What was your tipping point?
 

Your "aha" moment...when the light bulb came on and you said to yourself:

"I have to stop drinking"

Was is one defining moment or a series of events that led you to this decision?

For me, I always had something nagging me in the background...like a censor. Sometimes it was hardly noticeable and other times it was deafening. I really never suffered a one "terrible" event that spelled it out in black in white. Such as a health issue or car accident. I simply came to "know" it was time. Indefinable really. People say you have to reach rock bottom. That was not the case with me.

How about you?

I tried to cut back over a period of time but only seemed to go round and round in circles, I knew I was drinking too much and life was becoming a struggle, hangovers getting up for work, started having health issues and I really needed to slow down, but I didn't want to quit.

So I made deals with myself, only drink at weekends, not on work nights, have 2 non drinking nights a week, only one night, only drink beer, only drink wine, the goal posts were always changing and my drinking always spiralled to 7 nights a week and as much as before.

After a year of trying to "moderate", the penny finally dropped that the only solution was to permanently part ways with alcohol, the first drink was my problem and so cutting that out was the solution.

Life has been looking up ever since!! :)

It was ten o'clock in the morning, and my wife and I had already drank three bottles of wine. I was faced with a choice of buying more wine or going to the hospital, and for once I chose the latter.

Many factors went into my decision to stop drinking. Some have remained private, others I've shared here. This is something I've posted once before so it may ring a bell to SR stalwarts.

My sober date is Aug. 15, 2013.

A few weeks before, no more than that, I'd gone grocery shopping and decided to stop in a place across from the market for a taco. It was early afternoon, a Sunday. Ahead of me, a woman was entering the door. Later, I remembered that I couldn't tell how old she was, though she seemed younger than me. I am middle-aged.

I wasn't paying attention to her, just took my place in line behind her. Though I didn't hear what she ordered, I noticed she was pulling coins -- lots of them -- out of her jeans pocket to pay. We've all done that ... ridding ourselves of change that gathers in pockets or the bottom of purses.

Her order? One glass of white wine. When the guy behind the counter gave it to her, she stepped only a couple of feet or two to the side so I could take my place. Standing there, I watched her swig it ravenously. The entire glass was gone in less than a minute, maybe less than half a minute. She returned the glass to the counter, giving the employees a look that was at once both desperate and despairing. She said nothing. She didn't need to; her face said it all: "Take mercy on someone like me. Another one on the house?" The guys behind the counter, young and awkward, cast a glance my way and asked me to place my order. She disappeared from the corner of my eye. When I turned around, she was gone. I got my taco. And Diet Coke.

It struck me that no one starts out like this, that this wasn't what the beginning of addiction looked like. Or the middle.

It was a crystallizing moment. If you'd told me 10 or 15 years ago how my drinking would escalate -- volume, frequency -- I would have been stunned. Scared. Sad.

Ours is a progressive illness. At some point, her drinking levels must have been around where mine were that day. There were only two directions I could take. I could stop drinking entirely; somewhere deep inside, I already knew I was a failure at moderation. Or I could continue as an active trekker on the path toward my own self-destruction.

I chose the former. I chose to live.

My unexpected trip to the hospital October 2nd of this year. Waking up from a blackout and being 100 % scared/bewildered/ and aggressive to the nursing staff and EMS folks who likely saved my life.

That is my rock bottom. That is the last day of drinking alcohol in my life.

2 trips to rehab and other occurrences weren't enough. But the aggression and personality change and 3 hour blackout from 16 days ago.

Yeah it's time. That was my tipping point. :wild

i have a long history of very hard drinking. I fooled myself into thinking that is was ok because these days I only drank wine. then it was moderation promises to myself, only at weekends, etc. none of that worked.
I've also taken a lot of drugs-coke, weed, speed, smack, uppers, downers,the list goes on.
I really think I've been at rock bottom for some years now, emotionally speaking. I just put on a good front in the outside world, and kept going somehow.

But several reasons have brought me to sobriety.

There's a woman who lives opposite me who drinks from about midday onward. she will only go out in the mornings. She looks like the walking dead. there are other people i know who drink heavily who are shaky, confused, ill and broke. That's what's waiting for me if I continue to drink.

I don't want my grandchildren to see their beloved granny deteriorate into a hopeless alcoholic, or die from it. I cannot do that to my family. Just thinking about that is enough to reduce me to tears.

I have IBS/ anxiety problems, and whatever damage I have done to myself over the years which isn't showing yet. I don't want to add to that.

I feel weary of my raving addictions, which have controlled my life up til now. it's time to grow up and get on with life.

I'm sick and tired of feeling sick and tired.

So there was a calm and mature voice in my head that just a week ago just said " It's time. you can do it now". so I found this forum and began. I'm just grateful that I'm still alive to make a new start.
Bless you all x

The daily hangovers became nuclear.

Diagnosed with inflamed liver.

I didn't want to die in my mid-thirties. 32 now.

I arrived at my hotel following a 3 1/2 hour drive for a work assignment the following day. Proceeded to get drunk. Passed out. Woke up, glanced at the clock and was surprised to see I had overslept. I had mere minutes to get dressed and to get to my assignment a couple of miles away. I ran out of the hotel to my car, sped to the venue and discovered no one there. It wasn't 8 am, it was 8 pm, the night before my assignment.

Unfortunately, one of several "tipping points."

I knew that I had to do something about my drinking for a while, just did not know what to do or how to do it. Quitting alcohol forever was not something I was interested in - to be honest, I still cannot fully grasp the idea that I should not drink ever again. That's why I tell myself that I will not drink today, and we will see about tomorrow when it comes...

I have IBS as well, and I used to drink wine only which is so acidic, I had constant stomach pain, like my stomach was burning non-stop. It was unbearable. I had to cut down my drinking so that my stomach would go back to normal, but I could NOT cut down. It was either all the way to being completely wasted, blacked out, don't know what I'm doing or saying - OR sobriety. I started having these random bruises and red spots all over my legs and arms, they literally would appear out of nowhere and looked scary. I think it had to do with my veins. I just came to the point where I would wake up and want to immediately start drinking, I could not function without alcohol. It was a nightmare.

I know that I CANNOT drink like a normal person and moderate my drinking, I am simply not able to control how much I am going to drink or what's going to happen to me if I drink. It is a really scary thought.

I was just sick and tired of waking up each day feeling horrible and hating myself.

That was not the case with me either. I don't think I hit rock bottom. Yes, my health started to decline, I would get wasted and say/do things I did not mean (honestly, some of the stuff that I would say I did not even know where they even came from - it was so weird). I had this 24/7 compulsion to drink, such an obsession. I felt that my entire life was around alcohol. I would go to work and be annoyed because it interfered with my drinking. Everything else was secondary to my drinking. I did not lose any friends, job, family members (this is probably why my addictive voice still tells me I could drink one way, after all, I haven't lost anything so dear to me in my life because of drinking).

Nothing terrible, life-changing happened to me as a result of my drinking. I did not have serious consequences to my drinking, but I knew it had to stop because everything horrible that happened to other people with drinking, I KNEW sooner or later they could happen to me. They just had not happened YET. It was only a matter of time.

Good question. A series of things led me to quit (extra weight, horrible deathlike hangovers, alcohol induced depression, profound lack of satiation when I drank). I think too it was the realization that I was not "growing out of it", and in fact was actually getting worse as I got older. I did not want to continue my drinking problem in my late 30's or 40's so I quit for good at the end of my 36th year.

Right... that YET thing always there in the future. Better to stop while the stopping is good. Unfortunately not everyone can or wants to do that. I find everyone's story fascinating and powerful. Thank you for sharing!

massive rows with my wife who i treasure more than anything else, memory loss, making a fool of my self, self loathing, then the fact that i dont like beer = alcohol, gave up spirits which i loved = alcohol, so i had to give up wine which to be fair the more i drank the less i liked the flavour so i had to do it, i realised i was a true addict.

Your post reminded me of a similar situation I had. I had a 9:00 am appointment to see my doctor. Drove to his office and parked. Noticed the parking lot was empty. Then it dawned on me that it was still dark outside. Realized it was 9:00 pm. Pretty nervous about driving home in my condition. Stopped at a liquor store to buy something to calm my nerves. The owner noticed there was something wrong with me and called the police. Thought of just taking off, but knew the owner got my license #. Waited outside my car for the police to arrive. Cops told me they could charge me with a DUI just based on what the owner observed. Gave me a break, and told me to walk home and pick my car up the next day. Walked to a gas station, picked up a six-pack and went home.

Sitting at my daughters birthday party fancy dress holding a bottle of beer looking at it and thinking to myself " God this drinking lark is just so boring " drank for another year on and off but I knew from then I had a problem was bored of everything drink gave me and wanted the charity and coolness of sobriety .

Yes it's cool !

The last order for me was sitting in A&E after having mild DTs after a five day binge.

I was hyper-alert, nervous, had abdominal pains and generally looked like ****.

I decided then that I can't keep doing this to myself. I'm only 25, and had already severely aged my body through the booze.

Been sober for six weeks now. Never looking back. Time to live my life.

finding this site while drunk one night.

Slow realization that it just didn't work for me any more plus all the surrounding parafanalia that went with it. Sick & tired of feeling sick & tired.