Curious to hear from those of you who had tried many, many times to get sober and then finally one day it stuck. What was different that time? Any advice on how to make “this time” the one that sticks? 
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Hi! If you read around there are several threads on similar questions, where you can find additional stories. Wish you the best, read around, stay sober.
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Meetings help (I never went to AA, just self-help-meetings for addicts)
Accepting there are no benefits to drugs,
accepting that even the good feelings from drugs are part of the downside because they make me crave it.
Thats what I did different this time, I’m not long term sober but 74 days now the longest I am sober since more than six years
What I was already doing before and continue as it helps:
Cold shower every morning
Long walks daily
Meditation daily
Visualizing my goal
Diary
Drug counselor once a week
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Hey!
I started drinking at age 12, really got heavy at age 16. I suffered consequences from drinking in my 20s and 30s, arrests, DUI, fights etc. In my mid 30s, I realised and admitted I had a drinking problem and “tried” quitting, but I never did.
I always say I couldn’t quit because I wouldn’t quit.
I didn’t want to quit the lifestyle (the parties, the “friends”, the ego, etc.)
By age 40, I got really, REALLY drunk at my grandpa’s funeral and made an ass of my self. I decided to give sobriety an honest try. That lasted 2 months because again, I didn’t want to quit the lifestyle.
Then, 5 months later, after quitting my job and having no money, I woke up one day and decided to be sober.
I felt that I was going no where with my life. I had no direction, no drive. I wanted to change that. I needed to change that.
So, I came here and did what people suggested. Somethings worked, somethings didn’t, but I was willing to try.
I think ultimately what made this time different was I lost the ego (or at least brought down to size). Realized that the universe doesn’t revolve around me, I am nothing special, and I don’t have to be everything to everyone, I just have to be me.
It didn’t happen overnight and it wasn’t easy. But this was that Ah Ha moment.
That lead me to be able to go through this process. Change your Relationship with Alcohol
What about you @Sobersilver, do you feel like it’s clicked yet?
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Interesting question! I struggled to get clean for 22 years… with having various amounts of clean time in between. I recall traumatic experiences being a motivating factor in certain periods of clean time but after a few days to a week, id “forget” how bad it really was and go out and use. Or id attempt to quit for other various reason that werent necessarily for me and thowe reasons never worked well for sustaining recovery either.
This time around (Feb 13 2022 my clean date) it was honestly me being just sooooo sick n tired of being sick n tired. Tired of struggling with addiction, tired of just surviving, tired of the guilt n shame and physically feeling unwell. It was more of an internal pull to quit as opposed to quitting for external factors. It was scary bcuz I remember feeling wholeheartedly that my time was coming and if i didnt quit soon, id be dead and theres no turning back at that point… and that scared me bcuz i had people in my life that needed me. One day i just said enough was enough and i refused to let drugs have that kind of power over me anymore and i did everything in my power to kick that demon to the curb. I put just as much effort (if not alot more) into getting and staying clean as i did to get high (and that at times was alot of effort). And now i work on my recovery daily bcuz all we have is a daily reprieve from our addictions.
I think the biggest difference this time around was that i became honest, open minded and willing. Willing to go to ANY lengths to stay clean. No more having 1 foot in the door of addiction and 1 foot in the door of recovery. I had to jump full force into recovery and close that door of addiction behind me. All my past attempts at getting clean involved me holding on to something or someone from my past that wasnt good for me. I never truly let go of my addiction bcuz i continued to see some benefit of it. Now… i dont see any benefit of drugs. I see them for what they really are. I see the hold it had on me, how enslaved i was to them. And i remind myself of that daily so that i never forget the torture they put me thru.
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I surrendered fully, and that included my job. I had given it some good attempts with rehab and such, but I knew this was so or die time. Fully jumped into my toolkit that had been built and did that same thing every day. The AA Promises have absolutely materialized for me. Sober two years.
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I prayed for the first time and something wierd happened. After that I put a bit more effort into my recovery but that prayer started the ball rolling.
Still pray, still not religious, still sober so why stop.
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I made numerous half assed attempts at getting sober but deep down inside I wasn’t ready. I hadn’t even kept track of my sober days. I always said if the day ever came where I drank during work hours I would stop for good. Well, that day came, drank at lunch and crashed into a pole on my way back to the office. Right then I knew not only was my life on the line, so was my job. How the hell was I going to support my family without an income? Huge eye opener. Got sober by going to an intensive outpatient program and maintain my sobriety by working the AA program. It’s been 3.5 years and I’ll never go back to that lifestyle.
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A couple things were different. 1) I came here and lived here, 2) i refused to drink for anything, 3) i worked on being sober…i worked on me. 4) i joined a recovery program
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Great question, loving myself so much that I didn’t want to hurt me anymore. Knowing I deserved happiness too.
Many other things too… clean and sober is such a better life. It was and is difficult to do and know what is right for me all the time, but I do know 
that drinking and drugs do not help me live the life I want.
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After a particularly big night of drinking my husband told me that we was worried about me and that I was being careless and unsafe. That might have been the first time anyone said that to me and I have been drinking like that for a long time.
I set my intention to quit and relapsed twice that week. The first time I was testing to see if I could stop after I had one beer (that’s a big no) and the second time I was testing to see if I could keep my brands in the house. Both were tests of my “willpower” and I failed both.
I then spent a lot of time on here, like all of my free time where I wasn’t working or sleeping. Then I admitted to this supportive bunch of folks on here that I am an alcoholic. I wasn’t failing tests of willpower, I would just never be “able” to drink again. There is freedom in that statement.
Now I celebrate the fact that I don’t ever have to drink ever again. I just spent a weekend with my family and for the first time had an open conversation about addiction (our Grandpa drank himself to death and we all flirt with our own addictive personalities). That conversation was met with nothing but love. If you need advice, search for it on this site. If you can’t find it here look elsewhere. Get curious about addiction and about sobriety and don’t pick up that first drink. You can’t drink 10 if you don’t drink 1 and you can’t drink 1. Keep trying until you find what works.
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I’d only been drinking heavily the past 5 years (I’m 48). I recognized early on it was a problem. Over the past couple years I tried to moderate, cut back, stop for a while. But I couldn’t. This past fall I finally admitted to my therapist and doctor that I had a problem. Still struggled. Reading Annie Grace’s book This Naked Mind had a huge impact. It made me realize that there was nothing good about drinking. But the final piece was going into an intensive outpatient program that addressed both the addiction and my mental health illness. I took a few weeks off work for that. I’ve been sober since then - 106 days.
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Not even a pair of suicide attempts, 3 broken noses, or an arrest managed to stop me. Not until I had truly had enough of it. I genuinely just got tired of the bullshit. For real, for real.
Tired of worrying all the time, tired of being worn out all the time, tired of brutal bouts of hanxiety for days on end, tired of embarrassing myself, tired of spending too much money, tired of pissing my bed, tired of living so wild and impulsively, tired of when not doing anything actually bad when drunk - but still feeling guilty as hell for days after. “The Fear”, as some know it.
I also started getting hangovers, which are particularly exquisite when you combine hard liquor with hefty doses of prescription amphetamine, as I had a knack for.
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Two things. One, I finally proved to myself that it was degenerative. With quit lit and will power I got three or four months sober, relapsed and within 8 weeks was back to the worst place. Again with quit lit and will power I got another three or four months, relapsed and within 6 weeks was back to the worst place. I realized another relapse would probably take 4 weeks, and that scared me. And that led me to point number two, giving AA a proper try. It doesn’t have to be AA, but a structured recovery ‘program’. You could even construct one yourself, as some people on here have done. But regular effort on various aspects of recovery, self-improvement, connection to other addicts, is essential.
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I would get drunk once or twice a week, every weekend. I feel like drinking a lot is so normalized on the weekends, and I would be hungover every Sunday.
After 10 years of drinking every single weekend, I have realized I always drink to get drunk and can’t drink casually. I am not myself when I drink too much, and I have lost so much time to nights I don’t remember. I become a person who I don’t like, and i want to change that for my boyfriend, friends, family and myself. I am almost 30, and want to make a serious change.
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Well after just losing my 44 day streak to a relapse, I can say my experience with the doc was surprisingly unanticipated as this time is actually gave me a good scare… I said out loud to myself “I can’t believe I used to think this was normal” and there was really more fear than positive emotion in the experience so it wasn’t a total loss. I think it’ll stick this time because I no longer have rose colored glasses to look through the past with, they’re hopefully rewired to disgust reflexes. Good luck to those of you that keep the faith in yourself enough to never give up trying.
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Oh this is a really good question.
To set it up, I had tried and failed to get sober several times. Even professional help. Somehow I thought I could control it if I just figured it out or got some self control. I couldn’t.
I relapsed hard. Three years in, I couldn’t remember a day I didn’t drink. My world was shrinking, and I just didn’t know what to do anymore.
One night I found this forum inside an app I saw a friend using to count their sober days. (I had zero.) I read around the forum silently.
People who had been where I had. People who had gone farther. In a few stories, I saw myself and where what I was doing was going. I knew I had it in me, and just one more binge, one more day might be enough to send me over the edge.
More than that though, I saw they were sober and happy. There was a way. They were like me, but they got better.
And something snapped. If I really didn’t care what I was doing with my life, if I was on the brink of giving up, why not instead try anything else? Give up thinking I knew what to do and just try whatever these people were doing? See what happens then?
The rest is history being written, I guess. I’m 4 years sober, going on 5. And life is still life, but now it’s one I want to live.
I guess what was different was realizing I truly wasn’t alone. For the first time, I genuinely accepted any help I could get.
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im a first timer went to a AA meeting i was home never wanted to try again my sobriety was strong this was way before internet or mobiles had the desire and made the effort keep on trucking
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The one thing I can truly pinpoint that was different for me for my quit that stuck (after about 10 years of trying to quit cycle) was finding and participating in this forum. Actively reading here DAILY, responding, posting. Community support. 
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Hi silver gal -
17 yrs ago after swearing on myself my kids, ( glad God didn’t listen) I wouldn’t drink i did . Over & over - cried home at church, guilt wanted to escape horrible circle of Shame. One day like my 10th by the sea I said at its sunset find going to a meeting next day at home - hubby didn’t believe me. I went to AA and saying out loud I’m an alcoholic, and edp that I am powerless was my ticket . I kept thinking as tough on being stong in life I can do it. Nope - need help & not alone - it’s ok. I never did a sponsor & meetings & reading more me time ( put myself in recovery 
in my heart/ I’m sick like any other sickness! Here as moved & got amnesia of occasional glass of wine with everyone here then devil came back & I had in house & wanted daily . Damn back at 45 days - treat yourself to quiet & give over to God or power - I’m a huge Star Wats fan ( nerd) and maybe think of your power as “the Force” was written with Judeo/ Catholic & Buddha religion anyway) God / Force is everywhere
May the Force be with you may
God be with you .
We are more than this flesh.
God is everywhere & made you . Use the force inside you -
Luke asked Yoda “is the Dark Side stronger?” Answer, “NO, Easier More seductive!”
Alcohol is the dark side.
I’m 58 and there is actually a book easy read called Star Wars & Philosophy!
Go Jedi gal - this forum & in person meetings will get over this & Will click!
Hang tight & keep coming back. Look at the stars & sky 
volunteer all to give & you forget yourself & anxiety!
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