What made your decision to quit final?
 

Hello all. All advice and stories are very welcome, but since I am 25, I would especially appreciate input from the younger crowd. No discrimination, I'll explain my point.

No matter your addiction, it saps energy from you, makes you do stupid things, anger people etc. So I'm fairly sure most people who have woken up with a debilitating hangover have considered (even if in a fleeting manner) quitting drinking. Usually the promise is 'forever', sadly and this is my personal experience as well, often times it is not forever and relapse seems to lurk just around the corner. The hangover passes, the embarrassment goes away, the money replenishes and were good to go again, right? Essentially fueling the cycle over and over.

My thinking is that later in life, when you become a parent, are in a long time relationship and have responsibilities of a larger magnitude, the ability to look back is more visibly there and responsibility to 'hitch' your wagon to is more powerful.

This is the downfall of the younger crowd. Either college kids or just getting your first job, the reality of responsibilities has not fully hit you yet and thus the addict-brain can more easily convince you that 'what's three beers, right? I've been good, I deserve this. It's not going to be like last time'

The notion of a long life still ahead of you dilutes the severity of the danger from excessive drinking. If there is more than one drug involved, I guess that's just playing Russian roulette with more than one bullet, so quitting for good makes a stronger argument no matter the person's age.

This is why I would really appreciate your input as to what made the decision to quit your chosen item of addiction for good.

Thanks in advance, all tips and experiences welcome

What made my decision final? An overwhelming desire not to sleep next to the toilet again.

For me it was when I stopped having hangovers and started having physical withdrawals. I was at the point where I didn't want to drink anymore but had to simpy to keep from having hear palpitations, dangerously high BP ans lots of other fun things.

Everyone's decision to quit alcohol is different.

I never had that much of a hangover and my alcohol use was a gradual creep up in terms of alcohol over time to where I was very functional. I had other things I generally did with my time, lots of job responsibilities, etc.. My alcohol use progressed when I moved to the area I live in now since it isn't as conducive for doing a lot of outdoor activities. But still, I only drank at night. Some nights I went crazier than others and there were nights I didn't drink.

When I first got to SR, I knew I needed to quit. I knew if I kept drinking, I was going to start having health issues and I didn't want that. I also heard of Deryk Whibley. Hearing of him almost dying at 35 years of age of liver failure shocked me. I didn't think it was possible for someone that young to have liver failure due to alcohol. His story rang a bit too close to home for my comfort, so that also contributed to me quitting. However, I will also admit I was still a bit on the fence as to whether I really wanted to quit or not when I first got to SR.

What has solidified my sobriety is how much happier I am to be out of that cycle, how much less I am stressed, and how much better I feel and look about myself being sober. I hated myself when I was drinking. I couldn't even look at myself.

"My thinking is that later in life........,"

I stopped drinking at 22 and recovered from alcoholism around my 23 rd birthday and I've been sober ever since. Suffering from malnutrition, hallucinations, and all the other joys of end stage alcoholism it eventually became clear that there would be no "later in life".

I can't say I consciously stopped for good, but I did want a permanent solution to my problems. It turned out that not drinking was part of that. Though I had little faith that anything would work for me, I was confronted with a simple choice, continue on to the end or live a spiritual life. A no brainer you might think, but to me either path seemed equally frightening. What would become of me?

I shut my eyes and tried for the spiritual deal. Three months later my life had changed completely. I no longer needed to drink, and have not needed to drink since. Odd as it sounds, my focus was on the spritual deal which I did not understand, rather than on not drinking. The drink problem dissappeared almost as a bi product.

Full blown DTs at 28. I noticed I drank too much when I was in my early 20's and thought I was just being young. Stopped noticing mid 20's as my drinking escalated and I surrounded myself with other heavy drinkers. Spun completely out of control with out realizing it around 27.

If you're cognizant of a drinking problem now, take action.

I felt like I wasn't giving my daughter the time she deserved from me. It was after I got sober and learned a little that I relized my entire life was crap. I didn't even seem to notice I lost my job 2 years ago because of my old attitude and numerous hangover call outs. I didn't even notice!! Then the house was filthy even though I was home all the time. I was tired of wondering what stupid things I said or did the night before.

Jennifer

Thanks for all the replies so far, very good insight.

For me, the first time the problem really overwhelmed me was when I started the last year in my undergraduate studies. Three weeks into the autumn semester I was so strung up, that if I missed another seminar, I'd fail the course and wouldn't be able to graduate that year. Given that being absent twice was allowed, so that's what the case was on the third week. Took an academic leave for a year, to regroup and heal - but what did I do actually? Pretty much kept going at the same pace, until the 12 months were over and I was to return to get my degree. Three weeks in - I was at the exact same position than a year earlier. For a moment there, I had had it. Got professional help and stayed sober for 9 months, until I graduated. By that time, the boredom of 'not drinking' and constantly not solving problems I'd created while drunk had built up my confidence to the point where three beers really didn't seem like they'd take me down the same path again. Well, they did.

The problem was back then as it is now, that I somehow cannot come to grips with the finality of the thought. For some inexplicable (inexplicable to me, that is) reason this has stopped me from leaving the bottle behind for good. That's why I wanted to ask about other's experience.

All the 'I'm still young' elements play a part in this indecisiveness.

Panic attacks due to withdrawals as my alcoholism progressed. Constant fears of drinking myself to death and leaving my wife and young kids behind. General health anxiety caused by the drinking, yet ironically only kept at bay by drinking to dull the fear. That I got out of the cycle after so long still amazes me. But it was the fear that pushed me- that and discovering SR and reading "Under the Influence." It gave me the push I needed to climb out of the bottle for good.

I was tired of being ruled by fear and having to deal with panic attacks. As I continue through sobriety (3 months now) I am amazed at all of the benefits that I never anticipated or expected. It is truly remarkable how crippling an alcohol addiction is. Mentally, physically, emotionally.

Some of us sadly do not mature our way out of addiction tho.

I drank into my forties.

I didn't have parenthood to slow my roll, and any relationships I had, or jobs, were secondary to the booze.

I also became increasingly aware than I was not indestructible. I incurred many injuries....but I still drank...

I had accidents and embarrassments happen that would have given wiser men paused, but I continued on....

In my experience, addiction is not logical.

I can look back at things now with logic but then? not so much.

I was a willing partner in a game of denial and deceit with my addiction.

What eventually stopped me was the very real fear I could/would die. I sailed close to the sun once too often.

I stopped. And every day since then, I've given thanks for that :)

D

I stopped so I could be proud of myself. So I would not have to hide and be ashamed. In other words: I stopped for me :)

It's cliché but i just got sick and tired of being sick and tired. Alcohol quit working. I binged so hard and fast I skipped over warm and fuzzy feelings and just got messed up and felt sick right away. Hangover promises never lasted, so my sobriety date came on a non drinking day when I made a rational decision that I didn't want to drink anymore. Sobriety clicked a few weeks after not drinking when one day I realized I couldn't think of one instance in the rest of my life where alcohol would have a positive influence in my life.

I had been drinking heavily every night for about 8 years. The quantity kept creeping up until 12 drinks a night was as normal to me as eating dinner.

I was hungover to the gills 365 days a year and I just couldn't take one more hangover.

Alcohol stopped working. I started feeling terrible when I drank.

I was diagnosed with a serious but hopefully reversible health condition.

I had to stop drinking or die.

But to be completely honest it was the hangovers that actually made me stop.

I'm only 32 by the way. I had serious health consequences at a relatively young age.

Hi, speaking from my own experience...don't let your age fool you into thinking you have all the time in the world to stop drinking. I would say that if you have concerns about your drinking then now is the absolute best time to stop. There were many reasons why i wanted to stop drinking, mostly because my life had turned into a living hell.

At 24 years of age i knew i needed to stop drinking, had a check up at the doctors and my health was fine. So, i foolishy carried on drinking for another two years, by the time i did finally stop (when i was 26) i was extemley ill and it was incredibly difficult to stop by that point. Alcoholism is so progressive, and things can change so quickly. I am incredibly grateful to be sober and have never looked back, every aspect of my life is now better.

Yes. This. When you are younger you think you can drink like you are now and everything will stay the same forever. I did. I drank everyday for years and everything thing was fine. What I didn't realize is the alcohol is slowly changing how your brain and body operate. One day you'll wake up and things will be different. You'll have withdrawl. Which if you've never been there is worse than you think my friend. Shakes sweats hallucinations panic attacks. All kinds of fun things. Plus if you wait until then to quit you don't just get better in a week. It takes months for your brain to level out. I'm in the middle of this now. Not fun.

If i didnt stop drinking i would be dead by now im under no illusion of that i stopped when i was finally more lost than i had ever been in my life scared alone frightened i didnt know what to do

Full of alcohol related injuries i knew i just knew i would end up dead because of this and since that day i havnt drunk alcohol and i started to seek help

I'm a 29 year old female on my second attempt at sobriety. I found it funny how you said that sometimes we believe we 'earned' ourselves a drink because we deserve it or because we "worked hard". That was exactly my situation to a tee. Every single drink I consumed was because I earned it. I have been a teacher for 5 years and recently switched over to teaching special Ed at the high school level, which is an absolute thankless profession most of the time (but I love what I do, don't get me wrong). Every day I came home mentally exhausted and headed straight for that bottle of wine because 'I had a long day'. Granted I would only drink 2 glasses a night, maybe 3, but come Friday night forget it. It was usually 2-3 bottles. I would get so drunk Friday and Saturday that Sunday I would withdraw for hours and get so violently sick that it made me swear off drinking every time. Tremors, migraines, vomiting, etc... I always said I would never drink again. There were absolutely gorgeous days I missed from being in bed all day, or having to cancel really fun plans with friends and family. Of course that didn't stop me.... I kept at it for a few more years. It wasn't until I reconnected with my extended family (who I had withdrawn from for some years) and they saw my dark side. This past thanksgiving I got so inilated I made a complete embarrassment out of myself by behaving like I would at a college frat party. Sitting on grandmas lap, dancing on tables, cursing at my aunts. Absolutely embarrassing and shameful. But that's not really what stopped me... It was the fact that they reached out to me afterward and gave me their full support. No one criticized, no one blamed or came down on me for my behavior, they just wanted to be there. My mom said to me "I will always love you, I just want my daughter back". It was that moment that I knew I had to stop.. That I do have people in my corner and support. I wanted to prove to them and myself that I could beat this addiction, and so far so good. Sometimes we just need to be reminded that there is a reason to quit drinking. That we do have people on our side and we aren't battling it alone. I know it's hard for us 20-something's to cope with because all of our friends are drinking and it's almost second nature, but it's not worth it. We are not like them, us and alcohol do not mix and as unfortunate as that is at times I think we are much better off without it. :)

A combination of many negative things VS nothing positive from drinking.

During my first 2 years with AA I continued to do the same old same old however It was pointed out and I did see the results of too many that didn’t get it and knew I wasn’t unique and only had a certain number of relapses left before some serious things came crashing down.

Bottom line is I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. It has been a lot of years since that fateful day and I have not had a single desire since to TRY a single drink since.

BE WELL

My first AA meeting was when I was 19 years old. 19! And I'm 38 now. Don't wait. It doesn't get better. It progresses. And now I regret all that lost time.

Jennifer

I think it's quite a big assumption that after a 20 year drinking career one would be able to be with the right person to have children with or be in a long term relationship .

Certainly i missed out on all that , my decisions were poor all the way along and i'd not grown much as a person right up until and after i'd given up .

Responsibilities of a greater magnitude just made me want to seek escape even more .

How many years of your life are you willing to throw away in the pursuit of drinking ?
Took me 20 baffling years of half achieving stuff that i didn't care about as compared to getting drunk .. i'd not recommend taking that long as that as you might not be as lucky with your health and stuff ..

Oops i sound like an old fogey now i'll just shuffle off and keep quiet :a213:

Take care , m

Pursuit of drink, I take that notion in two ways. Whilst, yes, drinkers are after the same thing, calling it pursuit does not feel on point at times. It has become automatic without being the case where vital organs are shutting down. I'm aware of the fact that this would eventually be the road I'd be trodding down, but this hasn't solidified in my thinking just yet, I think. And the other way of taking 'pursuit of drink' is just that - every which way the alcohol affects your life, where to get the money if your jobless, how to cover up hangovers when you need to be at work/in school etc. That is the pursuit of drink. Although I'm of the opinion that people aren't chasing alcohol, they are chasing the delusion that comes with it. That perceived warm and fuzzy feeling that you might have experience when you were buzzed the first time. That escape, essentially.

Problem with staying dry is losing the motivation of a killer hangover/accident/personal drama that fuelled the quit in the first place. The younger and more 'middle of the road' person you are, chance exists that most of the 'drama' fades away in a week. Not from you mentality or experience, but from your active memory, meaning you stop mulling it over and move on. Unfortunately, this usually changes nothing about your drinking habit (it didn't for me)

Why I started this topic is just that reason. Younger people are more fearless (and reckless in their decisions) inherently, I think. Not that someone older cannot be, but if you do a certain activity for long enough, you feel the drawbacks and no the potential consequences more precisely, even if admittance is not yet on the table. For me, for the longest time, 'being young' pushed anything else aside.

As to the responsibilities of a greater magnitude. I still think its a valid argument - not for everyone - but I as a younger person tend to think that way. 'If I'm hurting anyone at all, it's just me, not my kid and family' etc. I know this is bollocks, but its what the brain does - it finds a way, as long as your body can take it.

Thank you all for your replies :)

I am in the very early stages of stopping, I have to do it one, for my health. I have developed anorexia, nueropothy, IBS, inability to walk well even when sober, all believed to have some relation to my drinking, not to mention the drinking all night then not remembering conversations or plans made the following day and my husband thinks I've lost my mind. My homes a mess, my personal self is a mess because I'm so weak and shaky I hate getting in the shower or tub for fear of falling out or not being able to get up. I'm just sick of being sick like someone else said. I know not drinking will not clear up all my problems but it can't hurt. The shakes and anxiety are the worst right now. Good luck to you!

If you continue to be a heavy drinker, or even a twice a week binge drinker, do you think you have even a chance at finding a decent person to marry? You don't mention a girlfriend (boyfriend?) - but I can say I would not marry a heavy drinker or someone who does drugs. You may find yourself with not much choice when it comes to a mate.

No one wants to become an alcoholic. Guess what? You don't get to choose, it just happens. I could have quit before there were consequences. If I had known the exact day and date I would become alcohol dependent, I would have quit the day before. No, I wouldn't have. :lol:

At some point, a fun drinking life in the 20s becomes an out of control life threatening problem - and no one sees that invisible line coming at them until it is in the rearview mirror and so much damage has been done that it's difficult to recover.

I started drinking at 14. Legal age was 18. I drank all through my 20s with the same attitude you have. When I hit 31, my life was an absolute mess. I had married an alcoholic/drug user. Of course I did, I surrounded myself with people like me. Who else was going to put up with it? I cannot express to you the drama and pain involved in just that relationship. Getting out, I sobered up and changed my whole life around.

You'll have to hit some point where you are ready to stop.

I pray it is before the insidiousness of alcohol makes it a life or death proposition.

High liver enzymes

Crossing the line of WANTING a drink to NEEDING a drink, that scared the hell out of me, and one day sure enough I woke up and realised I had crossed it, I knew I was on a downward spiral that would progress with disastrous consequences.

Now there was one thing realising there was a problem, it's another thing doing something about it, and for a long time I continued to drink and things progressed, great intentions would always come to nothing, a week or so Sober here or there but nothing longterm.

However as things got worse before my eyes, the urgency to do something became more important, the reality of ending up in a box way before my years was becoming increasingly likely and so I got my act together, accepted the problem, put in the necessary work to make Sobriety happen!!

I ran out of denial, looked at myself with clear eyes for the first time in awhile and man I was so damn disappointed, realized things would get worse and not better unless things changed. Then I got over the irrational fear of sober life.

I used to get drunk and not worry about things in my life I didn't like. Now I work on fixing those things. Fixing things is often a lot of work -- definitely more work than grabbing a twelve-pack at the store and bringing it home -- but the self-respect is nice.

Dear Kkik,

Thanks for the interesting post which has caused this great thread. The below has been my experience, which diverges a bit from your theory:

EXCELLENT REASON TO KEEP USING #1: I am young, strong, and without significant responsibilities.
EXCELLENT REASON TO KEEP USING #2: I am an established adult with heavy responsibilities and relationships to which I am totally committed.
EXCELLENT REASON TO KEEP USING #3: Everything is going great.
EXCELLENT REASON TO KEEP USING #4: I have a problem.
EXCELLENT REASON TO KEEP USING #5: [Write anything here.]

No matter what the initial conditions, the output was "keep using." Realizing that my mind had become an insane tautology of this sort, and recognizing the obviously grim end of this tautologous road, I decided to quit.

Mel

I decided to quit when putting a bullet in my head rather than living without alcohol seemed like a good option. I wouldn't recommend getting to that point.