BrandNewDay11

Like many of us here, for so long I equated alcohol with fun. Whether I was drinking alone or at a party, my mindset was that booze made the bad times tolerable and the good times better. Abstaining, therefore, meant I was missing out on the fun, and quitting drinking implied giving up something good. Even when I could no longer deny that alcohol addiction was ruining my life and that giving it up was the only choice left, it still felt to me like a sacrifice I had to make in order to survive and keep my family intact, but never something I actually wanted to do. Living in sobriety would be something I had to learn to tolerate, but not look forward to.

Today, with 3 weeks of continuous sobriety (and another 3 weeks before that with a brief weekend slip in between where I drank but didn’t get drunk) I am learning first hand that the concept of sobriety being a sacrifice is a grand illusion. In fact, not only is it a complete load of crap that my Booze Beast created in order to sustain itself, but the truth is actually the total opposite of what I used to believe.

The only time when I was truly “missing out” on life was when I was drunk. Alcohol stripped my emotions too raw to be genuine; it altered my sense of reality, it left me too impaired to be productive. It greyed my memory--or worse--completely erased it, leaving chunks of time a black hole of nothingness.

Hours upon hours adding up to days, weeks, and months of staying home to get drunk when I could’ve been out with friends, or hiking, biking, reading, writing, working, playing--LIVING. I’ve missed out on so much living in exchange for drinking. For so long I clung to the idea that living sober meant missing out, when the truth all along was that I couldn’t even begin to live a full life without being sober. And now that I’ve finally seen the light of this paradox I am choosing to live my life as if I were making up for lost time, which in many ways I am.

No, I can never get back those wasted drunken hours. But I can remind myself each day that I’ve sacrificed enough for alcohol, and I’m done with throwing away my time and happiness. Going forward I choose to embrace each moment I have with my mind free and clear, and my spirit fully present. I wake up each day without regrets and excited about all I can accomplish that day. With the heavy weight of planning my life around getting drunk lifted I can finally get back to being me.

Yes, it’ll take some time for me to get to know my true self again, having hidden inside the bottle for so long. But that bottle is what kept me trapped, and it’s only because I am out of it that I am actually free to be me.

PalmerSage

Love this post! I couldn't agree more.

Newme2018

"Missing out" is what I struggle with so much! Thank you for speaking the truth and basically spelling it out for me.... I never really saw it so crystal clear as you have explained in this post! Much love ❤

soberista

Really good to read this BND as i followed you since you started. Very proud of ya and a great result. Youve realised the AV isnt the Wizard of Oz...just a voice with a mic behind a screen.

Dee74

I missed out a lot more when I was drinking, passed out or blacked out, than I do now

D

Horn95

Yep. Same for me, especially recently. Being a sloppy drink is no fun. Drinking stopped being fun for me a long time ago.

Buckley3

Yessss. This is a good sign. I personally believe that we should focus on the liberating and empowering awesomeness that is sobriety rather than the hopelessness, guilt and shame.

I, for one, will not live in the past.

Heh... the idea of missing out is a flat out lie. There's nothing to miss and everything to gain.

Great post - and great insight. It will serve you well.

-B

tealily

Love this post! Thank you

Avra

BND this has been almost exactly my thought process too. My fear of missing out or having to live a dull life without booze kept me drinking for years. Once i got some sober time I realized my thinking had been all backwards. I was missing out on life when drinking. My world and perspective had become so small.
Contrary to making me social and enhancing life, the booze tied me down and kept me isolated. Never was i so alone.

Thanks for your post.

BrandNewDay11

Thanks for everyone's replies. I wish I knew how to use the multi-quote feature! I tried but failed, so I will just I appreciate everyone's feedback.

Buckley3, so true that the idea of missing out is a flat out lie, and I agree completely that focusing on the benefits of sobriety and all the potential it brings is far more helpful than dwelling on the shame our past drinking has brought us--or worse--looking at sobriety as giving something up rather than gaining something incredibly valuable.

Every time I drank it was like hitting the pause button on my life.

lessgravity

Ding ding! Nail on the head, no question. Drinking was fun for many of us for a while, it certainly was for me. Drinking IS fun for many people I know who don't have a problem.

But for us - rather than sobriety being a sacrifice, it's really a reclamation. For people like us, we actually sacrificed our lives, true selves, family etc to the addiction. Getting sober gives us all that, and so much more.

Great post, thanks BND.

tekink

This one was a little hard for me at first and lead to a couple relapses as I’d end up suffering so much in the early days going dancing or something.

These days I don’t miss hanging out in bars at all.

least

I'm not missing out on anything worth missing.

Radix

This is a great post. I spend a lot of time around non-drinkers (significant other included), and when I stopped drinking, it just dawned on me: I'm going to be okay. Because all of these non-drinkers I see, they are reasonably happy people, well-adjusted, and they enjoy themselves during the day and they fall asleep at night.

I thought none of that was possible without alcohol, and yet, here all of these people were, proving me wrong right in front of my very eyes. So I joined them. ;-)