For 13 years I lived a life that was devoted to alcohol. I had the American dream for a life as far as people could see from the outside. I bought my house when I was 20 years old, loving wife, the perfect little boy, supportive parents and a successful career. Behind closed door however i was a wreck. There was not a day for the first 10 of those 12 years that I did not put down 750 ml of rum if not more. At about 10 years in I started to feel the effects of it(around 30 years old). I could no longer get up in the morning feeling like I could take on the world. I realized I had a problem when I would tell my self all day long that tonight I will not drink only to find my self stopping on the way home and downing the 750 ml. This went on for a year almost daily. the last year of my drunken life was spent getting 2 or 3 days before falling right back for 2 or 3 weeks. All the while my American dream was suffering. My performance at work was falling off in a way the can’t be described. My supportive parents had all but given up on me getting sober. My finances were a wreck from spending way too much on rum. I was always around for my son but not really there mentally and my wife while she was not going to leave me was no longer happy. Then came July 24 2022. My wife informed me that we had another child on the way. I felt it deep inside that I needed to change or I was going to lose it all. I fell to my knees that night and asked god to take it away from me and I honestly never felt to deep need for it again. Thats not to say I had no cravings or withdrawls as I did and it was hard work to get through them.
A few things I have come to learn over the last 3 and half years. I am an addict and anything I love can and will become addictive to me. I can not drink, not even one. I have nothing to prove to anyone.
I keep these things at the forefront of my mind every day. I have replaced my addiction to alcohol with an addiction to fitness and working out and have remind my self how often that I can not stop if I ever start again and it would destroy the physical progress I have made. I spend all my time that I am not working with my loved ones and rarely over the last few years did not have something scheduled.
I feel some of us will not truly beat addiction but can replace the addiction to substance with something productive in our lives. We just have to find things that fulfill our need for meaning in our lives. At least for me alcohol numbed that need.
Just wanted to post this in the case it could help someone. I know the feeling of not thinking you can live a good life sober and the feeling of thinking you do not have the strength to win. You do, it is in there you just have to find it, and if you are having really hard time finding it maybe ask god for some help too. I can’t hurt.
