27 days sober then slip back to day1
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Oct 2013
Location: Eastern Europe
Posts: 2
27 days sober then slip back to day1
Hi
Just a bit of context on where I am- married 46+2 young kids. Have been drinkng for 30 years. In the last 7 years I have gone from being a heavy social drinker (4 to 5 nights a week drunk to very drunk ( blackout)) to the current situation which is a bottle of Vodka a day + beers for thirst, starting from 6pm weekdays and freestyle at the weekends generally sipping slowly all day from when I got up to when I passed out.
As you an imagine hungover and grumpy every day, not effective at work and not much fun to live with incoherent by 830 and passed out by 1030.
Remarkably have manged to keep family life mostly on track but business has really suffered.
Not good leaving the kids to school hungover and smelling of alcohol or losing the plot when I am too pissed or hungover to deal with them and the same can be said for work.
Fortunately a patient partner has stood by me.
Anyway slowly over the last 12 months I realised the need to change. There is no one major event but a litany of minor incidents and the basic realisation that what I was doing is ultimately going to end in disaster on all fronts and I was a person I never wanted to be and was not enjoying life.
When contemplating giving up one of the big issues was fear.
What will I do to fill the time I will never be able to do X,Y and Z again etc. etc. a theme that is quite common from what I see of others stories. Then the why can't I enjoy a social drink like everyone else then the self pity no one knows how hard this is I am too weak too stop, I am worthless I have ruined my life. All a crock of s**t that keeps you from getting where you want to go.
So for no particular reason I stopped drinking on the 30 september 2013.
The first 2 weeks were very hard, insomnia, anxiety, and a general feeling of being ill things started to improve by week 3. There are no support facilities where I am ( former CIS country), so just checked in on sites like this everyday.
Anyway week 4 came and there I was sober for the longest period of time since I was 18. Nobody had died no major catastrophe had occurred and I had things to do, the friends thing was not an issue as I assume I am not alone when I say that when you really get on the beer you lose any friends except your drinking buddies and of them you don't necessarily like them they are just some one to sit beside when you get drunk.
Anyway very proud of myself in week 4 and surprised that in relation to what I thought it was going to be like it turned out to be quite easy to be sober. It was not torture everyday but a welcome relief from the crap of constant drinking more fun with the kids time to pursue other interests with the new time available to me etc.etc.
So unconsciously I suddenly stopped counting the days first thing in the morning and stopped taking the time to look at the support sites and stopped reminding myself how good it felt to be sober, calmer and in control .
Day 27 came we had people over they brought over some drinks and then they went out with my wife. I opted to stay in, they were gone an hour and before you knew it I finished off the end of a bottle of vodka and drank a few beers nothing startling (kind of like brunch from 28 days before) I did not drink the place dry and did not get completely hammered and manged to circle the wagons the next day.
I can see that it would take one or two occasions like that or one when I was in the humour for a big drink before I would be back where I started and it might take another 30 years before I get round to giving up again.
So back to day 3 now I have signed up here and the lesson learned is don't get complacent. I don't have to be a bag of nerves living in fear of Alcohol but I need to remind myself everyday that I need to concentrate on getting through the day and try to keep busy.
R
Just a bit of context on where I am- married 46+2 young kids. Have been drinkng for 30 years. In the last 7 years I have gone from being a heavy social drinker (4 to 5 nights a week drunk to very drunk ( blackout)) to the current situation which is a bottle of Vodka a day + beers for thirst, starting from 6pm weekdays and freestyle at the weekends generally sipping slowly all day from when I got up to when I passed out.
As you an imagine hungover and grumpy every day, not effective at work and not much fun to live with incoherent by 830 and passed out by 1030.
Remarkably have manged to keep family life mostly on track but business has really suffered.
Not good leaving the kids to school hungover and smelling of alcohol or losing the plot when I am too pissed or hungover to deal with them and the same can be said for work.
Fortunately a patient partner has stood by me.
Anyway slowly over the last 12 months I realised the need to change. There is no one major event but a litany of minor incidents and the basic realisation that what I was doing is ultimately going to end in disaster on all fronts and I was a person I never wanted to be and was not enjoying life.
When contemplating giving up one of the big issues was fear.
What will I do to fill the time I will never be able to do X,Y and Z again etc. etc. a theme that is quite common from what I see of others stories. Then the why can't I enjoy a social drink like everyone else then the self pity no one knows how hard this is I am too weak too stop, I am worthless I have ruined my life. All a crock of s**t that keeps you from getting where you want to go.
So for no particular reason I stopped drinking on the 30 september 2013.
The first 2 weeks were very hard, insomnia, anxiety, and a general feeling of being ill things started to improve by week 3. There are no support facilities where I am ( former CIS country), so just checked in on sites like this everyday.
Anyway week 4 came and there I was sober for the longest period of time since I was 18. Nobody had died no major catastrophe had occurred and I had things to do, the friends thing was not an issue as I assume I am not alone when I say that when you really get on the beer you lose any friends except your drinking buddies and of them you don't necessarily like them they are just some one to sit beside when you get drunk.
Anyway very proud of myself in week 4 and surprised that in relation to what I thought it was going to be like it turned out to be quite easy to be sober. It was not torture everyday but a welcome relief from the crap of constant drinking more fun with the kids time to pursue other interests with the new time available to me etc.etc.
So unconsciously I suddenly stopped counting the days first thing in the morning and stopped taking the time to look at the support sites and stopped reminding myself how good it felt to be sober, calmer and in control .
Day 27 came we had people over they brought over some drinks and then they went out with my wife. I opted to stay in, they were gone an hour and before you knew it I finished off the end of a bottle of vodka and drank a few beers nothing startling (kind of like brunch from 28 days before) I did not drink the place dry and did not get completely hammered and manged to circle the wagons the next day.
I can see that it would take one or two occasions like that or one when I was in the humour for a big drink before I would be back where I started and it might take another 30 years before I get round to giving up again.
So back to day 3 now I have signed up here and the lesson learned is don't get complacent. I don't have to be a bag of nerves living in fear of Alcohol but I need to remind myself everyday that I need to concentrate on getting through the day and try to keep busy.
R
Member
Join Date: Feb 2010
Posts: 380
Yours sounds a lot like my situation. Drinking just became SO monotonous. You sound serious so keep your guard high right now to fight those sneaky cravings the next few days. I always slowly built up again after a restart. Almost a month is good time. You can do it again. Keep goin'!
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Oct 2013
Location: Eastern Europe
Posts: 2
boring
Hi luckily monotonous just about covers my feeling towards drinking and I was lucky enough to manage to arrive at this conclusion myself. Sobriety is something I enjoy and view as a release and a real positive which leaves me in an enviable position compared to others I know that have been pushed into rehab for their own good but now view the drug /drink times as halcyon days and sobriety as a cage they are stuck in- so damned if they do and damned if they don't.
Thanks for the reply
Thanks for the reply
Member
Join Date: Sep 2013
Location: England
Posts: 329
Your story is not uncommon. A lot of people,make that most people,have a few fake tries at sobriety before they get serious about it. Personally I had more than I care to mention. The lesson I am learning is that I need to focus daily on the job of sobriety. Maybe just 15mins on here reminding myself of why I am doing this. I find that daily reminder all I need. Keep posting on your progress.
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