Farrier

Quitting the drink was easy. Living life without drink like normal people is a daily challenge. Getting close to the one year mile marker and I still have moments (not days) where I feel like I'm on top of the world and like a bottom of the ocean whale turd at the same time. My life is gradually getting better everyday and I'm liking myself now more than ever. I'll keep moving forward. I know that I will not be given more than I can handle. And if I feel overwhelmed, I Table whatever is bugging me and put it away for another day.

Dee74

Even tho I damn nearly killed myself, it was several months before I started to think about my recovery as permanent and not just a break.
I knew about breaks...I felt I didn't know anything about permanently stopping and living life clean and sober.

As t turned out, I knew all the right things to do...but for a long time I lacked the capacity to put those things into practice.

Getting clean and sober gave me that capacity back...in time.

D

fishkiller

Jan. 16 2020
That's the day I decided never again.
That's the day the Work started.

Before that I spent years building up to it and gaining knowledge about recovery but I don't think anything happened recovery wise until I put down the poison.

DriGuy

The journey often seems to be years of misery followed by stopping and then a period of hands on learning with some ups and downs. Most keep track of the day we had our last drink, but that date may not be where the light comes on and we finally get it. It wasn't for me.

LazaB

Exactly , i kept failing for about 2 years before i realized it's not possible for me , maybe some people can do it , but i can't. The problem was that i always remembered that one time when i actually showed some control and i would focus on that , but i ignored all the other times in which i failed miserably , so now i tell myself that even if i have 90% control ( which i don't , not even close ) that still means that 10% of the time i will ruin my life , even if i drink once a year that's 10 times in a decade , which means that i would still destroy all the progress and probably my whole life every decade , so simple math proves to me that moderation is not possible for me.

fishkiller

Yeah I thought about all the things I did before I quit that led up to it finally happening but I didn't notice a real change in my attitude or life itself until I put down the poison.
I think like many things in life what matters is what we feel and think. Did my recovery begin the first time I read the Big Book and tried online meetings even though it was over 10 years after that before I actually quit? I think it was a step in the right direction of course but I stayed sick.

It's hard to pinpoint so I deferred to the day I quit. That's when I noticed change.

Of course we are all different

DriGuy

Whether a person actually realizes it or not, focusing on those times of untypical success in moderation is so typical in alcoholism. It tells us we are OK, and that we just have to find that magic mood again so we can continue to drink like a normal person, but really there is no magic moment, you just pulled off a one time long-shot and got away with it. It was nothing but an anomaly misinterpreted as some kind of "progress."

It sounds similar to that first drink in a relapse. We know it's dangerous, but we try it, and after that first drink, everything seems OK, and it feels like we have mastered the art of moderation. But rather than stop there and bask in our new found moderation, we decide to have another because things have gone so well. I don't need to explain what happens next.

I was visiting a beloved aunt years older than me one time, and she wanted to have a drink with our dinner at a restaurant. This was when I was still drinking heavily, but she had no idea I had problems with alcohol. I had one drink that night or maybe it was two, and then I stopped cold, something I never ever did once I started. At first it felt OK, but then that craving began, and it was relentless. I never noticed that craving before, because once I had a drink, I would just go on to the next. But stopping cold wrecked the rest of the night. I was twitchy, irritable, completely distracted, and very poor company. All I wanted was to keep drinking. I didn't, but what a miserable night.

tekink

I think recovery actually began for me when I healed enough that the frustration of it all wasn't completely overwhelming and I could let myself breath a little.

Sober45

Same for me! Endless attempts at moderating kept me in the downward spiral. It wasn't until I accepted moderation would never be possible that I quit for good (3 years ago). Even when I was moderating (which I did for periods of time), I was OBSESSED with having my next drink. I was literally living in anticipation of my next drink. Not much of a life at all.

Radix

Good question. I think recovery begins when you begin the process of change, and that usually starts with becoming ambivalent about continuing, and then becoming determined, and then making the change, and then maybe relapsing, and going on to refine the process as often as necessary. My point is that I think recovery begins long before actually quitting drinking. At least it did for me.

calmself

As for me, I think my recovery started when I..
- stopped believing that without alcohol I cannot relax
- noticed that I was waking up thinking about drinking
- was increasingly irritated on non drinking days with even my kids, who love their dad
- was dazed and tired at work and dragging the day
- finally made a joke of myself at a trip with friends
- deep in my mind something woke up and told me , dude you have had enough. Don't sink anymore with this poison since you don't want to rock bottom

DriGuy

In thinking more about this, I marked my beginning at when I embraced life long sobriety, but that's because it marked a major change in my attitude, and seemed to immediately make the whole process easy with a whole array of necessary changes falling into place together. I guess I could call it a beginning or just a step... but what a gigantic step! But getting to that step was a long painful process (unnecessarily painful) that began years before, so the beginning could be some minor perception shift buried in the sea of turmoil and useless attempts at moderation years earlier.

Wouldn't it be nice if when we were ready, we could just have to do one thing, and the gate to a new life would be opened? Unfortunately it's not so easy, because my gigantic step that made it easy is likely different from others. I will always think it's vital, but it may not be as dramatic to others that have other issues to deal with first.

Worried14

Thanks for the great thread Driguy, some interesting posts. Lots to think about here

least

I think I was fully in recovery between 6 and 12 months sober. I was realizing the many benefits of living sober and the thought of drinking had the opposite effect of turning me off the notion of drinking.

VikingGF

My recovery began in 2014. I say that because it was the first time I had any successful stretch of time without drinking. I managed a couple of months of “sobriety” and thought I had it all in the bag. Sadly, I drank, then tried to moderate, and struggled for many years after that, but little sparks of that break from drinking stayed with me, and I longed to be there again. By the time I really stopped, it was 2021- but there was no question this time that I was really done. I had that knowledge, I knew I had to stop to have any control over my life, why didn’t I do it sooner? I’m working on that. But the reasons don’t matter so much at this point, I’ve worked hard to be here now.

Great thread, DriGuy.

Mizz

Recovery from alcoholism began for me two years, four months and 18 days ago. It took me a great deal of time to learn healthier coping skills. To get adjusted to a new way of being. For myself, I do think I have moved past the "recovery" phase and into a "recovered" chapter.

DriGuy

That's an amazing "come back." I knew this wasn't your first try, but I didn't realize you had gone out for that long. That first time, you must have missed the part about how hard it can be to get your sobriety back. I'm glad you are here now, though, and I hope it's for good.

DriGuy

I know what you mean. Publicly, I still say I'm in recovery, but it's just to keep it in the context that I know that once we become an alcoholic, there are changes in our body chemistry that can turn a relapse back into a full blown practicing alcoholic after just one drink. But I'm also confident enough about my commitment to see myself as "recovered." That would be in the context of, "I'm never going back." Yes, I know that if I did, I may not get sober again, but I have no desire to experiment to find out. There's nothing in it that I want any part of. There's nothing good in it for me.