four months
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Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: here, now.
Posts: 1,236
four months
Today is December 11, and my last drink was August 11. It wasn't an epic bender where I crashed a car or did some other disastrous thing... just an epic bender like every epic bender of every drunk day. My life had just become one big epic bender, if you looked at it from above. What was hard for me to see at the time was all of the very stupid drama that it all entailed. Drinking had rewired my brain over the years and the drama of having my brain sloshed every night had seeped into every facet of my life.
I said very stupid sloppy things on social media that night. But I had said stupider things before, and had even been really inappropriate and mean in real life to people that I love, while drinking, before. I woke up particularly hung over and filled with the anxiety that had become clear to me was a new level of hangover.
Hangovers in the beginning were just physical things. Just, oh, I'm a normal person who drank too much last night and I feel like crap today. Over years it inched into, oh, I drank more than usual last night, and now I'm writhing and feel like physical crap but I also feel like it's armageddon and all of life is a traitor and I'm a terrible person and the end is very near and my heart is pounding in my skull and hell is very real. Like, I can still see that there is beauty in the world but the world is not something I am a part of anymore. Because I'm BAD, I don't deserve to be happy, life has become this giant chess game and I lost long ago, it's hopeless, it's too late, and when I drink it goes away for a little while until my body makes me try to sleep and then it all starts again.
I came here because this is the thing I have done before when I decided I needed to stop drinking. I was super hung over and had one thought, that I don't like the person I am when I'm drunk. I didn't fully understand yet that I don't like the person I am when I'm drunk every day, even before I'm totally in the bag. I just picked that one thing, because it was all I could do. If I'm drunk all the time, with no end in sight, and I don't like who I am when I'm drunk, isn't my life totally unmanageable?
That was 122 days ago, four months, a third of a year. I've had good times and very hard times since then. This week was really hard. Cravings for alcohol are for the most part long past, but I got one this week. I crave getting drunk when I'm really mad, when I feel totally powerless. I sat with a cup of coffee and didn't think, "oh, I've come so far". I thought, "this is a trick. I didn't learn this in the past 4 months, I came to sobriety knowing this is a trick. I know drinking makes everything worse, that is why I got sober." All I could do was isolate myself in the parking garage of my work and sit and think. Some people would call that praying. I don't really pray, I'm not a super religious or even really religious person. But I do fully embrace that we are all working with a common denominator of a power larger than ourselves to guide us. So I sat with that, in my car, in the dark. I left not feeling good, but feeling a little more clear. Go home. one step in front of the other. This is life. It sucks sometimes. People can be horrible. This is nothing new. Drinking will not stop or fix that. I decided that if this was going to happen, this crappy day of life, well, thankfully I am sober for it and not drinking. Because I am sober I can have the option of taking it in stride.
I'm realizing that I will never know why I am an alcoholic because there is, in a way, no clear scientific "why". It doesn't matter. I don't like the stigma of the word so I don't use it outside circles that understand, like you all, and some close friends. I don't know why because there is no why. Why does Earth even exist? If you don't know why, does it in fact exist? Well, yes, it does. If I don't know why I'm an alcoholic, am I one? Ha, AV, yes, I am. So every day I choose to live sober and strengthen my resilience to the weird call I have in my mind to inebriate myself in response to life. I do this by reflection, a love of simple things in my world, and gratitude for my surroundings. Even the crappy days.
Truly, I don't know what I would be doing if I was still drinking. I'm quite sure that the crappy things would be much worse. Sobriety isn't an instant fix, it's just a much better way to live. If you are just coming to this site, or just thinking about sobriety, or maybe in the first few days or month, and having a crappy day, breathe. We live one day at a time on this planet. I'm grateful for all of you.
You_Rock_
xoxo
B
I said very stupid sloppy things on social media that night. But I had said stupider things before, and had even been really inappropriate and mean in real life to people that I love, while drinking, before. I woke up particularly hung over and filled with the anxiety that had become clear to me was a new level of hangover.
Hangovers in the beginning were just physical things. Just, oh, I'm a normal person who drank too much last night and I feel like crap today. Over years it inched into, oh, I drank more than usual last night, and now I'm writhing and feel like physical crap but I also feel like it's armageddon and all of life is a traitor and I'm a terrible person and the end is very near and my heart is pounding in my skull and hell is very real. Like, I can still see that there is beauty in the world but the world is not something I am a part of anymore. Because I'm BAD, I don't deserve to be happy, life has become this giant chess game and I lost long ago, it's hopeless, it's too late, and when I drink it goes away for a little while until my body makes me try to sleep and then it all starts again.
I came here because this is the thing I have done before when I decided I needed to stop drinking. I was super hung over and had one thought, that I don't like the person I am when I'm drunk. I didn't fully understand yet that I don't like the person I am when I'm drunk every day, even before I'm totally in the bag. I just picked that one thing, because it was all I could do. If I'm drunk all the time, with no end in sight, and I don't like who I am when I'm drunk, isn't my life totally unmanageable?
That was 122 days ago, four months, a third of a year. I've had good times and very hard times since then. This week was really hard. Cravings for alcohol are for the most part long past, but I got one this week. I crave getting drunk when I'm really mad, when I feel totally powerless. I sat with a cup of coffee and didn't think, "oh, I've come so far". I thought, "this is a trick. I didn't learn this in the past 4 months, I came to sobriety knowing this is a trick. I know drinking makes everything worse, that is why I got sober." All I could do was isolate myself in the parking garage of my work and sit and think. Some people would call that praying. I don't really pray, I'm not a super religious or even really religious person. But I do fully embrace that we are all working with a common denominator of a power larger than ourselves to guide us. So I sat with that, in my car, in the dark. I left not feeling good, but feeling a little more clear. Go home. one step in front of the other. This is life. It sucks sometimes. People can be horrible. This is nothing new. Drinking will not stop or fix that. I decided that if this was going to happen, this crappy day of life, well, thankfully I am sober for it and not drinking. Because I am sober I can have the option of taking it in stride.
I'm realizing that I will never know why I am an alcoholic because there is, in a way, no clear scientific "why". It doesn't matter. I don't like the stigma of the word so I don't use it outside circles that understand, like you all, and some close friends. I don't know why because there is no why. Why does Earth even exist? If you don't know why, does it in fact exist? Well, yes, it does. If I don't know why I'm an alcoholic, am I one? Ha, AV, yes, I am. So every day I choose to live sober and strengthen my resilience to the weird call I have in my mind to inebriate myself in response to life. I do this by reflection, a love of simple things in my world, and gratitude for my surroundings. Even the crappy days.
Truly, I don't know what I would be doing if I was still drinking. I'm quite sure that the crappy things would be much worse. Sobriety isn't an instant fix, it's just a much better way to live. If you are just coming to this site, or just thinking about sobriety, or maybe in the first few days or month, and having a crappy day, breathe. We live one day at a time on this planet. I'm grateful for all of you.
You_Rock_xoxo
B
Member
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: US
Posts: 5,095
Congratulations Bexxed!
I consider myself kinda smart....really thought I could intellectualize my way outta this mess. A decade later, lots of 'thinking' and no more understanding than before. Except that I simply AM an alcoholic and I am powerless over alcohol.
I consider myself kinda smart....really thought I could intellectualize my way outta this mess. A decade later, lots of 'thinking' and no more understanding than before. Except that I simply AM an alcoholic and I am powerless over alcohol.
Re-Tread
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Meditation
Posts: 1,300
Good stuff. Ive followed your story for awhile. Glad you are doing well.
Ive come to realize that I drink due to my distaste for reality. I think thats what separates me as an abnormal drinker or alcoholic. I just really dont like reality as it stands. And my mind is always considering ways to alter whats real a bit.
Thats what I thought about when I read your post. Especially when you were sitting in the car. My brain says ' whats wrong with changing how you percieve that stuff a bit'?
We know how that ends.
Thanks for the post I needed that today.
Ive come to realize that I drink due to my distaste for reality. I think thats what separates me as an abnormal drinker or alcoholic. I just really dont like reality as it stands. And my mind is always considering ways to alter whats real a bit.
Thats what I thought about when I read your post. Especially when you were sitting in the car. My brain says ' whats wrong with changing how you percieve that stuff a bit'?
We know how that ends.
Thanks for the post I needed that today.
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: here, now.
Posts: 1,236
Yes, focus on the next 24 hours!
Originally Posted by quitter62 
Great post and inspiring to me 8 days removed from my addiction. Hope to hit 4 months, then 40 months. Right now I'll focus on the next 24 hours!
The people here who have been sober for years know a lot more. If I think about a year, or two years, my mind wants to explode. I can't go there. But at 8 days, the idea of 122 was equally overwhelming. That's why I made this post today. You CAN do it, one day at a time. Congrats on your 8 days, it's amazing! and your 24 hours. And thank you, because we are the same and you reminded me of that. We have today, you and I, and everyone here. We have today and that is something. <3
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