My first post: one year of sobriety!
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Join Date: Dec 2016
Location: Northwest U.S.
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My first post: one year of sobriety!
Hello my people! This is my first ever post to this or any forum. I've been stone cold badass beautiful sober for one year and a few days and finally decided, after reading and being moved by many of your posts, to write my own. So here goes ...
I'll start with the cliff notes on my drinking: I drank too much for too long and things were getting really bad. You've heard it all before. Drinks for breakfast, terrible decisions, vodka hidden in the garage, shaking hands, horrible sweating, blah blah blah. All that fun stuff had pretty much become my norm.
By fall 2015, my life was really starting to fall apart. But, unlike all of you dimwits (that was a joke; but jokes don't work very well in written form; sorry), I am a smart fellow, so I decided to do something about my drinking problem. After many fits and starts, I finally actually started a real tapering program. I started at some ungodly number like 20 beers a day (sitting here today it absolutely blows my mind that I could possibly consume that much booze in one day!) and slowly cut out a couple per day. And it worked! Before long, I was done. I remember waking up the day that I was cutting to zero. It was a beautiful October weekend day. I hung with my kids, kept myself busy, and was really frickin' proud of myself!
At around 6 p.m. on my first day of sobriety, something miraculous happened. I'm not religious, but if I was, this would be the call from above that I had waited my entire life to receive. I was standing outside watching my kids ride their bikes. My neighbor opened her door and screamed, "help, help!" I ran as fast as I could to her house and found her husband unconscious sitting in an armchair. I checked his pulse. Nothing. I checked his breathing. Nothing. I moved him to the floor and gave CPR to him for the eight longest minutes of my life. He didn't regain consciousness or a heartbeat, but I kept blood moving to his brain. Turns out that he suffered sudden cardiac arrest. Also turns out that I have a pretty damn good knack for giving CPR! The paramedics arrived and shocked him over and over again. Finally, they detected a faint heart beat. He was transported to the hospital, fully recovered, and is still my neighbor.
Here I was on my first day of sobriety and the universe or the Gods or whoever you want sent me the strongest sign that could ever be sent: you do amazing things when you are sober! Unfortunately, being a dope, I didn't quite see things that way. Rather, my brain told me that I had just saved a man's life and I needed to reward myself! Plus, I only knew one way to deal with such extreme stress/elation/adrenaline. So I got really drunk that night. And the next. And every day after that for a few more months.
Things got bad. Really bad. In early December, my fiance confronted me (of course, this was like the 20th time she had done so) about my deceitful ways. I don't even remember what I was lying about that day, but it was most certainly some lie to cover for my drinking. I knew that, finally, she was done with me and my lies. She pushed and pushed and finally I broke down and just admitted to her what she and I already both knew to be true. I had a massive drinking problem and did not have the ability to control it. I let go of all of the dishonesty and, for the first time in years, gave her brutal honesty.
And then I decided check in to inpatient care. Of course, I drank my way to the inpatient center that day. When I checked in, I blew a .418. I was walking, talking, mostly coherent and still remember taking the breathalyzer. And that night, December 8, 2015, is the last time that I drank. I checked out a few weeks later and haven't had a drink since. I'm not really tempted to drink; I just don't want it anymore and I recognize that me and alcohol are just not compatible.
What I love most about sobriety is this: Honesty. The lies and deceit that accompanied me for so many years are gone and it is an amazing feeling to let go of all of that. I woke up today knowing that yesterday, and the 364 days that preceded it, I was true to myself, and this simple knowledge gives me a sense of freedom that I did not feel in the decades of boozing that came before. My truth is not an opinion, it is a fact. It’s not something I have to convince myself of or argue to myself over. It is my truth and it is the only truth. And nobody can take it from me.
There's lots of other stuff to love about sobriety. In my year of sobriety, I lost over 20 pounds, found out that I frickin' love sweets, ran a marathon, became much better at my job, stopped sweating like a boxer, and enjoy sex more and more sex.
Happy Holidays to all of you! I'm gonna go pop open a bottle of sparkling apple mango now! Cheers!
I'll start with the cliff notes on my drinking: I drank too much for too long and things were getting really bad. You've heard it all before. Drinks for breakfast, terrible decisions, vodka hidden in the garage, shaking hands, horrible sweating, blah blah blah. All that fun stuff had pretty much become my norm.
By fall 2015, my life was really starting to fall apart. But, unlike all of you dimwits (that was a joke; but jokes don't work very well in written form; sorry), I am a smart fellow, so I decided to do something about my drinking problem. After many fits and starts, I finally actually started a real tapering program. I started at some ungodly number like 20 beers a day (sitting here today it absolutely blows my mind that I could possibly consume that much booze in one day!) and slowly cut out a couple per day. And it worked! Before long, I was done. I remember waking up the day that I was cutting to zero. It was a beautiful October weekend day. I hung with my kids, kept myself busy, and was really frickin' proud of myself!
At around 6 p.m. on my first day of sobriety, something miraculous happened. I'm not religious, but if I was, this would be the call from above that I had waited my entire life to receive. I was standing outside watching my kids ride their bikes. My neighbor opened her door and screamed, "help, help!" I ran as fast as I could to her house and found her husband unconscious sitting in an armchair. I checked his pulse. Nothing. I checked his breathing. Nothing. I moved him to the floor and gave CPR to him for the eight longest minutes of my life. He didn't regain consciousness or a heartbeat, but I kept blood moving to his brain. Turns out that he suffered sudden cardiac arrest. Also turns out that I have a pretty damn good knack for giving CPR! The paramedics arrived and shocked him over and over again. Finally, they detected a faint heart beat. He was transported to the hospital, fully recovered, and is still my neighbor.
Here I was on my first day of sobriety and the universe or the Gods or whoever you want sent me the strongest sign that could ever be sent: you do amazing things when you are sober! Unfortunately, being a dope, I didn't quite see things that way. Rather, my brain told me that I had just saved a man's life and I needed to reward myself! Plus, I only knew one way to deal with such extreme stress/elation/adrenaline. So I got really drunk that night. And the next. And every day after that for a few more months.
Things got bad. Really bad. In early December, my fiance confronted me (of course, this was like the 20th time she had done so) about my deceitful ways. I don't even remember what I was lying about that day, but it was most certainly some lie to cover for my drinking. I knew that, finally, she was done with me and my lies. She pushed and pushed and finally I broke down and just admitted to her what she and I already both knew to be true. I had a massive drinking problem and did not have the ability to control it. I let go of all of the dishonesty and, for the first time in years, gave her brutal honesty.
And then I decided check in to inpatient care. Of course, I drank my way to the inpatient center that day. When I checked in, I blew a .418. I was walking, talking, mostly coherent and still remember taking the breathalyzer. And that night, December 8, 2015, is the last time that I drank. I checked out a few weeks later and haven't had a drink since. I'm not really tempted to drink; I just don't want it anymore and I recognize that me and alcohol are just not compatible.
What I love most about sobriety is this: Honesty. The lies and deceit that accompanied me for so many years are gone and it is an amazing feeling to let go of all of that. I woke up today knowing that yesterday, and the 364 days that preceded it, I was true to myself, and this simple knowledge gives me a sense of freedom that I did not feel in the decades of boozing that came before. My truth is not an opinion, it is a fact. It’s not something I have to convince myself of or argue to myself over. It is my truth and it is the only truth. And nobody can take it from me.
There's lots of other stuff to love about sobriety. In my year of sobriety, I lost over 20 pounds, found out that I frickin' love sweets, ran a marathon, became much better at my job, stopped sweating like a boxer, and enjoy sex more and more sex.
Happy Holidays to all of you! I'm gonna go pop open a bottle of sparkling apple mango now! Cheers!
Member
Join Date: Jan 2016
Posts: 197
Awesome post! I'll second the honesty thing! Also it's nice to not drink to the point to telling completely absurd lies not to cover up drinking but because one simply does not know what they are saying (in my last binge I told my bf that I was pregnant and then not all in the same day - wtf?! I'm looking forward to saying that for real!)
Anyway, loved your post. Congrats and I hope to be saying the same in 11 months.
Anyway, loved your post. Congrats and I hope to be saying the same in 11 months.
I'm glad you joined us. 
Member
Join Date: Nov 2015
Posts: 734
Congrats on 1 year and know exactly what you mean about ridding ourselves of the lies and deceit - I hated what I had become and how it all just rolled off my tongue - it truly wasn't the real me and so much happier now those days are gone.
Stick around it's a great community here - we've all got each other's back and the support is phenomenal.
Have a good Christmas too.
Stick around it's a great community here - we've all got each other's back and the support is phenomenal.
Have a good Christmas too.
The road goes on forever
Join Date: Jul 2016
Location: Southern USA
Posts: 1,107
Originally Posted by soberandhonest 
What I love most about sobriety is this: Honesty. The lies and deceit that accompanied me for so many years are gone and it is an amazing feeling to let go of all of that. I woke up today knowing that yesterday, and the 364 days that preceded it, I was true to myself, and this simple knowledge gives me a sense of freedom that I did not feel in the decades of boozing that came before.
Cheers!
Congratulations on 1 Year and Thank you for posting!
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