kick start?

[InChains]

just a random question really: nobody just randomly gets sober, so what kick started your recovery? personally in need of a kick start, but still very much lost on what that could be, looking for other peoples stories to inspire me.

[kuya]

kick start?

Ironically for me it was the epiphany moment of realising that I was NEVER going to have a rock bottom.

I was far too controlled as a human being to hit bottom and I realised I was just going to become a sad, old, ill drunk, functional but pitied behind my back. You know the sort, stumbling and slightly smelly and brain damaged, wandering around the shops wearing clothes from a better time but only able to afford cheap booze. Intelligent but repetitive and annoying.

I had been waiting for years for THAT kick start .......it scared the shit outta me one day suddenly realising I was gonna have to SAVE MYSELF.

So I grew the feck up and quit !

[sweetie78]

kick start?

My blackouts have gotten worse and worse, I blackout early in a night and keep going like som sort of drunk ass energizer zombie, when I wake up in the morning if I havent pissed myself or puked on the carpet I get to here about the ridiculous shit I do/yell ... its fucking embarrassing...

[Blossoms]

kick start?

Yeah... I hear about rock bottom - but my kick start was more like a clear realisation than a rock bottom moment.
I have been drinking for a long time and had some really full on dangerous/stupid/embarrassing experiences due to drinking, especially when I was younger. I stopped drinking when I was pregnant and didn't drink that much (comparitively) when my daughter was little.
In the last couple of years I started drinking more again, and had a couple of nights in February that saw me very drunk and messy and puking.
I had a clear thought "I can't be doing this anymore. This is not the person I want to be. This is not the mother I want to be."

No one was pressuring me to stop ( my husband drinks a lot), and I didn't face that much embarrassment or lose anything....... It was like I suddenly saw myself clearly.

[TheSunFlower]

kick start?

InChains.....I think your name says it all.

Kuya I could not agree more. I think our experiences are different. I knew a long time ago that I had a problem. So I sought help....and kept being told that I had not hit "rock bottom"....and based on the stories I heard....as frightening as they were...I was convinced that I would never stop until I got there. I spent years working on hitting "rock bottom"....only to realize I was already there. It just wasn't the picture I thought it would be. A picture I am glad to have never visited.

Many of my escapades would have been someone else's rock bottom. But, for some reason my addiction looked for a darker hole to crawl into. And whenever I got semi-close to it. I cleaned up my act.....only to falter again and again. I personally, don't think my addiction would have been happy until I was dead.

I am still in the early days of consecutive sobriety. But, I see it much different now.

I was controlled by drinking and then controlled by not drinking. And the person that I am....I hate anything controlling me. That is the when I realized...all this craziness has to stop.

Drinking is harder than not drinking. We are not weak willed people....we are amazingly strong people to have gone on this long. Getting out of the hole is hard....staying out is harder. But....so worth it. All that energy I put into surviving addiction....has found a new positve home.

[Eve11]

kick start?

TheSunFlower;1481810 wrote:

But, for some reason my addiction looked for a darker hole to crawl into. And whenever I got semi-close to it. I cleaned up my act.....only to falter again and again. I personally, don't think my addiction would have been happy until I was dead.

Sun,

Your beautiful words of wisdom reminded me of my favorite poem:

There Is a Hole in My Sidewalk
Autobiography in Five Short Chapters
By Portia Nelson

Chapter One
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost?I am helpless.
It isn?t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter Two
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend that I don?t see it.
I fall in again.
I can?t believe I am in this same place.
But, it isn?t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter Three
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep whole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in?it?s a habit?but,
My eyes are open
I know where I am
It is my fault.
I get out immediately,

Chapter Four
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

Chapter Five
I walk down another street.

:l
Eve11

[TheSunFlower]

kick start?

Eve....I have read this poem many of times. Sometimes I feel like I am only edging my way around it.....as you never really are free of it. That realizatiion.....sucked big time.

Addiction is a big thing to undertake. Getting well....and never getting a "clean bill of health" from the doctor stinks big time.

However, I am forever grateful that all I have to do....is not pick up a drink.

That sinking hole is always waiting for me to fall in.

[TheSunFlower]

kick start?

InChains....if you want a kick in the ass....you get to decide if you keep those chains on or not.

Its not easy.....don't plan on it being easy.

[kuya]

kick start?

SF.......that sinking hole will eventually be so filled up with life there will be no room for you to fall into it.

I now find my days are so full that I would struggle to find time to drink

[TheSunFlower]

kick start?

Kuya I agree with you. However....I have been kicked in the ass by this thing. I know peole with several years of sobriety. Sometimes I thougt I was safe.....I thought my friends were safe after 13 years....and ended up killing themselves. I have seen people lose their jobs.

I understand the whole...."grow up" thing. But this is addiction....it is ugly, cruel and can be fatal.

[RunningCourage]

kick start?

Hey InChains,

You alright? So, probably somewhat similar to Kuya and others, I had not rock bottom per se. I had just known - as you yourself do - that my drinking was an extremely bad habit that was doing unseen damage to my body; that I found it (depsite a few pathetic attempts) to not drink or cut down to a safe level; I was also curious as to who I was when I wasn't having to end each day getting boozy - why was I doing that, what was I running from or hiding?

There was not a rock bottom. There HAS been a gradual recovery, accompanied by new realisations and discoveries. Deep down I knew my drinking was preventing me from waking up and living life more fully.

Perhaps my running helped - that I was to be running a marathon prompted me to look to give it up quicker than perhaps I might have otherwise if I had not been. (having said that, i;d been training for 4 months, drinking all the way through that, and only giving up 2 weeks before my race! Doh!)

Bottom lines is - no rock bottom, but there was something in me; a power that got a grip, and had the power to say, fuck this, let's get sober.

(Oh, and a fear that I would turn into a drunk with a bulbous red nose, single, few friends other than red wine and a sad shadow of his potential :no

[spiderwoman]

kick start?

I had known for years my drinking was out of control but wouldn't admit it. Then I made friendss with someone who could drink more than me. This made my consmption seem reasonable. My soon who is a special constable started pointing out I was over the legal limit the next day - I ignored his advice, I was never stopped by the police but I knewhe was right.


The final straw was a row with my partner of 8 years over a hot dog. There had been a series of things before it but this was the end of the road for us. Like Kuya I grew up and realised that to fix my life AL had to go for good. I limped through the early part with no support, was laughed at by so-called friends but somehow crawled out the other side. I doubt I would have kept going without this forum.

I've had to come to terms with the death of my husband and mother - I was never soer long enough to do this inthe past, unpleasant but necessary.

In the past the fact there was a 'y' in the day was a good enough reason to drink.

[Tipplerette]

kick start?

Interesting thread. I have never hit rock bottom and am once again committing to abstinence. Knowing that nothing awful has happened has been my crutch in defending my drinking. But as time has gone on and the realization that life is passing me by, I am slowly getting wiser and more determined to stop.

Winding up in a hospital emergency room has it's benefits if you are someone like me and content to coast along pretending all is well.

[sweetie78]

kick start?

... this place is full of people who never hit rock bottom... makes me feel silly :P How come you think some people can just see a problem and deal with it and others, like me, have to be at rock bottom for like a year before they do anything?? Even drinking heavily and puking all the time seemed ok to me the only reason i started thinking it was a problem was the blackouts and bedwetting.

[Blossoms]

kick start?

sweetie78;1481910 wrote: ... this place is full of people who never hit rock bottom... makes me feel silly :P How come you think some people can just see a problem and deal with it and others, like me, have to be at rock bottom for like a year before they do anything?? Even drinking heavily and puking all the time seemed ok to me the only reason i started thinking it was a problem was the blackouts and bedwetting.

Drinking heavily and puking isn't okay? I thought it was normal for many years.

Gosh .... I almost want to go and start a "places I have puked" thread.
You can throw up *in* the bar and *in* the train and *in* your regulator mouthpiece while diving.... And still think it is okay and not hit rock bottom.