what motivates you.
Forum Leader
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Wisconsin, USA
Posts: 16,945
My family and my health. Being grateful and never forgetting what is guaranteed to happen if I drank again. Probably most importantly acceptance that I cannot drink and being fine with it.
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Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: California
Posts: 2,693
What has helped me immensely is that I want to be sober more than I want to drink. The reason this has not fluctuated day to day is because I finally got sick of drinking. I don't even want to. So far I haven't even been tempted. I drank every day for eight years and just go disgusted and sick of it.
I wasn't the weekend binge drinker who drank for fun. I became the daily maintenance drinker where the fun is long gone. Buzzes didn't make me happy or relaxed. The very reason I started drinking had disappeared. I still can't figure out the science of why the buzzes ended. The buzzes, relaxation, and fun ended but the hangovers didn't. The blackouts didn't.
If I were to drink tonight I would not enjoy it. The drinks would make me panicky, flushed, and depressed.
I would spend the next three days in bed feeling like my body was shutting down.
I play the tape to the end. That's how I keep going!
I wasn't the weekend binge drinker who drank for fun. I became the daily maintenance drinker where the fun is long gone. Buzzes didn't make me happy or relaxed. The very reason I started drinking had disappeared. I still can't figure out the science of why the buzzes ended. The buzzes, relaxation, and fun ended but the hangovers didn't. The blackouts didn't.
If I were to drink tonight I would not enjoy it. The drinks would make me panicky, flushed, and depressed.
I would spend the next three days in bed feeling like my body was shutting down.
I play the tape to the end. That's how I keep going!
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: n/a
Posts: 225
What keeps me going is my son he's 17 months old a non stop energizer bunny !!! Lol he never stops untill he sleeps. But I do miss my dog she's a German Shephard who was abused before we got her at 6 months very timid and shy. She's 7 now and my parent don't take great care for her but I miss her but there's no way I can take her right now . Every weekend me and my son go see her she looks worse and worse since both my parents r alcoholics and neglect her. Shes one of my inspirations. Ever since I left home she waits for me every day at the same time I used 2 come home . I just wish I could take her home .
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Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: Philadelphia, USA
Posts: 245
foryoumyson - Sorry to hear about your dog. Do you think you'll be able to take her home eventually?
What motivates me is curiosity. I already know what I'm like when I drink, but I don't know as much about me when I'm sober and trying to live my life well. It's exciting to see who we can become if we allow it and try our best.
What motivates me is curiosity. I already know what I'm like when I drink, but I don't know as much about me when I'm sober and trying to live my life well. It's exciting to see who we can become if we allow it and try our best.
Member
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Oregon
Posts: 1,536
Most of the time what keeps me sober is that I LOVE MY LIFE and I love myself. BUT there are times when I start to sink into depression again, and during those times when I feel that I don't matter, what will keep me going is that my family needs me to be healthy and whole. When those dark days come, I have tools to use and self-care I know to do. . . like seeing my acupuncturist (he knows my story) to get treatment for depression and getting out of the house to the forest or the coast. Fortunately my husband is well aware of all of this and will take me away for a weekend at the coast or wherever I need to go to reboot and get out of my pity party mindset. AND I have you guys 
It is just a one day at a time thing for me, and that works for me.
It is just a one day at a time thing for me, and that works for me.
Member
Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Washington, DC
Posts: 987
Yes, very much what Melinda said. It was certainly not fun in the end. It was torture; pure, unadulterated torture.
Plus, these days, even though everything is certainly not rainbows and unicorns (when you stop drinking, you starting feeling again), the old saying is true: my worst day sober has still been better than my best day drunk. At least in the last two years of my drinking.
Also, people trust me again. Like completely. Sometimes when I read on here that people are so devastated by what they have done to others while drinking and feel like they cannot quit because they will never get over the shame and/or have people trust them again, I want to jump through the computer screen and say, "Not true!! Hang in there!"
I did ridiculously horrible stuff to people who I supposedly loved when drinking. Even now to think on it makes my stomach flip a bit. But most (not all, but most) have forgiven me and now trust me implicitly. With their HEARTS. They trust me with their hearts. How did that happen? How did they manage to forgive me and even love me again? Those people, and all of you, keep me sober because they are proof that miracles happen everyday. We are each a testament to that.
Plus, these days, even though everything is certainly not rainbows and unicorns (when you stop drinking, you starting feeling again), the old saying is true: my worst day sober has still been better than my best day drunk. At least in the last two years of my drinking.
Also, people trust me again. Like completely. Sometimes when I read on here that people are so devastated by what they have done to others while drinking and feel like they cannot quit because they will never get over the shame and/or have people trust them again, I want to jump through the computer screen and say, "Not true!! Hang in there!"
I did ridiculously horrible stuff to people who I supposedly loved when drinking. Even now to think on it makes my stomach flip a bit. But most (not all, but most) have forgiven me and now trust me implicitly. With their HEARTS. They trust me with their hearts. How did that happen? How did they manage to forgive me and even love me again? Those people, and all of you, keep me sober because they are proof that miracles happen everyday. We are each a testament to that
.
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: n/a
Posts: 225
Well where I live now u can only have a dog 35 lbs and under and she's 85 but I told my parents if they get her a professional washing and a check up for the sake of my son I will take her and won't let anyone know even if I we get in trouble that's my other baby
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Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: in the city by the bay
Posts: 605
My family and my health. For sure, things weren't right with my health because it has changed so much since I quit. What keeps me going is knowing I can be better than I am, that I haven't gotten to the best I can be yet, still got booze weight that is slowly coming off. Day to day? Well, I just focus, try to deal with and correct the self-talk. Instead of hearing "just ONE drink okay?", and sometimes I still hear that, but I say to myself...remember how you looked and felt...think of how people compliment you know and react to you positively and how you have become a better person. How my kids have regained a mother and my husband a wife. How I am actually getting things done.
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Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: in the city by the bay
Posts: 605
Originally Posted by foryoumyson 
Airwick how old is your little man mines 17 months .
At 17 months your son won't remember. I used to think, I need to quit before my kids start to realize things. Now I wasn't falling over, I just sorta kept a constant buzz of alcohol in me. I felt like such a prisoner to booze.
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