[mel4]

hey everyone,

ive noticed that there haven't been an awful lot of posts in this forum the past couple of days. i was just wondering how everyone is doing, and how everything is going in general.

on a side note, i was wondering if anyone would like to comment on the most influential thing in their life which led to their sobriety/lack there of...just pondering =]

mel

[tranquility]

Great question!

I got sober because I was scheduled to have my knee replaced. My T told me that I would have to tell the anesthesiologist how much I drank or I could die while under.
I was too embarrassed to admit how much I drank (I drank absolute and kahluha on the rocks, 2 double shots in a glass of each and was up to 8 drinks a night), so she said, well you have time to cut down before surgery (one month).

Day one: It's my birthday - cut down? Ya right!
Day two: I'm only going to have 2 drinks - at my standard 8 I crawled upstairs to bed with the wisdom I would start the next night
Day three: Only going to have one drink - - crawling up the stairs again after 6-7.

Day four: March 5, 2004 - woke up and quit cold turkey -went to my first AA meeting.

Still think about it at times but I have my energy source with me every day that keeps me from that first drink.

Tranquility

[Raynaadi]

Oooh very good question!

I really can't explain what made me think to get sober. I was depressed all the time, but no one told me I had a problem. In the end, I sat at home and drank, isolating in my bedroom. I had my computer in there, and I moved my big tv from the living room in there. I'd hang out on PC and drink beer after beer and chat here. I'd only go out if friends bribed me with promises of beer.

In the end, I ended up having an affair with a married man who was my best friend's brother in law. We went out to dinner one night and ended up staying for karaoke. Over about the 6th piture of beer, I looked at him and said, "Ya know, we should quit drinking and go to AA". And we did. 3 meetings the next day and then every night after that. We got our 30 days of sobriety and then he started drinking again. I look at him like the wave that carried me to shore and went back out to sea....

Been sober just over 2 years now and now I LOVE MY LIFE!!!!!!!

[shadowalker164]

Pain and fear was the catalyst for change for me.
Fear doesn't own me like it used to, but there was a time not all that long ago when that wasn't so.

I am a graphic designer by trade, and as I sat in my studio one morning staring at an unopened bottle of Jack Daniels, the biggest decision I had to make that day was, am I going to crack that seal open at 9:00 am or am I going to put it off till noon. I was going to open it, of that I was sure, it was only a question of when.

Then it struck me. Naked fear descended on me like a icy fog. I sat there so scared that I thought I might soil my pants. And I couldn't even tell you what I was so afraid of. No. that's not quite true, I know now what it was, I was projecting. I had had a bad week, I had had a bad month, Hell, I had had a bad year. And I was projecting that run of bad luck forward in time. Another 6 months of this was a hard thing to face. Another year was unimaginable. Years uncounted of this brand of misery folding out before me was simply unbearable.

Fear was all over me like the skin I wore. And it's as if everybody in my life could feel it, could smell it on me in some subliminal fashion. They were backing off, and I couldn't blame them. My whole world was falling apart. Everywhere across my horizon were nothing but dark storm clouds. And they were growing fast.

I screwed up as much courage as I could manage, and I told my wife that I was scared all the time. I never mentioned my drinking. I would never put that at risk. She got this look in her eyes like, "Oh no, I'm yoked in harness with this man, two kids, mortgage etc. and he's stumbling bad. He's fixing to fall flat on his *****." She looked scared too.

I made up my mind right then and there to never say anything to her about those feelings again. That left me pretty much alone. This went on for maybe six or eight more months, and all the time stuff was getting bad. Stuff got real bad toward the end. At that point I believed I had to drink and drug my demons away. I woke up in the morning and I couldn't stand the way I felt. A few drinks eased that never-ending feeling of impending doom, and after a bunch more, oblivion. That's all I had at the end. Ether a pain I could not tolerate, or a blind stupor. What a sorry deal. Alone and sinking fast.

But life (God) has a strange sense of humor.
The finest gift than I could imagine showed up in wrapping paper that looked like pure misery.

My Grand Sponsor used to tell me that his alcoholism was his best asset. I thought he was crazy the first time he told me that. I know what he meant now. That crisis in my life was the turning point. Out of that crucible of active, painful, and pitifully incomprehensible alcoholism was borne a new man. And it is a gift that I never fail to say thank you for.

That's my story of alcoholic redemption.

Richard

[DePressMe]

I have been reading Being and Nothingness by Sartre. In one passage he suggests that its not the misery that motivates us to want to change—it’s the realization that things can be better. I have really been thinking a lot about this…towards the end of my drinking I was so incredibly miserable and yet I continued to drink. I had the sweats, shakes and vomited every morning and into the afternoon. My depression was so severe that many nights I sat drinking scotch with my loaded shot gun—suicide seemed to be the only option I had left. Somewhere deep inside there was this little grain of hope that things could change…I knew if I drank one more day I was going to kill myself, so I called a detox center and they got me in the following morning. I spent 10 days going through some pretty nasty withdrawal.

In my case I think Sartre might have been right—it was not the misery of drinking that made me want to stop—it was the desperate hope that things could get better—I had to believe that being sober was better than drinking before I could get sober. I had been sober before and I was just as miserable sober as I was drinking. This time when I got sober, I created a recovery plan and actively tried to change my life instead of just not drinking.

So, for me, the most influential thing that got me sober was the realization that things could get better—that there had to be something worth living for—that dying was not all that was left for me.

[Raynaadi]

WoW.......thank you for this.......wow.

[splitimage]

I think what made me finally really want to get and stay sober was my third round of medically supervised detox in 3 months. I was killing myself slowly, hated my life, and everything in it. The shame of landing back in detox made me really reflect on what I was doing and I decided that I wanted my life back. I'll get my 3 month sober chip next week. It's still really hard and I'm doing lots of therapy, hell I"m in a psych hospital, but it's better than being drunk all of the time.

AA is saving my life and my sanity.

--splitimage

[Raynaadi]

Split that is absolutely wonderful and you made my day!!!!! Congratulations!!!!

[tranquility]

Split - C O N G R A T U L A T I O N S ! ! ! ! ! !

One day at a time

Tranquility

[okiedokie]

Hi Everyone,
I think this is my first post in this forum. Maybe not, but thought this was a great question to reflect on and share.

I was addicted to benzos for 25 years and the precipitating event that got me into treatment was the fact that my mom died and the day of her funeral arrived. I had just kept popping ativan and klonopin, not keeping track of what I was taking. Well, long story short, I stood up and keeled over from an overdose at my mother's funeral, literally in front of God and everybody. My own kids wouldn't sit next to me at my mom's funeral. I felt that sting, shame and humiliation and vowed to not make them ever worry about me or be embarrassed by me like that again. I am one of the lucky ones. I lived.

My grandma, aunt and mom died all within a year and it was just too much for me I guess.

Thanks for asking!
Okie