Hello, all - I’m new to the site and just wanted to make my first post. I’m not exactly sure how it works so I’m wading in. I am 111 days without alcohol and feeling good. I look forward to explaining my situation and how I arrived here because it came about in a very unexpected way.
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Welcome MrE and congratulations on your 111 days of freedom. This has been a great place for me to give and receive support. Lots a great people just trying to not take that first drink. The most important one. Have a good read around. Join in when you’re comfortable. Got any questions. Just ask. We were all new once.
I hope to see you around.
Welcome! And 111! What a beautiful number to join us at. Looking forward to learning more about you, glad you’re here!!
Like many of you, I had been drinking for decades. It started out as social drinking and stayed that way for years. I didn’t drink alone or during the day, it was usually only Friday and Saturday nights and I didn’t see that alcohol was causing any problem for me to function on a daily basis. Over the last few years, though, I started to drink more. I am married and we have two children who I absolutely live for 100%. But my social and friendship dynamics changed when we had kids and a few years ago I started having a couple of drinks in front of the tv alone at night on a regular basis. I’ve always been in pretty good physical shape so I didn’t think I looked too bad, at least on par with other guys my age. But when COVID hit things went bad. We were home all the time and bored a great deal of time, especially at night. I started drinking more and more, either four or five glasses of wine a night, or four (sometimes) five tequila shots a night or sometimes a combination of both. I was on a downward slide yet even then I didn’t see it. It just seemed like the thing to do under the circumstances and was probably harmless. My wife isn’t much of a drinker but even she was drinking with me every night, but not as much. Her drinking with me seemed to validate what I was doing, but the responsibility for my problem was all mine.
One evening in May I was sitting in my house (but not drinking at the time) and my heart started to pound a little. Then heavier. Then within seconds it was leaping out of my chest. I yelled to my wife to come in and I told her that I thought I was having a heart attack. I didn’t have any reason to think that I would have heart trouble because I have no family or personal history of it but in that moment I was convinced that my time was up and I would be dead very soon. 55 years old, two teen aged kids and a wife and it would all be over way too soon - I couldn’t believe it was actually happening – and it was devastating to think that I wouldn’t be there for them any more.
I got to an ER and they immediately went to work diagnosing the issue and said that I was not having a heart attack. I had been on a very strong antibiotic for a week and that evening I had a bad reaction to it. My body went into a preservation mode and I had a panic attack, according to the doctors. They assured me that there was nothing wrong and I have subsequently been tested by a cardiologist and I am very healthy. It was just an unfortunate incident.
But, actually, it wasn’t unfortunate at all. It was probably the best thing that could have happened. When I thought that I was dying, I thought about how sad it would be for my daughter and son not to have their father experience their lives for decades to come. And that my wife would be starting over which would be difficult for her. And after it was all said and done, days later, I had a very serious evaluation of my life and how I was living it. Regardless of the incident being a ‘false alarm’ it was still a loud and clear wake up call for me. In those minutes of panic, I came to realize that when life is over, it’s over. It can happen at any moment to any of us. And I realized that I had gotten to the point with alcohol that I was wasting my life with the amount of time drinking and time hung over, hurting my organs, having blackouts, my brain slowly becoming “wet”, lying to myself and not living up to my potential. And I thought about the famous line from The Shawshank Redemption: “Get busy living or get busy dying.” And my drinking alcohol was getting me busy dying. Alcohol was only working against me, never helping me in any way. My mind became crystal clear; it wasn’t a decision, it was a fact: from that moment on I was going to get busy living.
Today is day 112 and the thought of having an alcoholic drink never crosses my mind. I have gone from 216 pounds to 201, I work out 6/7 days a week and my physical shape and skin look very different, in a good way. I sleep very well and have a lot of energy, never fatigued like when I constantly had alcohol in my body. My conversations are more interesting, though, when I’m around others who are drinking I find them tedious because it’s the same old thing, same old stories, etc. But I’m not going to judge them or preach to them, I’m just going to continue my path toward physical and mental health and enjoy the next stage of my life (post-alcohol). I’m sure you all know all the benefits but just a reminder - strong body and clear mind is good, drinker’s body and drinker’s mind is bad. And I’ve now shortened my mantra to just “Get busy living …”, because there’s no longer a need for the second part!
I tried to be concise with this story so I wouldn’t bore anyone. But, if you have any questions I would be happy to answer them.
Thanks for reading and for your support & feedback.