Sapling

You know what my problem was?...What kept me drinking?...Fear.... Fear of life without it....Fear I couldn't even stop if I wanted to.....That would be fear of failure....Fear that I had lost control of it and that I'd have to admit it.....Fear that I was an alcoholic....That word scared the sh!t out me. All kinds of different fears. I got to find out a lot of interesting things about myself...When I got honest with myself and worked the 12 steps of AA...It was really eye opening. I never really knew why I drank like I did till I got to AA. It made it easier for me to live without it.

Dalek

For a long while I thought life would be meaningless without the drink. What would I do with myself? Imagine the horrible boredom! Later on down the line, I tried to stop, but by then it wasn't as easy to put it down, or at least it didn't feel easy. I would go a couple days without, then back to it for a few more months.

Eventually the fear of where I was headed overtook the fear of quitting. Beyond telling people that it is possible to live without that stuff, and that they can indeed quit, provided they want to, I'm not sure how to get someone to quit when they don't want to, though.

wonderfullife

Thanks to everyone for a great conversatoin.

Sapling: Grandmother not AA. Just rehab and stopped.

Dalek: I agree better to stop circling the drain. Still trying to find the plug

Everyone else: Thanks for all the many thoughts. No matter where any of us are on the journey, may you have a great weekend.

Wonder

Sapling

When I got to this point...Then I could walk through the fear and I became willing to go to any lengths.

SSIL75

The whole thing about being 'ready' or 'not ready' for me anyway was to realize that my alcoholic self was NEVER going to be ready. There is never a good time for my alcoholic self to stop drinking.

I had to give more weight to my sober self. Listen to that voice, instead.

Sapling

Good for her...The reason I ask is I have a lady in my homegroup whose grandmother went into AA at the age of 80. She was speaking at meetings at 84...I thought that was a trip.

Dee74

hi Wonder

I really believe hitting bottom is a decision - sometimes events coincide with that decision, but it's a decision nonetheless.

When I was drinking, I never once poured out a bottle. I wasn't on SR then, but I remember I reacted quite violently more than once to the idea I could stop before the booze ran out when it was gently suggested to me.

Looking back, I see two things - I was very deep in my addiction and I'd lost faith and confidence in myself and my power to change things...I was resigned to drinking....and two...I was *deathly* scared of not drinking...terrified.

5 years on, I can tell you with absolutely surety....I had the power to stop - I had it all the time...I'd just convinced myself I didn't.

And for all my fear - getting into recovery was the best decision I ever made - I lot nothing - and gained so so much

D

wonderfullife

Thanks. My sober self is growing and starting to get more upset at my drinking self. As for the fear. Yes, there is fear. I don't know why its there and I wish it wasn't. Maybe thats why one day at a time works. it sort of silences the fear. have a great weekend everyone.

OCDDan

when I went from the "I know i should quit" stage,

to the "I know i never want to drink again" stage,

almost everything got better and easier. Deciding that i never want to drink again was very hard, it took over forty years, but when you look at the outcome of drinking, it's always the same, you feel a little of good, then you feel a lot of bad, no brainer there. Hopefully, you'll be as lucky as i was that the critical moments leading up to the absolute critical moment (that didn't happen) was good enough to convice me to stop, I mean, how many times did i need to make the same mistakes? It's really hard to say "never drink again" but it's worth it, I just have to keep reminding myself how much bad, and how little good there was.

Threshold

My own turning point came when I was in the darkest days of using, and I was contemplating quitting...but then my idea of sobriety was a life focused on a bunch of things I no longer did. There was NOTHING attractive about living the rest of my life in a state of chronic agitated deprivation.

THEN a light went on! Sobriety is not about what I give up or deprive myself of, it's about the freedom to live a full life, about all the things I allow myself to experience and enjoy.

My getting clean and progressing in recovery happened to coincide with the end of my 25 yr marriage, and losing my house, community, proximity to family etc. OUCH!

And here I am facing again the choice to focus on "how will I live life without those things that I filled me life with?!!!" or going out and living and experiencing all the other people, places, things, relationships, etc that the world has available to me. Is the rest of my life going to be identified as me, the woman who lost it all and lives in mourning and despair? or will I choose to be...any number of thousands of active fulfilling options?

I would not and did not choose to get clean and get into clean recovery UNTIL I realized that sobriety meant a great life, identified by what I DO, not by the one or two things I no longer do.

I mean...I don't spend my days moping about no longer wearing a diaper...even though at the start of potty training I dearly didn't want to give those diapers up...life without them is vastly more free and wonderful eh?

addiction is sort of a dirty diaper, I mean really, in so many ways, a big old dirty diaper I dragged around with me.

wonderfullife

all of your comments are helping a great deal. very wise group of people here.