Hawk07

Oh what I would give now to have stopped when I was your age..

AlliH

I am 23 and I'm just starting this journey

Hawk07

Hi Alli!

Thats great!! Is it day one for you? I'm here to support you as are many others. Feel free to PM me anytime.

lillyknitting

How awesome to get sober in your 20s, you miss out on decades of pain and hell. I also realized I had a massive problem in my early 20s and actually went to AA because I thought "this is not a normal happy way to live" getting drunk out of my head, destroying my relationship, when I look back what wasted years of pain & destruction alcohol has done in my life. Embrace sobriety with open arms, you have made an amazing, courageous life enhancing decision x

hardhearts

I'm 21 and currently have 78 days, so I understand. It's hard because I try to talk myself into the idea that I'm young and maybe I'll grow out of it. The facts are that my father is an alcoholic, I drank to blackout several times in the past year, something I had never done before, it ruined my general state of living and made me a completely different person. My life was in order on the outside, I was a great student, no legal trouble, no extraordinary stories, I never lost anything physical. I lost plenty things mental. In the end, it wasn't worth it for me. So yeah, I don't have the war stories, but as many people will tell you, you don't want the war stories. For every objection I make as to why I don't belong in recovery (AA for me) or why I'm not as bad as some others, I can qualify it with "yet" - huge realization.

StayStrong33

Gonna make today a sober one. Thanks to all who have reached out so far.

nmd

I really didn't start drinking until around 23/24. You can become an alcoholic at any age, you can become sober whenever you want.

I struggle with the fact that my drinking "isn't that bad", or at least that is what I try to tell myself. The stupid things I've done and things that have happened to me and my lack of control tell another story. Why let it get worse? Why wait until more damage is done and more time is lost? I'm trying to beat it now (at 39)

anewpage

I'm 31. When I went to my first AA meeting last week, I was by far the youngest person there, and do you know what many of them said to me? "Oh how I wish I'd decided to get sober at your young age."
Get sober now and you'll probably save yourself decades of pain, health issues, losses, humiliation etc.
I wish I'd realized I had a problem when I was in my 20s. I would have saved myself from years of hell.

Lkl2252

Hey StayStrong,

I am 25 and on day 25 being sober. I live in Boston, many of my friends are really heavy drinkers, and I am slowing getting use to the idea of totally eliminating alcohol from my life. Most of my friends have been really understanding and supportive, although I am still having to grapple with the idea of giving up drinks after work, or the all day drinking events like a Harpoon fest, or Wine Riot etc etc.... When I look back on it, it seems so so so silly to go to an event where literally all you do is drink. Why? Its so not worth it.

I attempted to moderate last fall and was "successful" for a while. Now when I look back on that period of time, I realize what I was doing was not moderating at all. Having three drinks for a girl my size is not moderation, for many people that's a "night out drinking". Splitting a bottle of wine over dinner every other night or so is not moderation. It was keeping up habits like that that caused me to become comfortable and to slowly slip back in to the Saturdays of starting to drink at noon and continuing in to the night. I just cannot do it. I am still having a hard time imagining what my life will be like with out alcohol, what my weekends will be like, what things I will have to change. I know that fear is what makes me an alcoholic. Someone on here said to me before that if you are worried about that one drink, or that one night of drinking, that's when its clear that you have an issue. Sure there are plenty of people who are not afraid or scared about what will happen if they have a drink, and that's because they don't have a problem.

I have spent a lot of time the past 25 days worried about what the future will hold. Will I be able to have a glass of wine with dinner ever again? Will I be able to have a cold beer on a summer day? So what I am working on now is taking things a day at a time. Its difficult, but its the easiest way to reduce the anxiety around what the future may hold. All I know is that today I will work on resisting the desire to have a drink. Once I make it through today, I can focus on tomorrow.

Try to seek out others that are also your age and sober. By just talking about it with my friends and being open and honest about what I was trying to do, people will emerge. A friend of mine who I recently told was able to connect me with his girlfriends sister who has been sober over a year and is in her 20's.... I will be meeting up with her tomorrow to talk with her and go to my first AA meeting...!

Hang in there... Being sober and making that choice is hard no matter the age, although many people here tell me and say that the longer you wait the harder it gets. Also the longer you wait the longer you are prolonging the chance for bad things to happen while drinking, for the losses and pain. Look here for encouragement and start talking to people about it and others your age will emerge.

Good luck!

TucTee

StayStrong, what are your hesitations about quitting, specifically? I perceive real desire to stop, but I'm missing the obstacles to stopping. Maybe that will help everyone else here add more to their contributions.

I'm in my late twenties and quit. My key was finding another purpose in life other than drinking. I've now cultivated some new passions that are carrying me in a sober direction. I'm a big proponent of hobbies as a conduit for sobriety.

StayStrong33

Essentially I'm a perfectionist wanting to "have a break from caring" on the weekends about an unsure chapter of life I'm in. I've told some friends and family about my intentions of cutting alcohol out of my life completely. I get into my own head. "Do I need to go back to school? Did I make the right career choice? Will I ever be stable? Am I a failure? I should have never done this... I should have never done that. I must be the most selfish person in the world. Where did I go wrong? Where did my spirituality go? What if I die tomorrow?" It literally goes on and on but I'll spare you all. Long story short, I get fed up and cave.

anewpage

Oh, I hear that loud and clear. I'm exactly the same.

SuperMario

I'm 25 and have known I had a problem since I was around 18! And only now have I come to accept that I am not like other people who can take or leave a drink. If I have one, I will have one hundred. I am only at the end of day 4, and already having obsessive thoughts about alcohol, if I abstain for a certain amount of time, can I then drink as a reward? Just once? But there is a stronger part of me saying no, this is for good, you are making a positive life change, you are not giving anything up, you are embracing and being given so much, everything the world has to offer in fact. And that makes me so much richer than I was just 4 days ago, gripped by alcohol. It's not easy, but then the best things in life don't come for free!

StayStrong33

I'm quite frankly tired of not feeling healthy. I love the gym, strive to eat healthy, and want to be the healthiest version of myself to live a long life. That goal isn't possible with alcohol in the picture. Each time I drink, I take a step away from what I truly want for myself. What goals do you all have in addition to kicking the habit?

Hawk07

Really just to get to know myself... you lose sense of who you are after drinking your self into an abyss for so long. My true self is sober so I'll be getting to know that person again. And I want to be healthy, I forgot what that feels like

SuperMario

Same things as you and Hawk - I want to get physically fit and I mentally fit. It would be so good to know myself, truly. It's weird, because in a way, I've never really grown up because since I was 16 I've drowned in booze. And I read that heavy and sustained drinking stunts you mentally. So who knows who I'm going to be one month, three months, twelve from now? I'm excited to find out! A little nervous if I'm honest. But excited none the less.

Lastqueenjess

I'm 24 and new to recovery. I'm just a little over 30 days clean and the best thing about being sober is there's no hangovers!!! Hah. My worst day sober is better than any day that I was using. I can deal with life on life's terms now and that's pretty awesome.

Dee74

I was nearly 40 when I quit...but I was still with the same crowd and doing the same things I had been doing at 25.

FOMO (fear of missing out) was a major thing for me. When I thought about it tho, it was a rare night when I didn't end up passed out or at least blacked out.

I was already missing out on stuff.

D

blackberrysong

I just wanted to say I really appreciate seeing this thread. I am 26, and am in my first real long term stint of sobriety in recent years at 11 weeks (I have gone 7 weeks without drinking quite a few times in the past year or so but never made it past that point)! It feels different this time around, and although I have seen a lot of people who were sober longer than me fall back into drinking again I actually can cope with the realization that I have a problem with drinking and that drinking wasn't helping any of my problems, it only made them worse.
It is a bit hard and I sympathize with those posting previously, because I was always a bit of a party girl, and surrounded myself with partiers. Luckily for me however I have very supportive friends and a lot of them have either become sober or at least greatly reduced their alcohol intake, and the others are willing to spend sober time with me. I also think the guise of being "social" was ridiculous as I would go home and drink two bottles of wine on a Thursday night, alone, more or less because I could. Pretty sure socially I'm better off without it, I can actually carry on a conversation

I know my situation is a bit different as I had removed myself from the bar scene some time ago, only really went to parties at friends houses, and have had a beautiful daughter (that required sobriety smack dab in the middle of being a 20 year old party girl) and a partner who doesn't really drink so I think I have an environment conducive to giving up alcohol.. BUT I do have a feeling if we can stay sober.. for one we can still go out; it's remarkably pleasant although harder to stay awake when you're exhausted... Also we will be able to be more honest with ourselves and our inner struggles, and to rise and overcome and become who we wanted to be much sooner in our lives instead of putting it off and hiding in an exhausted booze induced haze. I want to be sober for myself, for my health, so that my daughter doesn't experience a spaced out parent the way that I did growing up, for the sake of my relationships which I was damaging by my blackout drunk episodes, well. Basically there was no real reason left to drink I guess.

Best wishes to everyone!!

Hawk07

"Also we will be able to be more honest with ourselves and our inner struggles, and to rise and overcome and become who we wanted to be much sooner in our lives instead of putting it off and hiding in an exhausted booze induced haze. I want to be sober for myself, for my health, so that my daughter doesn't experience a spaced out parent the way that I did growing up, for the sake of my relationships which I was damaging by my blackout drunk episodes, well. Basically there was no real reason left to drink I guess."


Very wise and well said Blackberry