Four Years
 

Good Friday to you Good People.

Today marks my first post, about five years of lurking, and four years to the day without a drop of booze. For those of you who think it will be torture not to drink, rest assured, I hardly ever think about or want alcohol in any way. I still go to concerts, pool halls, holiday parties, social gatherings, wedding receptions, and all the usual stuff. I just have a spritzer instead, and it's just not a big deal at all.

When alcohol does cross my mind - maybe every month or so - it's not a craving anymore, but a kind of repulsion mixed with utter gratitude that I'm off the sauce, emancipated from the mess of it all. What a time, life, health, family, money, and joy suck it is!

And don't be fooled: Not only does addiction destroy lives and utterly rip families apart, it's progressive and if untreated it's undoubtedly terminal. I have two dead brothers to prove it. The first died at 35 from a polytoxic overdose, and the second died at 47 from a lifetime of untreated alcoholism, with my mother's help as she enabled him right to his early grave. She since went mad from all of it, leaving no one else in our little family of origin.

So I stay sober, focus on my own family, and use what used to be survivor's guilt to make sure the cycle ends with me.

Like a phoenix, I rise. Join me.

great job on 4 years!

:You_Rock_

Congratulations on 4 years!

Thanks for sharing your story and welcome to SR. :)

congrats on four years and welcome!

Welcome to the family. :) Congrats on 4 yrs sober! :scoregood Did you use a particular method or program to help you get/stay sober?

I'm glad you joined us. :)

Thanks everyone.

How? Stripped of all the fluff, it was deep resolve: Every single day, I decided not to drink alcohol.

My second brother's demise was still in the making, so I could see where this road went - and it was very, very dark. Cirrhosis, bleeds, yellowing, bloating, wasting, ambulances, ICU, induced comas, pain, misery, chaos, broken relationships, loss of everything.... By then it was clear that I'd be the last sibling standing and I decided in my cells that I did not to follow either of my brothers' paths. I took charge, and never touched it again.

Knowledge is power, I suppose.

Congratulations on four years, TrueStory, :You_Rock_.

That's what it was like for me at around 4 years. Now, when alcohol crosses my mind, I feel gratitude, but it's not that pink cloud like gratitude. I'm just grateful for the freedom that comes with sobriety. Sometimes I will find myself puzzling over why I thought I needed to drink way back when. It's a combination of gratitude and sometimes puzzlement.

Congratulations.

Congratulations on 4 years of recovery. I'm glad you posted.

Congratulations! Glad you are here. ♥

It's so good to have you with us, TrueStory. 4 years sober - how fabulous.
I feel just as you do - alcohol will never again steal my soul & create chaos in my life.

Welcome to posting and congratulations on 4 years TrueStory :)

D

Congratulations on four years, TrueStory! It is an awesome accomplishment. I hope you keep posting; people need to see that it can be done, and lasting
sobriety is entirely possible. Wishing you all the best!

Thanks so much.

I wish folks could be convinced, but the decision and drive really do have to come from within. I spent twenty years trying to change the outcome for my brother and mother, yielding nothing but a thousand wasted hours. And toward the end, I slid dangerously in the same direction, with my path up to me alone.

I watch some posters here go round and round and round on the same dark, worn path, and my heart hopes it someday sinks in that nothing changes as long as nothing changes, and it's just so much better on this side.

There is a book by Allan Carr about quitting cigarettes (which I finally tackled a year and a half ago) that is so on point. He says that the the relief from satisfying a craving - e.g. that aahhh feeling with the first drink / smoke of the day - is the exact same feeling one has all the time after kicking the habit. Sit with that.. People fear a chronic state of craving, but in reality it's a chronic state of not-craving. No doubt, there is a big mountain to climb in between, but two little feet can climb right over it one day at a time.

Wishing all of you peace and health and hope.

TrueStory - Congratulations on 4 years! :You_Rock_

From within... Great observation. At best, others can only offer suggestions, many of which are potentially helpful, but without that inner something, they never rise above "potential," which renders nothing.

congrats

Another one day at a time. And so it goes...