firstymer

I have been coming here since last August which was, not coincidentally, the day I had my last drink. Before that, I drank nearly every day for 25 years. I am an alcoholic. I admitted that for the first time to all of you good people. I am profoundly grateful for the support and good advice I have received here.

As I struggled through the first weeks and months of sobriety, I wondered where some of the regular posters went when they stopped posting. I am sure that some left SR because they had returned to drinking.

I thought a LOT about alcohol in those first few months of sobriety. Now, not so much. Frankly, I don't WANT to think about it. At least not for now. I want a break. I just want to live my life, sober and happy. All of the usual triggers for me to drink have been present lately. I have been alone for nearly a week now, as my fiancee travels for work. This would normally have been a recipe for a drunken bender. Instead, I am just living my life.

I am gonna take a bit of a break from SR. Not sure for how long. I will return if I feel a slip coming on. I will return to offer support to those who may be where I was 6 months ago. But I am gonna take a break so as not to have to think about alcohol, or even be reminded of the hold it had on me for so many years. It feels a little selfish, like I am quitting a club that has meant so very much to me. That is not my intent. I just want to see what it is like to not think about alcohol for awhile.

I am not presumptuous enough to think my absence will be felt, or even noticed. I just thought I would give you an answer to the question. So, in answer to the question "Where do SR members go when they stop posting?", here is where some of us go: Off to live happier, sober lives. Many of the stories here at SR have happy endings. I am one of them.

This is a wonderful place. For those of you in the first days or weeks of sobriety, don't give up. Keep fighting. You won't regret it. If I can stop drinking, you can stop drinking.

Good luck, everybody. And thank you.

Raider

I will notice you are gone. I wish you well. God bless.

Mizzuno

This is a very truthful post. I have taken breaks so that I do not have to think of alcohol and can just live my life. Please be well. Take care of you. see you around. !!!

mecanix

For me i find the new-comers and posting here really helps me stay thankful and humble for my sobriety . I hope they find some of what i post useful as well

For me the pain hurt and confusion serves as a reminder of where i was for so many years . A reminder which i need, to fight complacency, that little question that pops in my head once in a while saying, was i really that bad ? are you sure it was a problem . This place helps me remember the answer undoubtedly yes it was an horrendously awful problem .

I wish you every success , don't be a stranger if you find yourself in need of the kind of reminder i do

Bestwishes, m

heath480

I wish you well.

I prefer to never forget that I am an Alcoholic,if I forget I am going to be in deep trouble.

Posting here on SR keeps me grateful for my sobriety.

afloatsober

A very dear (and long time sober) friend told me this. 'One day, you will come to wear your sobriety like a loose fitting jacket and not a straightjacket'.
Go safely on your travels but don't hang the jacket under the stairs gathering dust. And never forget why you need it.

Mountainmanbob

may God bless you in that endeavor
I understand and have known many
who sober up and just get on with their life
then there are those others such as myself
I enjoy sharing and reading about ones in Recovery
for me and many helping the newcomer is about as good as it get's
sharing our stories of our escape from the liquid devil

good luck to you and check in from time to time (if you wish)

Mountainman

Coldfusion

Many disappear, some reappear.

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...m-missing.html

LDT

I moved away from SR a while back. I kept lurking though. Then I relapsed ( which ISN'T inevitable, no matter what some people might say). I'm grateful a good friend here brought me back. SR keeps me sober. I've no intention of ever leaving again. I just hope my experience helps others.

I wish you the very best. We will always be here if you need us.

FreeOwl

around the 6 month mark is a very common relapse point.

Just pointing that out because it happened to me. In part I think it was because I, too, was tired of it. Tired of thinking about it. Tired of meetings. Tired of the WORK of sobriety. I felt a little shackled by the notion of being alcoholic and it wasn't like I was craving alcohol or feeling like it was really that big a deal anymore. I was pretty OK, if you asked me!

Well - for me, the turning away from the things that helped keep me sober, the reminders of the danger, the interaction with others in honest dialogue about our common struggle - was the beginning of my relapse.

Made it a LOT easier to convince myself that it had all just been a need to 'reset'. That clearly I didn't really have a major problem because here I was, all on my own, not drinking and basically this was 'evidence' that I could clearly take it or leave it....

Well that eventually led to a 1.5 year relapse.

I'm not saying this out of a lack of faith in you. I just want to share my experience in hopes that you'll keep it in mind as you look honestly upon your own journey. I know from my personal experience I was confident I would "see myself slipping" if it happened - but set apart from all of the tools of sobriety, I didn't see it. My addictive self took over again, in small, subtle and manipulative ways until I suddenly woke up one day stuck in that old dark cycle.

SO... all of this is just to say; please don't do what I did.



Happy Trails and I wish you well.

jgreenwood08

This is my first time on this site, after multiple suggestions from my friend (who divorced an alcoholic and spent a lot of time on here), and I have recently come to accept that I have a serious alcohol problem. I went 72 days without drinking and just the other night "relapsed." I know and have known I need to remove alcohol from my life once and for all, but I guess I've just been scared of being sober; feeling suffocated by a sobriety straightjacket. Reading this made me feel so relieved and actually able to think about sobriety as something to look forward to. I was feeling really hopeless. Sorry for rambling, but this really hit the spot for me

EndGameNYC

Whew!

I'm not going to give you advice, or tell you that you're making a mistake. But I will tell you the thoughts your comment spurred for me. And just a word of caution.

You're at a place in your recovery where many of us have been before. We're often most fragile when we've become "fed up" with having our thoughts seemingly revolve around alcohol.

I'm sober for about two-and-a-half years following a three-year relapse during which I lost everything dear to me, and that terminated my twenty-five year run without a drink.

I rarely think about drinking. Drinking and the problems I brought upon myself during my drunkenness are largely rendered neutral when I read and comment here. That's only one reason why I'm here.

People leave here for different reasons. I've learned that when I've taken sabbaticals from SR, it's usually due to relapse fatigue on my part. I become overwhelmed by reading about people who've relapsed, people who claim they're on the verge of a relapse, people who've just returned from a relapse, people who seem to be headed towards a relapse and/or are planning to relapse without apparently knowing it. All the hopeful words and the support don't always counterbalance my being exposed to the misery of drinking.

There are other, personal reasons why I don't always check in as well.

And there are worse, darker reasons why people leave. It's sometimes an easy thing, not to forget, but to lose sight of the fact that alcoholism is fatal, and particularly dangerous the longer it goes untreated. But that's the reality.

Many of us die by our own hands...whether it's by an obvious act of suicide or by driving the car into a an oak tree. We fall a lot too, sometimes from balconies, into bath tubs, or in front of speeding vehicles. Not to mention the countless dangerous positions in which we place ourselves while drunk or in a blackout. Perhaps worse, on some level, is wanting to be dead every waking moment, but being incapable of committing the ultimate sacrifice. I also believe that some of us die of a broken heart. No one who hasn't been there can know this type of sadness. It may not say "alcoholism" on the death certificate, but alcoholics do eventually die from this affliction with or without treatment, and too often they die much too soon in life.

I only wish you well during your departure and, as is true of everyone else here, I can only hope that you're able to do whatever is necessary to stay safe and sound.

FreeFall

Firstymer, I totally understand your reasons for backing off, but know the door is always open. When I first joined SR my goal wasn't to quit forever, just to try to manage my drinking. We all know how that goes. I was here for a month or two, felt that since I could quit for 2 months that I was "okay" and left SR. A year later I was back, with a different mind set. Again, my intent was not to quit forever (that word makes me nervous), but it has been a year and almost 8 months and I want it this time. I took an SR break for months due to busy life, but I've been back recently. I don't want to take sobriety for granted, especially before St. Patrick's Day lol

I'm glad you told us, because I do find it depressing when people I've grown to care about disappear. I like to think it's because they're doing well, but I know it can easily go the other way. Good luck in your life, and please stop in from time to time

Notimetoloose

Good luck, I get it... You can always come back anytime you want to.

Your decision to stop drinking is what counts, don't let anyone or any set of circumstances change that.
It is an active decision & not subject to change.
Take care of yourself.

Dee74

Like I said to someone else recently, I don't think we need to make SR and the real world mutually exclusive either/or things.

Sometimes when people say they need to leave SR I think they might really mean they need a better life balance.

I'm not putting words in your mouth tho, and I understand people do have valid reasons to move on and I wish you well whatever you decide Firsttymer.

Just know the door always swings both ways.

D

MythOfSisyphus

Take care! SR will still be here when you come back. We'll leave a light on for you.

instant

I come to remember - I don't want to forget

A little dose of SR every day or so does wonders for my general constitution