[madisgram]

I thought i'd start this thread for other recovering ppl to share their thoughts on what rewards you've found in your life being clean and sober. there are others who may be contemplating sobriety or being free of drug abuse. perhaps they can see the benefits and the comments shared.

10 Good Reasons to Get (and Stay) Clean and Sober
Making the decision to give up an addiction may seem like a simple act to those who have never struggled with the issue. The truth is that sobriety is a process that, for those who follow the path, will last a lifetime. The great news is that by enduring and eventually embracing the process, you will also have a life. Here are ten reasons to get started.
1. Your friends and family will be happy to see and count on you again. If you are continually doing things that are self-indulgent or hurtful to those you love, they have no choice but to turn away from you.
2. You will like yourself better. Once you give up your habit, you will be able to look at yourself in the mirror and smile. You also won't be sick and tired of being sick and tired.
3. You will have more joy in experiencing a day rather than sleeping through it. When the demon has you in its grip, you have no life.
4. Your body and mind will feel awake and alive once again. One reason people continue to drink and use is because they physically experience the withdrawals of the substance and need to continue the addiction just to "feel normal."
5. You can now have honest, deep, and lasting relationships. Addicts don't have relationships; they take hostages. Once you are sober, someone can choose to love you rather than choose to stay because they are afraid for you or of you.
6. You are now available to follow (and reach) your dreams. Instead of feeling sorry for yourself because you haven't achieved your goals, you will be able to take the necessary steps to get there.
7. You will make the world a tiny bit better. Just by being a little nicer as well as extending a helping hand to others (which will help you stay sober), you will make this world a better place to be.
8. Others can once again trust you. An added benefit is that you can also trust yourself again because you have gotten through one of the most frightening things in life.
9. You will have more money. Many people who are addicted spend all their money on their drug of choice. Sober, you no longer have that extra expense and you are capable of earning more.
10. You give yourself a life. Many people drink and use because they are afraid of dying. Others are afraid of living. And all addicts are afraid of stopping. Using drugs and alcohol doesn't make you less afraid; it just numbs you.

The way to get all that this life has to offer is to meet life head on and on life's terms. Ask anyone who has done it, and they will probably tell you that their worst day sober was better than their best day high. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/...get-stay-sober

what benefits have those of you experienced by being clean and sober?

I wasn't able to get to a meeting tonight so I thought I'd share here instead...

I would heartily agree with all of those examples except for the reasons I drank. And I think we all drink for different reasons; the common denominator, if there is one, might be unhappiness. But we all get sober for the same reason(s). I'll just talk about my particulars rather than generalize and I hope no one thinks I'm tooting my own horn. In fact, I feel nothing but daily gratitude for the few guys I can call and of course everyone who goes to meetings, even if they are just there to listen. For those of you trying to get sober, I hope my brief anecdotes can help and for those whose sobriety is many many years, I owe you also a debt as well; we are a fellowship not constrained by geography, race, creed, or whether or not we root for the Yankees or Red Sox.

When my addiction became full-blown, I was not afraid of death, taxes or the police. In fact, I'm quite certain now that I just wanted to quietly drink and drug myself to death. And if it weren't for other people, automobiles, trees and my own rum luck, I probably would have. I was not happy here (on earth)and just wanted to be left alone to "do my thing"-which meant working when I needed to work, and hanging in there for my folks for as long as I could. I was alone for a long 4 yrs, with the occasional short-lived relationship which I managed to engineer during those rare times when I actually felt good (manic usually). Previously, my bi-polarism had begun to steadily get more acute and this is what led to self-medicating. I certainly was no stranger to drink as I'd been going to sea since I was 19-but I was by no means yet an alcoholic.

So with these accelerating mood swings and depressions, I put my folks through hell. They were just saddened beyond belief that I could find no relief for my symptoms. My father said it best, "I must have done a lousy job of parenting, one son killed himself quickly and the other one is trying to do it slowly." When in fact, my parents were insanely caring, loving, attentive, creative people; my brother and I never lacked for anything. When people decide to commit suicide, it's never anyone's fault and though our instincts are to find blame with someone, it's a fool's errand.

The truth is, I've really just managed to sober up by going to meetings, even if I didn't particularly feel like it. The collective stories of gaining sobriety have greatly impacted me, they've sunk in deeply into my consciousness. And there are so many heroes in those rooms, it's unbelievable. My own story, painful as it sounds, pales in comparison with those of many of the folks there.

In my new-found sobriety, my days have been unbelievably productive. And they just get better. My father does not have cancer as it turns out and though he still has health issues to deal with, I'm sober for all of it. I like to think perhaps an angel of sorts is looking out for me now but I'm too much of a realist to entertain that for long. No what happened, in a nutshell, is that I got sober. It took me about a year and a half of being in and out of AA, in and out of sobriety but the sobriety I have now is rock-solid. Nothing is taken for granted but there is a foundation now to build on. And I'm slowly becoming again the man I once was-or imagine I was. Life is manageable, even pleasurable...and I'm getting married next year to a lovely woman.

I wish everyone another 24 hours of sobriety and to those still drinking, I hope you'll come in from the cold, it will be the best decision you ever made in your life.

[Willcat]

Great thread madisgram.

The list of 10 has a lot of good reasons to to quit active drug/alcohol addiction. I constantly find new realizations of how jacked up my past addictive life was as numerous new benefits of living drug free come up in life. One that sticks out is the greater emotional stability I have with a drug free life. With harmful substance addiction my mood would be all over the place. Often changing radically several times a day. It would only take a small disturbance in my day to set me off. Causing me to pout or moan all day about it, basically staying stuck in the problem.

With abstinence and a plan for better living, my daily mood is very level. When a problem comes up or something disturbing happens, I can manage to calm myself rather quickly. Then I can look for a solution. Maybe there is something I need to change, like my attitude or I might need to be accepting of the situation. Whatever it is that I need to do or not, having a steady mood is of the utmost good. Daily addiction treatment gives me the necessary abstinence to construct a way of living that brings emotional balance with progress into my life.

Today I'm in all most daily contact with a variety of people that have a mental illness, an addiction or both. I share what I have learned and practice as a treatment(s) for better living. There many paths to well being. I may not follow your path but I'm going in your direction. As I encourage others to find a path that meets their particular needs. Because no one needs to suffer alone when there are many others like myself that is willing to lend a hand.

Blessed be to all that seek a better way of being .

[mgran]

thanks for this thread. Could you all hold me in your prayers, thoughts? I don't think that I'm physically dependant on alcohol, since I can go without drinking without any withdrawal symptoms (apart from an occasionally bitter taste in my mouth the next day.) For example, i haven't had a drink since Friday.

the meds I'm on I shouldn't be drinking with, so i've decided to quit... thing is I've decided this in the past, and it didn't work out. I wouldn't drink for a few weeks or a couple of months, then I would drink again. The problem is, if I have one glass of wine I want to finish the bottle, and I'll sometimes escalate to two bottles a night five nights a week. (Then I get disgusted and stop.) I fear that if I carry on like this I will eventually become an alchoholic, someone who has to drink.

I have never really told anyone this before, I've been ashamed of it. I'm hoping that by "fessing up" on this forum it will lance the boil so to speak, so that shame won't trap me in an unhealthy pattern.

Please let me know what you think... for example, maybe I am really an alcoholic in denial. If that's what you think, don't hold back. I just want to develop good healthy habits again.

Wine was my drink of choice too and one glass inevitably became one (large) bottle. At that point, you are an alcoholic, without a doubt. When I felt too ashamed and disgusted with myself, I took a few days off. I could do this and not experience any withdrawal symptoms other than perhaps the very palpable desire to keep drinking. I really had two lives, one was a miserable drunken one and the other was a high-performing, high-wire act. With work I could somehow manage to pull it together, home alone I was a mess.

Madisgram has posted somewhere a link in which are described the wide spectrum of alcoholics. Many of them like myself are highly-functioning, "normal" in many ways. In a way, it's harder to see yourself as an alcoholic is you fall into this category. And I might still be "out there" today if I hadn't done X and started a sequence of events which led me to the single conclusion that I needed help with my addiction.

I was beyond shame, so actually putting myself through rehab and going to AA meetings was not the source of as much angst as I read about here on this forum. In a way, I was curious and eager to see what had "happened" to the Old Me and I saw recovery and abstinence as a way to rediscover myself. To that end, I have maintained a very pragmatic approach to all this. I have this problem, X. Now what are the solutions for X?

There are definite solutions for alcoholism and you don't necessarily need rehab. I personally would start by going to your doctor and asking for some anti-craving meds. There are resources on this site which detail many of them. I would also recommend going to AA meetings, as the support there can often be very helpful. I don't think I've ever been to a "bad" meeting. For me, hearing the recovery stories of drunks who were 100 times worse than I ever is worth the dollar I toss in the basket at the end of the meeting and the slight social anxiety I experience because I no longer have a drink in my hand.
Drinking is such a sly, seductive habit, which can easily get out of hand so please while you recognize that you have a problem and are physically and mentally able to help yourself, do so and nip it in the bud by taking a few simple steps. They are a small price to pay to get your life back but everyone in your life-and most importantly, you-will thank you.

[mgran]

Thank you gulas. I just went on a uk website which worked out that, when I'm drinking, my minimum units per week is 35... that is one bottle a night which would put me in the higher risk category. And there are times when I go for two bottles. So, I guess I'm going to have to say it, I'm an alchoholic. I don't want my son to see that, so I have to stop.

Again, thank you.

[mgran]

Well, I've made an appointment with my doctor, 15th of this month, ordered some milk thistle, and am waiting to hear back from a hypnotherapist. Does anyone know if hypnotherapy works?