Hi, I really enjoyed being a drunk, it made
 

Hi, I really enjoyed being a drunk, it made a right mess of my life but I was drunk so didn't really care. An event happened that made me have a think. I'm now six months sober, I will stay sober but I miss the slob, the uncaring drunken misfit slob. He had fun, I'm trying to learn how to have fun again, sometimes I do, a bit.
Life after being a drunk takes some adjustment I am finding. As an unconventional man with an aptitude that has always leaned towards an affiliation with alcohol and recreational drug use as a pass time and almost raison d'etre, this sober life is struggling to fit my life's dance moves.
My mind has been broken by alcohol and drugs, my body came close, I achieved the position in life where it was more convenient to tell people I was mentally ill than to be honest about the fact that I just preferred being drunk so did stupid stuff.
My emigration form all social conformity was absolute, I made no effort whatsoever to live a life that made any sense. I (alcohol) decided to conduct a social experiment, one in which I was the subject, how far removed from modern life can a man stray before life no longer recognises him as a part of it? Quite far is the answer.
It takes some firm grounding in the human psyche, you have to be aware of how a modern person operates before you can detach yourself and claim any understanding of the gap you have created. Generally accepted comforts also have to go, there can be no living in splendour while creating the myth of removal. I did not choose this, drinking chose it for me.
So why the booze? Well alcohol, consumed daily, in large amounts and without any form of personal restraint is the fast track to social removal. It's services rendered are without boundaries. If a man sets out a goal to isolate himself in a lonely world of unstable emotional responses, broken relationships and ruinous lies, falsehoods said to one and all, lies that become so believable to their own creator that they become facts, well this is the route for you. There is no better start line for a life of complicated interwoven nonsense than the life of an addict, for me I chose booze but any addiction will do.
As a reformed drinker I miss the highs, the lows, the sharpness of mind that comes from always having to have an excuse pre-prepared or just the free flowing ad-libbing that naturally falls off the tongue when a reason that makes sense is called on to explain why you were found up a tree, full of blood, in Kathmandu, with seven stray dogs tied up to said tree, while you are eating a grapefruit?
When I say I miss them there is a nostalgic glaze of post apocalyptic drunken tomfoolery tattooed upon my brain. Do I actually miss having to lie my way through each and every day because of the moronic series of events that follows my binges create? In truth the answer is no.
Do I miss the hectic and disordered hedonistic life of substance abuse? In truth the answer is yes.
So I find myself clean, no drink, no drugs, no life.
I have boarded the wagon of sobriety, I am holding on firm and fast. I do not drink alcohol any more, I take no drugs, not even those a doctor would give you with a smile and a wave for your pain. I will now highlight the benefits and the not so benefits.
I have lost two stones and three pounds of weight. I do one hundred sit ups, half an hour of weights and ten minutes of stretching every morning before I start my day, which now starts at 6.00am, regardless of whether I want it to or not. I walk an average of six miles a day but often do fifteen mile hikes which I do not count in the average thing. I am forty years old and my body looks amazing. When I was drinking and was lying I was fat and my skin looked dreadful, my skin now looks like I used to drink a lot but got healthy and bought some half decent skin products. The thread veins that adorn my nose and cheek bones are still doing their thing.
As a drinker I cared not a whiff about how I dressed or what fabrics adorned my body, I now look pretty good, I have bought some clothes that fit my new slimmer body well and make me appear like I have a well paid job in an industry that requires an outward yet farcical confirmation of success. I'm wearing a fragrance by Vaelntino, Uomo, it smells great and I feel sure that if I had an interest in pulling a lady it would help that no end, alas, I have no desire in that department. I do not have this job, I have no job but maybe that will come in time.
I have rekindled old pastimes that make my soul full of yearning for that constant affirmation that life is grand and full of meaning. I am still enjoying doing the things that made my soul yearn but I have to admit, youth is for the young, when your thirties end a certain vibrancy also departs. I went ice skating with my kids last Saturday, I can still scoot around at high speed, I can skate backwards and do jumps, did it make my soul sing? No. Did I enjoy it? Not really, not in a way that affirmed life, it was alright.
I spend most of my time on my own, mainly because all my friends were boozy friends, I have had to get rid of the vast proportion of my friend base in order to get sober. Nothing new here but what a shame, what a real damn shame. Some of these people are amazing, actual real friends, not just boozy friends but hey, they can't get with your sober thing so they have to go, otherwise they will trick that easily led little addict inside you to join them and be joyous, and drunk.
Where has my identity pottered off to? I have always got probably more than needs saying to say, well that has gone, just sneaked off into the ether, it isn't that I no longer have opinions or even something to add to a conversation but without das booze I just stay quiet. Am I less bothered, did I ever bother, was it just that I was drunk and wanted to fill the room with my amazingness?
As a former drinker and drug taker and man of extremes this wholesome new life of total sobriety seems dull on its surface. I have committed to this though, I went to one AA meeting, not my thing, at all. I will not go back. I came up with my own thing which works, that's what I'm doing.
When I drink I am the funniest person in the room, the town or the world. Everything revolves around me, if I am in pain you will feel it, if I am happy you'll be happier than you ever knew possible, when you break me down into what I actually am you will find an empty pit of addiction with clawing hands of manipulation. Or sober you could possibly meet me, you might even like me?
I had isolated myself as a drunk, really well, I turned away every last friend. I am isolated sober but within that I have dedicated myself to learning to like myself again and it turns out I am actually alright. Six months today. I would love to have a binge, I really would but I gave myself twenty words six months ago and these are what stop me.

I am an alcoholic but I can chose not to drink.

If I do drink, alcohol will destroy my life again.

I have to be honest, I prefer not waking up rough as sin, it is definitely preferable being muscular and athletic as opposed to fat and drunk. I am a writer and my writing has changed but it probably improved. Drinking killed my sex drive and six months on, I'm now fit as a fiddle but it hasn't come back, we shall see, maybe one day?
The real question for me is this?
Has your life improved as a result of being sober?
Yes.
Yes it has.
Is my life any fun?
Not really. Not yet. But I'm willing to bet it will be..................

I am an alcoholic but I can chose not to drink.

If I do drink, alcohol will destroy my life again.


The stories I have are ture, ridiculous and why I write. Would I change my past? Only some bits, because I am an alcoholic I have treated people badly in the past, I will give my future to not doing.

I do miss the ridiculous life I have left behind but not the emotional fall out it creates. I have not yet adjusted to sobriety completely but I am learning every day. I don't really like modern life, that is what I ran from but now I am writing about where my displeasure resides the need to obliviate has gone.

I am going to stay sober, sowhatsnext?

Welcome to SR 6 months sober is fantastic & 1 heck of an awesome achievement

As I was reading your post I was almost jealous about your ability to express yourself w the written word.......so what's next......anything you want......it's your movie. I suspect you'll be writing more, enjoying your children more, finding new friends...developing a deeper connection w the world......thanks for posting and good luck on your journey.

congratulations on your sobriety!!

a year and a half sober, I am no stranger to some of the sentiments you've expressed.

The good news I can report is that there are many ways to dance life's dance.... and there are many other types of highs and intensity and thrills. In fact, there are SO many more ways to experience the ride than just drunk or high.

And what I've found is that they're way better, more memorable, deeper, more meaningful.

May you find your new moves too....

Keep at it, hold faith, and TRY NEW STEPS.

You can't learn a new dance or taste a new thrill if you're stuck reviewing your old dance notes all the time.

Welcome, and congratulations on 6 months of recovery.

If you are anything like me, you may have devoted less time, effort and attention to your kids than alcohol would allow. Being sober has given me a chance to try to undo some of the mistakes I made when I was a drunk. Being sober makes me feel good about myself. Reconnecting with my kids makes me feel even better.

Good luck. I am glad you are here with us.

Welcome and congrats on six months, SWN. You are obviously a gifted writer. I would, however, be careful about romanticizing your past drinking. That can be a slippery slope to relapse.

Thank you for an honest and exhaustive account. I enjoy reading you. Recognise a fair few things in your text. I don't miss the alcohol itself nor the brink of despair I drove myself to, but I do miss aspects of the oblivion, the 'transport'. I don't know, but I think this is perhaps common. Things now seem strangely dull. Difficult this.

Good luck to you.

L.

Welcome to the family. :) And congrats on six months sober! :scoregood

What a great post! Thank you!! :)

Welcome. I applause six months. I truly hope you stick around. Sounds like you have a lot to share and give to this group. I know this group has a lot to give in return!

Well written, Sir.

Welcome to the Forum!! Great post!! :scoregood

Your excellent post struck a few chords with me. Thankyou

As I wrote that post I was acutely aware I was romanticising 'the good old days'. I enjoyed my days of excess, they shaped my career, my personality, they were central to my understanding of the world. I can now see that although heavy drinking and casual drug use advanced my network, made me a popular and successful writer, defined who I was and how I arrived there, it also destroyed my life, in many ways.

My wife jumped off a motorway bridge, the fall didn't kill her, the Citroen that followed did, I have spoken to the driver, the event hasn't done him any favours either.

This is not a recent event, this event happened twelve years ago. I went for counselling, I drank, I tried my absolute best to not let this mess me up, I drank, I sometimes took drugs, I became overly interested in having sex with lots of women, I drank some more. I failed at not letting this event mess me up, it messed me up good.

A result of the suicide of your wife turns out to be a general lack of trust in relationships, close personal relationships become impossible. You yearn for the interpersonal bond and attempt to give it back, sometimes you succeed in creating a believable version of a deep bond of trust but as time passes the holes become rather visible.

I am not an alcoholic because my wife killed herself, I am an alcoholic because when life threw me a difficult situation I didn't deal with it as well as I needed to. I took all the right steps but I didn't do it sober, I drank, I continued to drink but then I stopped.

Twelve years on and I have dealt with this situation as well as I needed to, sober. I have had some glorious years running away from this, my life has been fully acceptable. The problem has not been success or money or my amazing kids, which I have a great relationship with. The problem is that my inability to trust someone enough to really love them again makes long term commitments fall apart. My inability to deal with this issue made me almost always drunk.

I fell in love with someone two years ago, we got together and things were great, then good, then got a bit not so great. Then, out of the blue she asked me to move out, as this has become a regular thing I decided to work out why?

I don't want to relapse because when you deal with things sober they actually get dealt with, as you experience the pain you deal with the things you need to learn from the pain, no deferring the pain and its lessons, living with it and understanding it happens.

The amazing woman I was living with did love me, and I loved her, but I didn't trust her love or fully mean mine. I can pin this all on event or I can grow up and learn. I am finding sobriety lonely, I have not yet completely understood the manual that does not come with being sober. There are things I can't let go of yet that make socialising with estate agents or product design managers awkward. I delve deeply into life, as a drunk I was emotional about it, compelling and accurate maybe but drunk all the same. Now I enjoy clarity with a sober acceptance I still find I ask too much of people, maybe us folk with an addictive past care more post rehabilitation, we probably get annoying.

I understand addiction is now considered a disease. Having spent six months of honest personal acceptance I can see I have a life event that disturbed my ability to deal with stuff. Regardless of that event I think I am one of those people that just have no choice when it comes to acting in addictive ways. Unfortunately I just had to research the dark side to appreciate the light.

I think my former life of drinking had its place in my evolution, I have moments of wonder as well as regrets and many other negatives a drunken life creates but nothing that will call me back to the lies and the deceit the life of an alcoholic provides.

My life has been full of fun, adventures and ridiculous situations. I now recognise that being drunk made most of them happen. Being sober does not seem to make these things happen, ergo, my nostalgia for the 'good old days' has its place.

I really struggle relating to people, I find most people's lives tiresome, dull at best, inconsequential if I am feeling dramatic. Yet I aspire to this life of mediocrity, I genuinely wish I cared less.

I am on this site because I am an alcoholic, I have stopped drinking for six months and I am proud of that, it has improved my life and I appreciate all those improvements but I am lonely and I crave human interaction. As a drunk that interaction came easily, now it does not.

I will stay sober, maybe one day my sober self will be as interesting as my drunken self? What I need is some friends and in a world without booze for a forty year old writer with a history of drunken nonsense pickings are slim. There is a perception of me that no longer applies, a person people expect to meet but now they get a sober version that doesn't fit at all, it's quite boring.

Well done on 6 months. I enjoy reading your posts, you write well and are engaging. Why don't you write a book about your life experiences?
I think alot of people could relate. Glad you pulled out of the clutches of addiction, you have real talent that you shouldn't waste.

Congrats on 6 mnths, you should be proud. You write well. You stress the need for your life to be interesting.
Which is most important that you consider your life interesting, or that you think others do?
Truth be told, I 'd wish others to think of me as interesting, but truth be told, not enough to really have done anything about it. It sounds as though you have some notoriety from your career, I envy that.

My whole persona, professional and personal, has been nurtured upon the interest created by the words I use. As a commentator of whatever. I would use words to continue my own interest. My own interestingness, the own interest I have in myself. Yes, my writing made me money by telling stories that were interesting, so I had to be.

Well I had that and it worked, it seems a lot of people enjoyed finding out the things that I thought but since not being a self glorified voice of the personal masturbation clinic of me my words seldom sell. It seems people want to self glorify and enjoy spending money on that goal.

I love the way that you write! Thank you!

And I'm sorry about what happened with your wife. That would mess me up too.... there are things that are very hard to come back from. I'm glad that you did.