MycoolFitz

Oh and 3 marragies gone

BigSkyBlues

The overwhelming anxiety that accompanies a day after drinking makes me feel so miserable is, I think, the thing that finally wore me down. It feels like death.

YVRguy

I was at the turning point, life or suicide either slowly or quickly, and Step 1 was truly and deeply realized and that is where I finally started.

Lost a lot that I won't list as I know many lost much more , some people lose their lives to this dreaded thing.

For myself , AA has allowed me to regain hope and believe there is a way for me to recover and live a contented and useful life which I certainty haven't in decades.

FenwayFaithful

Waking up on the floor of some guys apartment with no clue how I got there and very little memory of meeting him and having to go through his trash to discover if we hooked up and sneaking out and walking home in the rain still pretty damn drunk then spending the day sick as a dog.

Then having something very similar happen two weeks later. I stopped drinking the next day.

Natom

Getting kicked out, going bankrupt and losing my fiance, on the same weekend. Couldn't have asked for a better one.

venicequeen

A friend of mine overdosed, she was only 20. After talking to her family, I realized that mine and her stories were the exactly the same. Our boyfriends introduced us to heroin, no matter how many measures we took, we always went back to those boyfriends, and heroin of course. We were both beautiful young girls from a nice family and town with so much potential but always went looking for love and pleasure in all the wrong places. That made me realize that I needed to get clean, or I was going to end up dead.

Once I realized this, I continued to go get high for the couple days before I could go into detox, but everytime I went down, something bad happened to me. I crashed my car badly down there, totaling it and injuring myself while I was dopesick. I nearly got arrested twice. I think that was all God's way of telling me I need to get out of this lifestyle.

Since then, I have had my struggles with short relapses here and there, but I have been trying very hard to get clean. Every time I use now I just feel guilt, emptiness, shame, etc..

Porkpup

My wake up call was looking at my young kids and thinking about the terrible damage I have done to my health. I wish it had hit me many years ago. I want to be around as long as I can for them.

Jabbadabutt

My wake up call was being so drunk (out of my mind) that I was unable to stand let alone be available to help my family if they needed me.

Sasha4

I had lots of events that could be classed as a 'bottom'.
They were miserable and I am still ashamed of them now. I think I will never get over the shame I feel.

However, I never stopped drinking after them.
I just wanted to escape from where ever I was and go and hide and drink until I did not care.

However, and I don't know why it happened when it did, because there was no bad event that took place, I just realised that to avoid feeling really, really physically and mentally bad, I just had to avoid drinking.

It took a few goes...
I would do a few days sober then drink.
I then challenged myself with not drinking for a birthday, then christmas and then after Valentines day, I decided my life would be better without drink.

I always wanted to be able to say 'I don't drink, don't smoke or swear' and now I can.

I will have 260 days tomorrow!
And for the most part it has truly been magnificant

xxxx

vespera

Interesting thread, and good for me to read today.

I am not 100% I am there yet. I had two glasses of wine already this morning, and it's just a matter of time before I go get some more.

Things that go over in my head though, and keep coming back to haunt me. Passing out in the middle of the day this summer, vodka drunk. My toddler was home with me. He went out in the backyard and wandered around a while. I would not have even known, but he took my iPhone with him and recorded video/took pictures.

Buying two bottles of wine when I was working once. Taking them to the bathroom with me, and refilling my sealable (?) coffee cup, over and over. Burying those bottles in the paper towels of the trashcan.

Opening a wine bottle in a stall alone felt pretty pathetic. The first one just makes me feel like a terrible human being, though.

oinobares

Yes, I did this in a bathroom stall with a fifth of Dewars before an appointment with my therapist. The absurdity of pulling that big honking bottle out of my briefcase full of "life's work" qualifies as a moment that shocked me into awareness of my alcoholism. I couldn't bring myself to buy a pint-sized bottle because that would have made me feel like a "real" alcoholic. So I bought the fifth at an upscale wine and spirit shoppe thinking I would have "a drink" when I got home that night. Only I couldn't wait to get home and it wasn't a drink it was the entire bottle.

That and repeatedly buying booze with these delusions of having civilized cocktail hours which inevitably became week-long benders. After the last such bender I wound up in the ER for detox. Almost five months ago, just staying away from that one drink one day at a time.

Best to all!

SoberHooligan

I was scared I was going to kill someone.

Buzzed driving IS drunk driving.

I hit my rock bottom on 2.22.11, and that rock was God.

FamilyMan2153

Like many, my wake up call was my second OWI in 2 months. I almost lost my job, family and house. I was lucky to get sober and start a new life.

PippoRossi

I stopped drinking about a month after my wake up call. My husband and I had planned to watch a local road bike race from the patio seating area at the nicest restaurant in town. We made reservations ONE YEAR in advance to make sure we had the best seats to watch the race. Before we left the house I had been secretly taking sips from different bottles of liquor to get loosened up. Well, it only took being a passenger in the car for about 3 minutes before my head started spinning and I had to have my husband pull over to the side of the road for me to get out and throw up. He then turned the car around and we headed home, missing the highly anticipated bike race and delicious dinner. I was so frickin' ashamed that I cringe even thinking about it today! My husband didn't even know I had been drinking and was so sweet to take me back home and fix me a bland meal to help settle my stomach. I felt like such an @$$hole and I cried myself to sleep! I didn't drink for one week after that because I felt so sick (physically). I never intended to stop drinking, though. Then, about three weeks after that, I still couldn't shake the guilt and shame I felt for screwing up our evening. I decided I was tired of living that sort of life and now I'm 71 days sober.

jwolf

Such amazing stories. Everyone's "wake up call" is so unique yet almost everyone's deals with some sort of guilt. I hope we can keep this thread going. It's a good reminder to all of us why we need to stay sober.
Day 2 and feeling good

Panacea

Thank you everyone for sharing your stories. They are quite powerful and I recognized myself in all of them.

My wake up call was my family. I was an everyday heavy drinker who often started in the morning. By the time dinner time rolled around, I was usually what I called "functionally relaxed" - what a stupid term. Blackouts started to occur more frequently - the last time I woke up still drunk, I could not remember my conversations with the kids the night before. I felt horrible - mentally, physically, spiritually broken.

The SR community has been crucial to my recovery - there are so many wonderful supportive people here. I am so thankful.

xo Pan

MegTheRunner

The night after my sisters' wedding when I physically fought with my brother, punched him in the face, threatened to kill him in front of my mother and his wife, and had my mom threaten to call the police and take me to jail. I quit about a week later.

ChangingforGood

My oral surgeon stopped refilling my pain medications. I panicked, rationed what I had left and then searched the Internet for how to get through withdrawals. I had never though I had a problem until the day i freaked out because I wouldn't have medication. When I coulldnt fall asleep because I was terrified of how I would live without pain medicine I knew there was a problem and had to be a better way.

isinganyway

Hearing my therapist who is also an alcoholic tell me I was one. Thinking about it and realizing I have always drank to get drunk. Realizing it will only get worse as I get older, and that I might as well stop now while I'm not physically addicted...

Jitterbugg

Waking up in a jail-cell for the 3rd time and then walking for 3 hours to get home because I was flat broke with no one to call....