!

jamdls

I had to make a choice between a slow and painful death or stop drinking; so it was very easy for me to just say no-I did replace alcohol with massive quantities of chocolate but I wouldn't recommend that, but you do need to replace that drinking time with something-exercise-hobbies-studies-etc. I agree with some of the others that posting here is a wonderful place to start; also reading whatever you can get your hands on how to get and stay sober. I wasn't really into recovery groups, as I'm very much a loner, but I did read lots of the AA literature and have found working the 12 steps (my adjusted version of them) has helped me tremendously.

UniversesChild

I totally understand about being embarassed to go to AA. Might I suggest going online and finding one that is for women only? That was the only way I could go the first time. I was still scared out of my mind, but they were so welcoming and kind. And they didn't judge me at all, in fact, they were congratulating me for taking that first step! Still I didn't even catch 1/2 of what was said because I was so freaked out. They all gave me their #s to call if I needed to talk or had questions. By the time I left I knew I wouldn't drink for that day at least.

Then, when you feel you're going to drink, you have someone to call. I do this almost every day now. It works!

Congratulations to you for finding this site--it's a great first step. And welcome.

cathydoll1

Thanks everyone. I was even nervous about posting that first thing, but everyone seems so nice...I think I will get a lot of help here.

Thank you all so much for taking the time to comment. I guess we all think this can't happen to us, and then, bam, here we are.

I will continue to post and read all the info on this site!

SurviveIt

Hey Cathy. You might want to give AA a try. It's not for everyone. Not for me, actually, but you never know 'til you try, right? What works for me is waking up every morning and saying, "Dang, I feel good today! I am not going to drink!" Then, at night as I climb into bed, I say, gratefully, "Another great day of freedom in the bag!"

Yeah, that's pretty much how it goes. It just gets worse, too, if you keep drinking. You either end up dead or ruined. I consider myself damn lucky to have been ruined. You can climb back from that.