If you are trying to stop drinking and finding it a struggle KEEP TRYING!
Try as many times as it takes. Feel the feelings that come with the struggle, but whatever you do, do not let them stop you. Quit over and over and over again. Quit as many times as you have to quit. One day, that quit will stick, and you’ll be so glad you picked yourself up, put the bottle down, turned around, put one foot in front of the other, and never looked back. If I could do it, so can you.
I’ll be 4 years sober soon and want to share the truth of how I overcame the struggle. Between November 11, 2011, and August 20, 2020, I estimate that I had at least twenty Day Ones. There may have been more, but there certainly weren’t less, and it always followed the exact same pattern. I’d start out full of optimism, armed with a variation of The Plan (™) and I’d do great…for about a week. Then I’d start to backslide. I’d slide farther and farther down the hill until I gave up for a few months, then I’d dig myself out of the rubble and try again.
I found BOOM when I was about five days into my most recent attempt at sobriety. This attempt has stuck, and rather marvelously, in no small part thanks to this community. I’ve written a lot here about my past struggles and what I went through to get sober, but of course that’s not the same as being in the thick of it. About a week or so ago, I found a notebook while going through some boxes in a closet. It contains much of what you’d expect to find in a random spiral notebook that was unceremoniously stuffed into a box – doodles, old budgets, first drafts of letters, grocery lists that never made it to the store, that kind of thing. The first 20 or so pages, though, contain journal entries. Fourteen to be exact. Four of those entries are below.
Entry 11
Five days since I’ve written, and I totally fell off the wagon this weekend. Was drunk three out of five of those days. Still, there was a time, not all that long ago, when it would have been five out of five. Even two fewer days is an accomplishment. This has been really hard. Much harder than I thought it would be. I sought out some of the least healthy habits I could find and just settled in to kill myself one day at a time. I’m not gonna be that person anymore. I’m not that person anymore. She’s not that far behind me, and she’s still hanging on a little bit, but every day that voice gets a little quieter. These last few days I’ve realized that I don’t even enjoy drinking anymore. It’s almost like a punishment. That voice in my head, that addiction, it tells me to sit down and just drink as much as I possibly could, to drink until I couldn’t drink anymore. I just realized that I wrote the second half of that sentence in the past tense. It’s just, I know that I’m ready to move on with my life, but it’s scary. I have a long way to go to get back up to zero, and a lot of that process involves giving up my safety blankets, which as it happens are the same things that are killing me. Once those are gone, there’s still more work to do, both emotionally and just in my life in general. But I feel like I’m up to the challenge. I AM going to do this. I will change my life for the better. I have changed my life for the better, just starting out with this, and every day I keep at it I feel better. And I will continue to feel better. This is my life, and I’m the one with the power. It’s high time I took advantage of that.
Entry 12
It’s been a few days again. I backslid again. This is my first sober night since my last entry. It’s been a struggle. That little voice, that nagging anxiety that reminds me to buy beer, it’s just always there. It’s become such a habit, such a part of my routine, that I almost don’t know what to do without it. I forget how much more productive I am and how much better I feel when I don’t drink. I’ll let exhaustion or stress put me right back at the liquor store, and that absolutely has to stop. I have to be honest with myself and take control of my life, and the biggest hurdle in my way right now is the fact that I am an alcoholic. This is real, and it is serious, and I will die if I don’t grab that addiction by the throat and just throttle it. And that is what I’m going to do. I am going to push myself, I’m going to persevere and fight and take my life back. I want to be happy. I want to be healthy. I am perfectly capable of accomplishing both of those things. I need to believe in myself again. I’m not quite sure when I stopped, but it’s been too long. It’s time I set some goals for myself again, and stopped letting life just completely pass me by. I’m too good for that and I deserve better. I deserve to be happy.
Entry 13
Trying to get my head back on straight. I fell off the wagon with a resounding thump last week. In part I think it was because I stopped writing. Getting all this shit out of my head is hard work. It’s much easier to just sit and get bombed and not deal with it. But I’m through with that time in my life, with that part of my life. It’s time to set that baggage down and walk away from it. I know I can do it , but it’s hard, and the voice of the addiction is SO CONVINCING. It knows exactly what to say to get me to indulge it. It knows my weakness and it exploits it. I need to be stronger than that weakness. That’s the hard part. But, this is it. No excuses. No. More. Excuses. Just do it – do it because you can. Prove it to yourself. Show yourself how strong you really are.
Entry 14
Well, it’s been over five months, and how am I doing? OK. Better. Still not great, but getting there. Things have been hard. The financial issues really put me into a tailspin for a while. The drinking has gotten better. I still have bad days, but I cut back considerably on my alcohol intake. I read something on the Alcoholics Anonymous website the other day that really hit home. In their section on the signs of alcoholism in women: “You go to several different liquor stores so no one will know how much you purchase.” I had thought that was my secret, my clever little way of hiding what I was doing. When I read that, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I know where every single liquor store is for miles, and I’ve gone to all of them. I’ve scheduled it out, one night here, the next here, never going to the same one more than twice in a week, depending on what I bought there the last time. It’s really scary how easy it is to fall so totally and completely into such a self-destructive pattern without even noticing. I didn’t think twice about it in terms of what it meant. I’m also starting to realize what a MASSIVE amount of alcohol I was consuming. I was drinking at least six beers every single night and more than that often enough. What happens in a person’s brain that that somehow seems normal? Very strange indeed. But one thing I’ve learned over these last few months is that my psychological addiction is much stronger than the physical one. Scumbag brain – makes you think you need something that’s killing you. It’s been something I’ve had to overcome slowly, and I’m still trying to figure out how it all happened. Somewhere along the way I stopped believing in myself, stopped believing that I have it in me to accomplish anything, and that’s really when it got out of control. I still don’t know how that happened. I lost my drive, that fire that had burned in me so brightly for so long, but the good news is that I’m starting to re-discover that feeling. I’m starting to feel better, to uncover that person under all these layers of self-doubt I piled on top of myself. It’s slow-going but with each layer I peel off I feel so much better. So much more optimistic. I don’t know why but somehow I got to thinking that my life was basically over. I’m only 28 years old. There’s so much ahead of me, so much I have to look forward to. I get so bogged down, so focused on the negative that I forget what it is to be happy, to take a positive outlook on the world. I can not express my happiness at the fact that I recognize things changing. One step, one day at a time. I just have to keep moving.
That’s it. The last entry. After that it’s all just random notebook stuff that has no connection to anything that was written before it.
I remember buying that notebook at the grocery store. I remember sitting down every night and writing these journal entries. I remember the way I felt, so afraid, and defeated, and yet somehow so determined to get my life sorted out. I remember it all like it was yesterday. But it wasn’t yesterday. It was twelve years ago, almost to the day.
This notebook is a record of the very first time I confronted the fact that I had a drinking problem. The first three entries were written on November 27, December 1, and December 10 of 2011. The final entry is from May 19, 2012. I stopped writing because I couldn’t stop drinking, and I was too embarrassed to admit that, even to myself. You see, when I bought the notebook, it was part of The Plan (™). The Plan (™) was to avoid the liquor store after work, come home, put my toddler to bed, exercise, make dinner, journal, watch a little television, and then go to bed myself. From November 11-17, I did just that. Then I missed a day (because I drank). I wrote again on the 19th, then missed another day (because I drank again). I wrote on the 21st and 22nd, and then not again until the 27th (because I drank some more). The rest is transcribed above.
I often think if I had found Boom sooner, I might have gotten my quit to stick before I did. I know for sure that writing to a community, as opposed to writing in a notebook that only I will ever read, has made a huge difference for me. I’m not in the thick of the mess anymore, and most of my posts these days are about celebrating a milestone or expressing gratitude for my continued sobriety, but it wasn’t always like that.
As much as Boom is a place for us to celebrate our accomplishments, to be aware and share, it is also a place for us to lift each other up when we struggle. I hope that if you are struggling, you feel comfortable and safe enough in this space to share it. I promise you, there is no judgment here. We have all been there, and there are so many people here who are more than happy to help you dig out from under the rubble. We know what it’s like, and we see you. We are here for you. We’ll be quitters with you.
Join me in answering
A Question a Day for 31 Days to help You Quit Drinking
The following Library of posts from this author writting her way sober one word at a time:
What Does it Take to Stay Sober – Grabbing Ahold after Slips, Slides and Relapse
Sober Curious? Now That’s What I’m Talking About!
Drinking to Escape? Here’s Another Way
Progress not Perfection – Finding Balance in Sobriety
The Trick To Quit Drinking is to Never Quit Quitting
Does it Feel Like Maintaining Sobriety is Impossible?
Tuned-In to the Kaleidoscope of Life at 4 Months Sober
6 Months Sober – Flying Away from the Drinking Obsession
Bursting the Bubble: One Year of Freedom from Alcohol
My First Alcohol-Free Business Trip
The Art of Living Sober is a Skill that Takes Practice
Self Medicating With Alcohol? How to Get Off the Stress Carousel
Everybody Knows – The Exhausting Paranoia of a Secret Drinker
How to get a Good Nights Sleep When You Stop Drinking or Learning to Fall Asleep Sober
WHO ARE WE?
Online Community Support to Stop Drinking – BOOM!
If you’re “sober curious” …If you are drinking too much too often and want to stop or take a break… Talk to Us.
We are an independent, anonymous and private community who share resources, support and talk it through every day. It helps to have a community behind you in a world where alcohol is the only addictive drug that people will question you for NOT using
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