Hi, decided to quit drinking today and feeling all the feelings

Hi, I am new here and I decided today I want to stop drinking. I think this is actually the first time I have ever posted on any sort of board or forum, and I never imagined ever posting about a topic that is so deeply personal. I have always tried to get through my problems alone. I give help readily but loathe asking for it. I care deeply about other people but am confused about my own value. Taking this step is scary because I am going to have to face all the damage I’ve caused and won’t have alcohol to self medicate, and I’m scared it’s going to be incredibly lonely.

I started drinking in my early 20s. I was very shy and it felt like a magic cure for everything - I could be entertaining! I could talk with boys and dating was less intimidating! I could have a drink when I was stressed or sad and feel better! My dad was a heavy drinker and he bought me my first drink in a bar. It felt entirely acceptable and exciting to drink alcohol whenever I wanted to.

Cut to 20+ years later and I’d been drinking almost daily except when I was pregnant with my child. I have a good job, I can work through hangovers, almost no one not even my husband knows how much I actually drink because I’ve been hiding it so well for years. It is an after work and weekend ritual and it is always multiple drinks.

Drinking brings out the worst in me. Working remote means recently my drinking starts before work ends - an afternoon drink or two and then occasionally embarrass myself in work meetings. I don’t even really like it that much anymore, I feel edgy and angry or depressed. My brain doesn’t work as well as it used to, and my organs hurt. I am unmotivated to do most things that are healthy. I know all this yet I still want it.

The final straw is that I had a horrible fight with my husband last night and I was awful to him. He had an important day today and didn’t get any sleep. I let loose rage toward him that he didn’t deserve. I don’t recognize myself. We’ve had several of these and they never would have happened if alcohol wasn’t involved. My first marriage ended in divorce and looking back I’m sure a lot of our problems were related to substance abuse in one way or another. I love my current husband and I don’t want to lose him. I am so over it, this needs to stop.

Getting an app and posting here feels like a positive action and admitting that I don’t think I can do this alone, despite it feeling lonely. I needed to do something. I don’t want to drink anymore. I am putting this here so I can remember when I inevitably start telling myself lies that drinking is an ok thing for me to do. I can’t drink in moderation. I did not drink today and at least that is a step in a better direction. Thanks for reading.

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Congratulations on making it through the first day, that’s a great start!

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Welcome, Noel-Marie! You’ve done a brave thing. It’s really the only thing left to do when we face the truth that we just have to stop. I could relate to a lot in your post, things seeming functional on the surface but we know it’s starting to crack. (And nothing seeming functional underneath the surface, ugh…) I’m happy to have found this place too, and have over 2 years sober now.
You haven’t had a drink today? August 23 is a beautiful day for Day 1.
Take it one day at a time. One hour or minute if need be. Check in here as often as you need. There’s usually always someone up and keeping on the lights at any hour. :slight_smile:

I hope you are proud of yourself, of your honesty and accountability - and a sober day no less! :orange_heart:

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Welcome Noel.
I’m glad you found us.
I could never stop drinking on my own. I drank for many years. My wife and I were drinking buddies for ever. I finally had enough, on January 2 2020 I downloaded this app thinking “there must be an app for this?” God bless :pray:t2: I got so lucky to find the kindest most understanding compassionate people from all over the world. I was not alone. It took me about 10 days before I told my wife what I was doing. She still drinks. But she supports me.

Anyway. Being very active on here. And my knowledge of addiction I learned through my 2 beautiful addicted children. All grown up now and sober. And gratitude, my strongest tool in my tool box. I’m proud to say I’m still sober.

This app is magical.
But I had to put in the work. Reading, supporting, asking for help, picking up this app instead of a drink, writing my gratitude list in here every day. And reading every one else’s gratitude. Retrained my brain.

I hope to see you around.
Have an open mind. There’s lots of experienced sober people on here that can help you along on your journey.

:pray:t2::heart:

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Hi, I am new here too. Signed up a couple of hours ago after waking up in the small hours, dying for a drink and thinking this really has to stop. Your story could have been written by me. It sort of says everything I should say, except that I’m still with my first husband. I have quit before, 3 months was my longest stint of sobriety and then as I was starting to feel great and enjoying sober life, I decided to be cocky and just have one. And very quickly that just spirals you back to where you were before.
So I am now 7 hours sober, it’s just before 6am, I feel agitated, anxious, and like there is no way I can get through the day without a drink and that I should maybe delay and quit tomorrow instead. Of course tomorrow never comes, I’m not going to find it any easier tomorrow am I, my day 1 is always going to be hell.
I feel very alone, I have nobody to talk to as my drinking is a secret. It’s quite amazing really how I manage to drink 2 or 3 bottles of wine a day without anybody noticing. I’m never even ‘drunk’, I just need it to function ‘normally’.
I just decided to look for some sort of connection with someone who understands what I’m going through and how difficult it is. I don’t know how to use this forum properly yet, I just need to reach out to someone as I’m really struggling.
Good luck to you :heart:

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Welcome to the team, @Gin-gin-girl. It’s funny how today’s thought of the day on the app home screen mentions long nights and how dawn always breaks, I hope that applies to you as well and you will feel marginally better once the sun rises. Other than that, I can only just recommend you take it one day at a time, just promise yourself not to drink today and then see how that feels tomorrow morning, do you think that you will be able to do that?

On a separate note: you mention your drinking being a well-guarded secret, does that include your husband? If so, maybe you can confide in him, sobriety is so much easier when you have someone supporting you and cheering you on.

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Thanks so much for taking the time to reply to me. Is it ok to do this here? I feel like maybe I’ve hijacked someone else’s post/someone else’s story as I don’t know how this all works🥴
I don’t feel I can confide in anyone right now apart from strangers. It’s been out in the open before but my relapse is a secret and I’m not able to admit to people in my life that I’m a miserable failure. Tbh I don’t find anyone particularly helpful anyway. I think if you’re not a problem drinker you have no understanding at all of how hard it is to not drink. They wouldn’t dream of opening a bottle at 8am so they think it’s as simple as that for me too

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You can find a user manual here if that helps:

https://sociosoftware.com/support/sober-time

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Thank you. I’ll take a look😊

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Hello all, welcome @Noel-Marie and @Gin-gin-girl , I hope, and I am sure, you are going to have success in this new sober path of your life.

I feel very next to you in what you have written but I, obviously, speak from myself:

I also think nobody thought I was drinking, indeed, I was convinced I was a qualified and active worker but…, I was lying myself. The fact is that a lot of people around me was aware I was a drunk man. I did not loose my job or my wife, or even my friends, but now, with the perspective of sobriety, I remember actions that only a drunk man could do. So, I know I have a booze problem but I disguise it thinking I was active and more or less able to do intelectual tasks.

Now, I remember I was almost asleep in several meetings, I remember bad words to neighbours, I remember trying to chat, or even more, with girls, in an awful not respectable way…, to recap, I am ashamed of a lot of actions I do being drunk.

I started to drink alone, increased my consumption during Covid and also, drinking during online work meetings …, till I lost the control and quite next to lost my wife.

There is no chance to moderation, at least in my case, but, and this is the important point: nothing bad happens when stop drinking. I have realised that the supposed joy I had was false, I do not miss anything and, regarding the past, I only regret a plenty actions which effects are quite impossible to heal.

But there is hope, there is a new life and maybe nobody is going to ask you why you do not drink. This a question that involve you, not the others. You are the person who is going to quit drinking because you deserve happiness and you do not have to be the slave of any substance.

No more hangovers, no more eternal awake nights, no more blackouts and no more “nobody note I was drunk”, because you are indeed sober.

We can do it in a daily basis. Day by day, hour by hour…it is not a question of beating records. We are going to have good moments, but also bad ones, because life goes on and life is tough. But we can better face it being sober.

Finally, from my point of view: do both spiritual and body exercise: do sport, pray, do meditation,… what you want or call it, but think is important to take care of the body and mind.

Give you the present of a better life. Best luck!.

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Welcome! I too am new here and reading your story and habits almost feels like I’m standing in front of a mirror. I too started in my early 20’s for all the reasons you mentioned. I am a binge drinker and the blackouts were getting out of hand. It was no longer fun. I was just drinking to pass out and my fam had started to notice and was very concerned… I used the “I don’t drink everyday” excuse for too long and now on my 13 th day sober, I’ve done so much research and listened to/read other’s stories and have finally realized I do in fact have an alcohol problem and that feels liberating. The scariest fact I’ve recently learned and almost confirmed after an honest mental inventory of my own recollection of memories of how this started and how I’ve gotten here, is this is a progressive disease… slowly but surely progressive and that alone scares the crap out of me. We’re in time to recover. It’s still early for us. Many addicts can not say the same or have already lost their lives or gotten in irreversible trouble before they’ve decided to stop. We are lucky to be alive and still have our jobs and our families but we must exit this wagon today! It’s been 13 days for me, which doesn’t mean much yet because, again, I’m a binge drinker and as such, I’m able to not drink for periods of time, BUT when I do.,. And the binge episodes we’re getting closer and closer… I was already drinking 3 night a week and had increased to 2 bottles of wine some nights… this was a scary progression for me and had stated to feel like I wished I could drink my wine every night if I knew this was harming me…. So I’m here because I need that daily dose of reminder that I must not have that first drink… I can not control myself and I’ve already put myself in dangerous situations with my addiction. You should be proud and happy you’ve made this decision before it got worse. This is a progressive disease…

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You are very brave sharing your story. I am 6 days in, feel terrible, but reading your story has helped me remember I do not want to drink today. I want to be a better wife and mum. I managed a month in 2022 and it’s definitely harder this time. I’m annoyed with myself for not keeping with it then…

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Hi Serena. Your story sounds so similar to me. Binge drinking, but having 6 weeks off work this summer I was drinking every day and wow stopping has been hard. The physical effects make getting on with life very difficult so I am trying to rest. I’m hoping we can all find strength and do this together.

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Hello and welcome. I’ve only been here 17 days. You’ve made the right choice. Good people :+1:

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We can :pray:t3:. I quit for 5 months last year without help, apps or fellowship. I then traveled out of the country and drank there with the mindset to start over once back in US. The things is after being sober for a while, we tend to believe we’re “normal”, “we’re cured”. So I continued drinking, less than before, more controlled, but soon found myself back in the same place or worse… We are not “normal”, we are powerless to alcohol. Sooo this time around I’m here because that experienced made me realize that I need a reminder of this. A reminder not to have that first drink because it will never be enough, I will want more. So here I am :partying_face:. I’ve also started to attend zoom meetings and I’ve loved it so far. We can do this! This isn’t the end of the world as long as we stop now 🩷

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Yep, me too. And hey, none of those things might improve by cutting out the alcohol, but maybe it’s a good idea to at least try it – it won’t make things worse to at least try, right? That’s my theory, anyway.

Welcome. Day 28 (again) myself, for all the reasons you described. It’s lonely, but you’re not alone.

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Welcome Noel-Marie and @Gin-gin-girl to Talking Sober! This is a good safe place to be when you are trying to not drink. There are folks who have had successful sobriety using mostly this forum without too many other resources, but most of us got more help in one way or another. I came to Talking Sober well along into sobriety, but since finding TS, and especially since the pandemic, it is my daily dose of sobriety medicine and I am grateful to have found this place.

Here are some threads for getting started.

Blessings on your house :pray: as you begin your journey out of darkness.

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Hi, I thank you all for taking the time to reply. Sadly, today wasn’t my day. I couldn’t do it, I had to visit the supermarket for something and I had such anxiety that I bought myself 2 bottles of wine. They’ve been drunk, steadily, to make me feel normal and keep me functioning, and now I reset and try again tomorrow. I have actually quit before, I know it is so worth it, sober sleep and sober life is so good, I really really want it back, I just need to get those first 48/72 hours under my belt and then hopefully I will get a bit of belief in myself again that I can actually do this. I hope the other poster (Noel something - sorry I can’t remember right now) has had more success than me. And all of you that are trying to encourage me and have a reasonable stint of sobriety under your belt, please use me as a case study and don’t ever bloody touch another drop. When I had 3 months under my belt, I looked and felt great, and I really thought I’d cracked it, and look at me now, back to square one and can’t manage 1 day sober. Just hoping that tomorrow being Sunday with no work, that it really doesn’t matter if I don’t function, if I lay around doing bugger all apart from reading sober stories and listening to sober podcasts then it doesn’t matter tomorrow like it did today. Keep going everyone💪🏻

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Longest I’ve ever gone in 26 years is 33 days. I’m determined to try something different. I’m so curious to what life is like without alcohol. I’m hoping that I have more energy and joy. But today I’m just tired. So so so tired.

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Are you trying again tomorrow?

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