subject: Stop Drinking Advice - How To Remain Sober [print this page] I have been sober over 12 years and it was the best thing I ever did in my life. I had started drinking when I was 12 years old. I also started smoking pot that same year. I was trying to escape my adolescent feelings of inadequacy, and I wanted to fit in with my peers.
It was the early seventies and it appeared that everyone seemed to be getting high. I continued abusing for 24 years, until 1997, when I finally woke up one morning and realized that I couldn't do this anymore. I was very lucky, as bad karma was surrounding me everywhere I turned, however for some reason I was protected from any real harm. As I jokingly like to put it I was a medium bottom drunk. I lost my integrity and scruples, but got to keep my furniture.
At the time I was making very good money, but a huge hole kept building inside of me and I knew that I was addicted and couldn't stop using. My drinking and pot smoking turned to cocaine and then eventually crack. I recognized that I was sinking fast and it was only by the grace of God, a good therapist, and a caring doctor, that I finally was able to get on the track to sobriety.
I committed myself into joining an evening re-hab, and completed the program in a few months. The important key to remember that I have a disease which is called alcoholism. It is a fixation of the mind which affects our physical, emotional, and spiritual states.
If you are traveling the same path my suggestion is to truly turn your "will" over to a higher power, the energy of the universe, God, or whatever you choose to call it. If you believe that there is a power greater than yourself, then you are half way home. Recognizing this causes an immediate sense of humility which allows you get out of your ego, and step into some sense of freedom. It is a new path, and a new day.
For me a twelve step program truly worked. Everyone has their own thing that will help them from picking up a drink or a drug. Find what that is, and stick with it. It also helped me to be reading spiritual literature. Books such as "Conversations with God" and anything by Marianne Williamson really helped. anything by Marianne Williamson really helped.
