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Dating and sober?

Old 01-30-2016, 11:17 AM
  # 21 (permalink)  
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Originally Posted by ecm76 View Post
Thanks everyone! It is REALLY awesome to read your posts, just to feel like you're in my corner.

I haven't stopped drinking yet. I'm struggling with the fact that I know I'm an alcoholic, I know I need to make a big change in my life, and I'm scared ********. So I'm reading this board and I'm collecting collective courage. And I'm really happy that if I post a question I get a bunch of support responses. It's really good to feel like I'm not alone here.
I stood at the fork in the road for weeks, knowing damned well that I couldn't take one path, scared to hell of taking the other. I had to gather and store strength and resolution to take those first steps down my new path.

I'm here to tell you that once you get started, you'll realize it's not nearly so intimidating as it seemed to be, the idea of living life without drinking. I think that's AV making sure its hooks are kept set deep.

Once you take the first step, the second becomes easier. Once you take the second, the third becomes easier ...
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Old 01-30-2016, 05:01 PM
  # 22 (permalink)  
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I've said this many times - when I got sober I was a mess.

If I had started a relationship any sooner than I did I would have been inflicting myself on someone.

I'd never been comfortable in my own skin. I was always looking for people to 'fix' me, 'complete' me, or 'fill' me and my void.

That's a recipe for disaster.

I got sober, I got comfortable in my own skin. I lost the desperateness I used to have with finding a partner.

As it was it was lucky my partner was patient and grounded because I was still a mess in many ways for quite a while.

We have the rest of our lives to do what ever we want. Spend a little of that time on yourself ecm

D
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Old 01-31-2016, 08:40 AM
  # 23 (permalink)  
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I've had some experience with dating and relationships both as an active alcoholic and in sobriety... For many years during my active times, I was in a very intriguing and involving, but pretty crazy relationship with a person who also had alcohol problem (and other addictions). Later, when I first got sober, I was in a long term relationship with someone else but of course it was far from fulfilling for both of us mostly due to my avoidance of intimacy and many things due to prioritizing drinking. It survived the transition from my being an alcoholic drinker and newly sober person for a while, but eventually it disintegrated because some fundamental differences in values and preferences had become more and more evident (and none of these even involved alcohol as my partner was a very modest drinker).

Then in the later part of my first sober year, I dated someone for a while who with time revealed himself as a serious party animal... an artist with a big and eccentric social life that involved drugs being around him even though as far as I know he was not a user. The affair was interesting and entertaining at first but eventually we just figured out too many personal differences, so it ended after a few months. I was never truly tempted to drink or drug because of him or his friends, but I did not enjoy participating in his social circle either.

And I got married to someone much more similar to myself in interests and personality in my second sober year, which I continue to think was one of my best life decisions so far. He does drink sometimes socially but alcohol and drugs are not parts of his life beyond a couple infrequent drinks. He actually finds these repulsive also because his first wife died of a drug overdose years ago.

I did not have problems talking to my partners about my sobriety at all. With the one I dated shortly, I basically said very early on that I don't drink because it used to cause health issues for me and I also tended to overdo it. With my now-husband, he actually knew me as an active alcoholic also in the past and one of the first things I told him when we reconnected later was that I quit drinking for good. I never felt any problem with being honest about these things in close intimate relationships and I think that is the best way. I think I would have told even causal partners that I don't drink because sobriety for me is treasured far more than any potential fear of judgment. Trying to get and remain sober in the beginning with a partner who drinks a lot and whose lifestyle involves a lot of alcohol-related activities... I think I would have said no to such people in early sobriety no matter how attractive they could be. In fact, I did that with a couple people that showed interest in me early on. Not only I had a fear of relapsing in such situations but was also perfectly preoccupied (and sometimes overwhelmed) with the challenges of early sobriety to even have any real interest in dating new people.

In summary, I would say that making a decision to quit drinking and then to protect my sobriety has been one of the most valuable commitments in life, and no relationship on Earth would be worth risking it.
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Old 01-31-2016, 08:59 AM
  # 24 (permalink)  
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One of my favorite lines about early sobriety refers to the mythical Thirteenth Step: My life has become unmanageable, and I want to share it with someone.
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