daisy33

Do you ever look around and wonder how to get out of this life you have created? I have fixed one part of my broken life by quitting drinking, but come to find out, when I took away my coping mechanism I was left with a life I don't want to be in. I don't want to drink again, I just want to live again.

Mags1

Hi Daisy

I think when I first stopped drinking I looked hard at my life and wanted to change everything.

I learnt some valuable words here at SR that got me through the turmoil first few months of being sober.

Don’t change anything major in your life for a while because it takes our minds and bodies time to adjust without alcohol.

C0ntr0ls

Welcome to SR Daisy!
I'm early in my quit [Working on day 25] but can tell you that every day gets better for me at least. I enjoy/appreciate the small gains and just take it one day at a time or even a minute at a time.
I enjoy going to bed sober and waking up the same way. Is every day perfect, Hell no but it's a lot better then when I was drinking.
Keep stopping by, read and post.

lessgravity

Sure, I think that's one the most common experiences for those of us lucky enough to go sober. I also think the pain, fear and anxiety that arise as a result of finally seeing oir lives, and the damage we have done, drives many of us back to the bottle. Truth is, as brutal as the drunk's life is, it is easier than accepting responsibility and working to right our paths.

On the other hand, don't be discouraged. You'll find the strength and peace and abilities that you forgot or maybe never knew you had the longer you are sober. Most of all be kind to yourself, as hard as that is. You may have just saved your own life.

brighterday1234

entropy1964

Learning coping mechanisms is the foundation of staying sober. Unfortunately, they take time and practice. There is no 'bottle of coping' that can be consumed while one passively sits there and lets it 'sink in'. That sounds like a smart azz answer but its not.

I was so used to feeling something, anything, and drinking to change that feeling. Actively consuming booze, then passively letting it 'work'.

Staying sober is the opposite. You passively don't drink, but you actively take part in learning how to change.

Biggest part of change? Learning that you control all your actions and reactions. You do choose how to respond to everything. And accepting that alcohol cannot be one of those choices.

Learning that everything external to you is out of your control. It just happens. But you can learn how to react to things in a way that supports emotional maturity as opposed to addiction.

thomas11

Hi Daisy, welcome to SR. Boy, I could write a book for an answer to your question. The short answer is yes, I wondered a lot how the hell I got here. My life has been a roller coaster, some good years, some rough years, some great years, some horrible years. Now I'm back on the upswing. I grapple with it from time to time. You have started off well by quitting drinking, now maybe try working on yourself and the pieces will fall in place.

Anna

Sure, it's really hard in early recovery when you have to face your life and yourself. My suggestion is to take it slow and do what you can each day to make small and gradual changes in your life. Make a list and accomplish something each day. You will change your life and you will feel more positive about things.

Misssy2

Very rude awakening it is....but your right we caused it...so now we have to do the best with the cards we chose....

Its hard....but it gets easier the more sober time you have...you start to accept where you are and you will also look back and realize....some of the things that happened....were a blessing.....It was our journey.

We are lucky to be able to make a new one.

Dee74

Hi Daisy - welcome

I won't lie - it took me about a year to sort my life out and for it to become a life I loved and wanted to stay in...but it got better, in little ways, from the moment I stopped drinking.

If a year seems long, just think about how many years you've been drinking..and of course you might find what took me a year takes you six months.

Support helps hope to see you around some more

Verdantia

Welcome, Daisy. I'm so glad you've quit drinking, and I well understand these feelings of brokenness and regret. Real recovery is so much more than just stopping alcohol, and it doesn't happen overnight; just as our addiction took time to manifest itself, it will take time to recover our lives. I don't attend AA, but One Day at a Time is excellent advice. Don't try to do too much, all at once. Moderation, always. It took me quite a while to get my life back together, but now lots of good things are happening; I decided to return to school to get my degree, and I just completed my 3rd semester with a 3.6 GPA; I'm conquering math and I'm conquering the voices that told me I could never achieve anything-that I was too old, too damaged. Those voices were lies. I wish you much peace and comfort on your sober journey. You can do this, and there is a wonderful, decent, fulfilling life ahead.

least

Welcome to the family Daisy! Glad you joined us.

SoberCAH

I had considerable regrets when I first got sober, but not so much today.

We're happy that you have decided to come into our forum.

Strugglingto

I think to an extent that is what kept me drinking - the regret. I didn't do anything outrageous, I was just continually topping up during until I could go to town in the safety of home in the evening. There were times I got away with being drunk but they were less than the times it was clearly obvious.

Deep down I knew it, and I couldn't cope with the shame and so the vicious cycle began. And also justifications like "okay, if they think that I might as well then". The shame, humiliation, and self loathing fed the beast in my case.

The regret now is that I put myself through that. It is my fault entirely but I couldn't stop drinking. It was my fuel and without it I ran out of gas. I can regret it in a different way now but I accept I can't change it or take it back.

Dee74

How are things Daisy?

D

Zebra1275

Welcome to SR!

How long have you been sober?

Time heals a lot of things. Once you start measuring your sobriety in months and even years, things have a way of not looking so bad.

Also, working the steps of AA can help.

EndGameNYC

One of the best things I did when I got sober was to slow down my life.

Some of it was, at least in part, involuntary, in response to having lost my job and my apartment, the support of my friends and family. I was thoroughly incapable of living a decent life. Any one of those things poses a tremendous challenge for a lot of people. I didn't have a choice.

I sometimes imagined myself sitting in a traffic jam for an indefinite period of time and tried to make the best of it for no particular reason. Just for the hell of it with the idea that doing so couldn't make things worse than they were. Which meant doing stuff to pick up the pieces in my life. A little bit at a time. Of course, I had nothing better to do.

I got sober with a lot of help from AA. I learned to be patient, less critical of myself and other people, and to acknowledge that I had come to the end of the line with my drinking and the miserable way of being in the world that came with it. Outpatient counseling and, later on, psychotherapy helped. But none of this happened overnight; nothing that's meaningful in life ever does.

I set modest goals for the immediate moment and for the moments that followed; I did the same for an increasingly unpredictable future. I made no promises, to myself or anyone else. There was nothing in it for me to do so.

Accepting who and what I'd become and the situation that I'd created, my life-in-shambles, was an invaluable asset, one that I never consciously set out to acquire.

Sober Recovery provided me with a needed boost at the time that I joined. It allowed me to help other people, a potentially life-changing activity for a lot of us who are in the process of rebuilding our lives.

I believe that most people know what we need to do without ever needing those actions to be fully conscious. The unthought known. It might help to reflect on the nature of our resistance against doing what we know we need to do. We cannot learn this from a book, a lecture, a podcast, Google, or another alcoholic. It's a personal challenge that we either ignore at our peril or engage it as though it's the most important thing in our life.

Much of what I've described happened as a result of some master plan or a well crafted list of things to do. I essentially did what I needed to do in order to survive and to protect myself against the formidable urges to send myself back to a life filled with disappointment, chronic emotional pain, regret, and heartbreak. It's never worth it.

Callas

I think many of us expected more of life. Truth is there isn’t really much more. It is what it is. We just need to get on with it and hope small moments of happiness present itself along the way.

Tailai

daisy33

Things are still confusing, but getting a little more positive, thank you Dee