What it was like then and what it's like for us now. For those with a year of sobriety

[RosaCanDo]

I encourage you to find previous posts from the folks that responded (some here on this thread and some elsewhere) so you can read about our journeys a bit more. I think you’ll find a lot of insight. I can link some for you here, and if you need help with how to use the search function, you are welcome to PM me or any of the moderators for assistance.

That being said, I linked to my thread in my response and you can read more about my story there. Generally, what I was referring to was my pattern of binge drinking alone, hiding my drinking from my partner, thinking I had it well hidden but deep down knowing I was kidding myself and the shame I felt about this “secret.” The series of confrontations and ways my husband tried to help me but I wasn’t in the frame of mind to change. Hiding my empties and having him find them. All that madness. I drank heavily with him, too, on top of all that. So glad that’s long in the past now. The change for me began when I went through the scariest withdrawals I’d ever had and ended up in the ER in detox, though they didn’t keep me there and I went home with some medication to assist me. That shook me up enough to have a wake up call and decide I wanted to change. It wasn’t an overnight change, though. I became a constant relapser at that point and a year later it was Halloween, my favorite holiday, and I was too hungover and drinking too much to self medicate to even participate. I started googling sobriety topics and searching for apps and I found Talking Sober. I joined and read constantly and finally worked up the courage to start participating the following March after I was able to string more days sober together than I had in a decade and I never looked back, I got really active here. I had a couple of breaks from this community and more relapses but TS is what really started to make the difference for me. Realizing I wasn’t alone and building some really meaningful relationships tipped the scale for me to help me commit to sobriety and self improvement and as Menno says, self discovery. Learning who I am as a sober person.

Here are some other links:

From @HoofHearted

Resilience in face of Adversity: A Guide to Coping with Grace

One of the biggest challenges in sobriety is coping with adversity. From the stress of rush hour traffic to the death of a loved one, life is full of struggles, big and small. Learning how to cope with these challenges is paramount to maintaining sobriety. I am sure we are all familiar with our past coping strategy and I am sure we are all equally aware of the outcome when we used that strategy. By using healthy strategies, it can often expedite resolution, and in a lot of cases, provide a favo…

Change your Relationship with Alcohol

In the past, I associated all the good things in life with alcohol; all the fun times, all of the relaxing moments, even intimacy. It was hard to imagine life without it, even though I knew it was a problem. I “tried” to get sober for a long time, but it didn’t work because I was trying to abstain from something that I wanted to do. I liked to drink. After several years of trying, I decided to try something new, I changed my relationship with alcohol. Changing my relationship with alcohol was…

From @SassyRocks

A lifelong drinker hits 1200 days sober

I spent more than 40 years drinking and using various drugs. It was all I knew. It was social and ‘fun’, until it wasn’t. My drinking wasn’t ‘fun’ or normal for a couple of decades, but denial and lethargy can keep you stuck…and that pull of oblivion at the bottom of the never ending wine bottle was my friend. I spent decades jumping from one addiction to another to avoid ‘life’ and my self…yet still I did all the adult stuff of home, family, work…the epitome of a ‘functioning alcoholic’…never s…