Been trying to get to this place for 25 years. Hiding, never honest, afraid of the 50th confession, afraid of being authentic. I feel like i spend most of my time hiding my addiction and my body. Porn addiction at age 8/9 now 43 and i still haven’t grown up. From the outside, i would appear to be a successful man, nice truck beautiful family, on the inside, I’m a broken little boy ashamed of his body, just wanting to be accepted by others, lying about my addiction for the past 5 years. The last public confession lead to one of the worst days of my life. My wife held a grudge against me for years. Im back to doing what I’ve done for the better part of 25 years: suffer in silence.
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Thanks for questioning this!
This is huge 
I stopped because I was stucked in the loop of wrong decision and harming myself and soo tired of it. Physical and mentally tired and empty.
Because I was afraid of my physical health.
Because I was stucked in harming myself in so many ways when drinking, especially nonsense dating and sex, eating nothing at all or much too much, doing risky things and putting all that toxic liquid into my body. Questioned sence of life everyday.
Depression and anxiety is a part of me. It isn’t gone. But it was much worse when I was drinking. Not drinking and working on recovery is a big journey. I didn’t expect so many details.
Tried many times before. Learned. Failed. Repeat.
Not at the final destination now, still got points where I c myself torturing with shit like my last dating experience and not being taff enough to handle it. Still healing.
6 months sober now and never want to go back… It’s worth it! You are worth it!
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I feel this term autopilot a lot. I realized that it has been years since I had a exciting idea, was intrested in something new, or made a plan for something that was not cosume related. My whole energy, creativity and live went into cosuming or activly not cosuming to function enough for the next consumption. There was never control. only autopilot and cosum on my mind.
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I quit when i finally realised no one else was going to do it for me. It was all on me. I wanted more from my life than the sh1tty cycle of drink, anxiety, regret, hangover, promise self not to drink, change mind, repeat. Every single day.
Im on day 48 - still working out what positive things to fill that ‘space’ with but im finally over the utter exhaustion of weeks 2-5 and things are looking good! Motivation is returning. I made a good decision.
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This helps in another perspective.
Self-efficacy
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Every person who drinks knows why they should quit. I think it takes a psychologist or councillor to understand why you drink in the first place. I think only then will you truly be ready to quit.
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In my experience, understanding and the beginning of wisdom follows action. In AA I learned I can act my way into good thinking, but I cannot think my way into good action. We start getting sober when we stop drinking and find ways to be comfortable doing that, not by understanding the reasons we drank. That does need to be addressed long term, but what is necessary to start is to begin being abstinent.
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First off, I truly believe you can’t quit unless you really want to…
I ‘admitted out loud’ I was an alcoholic to my wife, and her response: “Yeah I know”…even after admitting it, I wasn’t ready to give it up and it took me another 2 yrs until I finally did quit.
Why?
- I was no longer ‘me’…every bad decision I’ve ever made was when I wasn’t sober; Dumb bad decisions, which are kind of ridiculous now (like ‘fixing’ things around the house , I see them now as a sober person and have no idea what I was thinking) - to really bad decisions, like within my personal life.
- I wasn’t remembering things…events, get togethers; sure maybe I was the ‘life of the party’ , I think anyway, I really didn’t remember details on a lot of things; That did make me kind of scared
- My health. My blood tests were completely out of control bad - I probably had 5yrs left if I would have kept it up
- I started to find Faith again. Faith in God. The more I understood it, while even still drinking, I started to understand how alcohol was ‘changing’ me (It’s hard to explain unless you have both Faith and are an alcoholic.). Alcohol was encouraging me to make poor self choices; affecting my marriage, affecting my life, everything. Alcohol especially with an alcoholic ‘dulls’ everything where you kind of just ‘dont care’
- I saw my mom die of Liver disease (ironically, she wasn’t a drinker…yeah ‘ironic’).
It was a horrible, horrible way to go. I visited her every day until the end and just watched her fade away. Once your liver goes, the rest goes quickly.
After my mom died I signed up for rehab and spent 21 days there. Am now almost 2yrs sober, healthy, happy (really happy for the first time in a LONG time), and I know I will never drink again.
Your ‘why’ is probably the most important part; Doing it just for your health, yeah maybe (though I kept going even after seeing my super high liver blood #'s), doing it just based on Faith - no - but that certainly got me and kept me through it.
See’ing the effects I was having on our marriage because of my alcohol - was huge…I felt guilty and ‘bad’ all the time - and hey, 6 or 7 beers later and I don’t sweet…just repeat that every single day;
Watching my mom die the way she did - I think finally put it all together.
If you have anyone in your life that cares about you and you about them - you would never want them to see you die that way. Ever.
Sorry long winded…I can tell you quitting for good will save and change your life in every possible way. just have to get through that first month. Then you will become the real you.
I can tell you, Faith , real Faith, in God will help. Trust me.
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AMEN … I fully agree! 
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Amen to that post, you certainly hit a few nails right on my head 
thank s for sharing 
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Amen! In God we trust. Thanks for sharing!
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I was tired of letting myself down. Going back on my own word. I was tired of “running away” with alcohol. Then I got married and had kids and the self betrayal felt worse and worse. My kids and my spouse weren’t enough. So I got sober for me. To feel and to heal. To fight. To be free. To live through it all. The good and bad. To feel everything and still be ok. Being sober and finding my God made me realize I wasn’t living all those years. I took my first real breath like I was just born and felt alive for the first time. Felt the difference truly experienced life. This is the good life. Sobriety is the best gift I’ve ever given myself.
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