Everything is a sacrifice
 

Everything's a sacrifice. Someone was saying that today in the conversation I was having with some colleagues about living in a big city or choosing to leave the big city for the suburbs. Point being, no matter what choice you make, there's pluses and minuses, but there's always going to be some kind of sacrifice.

It got me thinking about my drinking. When you're drinking everything is sacrificed on the altar of your decision to keep putting the bottle to your lips. Your money, health, family, friends, psyche, spirit, future - every single thing imaginable is sacrificed, even if in part, to the Beast. And when you quit drinking there are sacrifices to be made. You have to face up to all the ghosts of your past. You have to deal with pain that you buried in the bath tubs full of booze that you used to drown all your sorrows in. There are bills to be paid ammends to be made. And there are social sacrifices, and there is some of the pain that comes in early sobriety.

Everything is a sacrifice. The question is who or what are you sacrificing to?

Just so damn grateful to finally be making sacrifices for my family, for myself, for my future and, most critically, for my permanent sobriety. No longer bowing down at the altar of alcohol. Instead being able to stand up and take on life. It's a blessing. It's work. But there's nothing better in the world.

Great post less, very moving. Ive got alot of issues im going to have to work through and it will be painful but your right sacrafice will be worth it.

It's funny - giving up drinking felt like a sacrifice at the time, and the early days were hard - but since then I feel like I'm perpetually showered with gifts of recovery.

I'm not some kind of beatific holly roller or one of the glassy eyed children of the corn - my life is still sometimes hard - but I never not feel the gifts, y'know?

My life is very different to what it was but it's an authentic life and one built around the real me, not a false construct.

I hope everyone here can share in that kind of serenity one day :)

100%

What Dee said.

I sure don't consider not drinking a sacrifice- at first, it was an absolute necessity in order to live- and now it is simply freedom. I also don't generally consider choices for family, etc, true sacrifices...I'm fortunate that tough decisions, as I would more aptly characterize them, are easier because my sobriety comes first and gives me a clear lens.

Love this, never heard it before, thank you.

“Don’t copy the behavior or values of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Romans 12:2 NLT

When your values trump your addiction, there is no addiction!:a043:

My life is not so good right now. But I KNOW that a drink will only bring more hardship and pain, upon myself and my loved ones. Clear eyes see more beauty, even in the dark days!

^^^Every. Single. Good. Thing. I have is because of my recovery.

I would agree with this. I could not fathom how my life could ever be "good" again if I were to quit drinking. Every waking moment of my day other than the few hours I was at work and every activity I participated in revolved around having a beer in my hand or closeby. All of my social interactions were focused on drinking and I drank pretty much non-stop anytime I was at home or anywhere really. I used to always have a 12 pack in my garage and also in the trunk of my car so I could sneak out and chug a beer even if i was at some kind of event that alcohol was not served or even allowed. So yeah, giving up alcohol seemed like the ultimate sacrifice.

Since though I view sobriety as a tremendous opportunity. To me, the act of sacrificing would suggest that i'm giving up something of value/worth to get something in return. Everything I "gave up" by quitting drinking was negative/destructive/painful.

Although I agree with Dee and Scott, I think their positions are from the perspective of long term sobriety. I can now see and feel that by giving up drinking, in the end, I gave up nothing but pain and suffering. However I also know that during my struggles to get sober, and also during early sobriety, I did have to sacrifice certain things.

There is a feeling of security in familiar pain. For many of us that's just a fact of our addiction. Whether it came from the circumstances of our lives or from some sort of chemistry of our psyche. By giving up drinking we were sacrificing the numb, cold comfort of oblivion. It's not an easy thing to give up. If it was, then the rational mind would always trump and there would be no real problem. There probably wouldn't even be this website. So I guess I'm just speaking to myself in my early days of sobriety. They were things I've had to sacrifice. I've had to give up running away from my life. I've had to let go of my patterns of avoidance. All these things are positive things now of course. But they weren't always easy to do.

That is certainly a fair assumption, I've been sober now for a little over 6 years. I would say that it took me at least 2 years to start seeing things in a much different way. The first year was a very much a rollercoaster - everything was a "first". The first christmas without drinking - the first deer hunting season without drinking, the first super bowl without drinking...etc......

It was not until sometime in the second year that I was able to start really looking holistically at the other problems I had been running away with. The main one was anxiety for me - it took me well over a year to even accept that it was even a problem, and then longer to view it holistically enough to seek the necessary help that I needed. My physical health improved drastically when I quit drinking, but my mental health took far longer to address.

Its a point that comes up pretty often with you and me less lol :)

I share my experience not to negate yours, but cos I want people to know it's not always a struggle, and in this case the sacrifices I made early on are either irrelevant now, or have given way to much better things.

Again I hope (without condescension) that you'll be here one day not too far off agreeing your experience has proved similar to mine :)

D

in order to go to the job i've had for 28 years, i have to sacrifice sleeping in - or getting out of jammies, leaving the house, dealing with humans.

in order to have food in my house, i have to sacrifice sunday mornings to get up and get myself to the store and bring home the food products.

in order to own a home, i have to sacrifice a LOT of money, each month, every month, for another 24 years or so.

i agree we all have sacrifices to make in order to get some of the things we want. we have to give up selfishness and entitlement, thinking we are the center of the universe. we have to play along, play the game, pay taxes, wear a seatbelt, recycle.

and yet for each thing we sacrifice, or give up, we gain tenfold. we just have to be willing, have some faith, and let go.

Already has Dee. Maybe my post is obscure. But I think I said above just what sobriety means to me and what it, in not even a year, has already manifested in my life.

If we agree this bit threw me:

I no longer look as those things as sacrifices - just old ways and old skins I shed to get where I am now :)

D

For some reason this discussion reminds me of the paradigm offered up by Thomas Sowell:

"there are no solutions, only trade-offs"

Everything is perspective

My experience is this: If we didn't have to sacrifice something in order to do something else, then our choices would carry very little meaning. We'd also be a lot less free than we may think we are, and we'd probably learn a lot less about who and what we are. Sounds like a photograph of a polar bear in a blizzard.

When I make the time to think about, which I usually don't, I'm grateful for many of the things I lost, gave away, or were taken away from me.

Not too long ago, I'd have wondered how I could believe something that sounds so crazy.