917Evesham

Have been an alcoholic for many years. Finally caught up with me about three years ago when life and career really started to suffer. Tried to quit on my own in March of 2009 and ended up in the ER with withdrawl. Since then five trt's (mostly Detox) and five relapses. Longest sobriety was from Aug 2009 to Dec 2009. IOP and AA (picked up on xmas eve). "Functioned" till the TG Holidays (Was able to put it down when I really had too) Then lost all control. Two detox'es and two relapses later and I'm drinking again. It's always one last time or one more binge and I'll leave it forever. Never works. In Same cycle again. Have may lies already in place at work so I can drink for another few days. Any advice, hope experiences anyone can share on when they finally knew they just had to give it up? The saying I learnt from AA was "Are you sick and tired being sick and tired". I know there's no magical moment for most (according to to BB) just spiritual advancement. Any hope would be appreciated.

LaFemme

Hi 917 and welcome to SR!

I was a problem drinker for awhile and about 6 yeafrs ago it dawned on me that I had slid into alcohlism territory. For 5 years I tried and failed and tried and failed to quit never getting more than a few days.

The difference this time is that 1. My prayers were answered 2. SR 3. Therapy.

Xo; lafemme

MsCooterBrown

Hi 917! I got out because of the feeling of impending doom. Just a series of deaths..or car wrecks..duis..all alcohol related. I had tried to quit before..but never stuck with it. This time anger set in that I was letting it take over my life. Big blocks of time I don't remember..sick of hangovers..Got sick of the bar scene. Got sick of myself come to think of it. That is pretty lame when you can't stand yourself! Keep trying until you get it. And try to get it before something butt ugly happens...Welcome!

oakleaf82

I suppose I just....got sick of it. Sick of the scene, the drinking culture I am surrounded by, the hangovers, the senseless arguments with my H that are alcohol fueled.

I don't know a lot about your situation; but my advice would be that if you want to get out of the cycle SOMETHING has to change. It sounds like you want it or you wouldn't be here. What are going to do differently this time? Maybe you need to try a new approach or get more support. SR is a good place to start:-)

Antiderivative

When I came to the honest and simple truth that my drinking was leading me to an early grave. However, an early grave didn't bother me much. What I couldn't handle was the journey to the early grave. The journey was filled with so much pain, misery, and a life filled with futility and unhappiness. It wasn't always like this, but this is what my drinking progress into. The worst part about it, is that I was bringing this pain, misery, and futility upon myself, which was directly related to my drinking. I couldn't handle this anymore.

The Big Book makes this very clear. Page 53 talks about being crushed by a self-imposed crisis. I don't know how much more direct you can get. If you are an alcoholic, then sooner or later, you are going to eat a s*!t sandwich. And the one who makes them, is yourself.

One day, after a good binge where I couldn't even recognize myself in the mirror, I realized that I was done pissing away my life. I was done eating those s*!t sandwiches that I was making. I surrendered while I was on the bathroom floor, crawling around like a deranged animal, wondering if I was going to die, go into a heart attack, or alcoholic seizure.

I really don't know about spiritual matters--I am no spiritual guru. However, if I was going to describe a spiritual moment in sobriety. It is realizing that you do not have to kill yourself or throw your life away anymore with alcohol. It is surrendering to the fact that you are alcoholic and when you drink, you are going to eventually going to feed yourself a s*!t sandwich that you make. When you surrender, you free yourself from a struggle that you will never win. It is a freedom. It is relief. It is the beginning of recovery.

I wish you the best. Remember, you do not have to endure that self-imposed crisis anymore, if you do not want to. However, you must make some changes, take some action, and learn how to live a day at a time.

NewMe11109

Hi 917 -

For me, I finally was honest with myself that my plan wasn't working. I stopped trying to control my drinking and just listened to others and did what I was told to do in my program of recovery, which is AA.

It made absolutely no sense to me for about the first 18 months of sobriety, but then I started to understand that my problem was a "thinking" problem, not a drinking problem. Through my program of recovery (which includes SR + helping other alcoholics), I learned the tools to change my thinking. That has made me crave alcohol much much less and made me happy to be in recovery.

least

Welcome to the family. I tried and failed, over and over, for nearly two years before finally giving it up for good. Now I have over a year sober and feel great. My last relapse I woke up after drinking for two days and just wanted to die, I felt so bad and hated myself so much. Haven't had a drop since. If I can finally 'get it', so can you.

Dee74

When I just knew I couldn't do it anymore - whatever recovery entailed it couldn't be worse than the life I was living.

Welcome to SR, 917Evesham. This place helped me a lot to sort out a few things - I hope we can help you too

D

Peter G

Well you have my prayers and hope. I also managed my problem with booze for around 20 years, fooling myself into believing I was fooling everyone around me. Had a very lucrative career, managed my drinking well enough most times. Thing is that eventually a switch flipped in my head, and once that happened I had no control at all. I liken it to dancing along the edge of a cliff and eventually falling off. Lost my job, hell I lost everything and turned into Nicholas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas for 3 years. Ended up at the ER once or twice a month. It went very bad for me, very fast.

What you mentioned about cycles is about the size of it for us boozers, only the cycles get closer and closer together until that switch is flipped, and there are no cycles, just one long a$$ bender. It happens to the best of us.

This site helped me at first. There is a ton of great people here, and so many of us have gone through the toughest parts of alcoholism that you are bound to find an answer to any question you have. Advice from these folks is pretty much golden. The one thing I read from here during those first days that really helped in my first 2 weeks of sobriety was the phrase...

For some reason that kept me from drinking when the cravings and triggers hit hard.

Next thing that helped me was realizing that "one day at a time" is not a cliche. It is a powerful weapon against the curse of cravings. A few times when I made up my mind to drink, I would say to myself, "ok ok I'll frikin get a bottle, but I'll do it tomorrow." When tomorrow came I never got that bottle.

This site, and properly reading the AA Big Book has helped me immensely since. And while I've yet to get to AA meetings, I'm sure they will help even more. The thing is that you have to build up strategies to combat and fight the alcoholic mind. Any weapon that you can find is worth it's weight in gold. The concepts I mentioned above help, reading helps, reaching out helps. AA and 12 steps is of immense help, and although I've not gone the route of therapy, I'm sure it helps greatly.

Being completely honest with yourself at all times r.e. booze is paramount. You can't allow the alcoholic mind trick you into that "harmless first drink". Being honest enough to admit that you are powerless over the booze is also extremely important, because regaining control is not an option when you get to this point in our disease. The phrases "Just a few", or "just one more time before I really quit", or "Just the one" are cursed words to people like us. Those possibilities no longer exist in our lives.

Oh, also, there are so many wonderful speakers at XA The Lights Are On. You should try and download and listen to a few soon, their message is always right on time for me. Look through this thread and download some of the speakers mentioned. It's SO worth it. I have these cats in my Iphone and listen often when I'm walking about. This guy (Earl H) is excellent to start with, because his story makes almost every problem most of us have had seem small by comparison.

Keep posting here and stay diligent. It's possible to live without the bottle, and it's possible to do so without being miserable.

invisigoth

For me it was a few things that opened my eyes. For one it was having to alternate and keep track of what grocery/package store I would go to every couple days because I was embarrassed to keep going back to the same place to buy booze. Another was my body started giving me signs that I had started doing some damage. And one day I took a look at the enormous pile of empties that had accumulated on the counter over a weekend and I finally just said to myself I can't keep doing this. And fortunately shortly there after I found this place which is helping me a lot. And I'm sure it can help you too.

ReadyAndAble

Welcome, 917! I tried and failed a lot too. This time feels different. I think I just well and truly accepted for the first time that I could never drink again. I had said that to myself many times before, knew it intellectually.... but this was the first time I just totally embraced it, not as a price I had to pay, but as a gift I would give myself.

That sounds really cheeseball to me as I write it, but it's as close as I can come to a magic moment.

The other HUGE difference is that I found SR on Day 1, and haven't gone a day since without spending at least an hour or two online. There are some really smart, insightful, supportive people here. A lot of them, maybe even most of them, went through the same kinds of setbacks as us before finally finding their way out.

In other words, glad you're here!

Supercrew

I knew it was time for me to quit when drinking became my full time job. Everything I was doing was focused on where, when, and how I was going to get drunk and stay drunk, yet still function, walk the dog, work out, go to work, coach sports and hide it all from everyone....including the empties.

If I ever worked a job as hard as I worked to become an alcoholic I would be a very very rich man. I basically wasted 3 years of my life trying to stay drunk and hide it, and I didn't even realize it, until I finally said to myself, "self, this drinking thing isn't fun anymore, and you are killing yourself with it". It took me about three months after that talk with myself, and one really bad withdrawal to quit, and I obsessed for the following month.

But after 117 days I slowly relapsed for about and 6 week period of moderate drinking then 2 heavy weeks where I realized I truly am an alcoholic. The detox landed me in the ER, and as of today I am 30 days sober, and I am never going back to the ER in an ambulance for anything alcohol related ever again. I have already given alcohol many good years of my life, but there is no way in hell I'm gonna let it kill me, and that last detox scared me straight.

I have hated hospitals all of my life, (somewhat of a phobia for me), coupled with the fact that my alcohol problem now isn't just a dirty little secret that only my wife knew about, (and she still had no clue to the extent of it), but now my parents, brother and sisters and their SO's, and my own kids know. As well as the firemen, emt's, doctors, and nurses. So tack on the embarrasment and I think you can see where I get my motivation. And there was nothing worse than trying to explain to my 11 year old son that Dad was sick because he is "allergic" to alcohol. But now I have full family support, kind of like having a bunch of guardians looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life.

marni

Hello and welcome to SR 917,
l knew l should have given up alcohol a lot earlier than l actually made the decision to enter rehab, l just couldn't imagine my life without it before then.
I think we all have different reasons why we eventually do decide to become sober. For me l could see all the "yets' lined up in a neat little row and l really, really wanted to live a life of my choosing and not one dictated to me by alcohol. l'd just plain "had enough".
Stay here and read the posts, you'll get alot of support.

The first step towards change is acceptance.
Once you accept yourself you open the door to change.
Change is not something you do, it's something you allow.
Will Garcia

Veritas1

I heard someone say...

You don't have to want what we have...you just have to not want what you have.

When I conceded to my innermost self that I was an alcoholic, that I would drink again, and again, even when I wanted to stop, I gave up.

I admitted defeat, and thought...I can't live like this anymore. I am done. I must do whatever it takes now to change.

I said to myself, you know, I am going to go back to AA, and I am going to stop drinking, and stay sober, and change my life.

I think it's when you finally have proven to yourself over and over again, and it really hits home that if you don't change, that you are going to ruin it all, your life, etc...I think it just takes what it takes unfortunately, in that, we can really run it into the ground before we finally concede...

I also have had some physical things presenting in my body, that were proof that this drinking was really damaging me.

It's like I was really seeing that if I keep this up, I am going to destroy myself, and everything around me.

Hope that makes sense.

Hope you are ready to change.

You know only you can do it...but the good news? You don't have to do it alone.

Just make the decision, then do whatever it takes to get sober, get to AA, read your book, find a sponsor, do the steps...change.

Best wishes to you.

For us all.

917Evesham

I think, hope and Pry That I'm Finally there. It's finally time to say "When"