Quitting drinking

May God bless each, and everyone of you on the road to sobriety. Here is a great Bible verse to consider, from the New Testament.

“Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭13‬:‭13‬-‭14‬ ‭NIV‬‬

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106 days

Well done Rooting for you!! 126. 18 weeks down. Noah Lyles as well !!

I'm so tired of quitting then getting some minor injury and thinking "well, might as well have a few drinks, what's the harm?" Three weeks and 20 bottles of bourbon later... Oh yeah, that's why I don't drink. Stupid. Four days ago I woke up hung over and bit the bullet. I walked in to an AA meeting. Weird scene, but about what I expected. Still, I know they often get results, so I'm keeping a lid on my naturally cynical tendencies, and all the people seem very decent. We will see. I don't believe in God, but I guess I can finesse a belief in some sort of nebulous "higher power". I've quit every other damn drug on my own over the years, alcohol seems to have an undefeated record against me so far.

Instead of AA read The Naked Mind. You can read it in a day.

What do you believe?

Blew chunks last night. Paying for it today. Day 1...

You gave chunks a blowie again?! Come on man. You gotta stop doing that.

Man, that’s great to hear you kept an open mind and walked into a meeting. I’m coming up on 5 years sober through AA. I love what you said about the higher power. All you need to have is the tiniest willingness to believe in something greater than yourself. I was agnostic when I came in. The magic of the program and living a life beyond anything we could’ve previously imagined is taking the 12 steps with a sponsor. It’s a process that has to be experienced and is tough to put into words. Godspeed brother 💪

I am here on day 4. I kid you not when I say it is at least my 1,000th time trying to quit. Like others have said, it is so easy to get to day 40 or something, and say, why not, I’ll just have a few beers to celebrate one thing or another. Then 6 weeks and hundreds of beers later you say, wait a second, that little celebration didn’t work.

But I have a better feeling about this time around. One thing I have noticed is if you can get past around day 10, then it starts to be a much more conscious decision to slip, and a lot easier to control. So first things first, trying to get to day 10. Will keep everyone updated. Nice to finally see a sincere thread on LRC for once.

I did read it a couple of years ago. Good book (much better than the weird and dated Big Book). I quit drinking for three months after reading it. I thought I was done for good, but for whatever reason, it did not take. Personal weakness I can only suppose.

If it stopped you for three months last time maybe it's worth reading again....

It is honestly surprising to find myself writing this, but ... this thread has helped a LOT. It has been a huge motivator.

In a couple of weeks this "sober streak" will be my longest in over two decades. Having an accountability partner (thanks 'Three Days in'!) has been super helpful.

I don't know if this streak will last forever, but I do know that I don't regret starting it, and I REALLY don't miss the hangovers, crappy runs, extra weight, etc.

I've seen a lot of people get hung up on this aspect of AA. And I come at this from a athiest/agnostic viewpoint as well. But you could argue the answer might just be contained in your second sentence here. That is, why do you keep coming back to alcohol? Because having done the same for years, I always thought if was introspective enough, studied the science enough, somehow I'd come up with a logical, fact-based answer to such a simple question. But I never could. Now, I'm still not willing to assign that mystery to God or a god. But I at least determined after serious trial and error that I'll most likely never be able to come up with the answer myself.

And essentially that became my higher power. The trust that the unanswerable question of why alcohol has the ability to control me unlike the majority of people around me might never be found to my satisfaction. So the only way to truly defeat the fools errand of believing I've "solved" the problem, is to quit asking the question in the first place. And what sobriety has given me to the ability to move on from constantly wondering why I'm the way I am, and asking that question, and instead spending my time enjoying life without those questions constantly hanging over my head.

So maybe someday I'll have a more specific description for what a higher power means to me. But one thing I've determined for sure, that higher power is not me. And that's good enough for now. And maybe the rest of my life.

Keep it up everyone, and just a reminder, we all probably have no idea how many people lurk on this thread that might just find a nugget here or there to help them along. So keep posting.

The power of collective positivity!! Thanks Letsrun. 127. This is my longest streak in more than 30 years. Both an achievement and a bit depressing at the same time. But the past is like the wake of a ship.....as Alan Watts said!

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