Welcome! I started by being active here. Read and participate.
What things have you done to enhance your sobriety?
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Excellent point on participation. Whether it’s exercise or something creative you can gurantee theres a thread on here for you.
Drawing, reading, music, sports, random memes, that’s just a few of them. When your craving come here instead for some sober interaction.
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Hello everyone, I am overwhelmed with gratefulness with all the responses I have received so far. THANK YOU. I mean it from the bottom of my heart.
I am in intensive psychotherapy but its my discipline that is lacking. I am trying to be as honest as I can cos I don’t want to make excuses anymore.
Ive been reading quite a lot of sobriety literature (favourite one is “The joy of being sober”) and I know I have the tools but I still struggle. I sometimes think I am making excuses for myself - “Oh I had a bad day, surely if I turn my phone off and get myself some nice Prosecco I’ll be fine”. It hasn’t served me well.
I am glad that I am here now and I met people who are empathic but also call a spade a spade.
I still think alcoholism has this stigma attached to it- and I genuinely believe cos most people don’t fit the “stereotype” (ie high functioning alcoholic for instance who seems to have everything together).
I will try and engage as much as possible on here, I already feel more understood than in the past months.
thank you 
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And while boredome is seen as an “excuse” to drink…let’s face it…how many of us did boredome kill our sobriety…especially in the beginning! There is so much on here, a person could spend weeks keeping busy
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Welcome to the forum.
I used to drink heavily until I got into drugs. I felt like the alcohol “interfered” with the quality of the high. I’ve used a variety of opiods, benzos, some stimulants, etc. I was fun when I drank until I wasn’t–and that was generally toward people who were close to me. I was a lot “nicer” on drugs, for whatever that counted for. For years my life was a rollercoaster of starting and failing. Over and over. But I just kept at it and over time I got myself off of this thing and that.
My primary suggestion for you is to focus on your thoughts. That’s where it starts. You start thinking about drinking, you start rationalizing it. And that doesn’t even count for the thoughts that slip by you unnoticed. These thoughts fuel your emotions–desire, craving, and whatever feelings you might want to escape from.
Your thoughts and feelings inevitably create your actions. The world is built on cause and effect. You think and feel, then act on those thoughts and feelings. It’s a lot easier to do something when you work on the level of causality.
I hope you will stick around and make good use of this forum on your sobriety journey. You can do it. As long as you keep trying, and continue working on yourself and your goals, you will get there.
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Hi. I was on at LEAST a litre of wine a day, up until about 10 days ago.
If you’ll forgive me for being repetitive (in terms of other posts on this board), I suggest that you look for the “stop drinking” book (or words to that effect) by Allen Carr. It’s not a long book and it certainly isn’t expensive (about €7 or 8 to download from Amazon, as I recall), but - in my own case - I have found it to be really useful.
One of the things that it clearly lays out, is the fact that NOT drinking doesn’t mean depriving yourself of anything, but rather freeing yourself from the years of BS and propaganda with which we have all been bombarded from all sides… alcohol companies, advertisers, and even friends and family.
I also suggest that you check in here regularly. I had reached 9 months of sobriety, when I sort of “fell off” from checking in here, and in short order, I was back to old habits.
So, I read the book again, I signed back on here (though with a different username), and I’m back to - only - about 11.5 days… but back on the RIGHT track.
You can do it, we all can.
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Thank you for all the replies! and the tips. I relapsed two days in. Spend my day today being sick and fighting off a terrible headache. My brother and his wife are coming to stay with me and I actively asked him to encourage me not to drink. I feel ashamed 
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Thank you!!
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Hello @Catinthehat
Im impressed you came back after a relaps and even expressed you could have made a mistake. That’s all progress
Sometimes people show up and relaps then they stop checking in. That could be worrisome for some people.
Talking sober has amazing people as you know.
I hope you may have learned something from the relaps
Keep comming back
Thank you so so much for saying this. i feel embarrassed cos I made the conscious effort to come on here and then I read all those amazing stories and I feel like I should be able to do it. I just wonder if it will be possible for me not to drink. I will keep trying and was also thinking g of maybe going to an AA meeting. Have you got any experience with that?
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Personally, I’m not the “meeting type”… that being said, I do like coming onto this forum and chatting with people.
If you don’t mind spending a few €/$, you might want to have a look at that book that I suggested.
There isn’t only ONE way to get past this habit.
Just a thought…
For me, group therapy is a big part of my ability to be sober. It helps me to connect with people who are facing similar challenges, and that person-to-person connection (in a meeting where people are sharing verbally, whether it’s in person or online) - that makes a big difference; that human connection makes a big difference.
There are options for finding meetings. I’d suggest checking this out:
https://www.aa.org/find-aa/north-america
There’s also online AA and other alcohol recovery meetings:
There’s a good list of meetings here too - SMART recovery has a slightly different meeting format but the same basic mission:
The best way to start is with taking a step. That’s all you can ever do in life, and all you need to do: take the next helpful step.
Your next helpful step is to get yourself to a meeting and go in the door. It’s normal to be nervous - that’s fine. Have a seat, find somewhere; often there are people there already and you’ll find they are friendly and welcoming. Just listen and you’ll hear peoples stories and learning, and it will help you find your path.
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Thank you for your words. I am trying to go to an AA meeting. But tbh this forum here is incredible, so thankful to have met so many understanding people
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Hey @Catinthehat. Welcome and welcome back. There is no shame in a relapse if you can learn from it. Use all the tools you can find and you will get it. I was a drunk, and today I am not. Tomorrow I will also try not to be. I read quit lit and spend a lot of time on here reading about the experiences of others and for me that works. There will be meetings in my future but that hasn’t happened for me yet.
I’m glad you are here.
Thank you so much for responding! I will try and really take each day as it comes. I have done it before and I remember the times where I realised I spent 3 weeks without even having a drink at night time on my own. It was the most incredible and freeing feeling!!
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Freeing is the right word.
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Amen sister!! Gosh you sound s like me! Waking up hungover today! We can do this…just don’t know how xxxx
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Yes. I get a strop, make a point then forget in 5 minutes what my stro0 was about!
I totally get what y0ur saying…I’m started drinking at 8am…on the way to work…life is hard. I have no support group no family and no friends. Its hard xx
Deffinetly keep getting more days.
I have had some AA in my life
I never completed the program though
I met some very kind and awesome people there who really know what they’re talking about.