Hi I’m new here and am just starting my first day of sobriety. I’ve been in a relationship with the same guy since 2016. It’s been great but for the past 6-7 years I’ve been a drunk. I get too drunk to the point I black out and don’t remember anything. I get aggressive, argumentative, and upset specifically with my boyfriend. He had a past for about 3 years of the beginning of our relationship where he would constantly check girls out in front of me, follow half naked women on social media, and lie to me whenever he was caught, making me seem like I was crazy. It took a toll on my confidence and I got insecure. He got better after about 3-4 years and I noticed he took me seriously and stopped it all. I’m not sure if that’s why I get so angry with him when I’m drunk, but I don’t think so. It’s been awhile. Think I’m just an angry drunk.
Anyways my constant drunk drinking has caused many issues in our relationship. There’d be a lot of late night yelling coming from my end for hours on end that I don’t remember. To try and resolve it, I’d tell my Bf I won’t drink hard liquor anymore since I would almost kill a bottle of vodka by myself. I would stop for about a week and then go back to it again once things settled down and redo the whole thing again. Our neighbors definitely hear it. We’ve lived at 3 different places together and everyone we lived with heard it. Only happened when I was drinking. Last night I got too drunk again with wine. I recently stopped buying hard liquor and went towards wine thinking it was fine. Well no, I exploded again and created an argument for about 2-3 hours last night causing noise complaints from our neighbors. We got a courtesy call from the front desk letting us know multiple neighbors have complained and that we cannot be loud after hours again. We’ve lived here for about 3 years and I’ve been the problem.
I know I’m the problem. I know I have an alcohol problem. I’m trying to come to terms that I am an alcoholic, I’m pretty sure I am? I just don’t understand how I let myself to continue to do this when it’s harming my relationship and the people around us who live here. I’m not understanding how I just let it happen. My bf called me embarrassing and did not want to talk to me at all today. He said multiple times he’s done with me because he’s tired of me. He hopped on a flight for work and is supposed to return tomorrow but he says he wants to stay another day because he doesn’t want to be home tomorrow. I’m devastated and think I really messed up. I’m so angry with myself for letting it happen for so long. I don’t get why I continued, I don’t. I don’t want to lose my bf, and I am putting my foot down on alcohol entirely. It’s messed up my life and especially relationship. What do I do? How do I keep myself going and actually convince myself I won’t ever touch alcohol again? Really at this point I just feel helpless. I feel like I wasted many years of my life to alcohol and it never benefitted me once.
Welcome to Talking Sober. This is a wonderful community where like-minded people come together and support each other.
The relationship you described with alcohol is exactly the same as what many of us have experienced here. We are addicted to alcohol. It is a disease, and our relationship with alcohol is different from that of normal drinkers. That’s why we cannot control our drinking. Many of us tried to drink in moderation, but once we take the first drink, we lose control because our brains have become dependent on alcohol.
The only thing you need to do is stay away from that first drink. Keep it simple—you don’t need to think about never drinking again for the rest of your life. Just focus on one day at a time. Tell yourself: “I will not drink today.”
The early days can be difficult, but life gets much better as you build more sober days. Take your time, read through the posts here, and don’t hesitate to ask questions.
Hey @a_kleio and welcome! Like @s_unrelax said…your story is familiar to a lot of us. I can’t count the number of times I tried to quit, the number of rock bottoms where I took out a shovel and dug myself even deeper. That’s what we do.
IMO, there are a couple of things to focus on at the beginning. The first is building your sober muscles by getting through 5 minutes at a time of not drinking. Just 5 minutes. And the next 5 minutes. Every time I had a craving, I made myself come here first and read for 5 minutes. I told myself I could drink after I did that if I still wanted to, but I had to engage here, first. And it worked. I didn’t want to let down the little people in my phone.
You also have to actually devote time and effort to staying sober. Intherooms.com has free online meetings all the time. There are a ton of books and podcasts, too.
All of this to say–if I can do it, I promise you can, too. We’re all rooting for you.
Well said! We definitely need to build our sober muscles. As I’ve mentioned before, I have experienced countless rock bottoms and made countless attempts to quit, but the cycle never seemed to break.
For me, the saying “once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic” has proven true. Whenever I tried to drink in moderation, I couldn’t control it. Before taking the first drink, I would tell myself, “I’ll just have two pegs and stop.” But once I took that first peg, everything went out of control, and I returned to the same old pattern of drinking.
The life of an alcoholic is like a rat trapped inside a food container with slippery sides. The rat tries desperately to climb out, but because the walls are slippery, it keeps falling back to the bottom. We alcoholics often face the same struggle. When we try to quit, we tell ourselves, “Just one drink today,” but that is often a trap that pulls us right back into the cycle.
So just focus on one day at a time, or even five minutes at a time. Start now.
I’m 56 days sober today. If I can do it, you can too.
While I can’t give you the AI responses that seem to be on this thread, I can tell you that in order to get sober you have to put sobriety above all else. What are you willing to do to get, and stay, sober?
Sounds awful and very relatable. I got sober when life was unlivable and I was willing to do everything and anything to make it better. Don’t pick up today no matter what and take some time to read the threads on here. There is a lot of wisdom.
