5 Months Sober - My accomplishments and struggles (Spoiler alert: I am very honest, not-hyped)
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Join Date: Aug 2017
Posts: 245
5 Months Sober - My accomplishments and struggles (Spoiler alert: I am very honest, not-hyped)
A brief description of my alcohol problem: I have been a binge drinker for... a long time!. Did I drink every day? No. But when I did, it went down. I drank semi lethal amounts of alcohol and did very stupid things (drugs, amongst others).
Around 8 or 9 months ago, I decided that I REALLY needed to give a shot at sobriety. I was doing very well, and then... I got into a relationship. Big mistake (For so many reasons; I was in early recovery, she worked in the same Company as I did). Things did not work out. I drank. That has to be by far the hardest and longest hangover in my life, and, trust me, I have had a lot of bad ones.
Since that day, I have not had a single drop of alcohol. Shoutout to SoberRecovery and specific persons in here which I won't mention for obvious reasons, but you know who you are.
The good
1. I was overweight. My diet was binging on the weekends and to recover, around 3 pizzas a week, waffles, fried chicken, hamburgers. You name it. As a matter of fact, if I ate a cauliflower I'd feel sick (And I am not exaggerating. As of today, I have lost 11kg. I am officially in normal weight and really looking good.
2. I have always had problems (very mild ones) with my skin. I don't have a baby's skin right now, but it looks pretty good
.
3. My relationships overall have improved a lot. I was completely self-centered and believe everything and everyone had to live around me.
4. I have been able to be there for the people I care about. I even gave advice!
5. I can't stress this enough, not waking up anxious, depressed, and spending 2 weeks like that, is a huge relief.
6. That feeling of guilt, worthlessness, shame, hopelessness, sadness, have slowly started to disappear. Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of regrets. I still have flashes of things I did and I get deeply hurt. But then, I am not doing them anymore.
7. People are looking different at me. If someone really loves and cares about you, they forgive. Most of the people that I hurt, don't look at me at the little pieces they had to pick up when I screwed up. The memory and wounds are still fresh, but I can feel how they have put it behind them.
And the last two most important ones:
8. The people that I have hurt so bad, and that have forgiven me, are not being hurt anymore.
9. I am not getting hurt anymore.
And now to give the post some sort of balance and reality-check;
The bad things
1. The real-life is harder than I thought. This means I have had to face most of the problems I was masking with alcohol. And that hurts. I will be honest with whoever is reading this; I thought my life will be wonderful once I stopped drinking. it is not yet. I suffer from OCD and general anxiety disorder. I thought I'd be able to cope with it very easily when I stopped drinking. I have not done a lot of progress right there. But I am in an ascending curve.
2. I had no idea what my hobbies were. In the first couple of months, it was a big "Ok, now what?". I spent years getting drunk, a couple of weeks to recover, and repeat. My mind was too busy trying not to meltdown totally and being able to function at work while healing. (I have found some hobbies by now).
3. My self-confidence was shattered. It is not easy to build it back up.
4. I have still a lot of resentment and anger towards myself.
5. A classic: I am still dealing with the consequences of my "polemic" choices in the past. Nothing really serious on its own, but building on small things can screw up your life really well.
6. I had to learn how to socialize again, weird as it sounds.
While I was writing this I need to tell you that quite frankly, I was surprised that listing the bad things was way harder than the good things (I did not expect this).
Oh, and one thing, if you have Fear Of Missing Out I get you. But take my word, you are not missing out on anything. You really are not.
I owed this post to myself. If you had made it this far, I hope this had made a little difference in your day.
Much love to everyone.
By this point, my biggest struggle has been depression and anxiety (thank you COVID-19, you have been a great contributor). I did not see anyone for 60 days. And yes, it was painful, but also gave me some time to work on myself.
Around 8 or 9 months ago, I decided that I REALLY needed to give a shot at sobriety. I was doing very well, and then... I got into a relationship. Big mistake (For so many reasons; I was in early recovery, she worked in the same Company as I did). Things did not work out. I drank. That has to be by far the hardest and longest hangover in my life, and, trust me, I have had a lot of bad ones.
Since that day, I have not had a single drop of alcohol. Shoutout to SoberRecovery and specific persons in here which I won't mention for obvious reasons, but you know who you are.
The good
1. I was overweight. My diet was binging on the weekends and to recover, around 3 pizzas a week, waffles, fried chicken, hamburgers. You name it. As a matter of fact, if I ate a cauliflower I'd feel sick (And I am not exaggerating. As of today, I have lost 11kg. I am officially in normal weight and really looking good.
2. I have always had problems (very mild ones) with my skin. I don't have a baby's skin right now, but it looks pretty good
.3. My relationships overall have improved a lot. I was completely self-centered and believe everything and everyone had to live around me.
4. I have been able to be there for the people I care about. I even gave advice!
5. I can't stress this enough, not waking up anxious, depressed, and spending 2 weeks like that, is a huge relief.
6. That feeling of guilt, worthlessness, shame, hopelessness, sadness, have slowly started to disappear. Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of regrets. I still have flashes of things I did and I get deeply hurt. But then, I am not doing them anymore.
7. People are looking different at me. If someone really loves and cares about you, they forgive. Most of the people that I hurt, don't look at me at the little pieces they had to pick up when I screwed up. The memory and wounds are still fresh, but I can feel how they have put it behind them.
And the last two most important ones:
8. The people that I have hurt so bad, and that have forgiven me, are not being hurt anymore.
9. I am not getting hurt anymore.
And now to give the post some sort of balance and reality-check;
The bad things
1. The real-life is harder than I thought. This means I have had to face most of the problems I was masking with alcohol. And that hurts. I will be honest with whoever is reading this; I thought my life will be wonderful once I stopped drinking. it is not yet. I suffer from OCD and general anxiety disorder. I thought I'd be able to cope with it very easily when I stopped drinking. I have not done a lot of progress right there. But I am in an ascending curve.
2. I had no idea what my hobbies were. In the first couple of months, it was a big "Ok, now what?". I spent years getting drunk, a couple of weeks to recover, and repeat. My mind was too busy trying not to meltdown totally and being able to function at work while healing. (I have found some hobbies by now).
3. My self-confidence was shattered. It is not easy to build it back up.
4. I have still a lot of resentment and anger towards myself.
5. A classic: I am still dealing with the consequences of my "polemic" choices in the past. Nothing really serious on its own, but building on small things can screw up your life really well.
6. I had to learn how to socialize again, weird as it sounds.
While I was writing this I need to tell you that quite frankly, I was surprised that listing the bad things was way harder than the good things (I did not expect this).
Oh, and one thing, if you have Fear Of Missing Out I get you. But take my word, you are not missing out on anything. You really are not.
I owed this post to myself. If you had made it this far, I hope this had made a little difference in your day.
Much love to everyone.
By this point, my biggest struggle has been depression and anxiety (thank you COVID-19, you have been a great contributor). I did not see anyone for 60 days. And yes, it was painful, but also gave me some time to work on myself.
Member
Join Date: Aug 2019
Posts: 207
Congratulations on 5 months sober, that is awesome! Thanks also for sharing your insights and experience. I look forward to reaching 5 months, but it’s a way down the road. I could also stand to lose 11 kg (or rather, twice that).
Member
Join Date: Apr 2017
Posts: 437
Congrats! I'm still in the early stages, just over two weeks and I've a lot of weight to lose but one thing at a time I guess.
The longest I've gone sober is 33 days and it annoys me that I didn't do more to try and keep going on the soberiety path but so far I feel like this time I'm making progress and I do realise, it will be hard at times.
The longest I've gone sober is 33 days and it annoys me that I didn't do more to try and keep going on the soberiety path but so far I feel like this time I'm making progress and I do realise, it will be hard at times.
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