Motivation to stay sober: how and why did you do it?
 

I apologize for posting so soon, but I'd really like to hear your story. Not attempting to glamorize the partying and relive the glory days, nor am I trying to drudge us through guilt and shame but I feel I, and hope others would, benefit in knowing what your "bottom" was and how you've maintained your sobriety. 30 days or 30 years,

When I drank, I had no sense of self and I felt like a piece of crap. Sober, I feel like a whole individual with a sense of who I am and I am comfortable in my own skin.

Sobriety is Priceless.

For me it was a process of knowing it was bad for me, and gradually ramping up the amount. I read up on the damage over drinking did, and scared myself with some of the stories. So I spoke to my doc, and he said I should aim for not drinking at all. Big scary words! However not long after my DIL took up smoking again and I was thinking she should have stuck it out. Suddenly realised I was just as bad with drinking, and that was the final incentive. It was 'easy' after that because I'd luckily had that final motivation that makes all the difference between knowing and doing.

Good morning my motivation was due to just being sick and tired of being sick and tired. I was no longer drinking for fun I was drinking so I wouldnt be sick. Tremors the whole nine yards so I threw the towel in. That was 266 days ago. ✌

I'm one of those that kept seeing the light, doing and saying all the right things but still relapsed every time. It was nearly dying that has stopped me, I had to take it right to the end stage before it finally sunk in. Don't be like me!

Staying alive is pretty good motivation for me! LOL

After having a "touch and go" last binge May of last year I knew how high the stakes were at long last.

I finally decided I didn't want to die. I quit, and I went to AA, got real with my therapist, got a baseline for my very sick body, changed habits, only allowed positive and supportive people in my life, and everything possible that kept me going further away from a drink rather than return to it.

I believe a "bottom" is internal. It only gets lower, til it's death. Our choice to stop, then work, then find a new way of living that is normal and beautiful.

this!

My and my wife's lives were unmanageable. The psychic change was a willingness to get help--inpatient detox followed by daily AA meetings.

My ultimate rock bottom was having to call my mother to come pick me up at the ER because they pumped me full of drugs to reverse the alcohol withdrawals and they wouldn’t let me drive. She then had to drive me to Walgreens to get more anti-withdrawal drugs. She then had to pick up my kids from school and keep them overnight because I was unable to care for them with the amount of drugs I was on.

I’m 35, married with two kids, and have had a very successful professional career. Having to make that phone call to your own mother was the most embarrassing and humbling experiences of my life. It hurts just typing about it.

As for how I stayed sober for 39 days, read above. I can’t go through that again.

My bottom was when I learned to listen to my thinking brain instead of my emotional brain. When I thought about my behavior for 4 decades on autopilot I realized that I believed that life, "should," be fair, easy and painless and I should always get what I want. That might sound ridiculous, but the fact is that emotionally I did believe this. Naturally when you think like this, anything that goes wrong is going to make you, "rage," and fix your emotions with a quick fix or mood changer of substances. That's what addiction is. A behavior used to reverse feelings of helplessness, feeling trapped, powerless and out of control. The antidote is to regain control, empower myself with direct healthy behaviors that are of high value to me. If that sounds too simple, it's because it is! It's a matter of seeing the forest through the trees of life.

Now I view the inevitable adversity of life from a different perspective. I view it as the price of admission to a meaningful life.
I get a high off having values and purpose that don't include a massive hang over and regretful behavior. I simply find more happiness in being sober than intoxicated! I learn to reverse feelings of helplessness with more healthy direct behaviors. When I use to get drunk, I thought that brought me more happiness. Perhaps it did at the time but it does not any longer. I've learned not to get my values from my feelings but instead from what I think is important in life. There is no magic here, just taking time to think and grow up. Realizing that a child expects life to meet its demands but an adult meets the demands of life!

When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. - 1 Corinthians 13:11

I grew up. I was sick and tired and tired and sick of being divided against myself, of being the cause of pain to my loved ones, of existing at a level far below my potential, of failing at being the father and husband and man I knew I could and should and would be if I hadn't kept choosing to keep drinking. So finally I grew up.

Initially it was for my kids, to be honest.

I couldn't bare the thought of my 3 Daughter's and Son being raised by a step dad. Knowing my wife had picked out some real doozies, a drug dealer and a convicted bank robber, in the past, then me, so I had no faith that she was going to pick a winner next time, so it had to be done.

I had to get sober because stuck under a pile of alcoholic rubble was a decent father, husband, son and friend.

So I stopped running around in circles at the foot of the mountain and begun the climb.

I'd gotten past the afraid of dieing stage, it seemed like a peaceful option, but it would still have left the kids devastated and faced with the step dad problem, so here I am 👍😎

And I'm now glad to be alive and fulfilling my potential, through the grace of a God, I was convinced did not exist.

Funny how life goes 😂

I got sick and tired of waking up every day feeling like death warmed over and wishing I were dead. :( It was hard at first but it got better, the longer I stayed sober. I'll never go back to drinking. My sober life is so much better. :)

Hard to say why my bottom was actually my bottom. I was drinking daily, sometimes not even feeling drunk after one of those big bottles of wine. On several occasions, I dropped my daughter off at daycare (at 7 am) and anxiously waited for the liquor store to open....on days that I was supposed to be at work. The lies, the deceipt, the manipulation. It was all so tiring. On one of these days after dropping her off, I picked up my wine and after a few hours decided to pick up the phone and schedule my inpatient detox for that night. It was the best decision, albeit drunk, that I ever made. Now, at nearly a year and a half sober, life is 100 times better.
Staying sober has been tough at times, but I always play the tape forward. I try to exercise daily and eat healthy. I spend quality time with family and friends and my work now sees me as a reliable employee. I check into SR often, usually daily.
Waking up sober is still the best feeling in the world 🙂

Hi hawking

the immediate motivation for me was my drinking was killing me - not in my liver but through accidents, falls, and eventually a series of mini strokes.

What I think is even more important tho is whats kept me sober since.

This community helped me immensely in keeping me focused and motivated to achieve my sober goals.

I wanted a life with purpose. I wanted to make a difference for myself and for others if possible. I wanted to be sober, serene and satisfied.I wanted to be excited about the future and engaged with my interests again.

I've done all those things.

I had to change my life almost completely because my old life was all about drinking - but I don;t regret the change

My life is better in every way and more authentically me that it ever was when I was drinking.

I really recommend you keep up with this. The journey of 1000 miles starts with a single step.
:)

D

Today is my 70th day (10 weeks).

I quit before anything happened myself.

I went through a heavier time of drinking in my mid 20s or so age 26 / age 27 myself. I used to drink a bit heavy at times. It took a couple of years to clean that up and that was before anything happened.

I got back to drinking once a week or so before anything happened and returned more or so to moderation (still more than 2 beers in one night though) myself if you could call it that (drinking once a week).

I had to restructure my life (find stuff to do) and/or my time when it came to the heavier part of drinking around age 26/27 or so.

I quit the hard liquor myself months ago and went to beer only and such then just decided to quit because I didn't want any problems. Just quit before anything happens.

Basically restructuring (time and such) my life around not drinking at all. Work on finding stuff to do such as hobbies and/or etc that I enjoy or building skills, talents, and/or abilities.

So here I am at 70 days myself. Quit drinking the hard liquor months ago and quit drinking completely roughly 70 days or 10 weeks ago.

I didn't want to risk falling into a heavier time of drinking again or a time where I drank a bit heavy. Better in the long run to just quit I figured anyways. One motivation I have is to not lose any mental abilities in the long run if I were to keep drinking if not drinking heavier again.

I just turned 31 recently and figured I can lose the alcohol permanently when I was 30 so here I am.

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I had drank myself nearly to death. I couldn't find my house one night. I fell in the snow and couldn't get up for over 20 minutes. I was missing my daughters' events because I had forgotten about them. I had chest pains and organ pain all the time. Two of my teeth fell out. (Spent 8+ hours in the dentist chair recently making up for 30 years of neglect). I wrecked my body. I'm living in Day 66 and just now starting to have some "normal" days. I don't know when my final drink was going to happen, but I wasn't far away from it. Don't do that to yourself. It was awful and I'll never fully recover from the trauma. But I am clear, calm, content and my life is quiet now.

After years of fighting to keep my drinking under control, but only seeing it progressively getting worse, I entered an accelerating downward spiral and started doing more and more stupid drinking things that made me feel frustrated and ashamed. I started going through counselors, went to AA, where I accepted total abstinence, fought cravings for a few days, sorted though an abundance of advice, took what made sense, and told my AV to ****off. That was 24 years ago as of the 3rd of January this month.

How about you Hawking? What got you into recovery?