How old were you when you gave up?
Member
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Central, La.
Posts: 422
50. In the last decade of drinking/using my DOC was simply "more". Anything, so long as I didn't have to feel.
Now living is a blast, pain and all. It's quite true, my worst day sober is better than any day I spent high/drunk. It took 40 years of not really experiencing life that so many of the feelings I experience are, relatively speaking, new.....
Life is good.....................
p.s: You don't have to wait until you're 50 to get sober. If you are able to do it now you will spare yourself and all who love you a lot of suffering...............
Now living is a blast, pain and all. It's quite true, my worst day sober is better than any day I spent high/drunk. It took 40 years of not really experiencing life that so many of the feelings I experience are, relatively speaking, new.....
Life is good.....................
p.s: You don't have to wait until you're 50 to get sober. If you are able to do it now you will spare yourself and all who love you a lot of suffering...............
Member
Join Date: Feb 2010
Posts: 28
21 when I was first forced into rehab and AA. Didn't stick, because I didn't listen to anything. I hadn't been drinking much -- got into trouble with pills / pot. Then spent five more years abusing my body, getting in debt, going insane, almost having my heart explode...and still trying to use successfully -- doing research, basically. Would drink anything that poured, as often as I could get away with it. Was a daily drinker / user. I picked up different pills which basically kept me awake for 16 months straight. Nearly died and lost my mind. I had no choice but to surrender at age 26. I'd had enough -- and haven't been the same since. I asked for God's help, not on my terms, but on God's.
I'm now 27 and coming up on a year of sobriety on March 5th. And I'm no longer waking feeling sentenced to another day of living.
I'm now 27 and coming up on a year of sobriety on March 5th. And I'm no longer waking feeling sentenced to another day of living.
Member
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: NJ
Posts: 20,458
I just turned 53 and this is the first time I have considered permanently being sober....in fact this is my first day of sobriety....(i dont count the 9 days of 2009 when i was ill, but it sticks in my thick head because i started to look and feel good). we'll see how big i talk tomorrow.
I usually would drink about 1-1.5 liters of white wine, giving myself extra brownie points for ice cubes.
one thing i won't miss is feeling like poo and looking puffy
I usually would drink about 1-1.5 liters of white wine, giving myself extra brownie points for ice cubes.
one thing i won't miss is feeling like poo and looking puffy
Worn out by booze
Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: London, England
Posts: 205
Originally Posted by NEOMARXIST 
If this post is genuinely because of just being interested then fine.
BUT is this post conceived as a way to try to give your alcoholic voice ammunition/excuses to rationalise continuing to drink more booze by not being as old or any way near as bad as others?
BUT is this post conceived as a way to try to give your alcoholic voice ammunition/excuses to rationalise continuing to drink more booze by not being as old or any way near as bad as others?
I keep trying to convince myself that I have a few years of drinking left and that I had not yet reached rock bottom, and the purpose of this thread was to try and tell me otherwise.
Member
Join Date: May 2009
Location: Canada
Posts: 232
Would it help to know there isnt one of us here that didnt wish we had quit sooner, your age or younger? I wish like hell I knew then what I know now and could get back those years but I cant. Please dont make that mistake. It doesnt get any easier or better from here.
6/20/08
Join Date: Sep 2008
Posts: 4,467
I totally agree with what Carrie said. I so wish I would have had the guts to quit when I was in my twenties. By drinking myself stupid every day for 30 years, I screwed up my life and a lot of my family. I so wish my kids would't have had to grow up with a drunk.
If there is ever a message I want to convey on SR....it is to get your act together before you screw up more than just you. Kids deserve sober parents.
If there is ever a message I want to convey on SR....it is to get your act together before you screw up more than just you. Kids deserve sober parents.
Member
Join Date: Feb 2010
Posts: 6
I quit at 37. Just had a birthday (38) and for the first time in a long time, I feel great. I am a newbie at day 44 today 
I did stop for about a month last year, thought I had control over it, and went back into my bad habits. I stupidly thought I was capable of having one - and I did for a while. But then it always turned in to two, then a few weeks out I would go and buy the wine because I was craving it, and the cycle just repeats itself. I was up to a bottle of wine a night or on other nights I would drink a six pack. I could almost polish off a full bottle of cognac on other nights as well. I feel like I have my life back on track now, thank God.
Amazing what sobriety does for you
I did stop for about a month last year, thought I had control over it, and went back into my bad habits. I stupidly thought I was capable of having one - and I did for a while. But then it always turned in to two, then a few weeks out I would go and buy the wine because I was craving it, and the cycle just repeats itself. I was up to a bottle of wine a night or on other nights I would drink a six pack. I could almost polish off a full bottle of cognac on other nights as well. I feel like I have my life back on track now, thank God.
Amazing what sobriety does for you
Member
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: UK
Posts: 4,682
For me, constantly going on about wanting to quit, which became a morning ritual in the end was me trying to cope with my reality at the time...i needed to live in a state of denial otherwise i would have gone completely insane (well more than i was)...so all lip service was to survive the life i was living. Then, as it says in a book i read, i got to the jumping off point, the realisation that things were not going to change ever and i was not going to ever be able to quit by myself...IMO there are a few routes to go from there and all, but one, are very bad indeed.
So you get help when you are ready, i don't think anyone, especially ourselves, can predict when that will be...it'll just happpen, or maybe like the majority of us out there it never really will...
As far as the past goes, if i am going to look back and say i wish i had gotten sober in my twenties why not add i wish i had bought x shares, or become a fighter pilot...it's all fantasy IMO...you are where you are today the rest is BS:-)
So you get help when you are ready, i don't think anyone, especially ourselves, can predict when that will be...it'll just happpen, or maybe like the majority of us out there it never really will...
As far as the past goes, if i am going to look back and say i wish i had gotten sober in my twenties why not add i wish i had bought x shares, or become a fighter pilot...it's all fantasy IMO...you are where you are today the rest is BS:-)
Follow Directions!
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Fredericksburg, Va.
Posts: 9,730
ElChupacabra I can speak from experience that the earlier on quits drinking the easier it is.
When I was 23 I quit drinking for a year & 1/2, it was kind of hard, but not real hard. Of course that whole time I continued to want to drink and eventually did again. Well by the time I turned 42 quitting again seemed like a good idea, well I could quit some times for up to a month, but it was impossible to stay stopped so I would always figure "I can control it now!" so I would start drinking again.
Every time I started drinking again it was as though I had never stopped and it continued to get worse. It also got harder and harder to eve stop for a week........ by the time I was about 47 I could not stop no matter how hard I tried, I had crossed an invisible and HAD to drink daily just to feel normal!
In very simple words, the longer one drinks, the harder it is to quit, eventually one will need to be medically detoxed to get sober, I did.
When I was 23 I quit drinking for a year & 1/2, it was kind of hard, but not real hard. Of course that whole time I continued to want to drink and eventually did again. Well by the time I turned 42 quitting again seemed like a good idea, well I could quit some times for up to a month, but it was impossible to stay stopped so I would always figure "I can control it now!" so I would start drinking again.
Every time I started drinking again it was as though I had never stopped and it continued to get worse. It also got harder and harder to eve stop for a week........ by the time I was about 47 I could not stop no matter how hard I tried, I had crossed an invisible and HAD to drink daily just to feel normal!
In very simple words, the longer one drinks, the harder it is to quit, eventually one will need to be medically detoxed to get sober, I did.
Idiot!
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 556
First AA meeting at 26, although I had tried for the previous 2 years with no success. Finally got it at 42. Could have avoided a lot of grief if I had stopped earlier, but never mind, sober now.
Hope3
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Upstate, NY
Posts: 2,155
Originally Posted by ElChupacabra
On the contrary. I was actually hoping to read plenty of posts about peolpe who gave up my age or younger as a reason to quit.
I keep trying to convince myself that I have a few years of drinking left and that I had not yet reached rock bottom, and the purpose of this thread was to try and tell me otherwise.
I keep trying to convince myself that I have a few years of drinking left and that I had not yet reached rock bottom, and the purpose of this thread was to try and tell me otherwise.
I am 50, was 48 when I admitted my powerlessness over alcohol and became a member of AA.
Had I known what I know now at the age of 25, that I could be truly happy, not falsely, truly high, not numb. I would have gone to AA back then and not stopped till the miracle happened...
I wish you Joy, true happines and Life...
Hope3
Member
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: SE US
Posts: 25
A lot
I would get home from work, pour a good beer (no light beer for me) then line up two shots of whiskey. Drink the shots and chase down with the entire beer.
Then, I would roll up my sleeves and starting really drinking.
Really, I drank everything during an evening. Start with wine, then beer then the hard stuff.
I'd say about 15 drinks a day, everyday Wed - Sunday. Monday and most Tuesday's were off days.
52 years old
Then, I would roll up my sleeves and starting really drinking.
Really, I drank everything during an evening. Start with wine, then beer then the hard stuff.
I'd say about 15 drinks a day, everyday Wed - Sunday. Monday and most Tuesday's were off days.
52 years old
Member
Join Date: Jan 2010
Posts: 48
I quit 53 days ago. I am 24 years old. I wish I had quit when I got my first DUI at 21. I thought I was just a regular kid drinking like us college kids do. Now I am turning 25 in June and just about to get my BS degree. If I had focused more on school and less on getting trashed I could have gotten done sooner, have a masters, and gotten better grades. I used to be a mostly B, some C, fewer A student. Now in sobriety I am excelling at school and loving it, I am learning not to get done with the day, but for the sake of learning.
If I had been sober before I probably wouldn't have 20k in student loans because I would have most likely been able to maintain my full scholarship I had my first year.......I also would have probably gotten a free ride to grad school. And I wouldn't have this rotten DUI hanging over my head now.
I really thought about going to AA when I was 21, I was pretty bad then. But what ifs will kill me so I have to deal with the here and now.
I am just glad I stopped drinking before I had a family and hurt them or messed up my kids or killed anyone.
If I had been sober before I probably wouldn't have 20k in student loans because I would have most likely been able to maintain my full scholarship I had my first year.......I also would have probably gotten a free ride to grad school. And I wouldn't have this rotten DUI hanging over my head now.
I really thought about going to AA when I was 21, I was pretty bad then. But what ifs will kill me so I have to deal with the here and now.
I am just glad I stopped drinking before I had a family and hurt them or messed up my kids or killed anyone.
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