This is what I am doing this January. Started on Jan 1st (counted after waking up because OBV drank a bit past midnight on New Years Eve). I am going to Vegas on Jan 31st for the Super Bowl for a bachelor party, so will obviously be drinking a ton then, but wanted to try and stop for a month to get healthy and prove I could do it and get out of the rhythm of having a few drinks here and there during the week along with a binge night on the weekend.

Pretty sure this is the longest I've gone since I've turned 21 without getting drunk (since Jan 1st) or without alcohol (two 10 day stints this month). Been pretty easy actually, but have done some sort of exercise 90% of the evenings after work which helps to quell my appetite for drinking. Only drank once during the time and it was premeditated because my wife and I went out for our 5th anniversary and I had two beers and nothing more.

I'm just curious what type of habit I return to once I get back from Vegas.

Quitting drinking is easy, I've done it literally dozens of times!

I kid, but for what it's worth I did stop drinking at least once a year just to prove I could do it. This is a common refrain. I'm sure lots of non-alcoholic heavy drinkers do this, but I think most alcoholics did at some point. But to be less of a Debbie Downer, I can tell you "get out of the rhythm of having a few drinks here and there during the week" is NOT my experience at all. While I often intended to "have a few drinks" it almost never turned out that way - maybe only a handful of times in 20 years, and in those instances usually only if there was a specific reason for stopping (like not feeling well).

My drinking has lessened considerably since I completed that experiment. I can't remember the last time I blacked out. Very happy that I am able to just drink and have fun without going overboard. I feel very sorry for those that cannot do that.

In case some of you were not aware........

RIP WVUskinsfan

Drinking too much is beyond lame

I seem to just quit drinking whenever i feel like. Example: I go drive 2 hours to niagara falls and stay there for 4-5 nights to grind and drink/relax. I literally am drunk every single day, from when i wake up roughly in the 2-4pm region to when i sleep at 3-4am. basically just drinking 10+ vodka and grapefruit juices or redbull, or many beers, or vice versa.

last trip was about 14 days ago and i havnt drunk anything since. I prolly go on these trips every 3-4 weeks or so. i feel really drained after these trips and just dont wanna touch the stuff when i arrive home. essentially im just drinking when im enjoying myself, is this not more normal?

some players at the casino probably view me as a complete alcoholic and have jokingly commented before on it. but i could never understand needing to be blackout drunk/sick. i eat a lot of food too during the day so i feel really good. it is normal to drink heavily for quite a few days then just stop/start whenever? done this for a couple years now

It's easier for me to tell if someone is an alcoholic of my type when talking about how they are when they're not drinking (as opposed to when they are). In my experience alcoholics drink all kinds of different ways, except when we DO pick up a drink, we almost always get drunk.

There are definitely people out there who drank more than me, or more often than me, who aren't alcoholics. These heavy/problem drinkers might have stopped drinking because of health, life circumstances, or maybe they faced consequences from their drinking (like a DUI) that caused them to stop for good. But if you had compared us in our heydays and had to pick the alcoholic you might've picked them (or both).

The other important thing to note is that, as noted earlier ITT, alcoholism is a progressive disease for me. Earlier in my life I drank a TON and had it all pretty together, as far as I knew at least. Alcohol in those days was very useful for me - I could drink my way out of whatever was going on and not feel too bad about it. Of course, as time went on, my "solution" (alcohol) stopped working. And then I was stuck and things got bad from there.

Having a grateful morning today. My wife has been sick for days so I'm on full Daddy alert and will need all mental hands on deck for at least another day or two. Today I am sure I will get overwhelmed, frustrated with the kids, resentful that she's laying there in bed whining, and who knows what else. But I'm starting the day with a clear head and know that it's all going to be OK, no matter what my head tries to tell me sometimes...

FYI for the sober in AA guys, or those who are interested, I have a ton of great AA talks as .mp3 files, if anybody wants some of the greatest hits I've collected PM me, I love to share them.

I quit drinking on 1/2/14. Have not missed it. I drank only when I did not have to work the next day, but too many of those times were blackout drunk. Im glad I stopped.

Maybe he got a real life.

Thanks for this thread LFS. Im struggling to stay completely sober. Managed two months only to mess it all up and get drunk alone. Will go at it again. Have you ever tried Antabuse?
For those who dont know about it, its a drug you can get prescribed which, basically, once taken you cant drink for a WEEK minimum or you be violently sick, and risk heart failure seizures (Obv rare side effect)

It doesnt allow the Alcohol to be broken down or something. Leaves you feeling absolutely awful if you try to drink

I have had to face the fact i can never drink. Because once i start i cant stop and im a completely different person (An idiot) Plus, the MOST important thing that makes me stop is the crippling depression on the hangovers. Suicidal depression almost. That has gotten progressively worse from 22+ so i can only imagine what it would be like to have those hangovers at 45

Did you continue to drink after the relapse or was it a one night binge? Not going anywhere with this, simply curious.

Yeah thanks man. I busted out of the big 55 deep and gave into that urge to drink (I was alone on new years) and drank alot that evening then felt awful for days after. Not a drop since. My problem is being able to override that random impulse that is usually triggered by an event, once that impulse kicks in i almost start getting a hangover the longer i put off the drink. I hate it, if i could change anything in my life it would be this alcohol abuse problem i have. Im a random binge drinker so usually two days drinking, 2 awful days of hangover, then a couple of weeks go by sober, then rinse repeat.

I have not but know many who did. I don't know anyone whose problem was solved by Antabuse. I know people who drank on it, which is not recommended, and more people who secretly stopped taking it so they could drink.

The hangovers after 45 are killer. Trust me on this. Good luck to you.

This pretty much the same pattern of behaviour I'm battling. I know the next few months are going to be super stressful for me which is a massive trigger. Ofc the stupid thing is I know full well if I go off on one, miss days, let people down, etc, it just makes it worse, yet I'll still crave that temporary oblivion.

I've set myself up a bunch of simple goals and I'm going to try to be really strict on myself, as I know how easy it is to let them slide.
- Eat properly (no overeating or bizarro dieting)
- Exercise daily (at least a brisk hour walk)
- Have a checklist of things to do that day
- Go to bed/wake up at reasonable times even if I don't necessaryily need to(he types at 00:05..)
- Talk to people each day, if I don't get the chance to do it face-to-face in the day then ring someone in the evening.

Basically stuff 'normal' people do everyday! but if I can keep on top of them I feel much better and am less likely to go into that downward spiral.

I agree with LFS about Antabuse not solving anything.

Sounds like a great plan man! And i think i need to apply those rules to myself. Loneliness is another killer for going off on one. With this poker lifestyle over the last 4 years i have no real friends here in Ireland. So i think i need to make more of an effort to start dating if possible.
Anyways, good luck man, keep us up to date with your progress!

I was a heavy drinker for 16 years. I was getting black out drunk 3 or 4 times a week. I quit cold turkey 11 months ago. I just got tired of being stupid drunk all the time, and said enough is enough. The 1st two weeks sober were really tough, but after that, it got much easier. I still get urges every now and then, but they go away.
Im the type of alcoholic who cant just have one or two drinks, so I know if I were to have just one beer, I would be right back to where I was.

I wish you all the best. You can do it.

First page of this thread, over four years ago, this guy said to me:

I think he said that perfectly. I can say I wish I had listened to and heeded his advice but I think I needed the subsequent disaster to really become willing. But I do wonder what would've happened at that point if I had just taken the simple action of going to a meeting and listening.

I have thought about going to meetings, but I havent had a drink in 11 months and have no plans on ever having one again. Seems like Im doing fine on my own. Sure hope Im not wrong.

I had my last drink on January 18,2010. I went to a few meetings when I first got out of detox.

I haven't been to a meeting in over three years. I have not had the slightest urge to drink at all for well over two years now.

With that being said, I plan on going to a few meetings this year.

I think I will try beginners meetings this time around.

I went to the previous meetings with an open mind and was completely honest with myself and others. I did not come away from those meetings with a good feeling about AA.

I think the program can be wonderful and lifesaving for some but so far it has not been something I have gotten a lot out of or felt the need for.

I am still open to the idea. I guess I just have to find that right meeting if I am ever going to get involved.



LFS, I may PM you about those mp3s if that is ok?

I hope so too, but if anything changes you know where to look.

Absolutely, PM me!

Today marks two years without an alcoholic drink for me. I wrote up my experiences in my first year here and here. I thought since it's my anniversary again, I'd chime in again. I like posting here because it's sharing my experiences in a general population setting instead of specifically with a group of other sober people, who can have their own sets of honesties and biases.

In my second year, I experienced less craving to drink (although still definitely not none), but in a lot of ways it was a much tougher year. First year felt like climbing a mountain with achievements all along the way. Can I get through my first Super Bowl without drinking? My first St. Patrick's Day? How about my first birthday? Can I do a week with my Irish family with just Diet Cokes and coffee?

And I did. I got through all of those days, one by one. And I was coming up on my one year anniversary. Can I go through a whole year without a drink? Without even slipping up once?

And I did. I made it to the top of the mountain. Amazing. Victory.

And then it was one year and one day, and the carousel was back around to where it started. And it was like, "Hey, great! You made it through a Super Bowl without drinking! Can you do TWO Super Bowls? How about EVERY Super Bowl from now until you DIE? Won't that be fun?"

It's weird. At the end of one year I felt like I had finished something. At the end of two I feel like I've barely, barely begun.

I also felt like quitting drinking would be this panacea, this huge dramatic gesture that would fix everything. It was and is so hard to do that I just assumed the rewards would be equally monumental. I figured my drinking was the thing tripping me up and if I could get it together and quit, well, I would just naturally become the CEO I was always destined to be. Plus, I'd be jacked and well-read and I'd probably have knocked out a couple of screenplays. When I quit drinking I was a 28 year old college graduate waiting tables, meandering aimlessly through life. Today I am a 30 year old college graduate waiting tables, meandering aimlessly through life, who is two years sober.

I thought quitting drinking would allow me to establish permanent good habits, like exercising consistently and reading the world's great books. Instead I fell into the same cycles I always had of bursts of righteousness and inevitable failure before flaring up again two months later to start doing bodyweight exercises four times a week for REAL this time, god dammit. I bought a red marker and I'm going to start drawing big calendar X's this time! That's what my life was missing! A big red marker!

(I did get it together enough to write a 'Modern Family' spec script. It's...fine. If a friend of yours wrote it you'd say, "Hey, you know what, this is pretty good!" because you are a good person but as an attempt at a professional submission it is eminently forgettable.)

The problem is I thought I would become this daydream version of me, and instead I just stayed me.

I don't know if it's a lifetime of movies and TV shows and books but I've noticed that I, and a lot of other people, tend to think of life in terms of narratives. Act One, Act Two, Act Three. This happens, so then you do this, and then invariably you kill the dragon and get the girl. High school graduation is the end of a movie, college graduation is the end of a movie, the time after graduation until your first day at your "real" job is one movie. Quitting drinking as a 28 year old who did not have a legendary problem, but enough of one to know there was an issue, was going to be the dragon that I killed. My Act Three triumph. I keep trying to make certain moments into endings in my mind, but they aren't endings. Things just go on. There are no story arcs in life. There are just generalities punctuated by randomness.

Then there are the things I was right about. I was worried not drinking would make me more anxious, and it did. I was worried not drinking would make me less sociable, and it did. I was worried it would make me less fun, and I'm pretty sure it did.

Also, alcohol was my coping mechanism, so now that I don't have it, I can have caffeine, sugar, and video games, and I use all three too much. I drink Diet Coke directly from 2-liter bottles I leave on my bedside table. Change the bottles to whisky bottles and it looks exactly like I'm trying to be Hunter S. Thompson. I have 122 hours logged into a Skyrim save file that isn't even fun anymore, it's just escapism into a world where I know exactly what the rules and expectations are. I know these aren't healthy ways of doing this, so, what, do I have to quit those too? Is that what life is? Systematically isolating all of your sources of joy and then eliminating them?

So I've started going to therapy, since quitting drinking has fixed me so thoroughly that I have to do that now. I saw an article that listed the symptoms of depression and I had ALL of them except one: I had not noticed any change in my menstrual cycle. But I think that has more do to with my possession of testicles than it does with my mental strength.

And I see someone like Philip Seymour Hoffman, who apparently had 23 years sober before slipping. Twenty-three YEARS. And he slips in 2012, and two years later he's dead in his apartment with a needle in his arm. And I see that, far from what I felt one year ago today, there is no winning, there is no end. There is no victory.

I want to be clear, I'm not going to drink. Not today, not any time soon. I don't feel like I need to drink. It's more like I'm waking up at the end of a long dream and I'm realizing that the reality I was just in wasn't real and my actual reality is I have to get up and push a plow, all day. And all day tomorrow. And I'm in that grumbling sigh right before you get out of bed and put your feet on the floor.

The thing that keeps me going is that even with all this struggle, and doubt, and fear, I still know to my marrow that I am way, WAY better off now than I would be if I had kept drinking. I've got health insurance and a (small) savings account and I started going to the dentist again and took a three week Christmas trip to South Africa with a girlfriend who's probably the best thing that's happened to me and I started working part time writing copy for a tech firm and even though the work just kills me it's earned me my first dollars that haven't come off a restaurant or poker table in years.

So that's something.

Kudos to anyone who made it this far. This took so long to write I should probably start writing my three year post now. God willing, I'll need it next February 12th.

Fantastic post J-Mac and congratulations on two years!

Thanks for sharing J-Mac, congratulations on 2 years sober.

I have 3.5 years and have gone through the same realizations, getting sober doesn't fix everything, kinda sounds obvious but I had the same delusions as you. Working on the "less harmful" addictions (poker, caffeine, sugar, exercise, video games, etc, etc) is a major challenge for me as well. I've only played poker once per month for the last 14 months and I've managed to completely quit caffeine and carbonation (water has been my only beverage for about 10 months now), and I'm actually ok with that, but still having trouble with sugar/food and since us alcoholics have addictive personalities (duh) I also randomly get addicted to things for short periods of time (books, movies, basketball, ping-pong, etc). Personally I just try to always be self-aware and admit to myself when I'm addicted to something, although I'm far from having it all figured out. It's tough fighting chemistry (our brains crave dopamine and addictive activities provide it). Anyway, not exactuly sure what the point of sharing all this was, I guess just know you're not the only one.

Thanks for the post J-Mac. I relate to a ton that you've said.

In particular from last year:

Yeah, that. A lot of guys describe it as breathing deeply, not having known they'd been short of breath all their lives.

For me, the place it sounds like you're currently describing is pretty rough. Alcohol was the solution to a problem, we've taken alcohol away, and the basic problem is still there, untreated. Everything else stays pretty much the same. It's an unsustainable situation for me. And, for me, obviously dangerous when we see where it took me. But, only by getting close to the edge of oblivion was I able to give up my ego and attachment to my ingrained ways of thinking. And only by doing that was I able to try something completely else. And that, with apologies to Robert Frost, has made all the difference.

Read my posts in this thread, particularly this one when I was six months dry: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=319. I see a lot of similarities, maybe you will or won't. But I see a shared problem. And I am here to tell you that I currently do not feel like there is no fun in life, that's it's a meaningless trudge to death. I am not, in general, anxious or depressed (although, as a human being, I have my moments). I, personally, for me, have found what I believe to be a solution. And if we have a common problem, is it possible there's a common solution?

I was going to send this as a PM because I feel like it sounds preachy and opens me up to trolls, but **** it. Maybe somebody else other than you reads this and needs it. And I don't say these things in the belief it'll change anybody, but the change in me that's responsible for the way I am now cannot allow me to be silent when somebody is clearly hurting.

Alrighty, I guess that's it for now. Take it easy everybody.