This is a reader story. We believe in providing our readers with a space for them to share their story however they see fit. The thoughts and views expressed are that of the author and should be treated as such. If you wish to share your own stories please see here for more information.
Hey! Hope you are well! You know, I am really looking forward to 30th July 2023! You may wonder why? Well, on 30th July 2023, I will complete a decade of being sober! This is my story of how I went from one extreme of not drinking alcohol at all to the other extreme of sipping vodka shots for breakfast and finally how I battled my alcohol addiction.
It all started back in 2007 when one of my friends got me introduced to drinking beer. I come from an extremely religious family, where even talking of liquor is prohibited, forget drinking it.
I was curious and wanted to fit in with my friends and be the cool guy… So II drank a full bottle of beer and from there began my endless journey with alcohol. Another friend introduced me to whiskey, vodka, rum, gin and a range of cocktails. Now I loved getting drunk!
After all, I had gotten a high-paying job in a perfect organization. The fantastic state of being high and forgetting all the troubles of life turned me into a drunkard. What I didn’t realize was that I attracted all the wrong kind of friends and relationships.
I had a girlfriend whom I loved, deeply. She was a wonderful person and always asked me to stop drinking. The reason was she had lost her own father at age 5. Her father was an alcoholic whose liver gave up on him and there was nothing they could do to save him.
I understood her trauma, but I couldn’t stop myself from drinking. We had several fights over this, and one day she had an emotional outburst in public. She started weeping and humiliated me in public. I was ashamed of myself. We broke up and I started drinking even more. About 6 months later, drinking vodka shots for breakfast had become my routine now.
Slowly, my health started deteriorating. I lost interest in things that I used to enjoy doing earlier. I had to have a glass of alcohol every day or else I wouldn’t function properly.
Furthermore, I started skipping work and that led me to lose my job eventually.
One day, I fell extremely ill. I couldn’t even stand straight. I thought I was about to die.
Not only that, but I had a terrible abdominal pain and my head felt like it is about to burst any moment. I somehow mustered the courage and called up a friend of mine to come and take me to a doctor. Thankfully, he came and took me to the doctor.
After running a few tests, the doctor said I was suffering from fatty liver disease. The doctor said that if my liver is still good and functional, and it can be saved from cirrhosis if I give up alcohol now. He said that it is nothing short of a miracle that in spite of my alcohol habits the liver is not in a bad shape. It could get worse if I continued drinking. He told me that if I continue the pattern, then my liver could start deteriorating, lead to cirrhosis and finally death.
I didn’t want to die then, and I don’t want to die now. When the doctor said those words, it froze me, and it was like someone snapped me out of a dream. But, I didn’t give up alcohol just yet…
After I got back home, the doctor’s words kept playing in my head. My friend told me to relax and put belief in me. He advised me to join a gym with him and start exercises. The doctor had suggested getting some exercise to get rid of the fat I had accumulated. I was hesitant initially, but then because of my friend’s consistent efforts, I got to the gym. It took him about 3 weeks of consistent persuasion to get me to the gym to train with him. Now, I am so thankful for that! Slowly, I started liking the feel I got from and exercising.
I learned that when you exercise, you release endorphins and that feels so good! Although, my addiction for alcohol had not subsided yet. I was still feeling that urge to go have a drink.
Ever since my visit to the doctor, I had taken a drink alternate days. However, it was a week since I was training in the gym that I didn’t take a sip of alcohol.
I was surprised that I went without alcohol for a week! I was so happy about this achievement. A huge reason for this was that I cut contact with my old group of friends.
I just let myself be alone and not hangout with anyone. I went to the gym, prepared my meals and slept 7 hours. Following this routine for a week made me extremely energetic. I felt like I was a teenager again. But then, it happened…. I saw my ex-girlfriend’s post on social media.
She was getting married to her new boyfriend. It hurt me and brought back all the feelings of hurt. Suddenly, a thought popped up in my head, the thought wanted me to have a drink.
I didn’t want to…but I couldn’t control myself. I had a bottle of vodka in a corner of my house.
But I didn’t want to take the shot, so my brain thought drinking it with soda and ice would be better. And for the first time in my life, I felt so much of guilt while making the drink.
In my mind I saw my friend’s face who had worked so hard to get myself back together. I also saw my trainer’s face, and it felt so bad to cheat on them.
But I couldn’t stop myself from taking the drink. So I decided I will not drink a second glass.
And for the first time ever. I was able to stop myself from drinking a second glass. It was a moment of celebration in the midst of my lost glory. I was getting tempted to drink a second glass. So I just flushed the vodka down my toilet. Then sat in my bed and went to sleep crying.
The next day, I woke up feeling terrible about breaking my streak of 1 week. I checked my phone to see that my trainer had called me 7 times. I missed the session. Furthermore, I went to work and felt so bad about myself. I called up my friend, and he told me to calm down and said it’s okay. He said he was proud that I didn’t drink a second glass. Suddenly I had self-belief that I can defeat this addiction. On my way back home, I took a pack of 6 beers and 1 whole bottle of Vodka.
When I got home, I emptied the bottle in the flush and kept the beers in the fridge. I don’t know why I did that. But it felt great. I then wrote down with a marker on a sheet of paper the following words “YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR LIFE, IF YOU ARE SAD DO NOT DRINK, CHANGE YOUR ATTITUDE INSTEAD”.
I stuck this right above my television and made a mobile wallpaper out of it. So every time when I saw my mobile screen, I would be reminded of this message. Initially, the beers in the fridge were kept as a backup for cases when I would be depressed and think I needed alcohol to feel good. But a few days later I flushed those too. Now, I thought this is me vs me.
I wrote down all that I had lost due to alcohol; a great job, an amazing girlfriend and self-respect. So now it was time to get my life together. I decided to stay active and train my body and mind as much as I can. I picked up photography as a hobby, which I wanted to try from a long time, but couldn’t because I never had the money to buy cameras and lenses. Which was a lie because I had enough money and I spent it all on alcohol. I enrolled myself for meditation programs to understand and learn more about how mind works and how to get in charge of life in general.
This is where it all began to change. Just by sheer will and support from one friend and a fitness trainer, I was able to beat alcohol addiction. It was 30th July 2013 when I had that last drink. And it’s 9 years since that day that I haven’t even taken a sip of alcohol. It will be 10 next year! And I am so happy that I was able to stick to my resolve of not drinking alcohol!
This alone brings me a lot of confidence in my life. Whenever I feel I cannot do anything, I quickly think of the time when I was addicted to alcohol and how I don’t rely on it now anymore. Believe it or not, but it does bring self-confidence! And that makes life much easier!
Ever since I quit alcohol, I have been running multiple businesses. I never knew I had an entrepreneur hidden inside me. I met the love of my life, who doesn’t like to drink at all. She didn’t have alcohol addiction as such, but she just doesn’t like it. It’s not been a cakewalk and there have been depressing times and that little devil on the shoulder did pop up sometimes.
He offered the drink to me, but I kept saying no. Through years of work on meditating and training my body. I can safely say I have beaten this addiction one day at a time.
Some may say that I am addicted to training and meditation. Well, trust me, it’s a much better addiction! I hope someday, television series, movies and general social media stop promoting alcohol in a way that it seems really important to live a happy life.
We are being sold a wrong sense of happiness. Occasional drinking is fine, but not when the occasions occur often. The world around us is promoting alcohol use as if it’s water and nothing bad. This will never change, and we cannot control the world around us or the way a civilization thinks and works. What we can do, though, is change our selves. We have to work on ourselves every single day. If we have a support system in the form of good friends and family, then it makes it easier. But if we don’t have that, we still got ourselves. I know it will probably sound strange, but it is not a difficult task to beat alcohol addiction. All we need to do is channelize our energies into something useful. We need to take into account of how we respond to life’s situations. We need to choose to respond and not have a knee-jerk reaction to everything and anything that happens in our life. Likewise, we will never be able to control what life throws at us, but we can control our attitude and how we respond to situations.
Any type of addiction makes us dependent and restricts us from using our full potential. There is so much we can do as human beings, but we put ourselves in the victim mindset and forever suffer things over and over again. Instead, we can let go of the past and start a new journey within a few seconds. All it needs is a resolve and willingness to change.
To anyone who is reading, this… I hope my story has inspired you to stop drinking alcohol.
If I can go from having vodka shots for breakfast to eating healthy breakfast. You can too!
I hope you won’t let alcohol addiction destroy your dreams, relationships and life. I hope you will find the courage and determination to quit alcohol and be able to turn this all around.
Trust me, you can do it! Even if one person quits alcohol after reading my story, I would be immensely happy!
Leave a Reply