Why did you decide to quit?
One of the reasons I decided to quit was because I was sick and tired of being sick and tired.
How did you get sober?
Two ways of how I got sober. First, I got sober by picking up the telephone and calling another person in Alcoholics Anonymous. It was approximately a week after my sobriety date. The first call was to my sponsor and she wasn’t available. The second call was to my grand-sponsor and she wasn’t available, either. I made a decision to go down my phone list alphabetically. The first person I called was Anita. I was so relieved when she picked up. We were on the phone for almost two hours. She asked me if I was hungry, angry, lonely, tired (HALT). Amazingly, I was all of these. She asked why I wanted to drink, why I was upset, did anything in particular happen to make me want to drink, etc. At that moment, I really couldn’t think of what the trigger was. It was during this phone call that she made me see the importance of taking things — sometimes by seconds and minutes to get me through my ordeal. I am eternally grateful for Anita.
The second was due to my youngest daughter, Katie, then 15. When I was working on my 2nd step, my sponsor suggested that I do a collage of how “sane” my life became after becoming sober. My daughter thought it would be a good idea to show just how “insane” my alcoholism was. She made up her own collage on insanity. Let me first say that the only insane thing I thought I did was go to different state stores each day so no one would see me twice at the same store. Katie depicted a totally different scenario. She cut pictures out of magazines of a woman sleeping because that’s all I ever did. Another one was a caricature of a woman all disheveled showing that when I drank, I never got dressed, showered, combed my hair, etc. Another showed an older couple standing in front of a cemetery and her comment stated that they thought they would lose their only daughter to alcoholism.
What a wake up call! Because of the phone call and my daughter showing how truly insane my actions were was the reason I got sober.
Advice
- Call your sponsor or another alcoholic
- Pray
- Work the Steps on a daily basis
- Go to meetings
- Share at meetings
- Help another alcoholic
Buddy T, Alcoholism Guide, says:
If you are considering trying to quit drinking, here are some resources that may be helpful:
