Do you choose a "quit date" to stop drinking?
 

Just like my "start eating healthy" and "stop smoking" grand plans - lol

I never told myself I'd try to stop drinking before.

Do people choose a date? Looking at my calendar i see plenty of excuses to postpone quitting - a party, a winery visit, my bday party.

Ugh.... this is some tough s#@t

I did not chose the date.
The day chose me.
I just kinda knew it was "time" ..

Oh boy, nope not me. The day I stopped, I was done, nothing left in the tank. Judging by what I've seen here over the years, the planning a date in the future doesn't usually pan out that well.

Today is always a good day to choose.

I'm scared. The whole idea freaks me out beyond belief. I better get some things in place. I prob need to find a meeting first.

My quit date chose me.

June 26, 2014 I had absolutely no plan or date to stop.

June 27, 2014 I woke up so sick I thought I was going to die.

I had woken up that way hundreds of times but this time was worse. Far worse.

I haven't had a drink since.

I had set quit dates many, many times in the past. I always found a reason to push the date back.

I wanted to add: there will never be a "perfect" time to stop.

No, I was done. Hungover, sick, hands shaking. I dumped out my last 4 beers and have not had any since. That was in January.

I quit 11 days before Christmas, when the silly season was in full swing.

The day before I quit I had a yoga lesson (yes, yoga on a hangover, I was so busy projecting how healthy I was, it was a joke).

I was very good friends with my yoga instructor. She is a beautiful soul. I confided in her that I was drinking too much and told her I wanted to quit. I was ready anyway, I was beginning to break through my own denial.

I said I wanted to quit in the New Year. She said - and truer words have rarely been spoken - if you really want to quit for good, there is no reason to put it off.

The next day I realised my friend was right. I made an appointment to see a doctor and I came clean and she told me to stop immediately. It would be a sober Christmas. I knew my doctor was right too.

When you truly admit to yourself that you must quit drinking and never drink again because it will kill you, choosing a future date to stop is illogical.

It is completely understandable that you are freaked out about stopping. But I think this is part of the denial - in my experience, it most definitely was. When the denial fell away, I completely surrendered and I was no longer afraid to stop drinking.

In the past when I tried to quit I made deals with myself that I will quit: after that wedding, concert, holiday.... truthfully, there would always be another excuse.

I quit on January 1st of this year, because halfway through a NYE party the night before I said I was done. There were so many reasons I needed to quit, and I just finally said enough. I n very had a "rock bottom mom not," just lots of moments that I was not as present for as I should have been, and many mornings waking up feeling crappy, and knowing I needed to get through the day.

So to answer your question, the perfect day to stop is today. You can do it, and although it may be difficult in the beginnnin, you will not regret your decision.

❤️ Delilah

Like many others the day chose me. My best friend was dying of cirrhosis and I went to the Dr. who told me I was heading there myself. I stopped and got my customary large bottle of wine, went home, and quit. I never even contemplated quitting before it was just a part of my life until it wasn't and never will be again. Today is likely your day...........

went to aa

took last drink

a few weeks later took last drug

first day clean and sober = my sobriety date

1/16/1992

:tyou

It's a good idea to find meetings locally. Luckily, with the power of the Internet that only requires Google and about 5 minutes to note the time and venue down.

I found it very scary taking the steps to try to walk through life without my old crutch alcohol (even if I didn't drink every day, it offered the promise of regular relief from myself which I carried with me like treasure) and to get to my first meeting. It really will be easier to just do it today rather than give time for thinking up excuses, dramatic imaginings of how you will deal with this or that situation, deciding in advance FOR people what they might think and say about your decision, etc. I've watched people put themselves through that before.

Sure, it'll be hard to quit ovr the party season. But you know what, it'll be hard to quit in the dark months of January or February, and then there's valentines. Time for dates, or feeling sorry for ourselves if we don't have one. And Easter? You know, you have to drink for Easter, that's what it's all about. And then the weather will be getting warmer, and how can you enjoy a nice warm day without a beer. And isn't there football season in there somewhere, and all those weekends. I mean, weekends - you can't not drink at weekends...... Etc. Etc. Etc.
Honestly - there is no oerfect ir convenient or easiest time for an alcoholic to quit drinking. I used to think it was special occasions that made me drink, but actually it was because I was sad, or angry or happy. Because I didn't have to work the next day. Because I had to work the next day. Because my mum had visited. Because my mum didn't visit but visited my brother instead. Because it was hot - a nice cooling beer. Because it was cold - a nice warming whisky. Because my friends were here. Because I was all alone. Etc, ad infinitum .... there was always an excuse or two.

Instead of thinking of the reasons to not quit coming up on your calender, it might be best to think about why you want to quit. Write those things down. Read them. Expand on them. Don't let yourself forget your truth, because that will help keep you focussed. I don't mean punish yourself for it and feel guilty. Just accept the reality of drinking for you. What alcohol has brought you, and where it has led you.

Wishing you all the best for your recovery. BB

Choosing a date is another way to put it off. There will always be some event coming up to that provides the excuse to drink. The quicker you realize the time is now and that there are no excuses the easier it will be. It's any iota of non acceptance that makes it hard.

What's more important, drinking, or alleviating what brought you here in the first place? You know where that's going to lead.

You CAN do this and this board is a great support system.

Yep it's scary. But is it scarier than what drinking is doing to you?

btw, same as most of the others quit date chose me. I think the quit date is calling your name but your blocking your ears because you're scared. :) you can do it!!

The only date that worked for me was 'today'.

D

My last drink wasn't a momentous day. It wasn't circled in the calendar. I was out, we stopped in a pub. The weather was terrible, I was in a bad mood, and my wife suggested I have a pint to cheer myself up. I drank half of it, and put it down. And haven't had a drop since. That was nearly 18 months ago. I don't know why that was the moment I knew I was done. Part of me wishes I had a more dramatic story to tell. A big Hallelujah moment. A fanfare, applause, cheering crowds or something. But no. There was just a half empty pint left on a table in the pub as we went out into the rain again. But thinking about it, alcohol didn't deserve a bigger send off than that. I let it play too big a role in my life for 35 years. Maybe it was right that I finished by treating it with the contempt it deserved.

If you feel in your heart it's time to quit, quit. Today. Then go look for meetings, and figure out what future plans you need to change to keep yourself sober (it's easier to cancel plans than you think). It's an old saying, but very true. Tomorrow never comes. It's always today.

I'm with Dee, I've quit for today

I've also struggled a while to achieve full sobriety. Setting a future date gives you an opportunity to still drink. It also can set you up for disappointment if you miss the date. Even if I failed at staying sober, if I was attempting to quit I managed to cut back dramatically and eventually I hit a date where I was able to get some traction. I picked up and quit again the next day. It took me almost a month of fighting before I hit a sober date. (I'm not advising relapses, btw, just that quitting today is always better than tomorrow :-)

Twice I quit after being involved in major DUI vehicle accidents.

Also stopped a couple of times on my own.

Staying stopped is of most importance.

M-Bob

The only thing you need to do is decide not to drink- today. That's it.

In AA, when chips are offered, the white chip is the first. The question is asked: "Does anyone want to try our way of life, just for one day? To not drink for this 24 hours?" Everything else can wait- it will wait. A meeting is a great idea- and you can just go.

Good luck- hope to see you around here.

My quit date chose me as well. Last December I was under extreme mental stress ( I have a life -long struggle with mental illness, schizoaffective disorder and autism, so drinking was a definite form of self-medication) and had a drink for the first time in two years. It ended with me wrecking my car in a suicide attempt and nearly dying from a brain injury. As I recovered something changed in me and I got serious with my sobriety and dealing with my psychiatric issues. I don't want to cause myself more pain and I don't want to hurt anyone else. It is very hard but I am proud of myself for not drinking today.

Many people will say that a person should stop drinking right away, I see no issue in setting a date. With one caveat, on that date, you need to stick to the plan. No excuses.

I chose the date. Then I chose it again, cuz there was this event I HAD to drink at. Then I chose another date. Then another. Then I gave up on dates. I think I'm ready to quit now. I'm sick of it and sick of wasting the money and risking my health.

My date chose me. I hadn't planned on quitting, but something happened that showed me how vital it was that I stop. I reached out for help immediately, got it, and have not regretted my decision to quit for even one second. If you do choose a date, make it sooner rather than later. You never know when alcohol will cause a catastrophe.

First time I quit, I had been planning it for a while but no real action. The day followed by ~2 years of sobriety was when I made a post here on SR, still drinking... and the responses I got gave me an extra boost of motivation. It was quite spontaneous, wasn't even after the worst drinking episode ever.

After a relapse early this year, I got into an ugly binge pattern. I went to rehab and stayed sober for about a month, but then drank again. That scared the *** out of me and I have been sober since.

I travelled and said on Monday - today is the day, and it wasn't, same with Tuesday and Wednesday.
Then I came home on Thursday and had this weird moment of thinking - if I get a takeaway tonight, I won't go in the shop and buy food and get some wine as well.

So I got takeaway and therefore was sober for one day. The next day I came here and posted rather than lurking and a switch had been flipped.

I chose a quit date for 6 years. End of the month, first of the month, Monday, before Christmas, after the holidays, January 1, December 31. You get the point. No time like the present. So many quit dates came and went.

Time to get a new calendar !

This is because you are probably addicted to alcohol, and your thinking is clouded by that addiction. The cardinal rule of addiction is "never say never to the possible future use of alcohol and other drugs".

Towards that end, your addiction will have you do anything except the obvious, and it will try and defend itself whenever you entertain such ideas. It will try to organize your life around that cardinal rule, so that you will procrastinate and do anything but the obvious.

If you listen carefully, though, your addiction is also revealing exactly how to free yourself from its grip. The cardinal rule of addiction necessarily reveals the way out from addiction.

Think it over.