entropy1964

Being young (23) I haven't really suffered any serious financial, medical, or relationship problems due to my alcoholism and I think that's why it's been so hard to stop. But I know that if I keep up this lifestyle it will be impossible to stop eventually. Any other young alcoholics out there found ways to stop?

You posted this back in December. Yes you are young. And you are very smart to realize that what you are doing is not a sustainable lifestyle. And it has the power to kill you. Slowly? Quickly? Who knows.

I would invite you to find an AA meeting that has younger folks. It may take some trial and error but you'll find it. Usually evenings. Find at least one younger person and ask them about other meetings. Even if AA isn't your thing exactly its a great place to get educated about your addiction and its inevitable progression if left unchecked.

Learning to live life sober and have coping mechanisms (that adulting stuff) to deal with life's up and downs is recovery in a nutshell. Take it from me, addiction is the epitome of emotional immaturity and selfishness. Gotta grow up sometime, may as well be before you've screwed up you life.....

neferkamichael

Bringmeback7693, I'm going on 8 years of sobriety and had a drinking career that spanned 40 years. All my old friends were drunks, some accept me, some don't. Your health will improve and your wallet will be fat. All the mental junk will go away with time sober, rootin for ya.

january161992

step 1 in the 12X12 ...

Why all this insistence that every A.A. must hit bottom
first? The answer is that few people will sincerely try to
practice the A.A. program unless they have hit bottom.
For practicing A.A.’s remaining eleven Steps means the
adoption of attitudes and actions that almost no alcoholic
who is still drinking can dream of taking. Who wishes to
be rigorously honest and tolerant? Who wants to confess
his faults to another and make restitution for harm done?
Who cares anything about a Higher Power, let alone
meditation and prayer? Who wants to sacrifice time and energy
in trying to carry A.A.’s message to the next sufferer? No,
the average alcoholic, self-centered in the extreme, doesn’t
care for this prospect—unless he has to do these things in
order to stay alive himself.


some life saving stuff there

Dee74

There's probably in excess of 100 thousand people here can tell you you're wrong bringmeback
can you see you're speaking from the perspective of someone who hasn;t quit tho?

For you sobriety is the unknown and you're projecting your fears on that future.

I did too. I couldn't imagine my life without alcohol.
Everyone drinks right?

I did want to change my life at all, and that was a problem because my life was about drinking.

In the end my drinking nearly killed me so I had to change.

My life now is very different, but it's not a deprivation - in fact my life is better - much much better

I rediscovered the real me, I rediscovered hopes and dreams, and I realised just how poisonous alcohol is to someone like me.

Surw I had to stay away from alcohol for a whiole, but it's not like your only choices are go out and drink or not go out and sit at hoem with the curtains drawn.

There's a million things you could do outside on any given day that do not involve alcohol.

Eventually you'll be totally ok being around alcohol.

Trust me - doesn't even register on my radar anymore unless people get drunk and obnoxious

why not at least give it a go?

D

Cosima11

I'm still new to this but I was 26 when I quit (I'm 27 now). By 23 I knew I had a problem but pretty much felt the same way you describe. So what happened? I wasted another 3 years in the prime of my life with absolutely nothing to show for it. And yes things can get much, much worse in a short amount of time.

What I've learned (which is pretty much echoing what everyone else has said) is it's not true that everyone's life revolves around alcohol, my life revolved around alcohol. So I surrounded myself with people who normalized my behaviors. Take away the booze and it turns out we didn't have much in common.

I never thought I'd see the day where watching people drink while I was sober wouldn't feel like torture, but it has arrived. It honestly barely even registers now. My view on it is that if a friendship or activity has to include alcohol to be fun or interesting, it's probably not something I need to invest myself in.

Even with family.. I asked my sister how it's been hanging out with the family lately and all she had to say is "we go to brunch and get drunk" or "we get chinese food and get drunk". Sounds riveting.

Honestly there's so much more out there and you don't have to wait for things to get worse to stop drinking and start choose your priorities carefully. Best of luck to you!

MindfulMan

I got sober because...well...medical detox, life a mess, etc etc etc.

I stay that way because I prefer it.

Pure and simple.

I like myself this way. I like my life this way.

I don't miss drinking at all.

I don't really think about it much.

Most of my friends drink. Most people drink. I don't. So it doesn't really matter if I'm hanging out with people that have a drink or two that aren't problem drinkers. I had lunch with my bestie today. He had a beer. I didn't. He had sushi. I didn't, I'm on keto. The beer didn't look good to me.

Some people can't be around alcohol at all, ever. I don't like being around a crowd of super drunk people because it's boring. Other than that...whatever.

I took drinking off the table. It's just done.

Everybody's sobriety is very different. Not sure why you're painting such a dismal picture of what you think yours would be. Another hint...like most things in life, when you actually get there it looks NOTHING like you'd envisioned.

Berrybean

Of course you don't. But that's okay, because the fact you're here, on a sobriety website means that there is a part of you holding on to a glimmer of hope. And that's the start of the journey. It IS possible, but its just horrible and difficult AT FIRST.

Well, you don't need to worry about those people. We don't get better by fixing other people after all. Who do YOU want to be? Get sober and you can be that person.

Yep. AT FIRST. But that's a transient phase. The longer we stay sober the less hold our obsession and compulsion to drink has over us. Our AV is fuelled by alcohol. When we are drinking, or isn't not long since we drank it's pretty strong. But as it gets starved it gets weaker and quieter. It doesn't die though. We can always revive it to its full and most terrible strength by taking a drink. Hence the reason for ongoing sobriety rather than moderation. Attempting to moderate just means we're engaging in one on one battle with a rampant AV. And that's no life at all.

Yep. AT FIRST. But that's a transient phase.
Once we are strong in our sobriety we get to know ourselves and what we enjoy doing other than drinking. Sure, your life might include going to AA meetings, coffee shops, and the gym, if that's what you found helps you stay strong in your sobriety, but after the AA meeting or coffee or gym you could go and do whatever you chose. It just might take a while to learn what you want to do. People have ended up doing all kinds of stuff they never even dreamed of.

Well, why not just try a day at a time and see what happens. I know plenty of folk with 40 or more years of sobriety behind them who would say that they thought the same as you - until they didn't.

I thought so as well for a while. But what proved to be the case for me, and other alcoholics like me, if that being totally sober IS achievable and realistic, because it means we can work on our recovery. What proved to be unrealistic were the things that I though would be easier or softer methods at solving my problem, such as drinking less or with different people or at different times, or in different places, or diffent types of drinks. All those things I tried (as did many people) and all those things that seemed to my alcoholic mind the more rational and easy way of doing things proved useless. Because once I have alcohol in my system everything else is forgotten or disregarded.

The start of the journey does require a bit of a leap of faith. I remember at first being quite disbelieving of folk who said that they were alcoholics who'd been sober for decades and were happy. I could usually (or maybe my AV could usually) convince me the one of those things wasn't true. Maybe they were never alcoholic to start off with, or maybe they've been secretly drinking at least a little bit over the years, or maybe in truth they were really miserable. For the more convincing shares my head relied on being a special-snowflake. All the "yes but that would never be the same for ME because... (insert self-obsessed bullpoop of choice - I had plenty of varieties of it)". Now I know, it DID work for them, and it CAN work for me as well, as long as I'm willing to put the work in. And what I get out of it is invariably more and better than what I've put in.

BB

Nonsensical

There's a word for that. It's called addiction.
I know because I was ate up with it.
I'm not anymore, and my life is significantly better.

Best of Luck on Your Journey.

DangerZone

Well first of all it is possible. All you have to is google 'celebrities who got sober' or come on this website where people constantly post about their sober time and you will see it is obviously very doable.

But until you stop thinking of being sober as some type of punishment you are not going to stay sober. Like you said might be a year from now might be ten-years from now but you'll relapse.

Change your way of thinking and realize for us alcoholics/addicts being sober is a reward. It is not something to look on as a drag or something that sucks. If you keep looking at it like that you will keep waiting until the you get a chance to drink. Once you realize sobriety is fun and a joy you will be fine.

Carlotta

Hi

You got some really good feedback on this thread. Did you know that half of the world's adults abstain from alcohol for one reason or another? That's a lot of people who don't drink

I just wanted to post to give you a tip: if right now (at the point you are at) the idea of quitting forever seems too overwhelming for you, you might want to just break it into smaller increments.

Do you think you could go a full year abstaining from alcohol?
or 30 days?
You could also just take it the old "one day at a time" way and just recommit to not drinking every day. After a while, it will just become a non issue and you will have slipped into permanent sobriety.

It's all about how your mind reacts to the idea of sobriety. Use the approach which makes the most sense to you.
Here are two good threads if the idea of lifetime abstinence is too overwhelming for your right now:

The 24 hours recovery connection where you commit to not drinking for today
https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...art-373-a.html (24Hour Recovery Connections Part 373)

and MountainmanBob's days counting thread (you will see some serious numbers there but also people with single and double digit).
https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...r-pt-15-a.html (Occasionally I (we) just like to count our days sober - Pt 15)

I just hope that you will stop allowing your AV to make excuses and decide to quit drinking. How you approach it is up to you

Hawkeye13

I did six months for my first time.

I also didn't think life could be worth living without drinking.

After six months, I felt so much better and was getting so much more done,
I kept going and set the next goal for a year.

Try sobriety for a real chunk of time, and work on building a great life
not just not drinking.

See how you feel at the end of six months, and make a decision based on your own experience rather than speculation.

Sounds like you know you have issues with alcohol.
Maybe you could get that out of your life and your life would blossom?

August252015

I have to jump in and say something very bluntly:

Alcoholism KILLS.
Dead.
Over.
Done.
And it DOES NOT CARE how old you are or aren't, what you think others do, what trouble you have or have not gotten into, what....NOTHING.

That's why I am so clear that getting sober and beginning a life in recovery is the only way for me. And IME every single thing about my life now, at nearly 26 mo sober, is better.

Best to you - lots of really smart people around here that I wouldn't have listened to, until I did. IRL and SR- I see people who have lives like I want, and I also wish my kind of recovery, with peace and joy and fun and friends and everything, on anyone, however they decided to make it happen.

MIRecovery

I lead and incredibly rich and full life without alcohol that is 1000 times better. Is it the same life I lead when I drinking? Nope, all the people, places and things have changed. My alcoholic life is way behind me and I thank God that i was shown that a different life was possible. I have survived the death of my only daughter sober so I know more about tragic loss than most. I don’t have to stay sober for forever I just have to stay sober today. Tomorrow will bring what tomorrow brings but I just worry about today.

We all have a choice. We can continue to drink and things will continue to get worse or we can enter recovery and things will improve beyond our wildest dreams.

I found a different way to live and AA taught me.

warrens

You are making up a story. A story to justify your current way of life.

It's that simple. None of it is true.

I did it. Likely most people here or the millions in AA did it. Pretty normal.

But, it's not true.

You don't HAVE to drink. I don't have to drink. Six years sober, I sit at the bar and eat my dinner when I am alone. I am a social animal.

But...it never occurs to me that I could drink. Drinking nearly killed me. Getting sober nearly killed me (figuratively). Why would I wish to go there again?

It's an OK story. But, it's a story.

Best,

Warren

Flower2327

I was about your age when I started suspecting that I had a problem (34 now), and I wish I been able to quit then. My first posts here about a year and a half ago sounded a lot like yours - "But what about X?" I couldn't imagine a life without alcohol, and all I could think about was what I would "miss" - not being able to drink champagne at a friend's wedding, try the famous wine from when I travel to whatever country, etc. So I kept drinking until the anxiety got so bad that I knew I couldn't leave any the door cracked one bit to drinking any more. I was done. And I realized - all those things I was afraid I would miss? I never would've done them anyway, the way I drank. I can still go to a friend's wedding and have a fabulous time and toast them with something NA, AND remember it all the next day and not regret anything I did or said while drinking. I can still travel to whatever country and enjoy the food and sights and skip the booze; I've barely traveled at all in the last 10 years BECAUSE of my drinking. See what I mean?

And I totally get not wanting to seem like some holier-than-thou person in sobriety...so you know what? I'm not. I just don't drink. That's it. No drama, no judgment of people who do still drink. It's all about me, one day at a time. You have the power to be whoever you want to be in sobriety, rather than the person alcohol MAKES you be. Or whatever stereotype of a sober person you have in your mind. It's not life without alcohol, it's life FREE from alcohol.