Going sober.

I'm currently on my fourth day of being sober from alcohol. I posted a thread earlier about how my alcohol addiction was primarily based on a long-standing self medication/ritual and I feel it's time to battle this head on.

Has anyone got any stories or suggestion they would like to share about their experiences of staying sober?

I am a mom of two adult children with alcohol issues. Both have been to rehab and both are doing o.k. just for today. I hope you have found a support group like AA.Its hard to do it with suport let alone by yourself. As they say "one day at a time"...and if thats too much take it in even smaller increments.

Good for you!!

Hi birdsintheair!!! Where do I even start?? DAY FOUR CONGRATS! I got sober at 22 (i'm 25 now) also a self-medicating person. Although I found out in time i'm an alcoholic Getting sober is probably one of the hardest (but most rewarding) thing I've done. How are you doing with it so far???
Hopefully day 5?????

You're smarter than I was! I didn't try to get sober until I was 35, after some 15 yrs of being a high-functioning alcoholic. I was in an inpatient rehab center. You're doing this on your own? Bless you, dear heart, if you are. That's tough. It gets lonely & scary. It helps if you can have someone with you, to keep letting you know you'll be okay.

Depending on what level of blood alcohol you're dealing with, you need to be ready for the possibility of things like seizures. Which can happen during withdrawal.

Even now, at 65, staying sober is still a day at a time thing for me. I don't think about it a lot, but I still take it a day at a time. And when times get really stressful, that may go down to an hour at a time.

I love being sober now, though, & AA is still part of my life. It's all pretty seamless at this point. I have a support network including friends, my medical doctor, others, whom I call on when needed. They know what they have to do &, always, they do it.

Celebrate each day. If I can help, I'd be delighted.


Roadrunner

...I never sipped anything much....it was gulp and swallow!

I felt alive on alcohol....aware of myself...
I went from a few drinks to smoking pot to injecting amphetamines and taking acid trips....magic mushrooms...exctasy...coccaine and whatever ungodly things were in these items?
the chemical distraction was all that mattered....and sometimes still does

I met many doing the same....in-fact millions are doing it as I write and you read.

I lack something within that should or could have said NO

I have something within that does and will survive

I have something without'...that has protected me

I have everything I need?

but still I drink

I could go on....but I have no advice

You are well ahead of the game, congrats! As I mentioned in an earlier post, there is never anything linear about the recovery process. You may do fantastically at first and then relapse. Or you may be one of the lucky ones who can simply shut the door on drinking and go on with your life. Don't be hard on yourself. But you need to realize that the alcohol has its hooks in you and wants you back. You were friends once, remember?

I don't know if you romanticize drinking but I sure did...I quit school and ran away to sea at 19. Before I even set foot on a boat I was drunk with the idea of it. Sitting in a bar in Honolulu with a bunch of tattooed seamen was heaven to me at that time, a powerful, potent spell of my own conjuring....and so my drinking lasted 20 yrs; I don't believe it really become alcoholic in nature until a few yrs ago. At that time, I was engaged to be married and realized too late that she wasn't for me and the fallout put me into a tailspin. I was otherwise at the top of "my game" as they say, in work and in my personal life. It wasn't all an illusion, I was often very happy but things started to slip, imperceptibly at first. Being bipolar did not help matters. Life can get away from you, whether you are drinking or not. But having one's head clouded by plumes of alcohol makes it doubly hard to see things clearly.

"Think the drink through" is one of the more helpful phrases I've heard in AA meetings. If you are able to conjure up how you feel after drinking and use that as a tool, it will be helpful when you are tempted again to uncork a bottle. You have to change your habits too, be proactive about it. You may have to distance yourself from friends and environments, at least temporarily. But you must find good replacements for these-and it sounds like you already have a number of interests that will serve you well. Good luck, again, and if you have any specific questions, fire away.

good news, bird! day 4 and counting. you can be successful with your endeavor.
in the first stage of recovery i avoided ppl, places and things that i associated with my "drinking career".
i chose to go to AA. it helped me immensely and i found support there from ppl like me. still go after 21 yrs. sobriety.
i got honest with myself re my alcoholism. i couldn't change what i had but abstinence worked.
before i picked the drink up again i called a friend in AA and talked about my craving. than i went to a meeting and spoke up. amazing what positive results this was.
my experience staying sober-my life has changed in every way. i'm no longer chained to the bottle. i have renewed relationships that drinking took away. i don't isolate anymore so i could drink like i wanted to. my soul has been restored to sanity. i have peace and joy in my life. i could go on and on...
so glad you're on this wonderful journey of what you can become...leaving the seductress behind. you can be free!

"I don't isolate anymore so i could drink like i wanted to."

I never heard it phrased that way, Madisgram, but you just hit the nail on the head...we know our drinking is wrong, poisonous, perilous, fatal but our wrongheadedness, our twisted, sick thinking convinces us that we can isolate ourselves and somehow thereby avoid the shame of it. And of course the opposite happens, shame goes with us everywhere. Nicely put, thanks.

That was my exact problem as well. I would avoid my housemate and leaving the house when she wasn't home so I could drink in peace. She keeps tabs on me now, not in an annoying way but in a caring way which I truly appreciate.

I am doing this on my own primarily, but I also have the support of my housemate. I don't like to drag her into it too much though.

Thanks to everyone who has shared their stories, I find them inspirational.

Sadly, I did slip up a bit on Sunday and had a few drinks, but I wasn't drunk, merely a little tipsy. Still, it's better then when I used to be completely inebriated and I did it in the presence of friends, not secretly, so here's hoping for a clean week from this day on.

If these friends were drinking too, I'd suggest not being around them in the immediate future. Avoiding slippery places (like bars) & slippery people (drinkers, even if they aren't what you'd consider drunks) is sensible, especially in the early days of sobriety.

You need a support system with people who will help you stay firm in your decision to not drink, not people who will keep you company when you do. I'm not scolding you, just saying I wasn't able to stay away from my drinking friends initially & that's why I had to go inpatient to get sober.

Your drinking friends, who may truly want the best for you they think, don't really want you to quit altogether. You could make them look bad--especially if there's any chance any of them might have a drinking "problem."

Stay with it. You can do this.

I know you're not scolding me, it's okay. I need to hear these kinds of things.

Quite the contrary actually, only one other person out of 12 was drinking. I don't actually have drinking friends, it was something I did on my own. These are just my normal, every day friends, who have no idea about my drinking.

Thank you for the support.