FancyFace

To all the long time members (the ones who've conquered this demon), what kept you going in the first month? What was your saving grace? How were you finally able to break free? Please give us "newbies" some insight.

DisplacedGRITS

Lowering my head and focusing on the path right in front of me. I knew that i wanted to stay sober for the day. I wasn't sure if i could stay sober for the next day or the next week or the next month but i could stay sober for the day and that was enough. When i did that, when i do that, i go to bed happy in the knowledge that i fulfilled the promise i made to myself in the morning. Today i did not drink. I try to not put too many conditions on my sobriety. Like "if i stay sober, i'll get a job! Save money! Lose weight! Make friends!" I let those things come to me as they will or will not. All i do is fulfill that one promise to myself every day and remember how impossible it used to seem such a short time ago.

katrinka

Thinking about improving my health was a big motivator for me. And walking every afternoon instead of "cocktail hour" helped me get through that dangerous time of day. I read and posted on SR every day, SR was my saving grace. Six months later, my health has completely turned around so don't lose hope, things will get easier with time and your life will change for the better. Good luck!

neferkamichael

FancyFace, te first thing I do when I get an urge is to immediately say NO. I attend AA meetings regularly to be with sober people, and hang on SR reading threads. I stay away from bars and places where people will be using.I have accepted the fact that there is gonna be plenty of suffering, but I have proven to myself beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am better off not using. My health is improving and I have money in my pocket.

Mark75

Hope.



You can be happy... There are different roads. Trust that it can happen.

2granddaughters

I was very lucky. I became suicidal and sat in the recovery home driveway with a gun to my head in 1989.

Go in ?? ..... Pull the trigger ??....... hard choice ............ I went in.

They told me (and I have been around long enough to see it) that if I went back out I would pick up right where I left off.
Next time I'm quite sure I would pull the trigger because I don't think I got another recovery in me. I know there's another drunk in me though.

So, I do what the AA oldtimers told me to do so I wouldn't have to go back out. I surrendered.

It's working good so far and if all goes well I will celebrate 23 yrs sober on July 18.

Does that answer your question?

(ps, you will never conquer the demon.. you will get a daily reprieve if you work your program) It's AlcoholISm not AlcoholWASm.

All the best.

Bob R

Itchy

I decided I wanted to quit for good from long before I found I qualified for in hospital 7 day medical detox with the VA hospital. I thought it was a gift undeserved but I wasn't too proud. I also knew after my almost two decades of heavy drinking every day, that if i ever managed to detox I was never going to drink again. Relapses? None. It was as if I escaped from being marooned on an deserted island, and it took weeks adrift thirsting and being scorched in the sun, and being asked if I would go back voluntarily. No way!

I am so not ever drinking again. I am not deprived. I already had my fill for several lifetimes. I laughed at myself from day one out of detox and never felt the need to drink even coming close to making me drink alcohol.

I won't blow smoke where the sun don't shine, no pretense that life is always easy or some such nonsense. Life still can suck. It just sucks less sober. What I do with the difference is the rub. But fear is done.

Inca

I'm a newbie again, but I'm getting through right now by throwing myself into things everyday that I just can't seem to accomplish while drinking. It's basically come down to a "this or that" choice for me. I can wake up, go to work, come home and drink, zoning out on my couch obsessing about the day. Or, I can get up, work out, go to work, hit a meeting after work, call friends, pay bills, play tennis, the list goes on and on. I've tried to blend the two, but it always ends up with me back on the couch with a bottle of wine, isolating, gaining weight, and passing out. No blending for me......I can either have a life or not! I remind myself of that every morning when I get up.

Sapling

A heavy dose of meetings....Stepwork... and prayer....I didn't know about this site. I would have used it if I did. I kept myself too busy working on recovery my first two months to even think about drinking. What's a couple months?....When you've been drinking most of your life.

Hexipuff

It may sound corny but the joy of waking up sober/not hungover has kept me going.
I love this feeling
This combined with keeping busy, exercise and meetings plus now SR
A sense of belonging also helps - by this I mean knowing other people are out there in the world who will understand and talk to me when times are good or times are bad.
Keep posting every day.

Taking5

I have not conquered any demon. I get a daily reprieve from my demon if I keep myself in fit spiritual condition. If I don't do this, I will relapse - I've done it before. I am an alcoholic forever, no matter how long it has been since I have taken a drink.

I didn't "do battle" with any demons, nor did I "win" or "achieve victory" over alcoholism. I have no more business "fighting" alcoholism - and will have no more success - than I would if If played LeBron James in basketball. I surrendered. I gave up the fight. From this position of powerlessness, I was able to stop drinking.

These positions are central to the AA/NA concept of "surrender" and in those programs of recovery. Of course not everyone agrees with me here - indeed some quite strongly disagree - but this is what has worked for me, and many, many others.

Having said all that, AVRT makes a lot of sense to me, and I support your sobriety however you get there.

I don't believe you can just go to meetings and stay sober, at least in my case. Sobriety is a lot of work, be it the 12 steps, AVRT, or whatever. I mean seriously, if support would keep us sober, I would never have had a problem. I had the most loving, caring parents anyone could ever wish for. My exes - both of whom left me over my alcoholism - were put through hell by me, and they both tried like hell to sober me up. If support were enough no one in AA or on these forums would ever relapse. Support is very important, but it is only part of the solution, IMHO.

I hope that helps.

DarkDays

Truthfully that if I was to ever Drink again I would have to go through this whole process again, thats if I ever made it back to quit mode again , I could be gone for a few more years.

Scary.

CarolD

The first month it was God and AA.
Today it is God and AA

Hope everyone finds the joy of living well and sober..

heath480

I kept it simple,I stayed away from one drink one day at a time.


Staying sober was my number one priority and still is.

soberbrooke

I became "Teachable" again. I got out of My EGO and started listening to others. I thought I knew it all, when I didn't.
Most of the time before I go into a meeting, I say to the Universal Energies, "I want to put my EGO aside, and allow me to hear what I need to hear".

hypochondriac

The fact that alcohol doesn't control my life anymore. I don't have to have elaborate shopping plans just so I am able to buy enough booze.

I don't have to engage in that argument about if I am going to drink that night and if so how much (the answer was always 'yes' and 'lots'). AVRT helped lots with this.

I feel like a massive weight has been lifted because I don't have to lie anymore, and avoid conversations about how much everybody drank last night.

I don't suffer from random panic attacks anymore and actually feel pretty good

The first month was actually not the hardest because really it was just one long hangover. Since then I am learning not to overanalyze everything, keep it simple, don't drink and work daily on my recovery.

But in the first month it was SR and chocolate and 'thinking the drink through' to deal with any cravings.

MrsKing

The first month, I think I just sort of 'got by'. I didn't want to drink, at all, though. For some reason I just knew that I couldn't touch another drop of alcohol and that was enough to stop me even considering it. The first month was actually pretty easy in terms of staying away from alcohol, because I was so horrified by what I'd done and who I'd become that the thought of drinking just didn't enter my mind. It was after all that had passed that I started considered drinking again, and then luckily I found AVRT and realised that I didn't need to drink, and I learned how to control that voice that told me it would be OK to have one, I was fine now because I'd gone a month, etc. For me, willpower and sheer determination to beat this has got me through. Saying to myself, over and over, "I will never drink again, ever" has really helped, because it just doesn't seem to be an option to me any more. It does get easier... honestly... just don't pick up that drink. You really don't have to.

LoftyIdeals

My life was so unmanageable when I quit that I was literally at the end of my rope in my family relationships, career, and finances. My lack of any self-esteem whatsoever had sunk me into the deepest and longest depression I have ever experienced. My choices, like 2Granddaughters, had come to recovery or suicide. I've planned my death dozens of times, but God would not let me go there. So, I knew that recovery was the only option. I bottomed out, before I lost the wife and kids, the house, all my relationships. But, none of that mattered to me at the time, as I had already lost myself.

The first month was set with the utmost resolve. I had soberred up for a significant period in the early 80s, and for many lesser periods many times thereafter. But, I had to surrender that after 30 years of recognizing my alcoholism and making vain or feigned attempts to manage or control it, I could not. There was no further argument for drinking in my life. I made the decision that NO MATTER WHAT, I was quitting. This meant that I put my sobriety ahead of wife, family, job, and all else that mattered to me. It came first, and NOTHING could stand in my way of becoming the sober me that God intends me to be.

That was eleven months ago today. Tomorrow is my eleven month anniversary, and I am happier now than I've been in over a decade. I have learned to love my life again in sobriety. I haven't been haunted by depression for many months. I am lighthearted, happy, and loving to my family. I am re-engaged in my career and building a business that will go gangbusters.

I was the problem; I was the catalyst to every result; only I could resolve to become the solution. Yes, I prayed to God for strength, but it wasn't He that made me a drunk; it was me.

My advice is to 1) keep your focus on remaining sober each day; hour by hour, or minute by minute, if necessary. 2) when you are ready, start living a new life under the new terms of your life. 3) NEVER FORGET where you've been, from where you've come, and the reasons that compelled you to change your life. 4) Continue to grow as a person in sobriety every day. Be someone new; someone you love. All else will follow naturally.

I have to add that a HUGE part of my recovery has been coming here to SR every day for the past eleven months. This is my daily reminder, and my daily medicine. It's made all the difference in the world to me.

Just MHO. Thanks for the question!

MrsKing

That is wonderful advice, Lofty!

mecanix

For me i associate drinking with nothing good . In the end i was either hungover or on a blackout .

In my minds eye i can feel and focus in on the moment when i decided i never wanted another drink in this or any lifetime . I remember the laughter that came over me, the feeling of relief , my prideful ego was all done .

Remembering and re-living that feeling at any time i want makes me realize crazy thoughts for what they are, when they occour, that helps .

I don't feel deprived having stopped i feel relieved and elated .


I'd renounced the rave/drugs scene 17 years ago , smoking 8 years ago , casual sex about 5 years , drink 307 days and (for me) big leveraged gambles on the indicies about 2 months ago .

Red meat, stimulant drinks and big fast cars are on the list of things i will give up as i travel the path towards nirodha , but for the moment i'm enjoying the journey. This isn't a race it's the time of your life .