Reflections on 4 Years Sober

I fell to my knees the morning of February 20th, 2018 and surrendered to my husband.

I was crying, miserable, terrified.

For the first time in my whole life I said the words that seemed impossible to me, “I need help.” He held me and we cried together.

I made a very wobbly decision that I was never going to drink again. I was somehow going to become the kind of person that doesn’t drink and in doing this we both knew our whole life would change. There was no other option. The path of alcohol led to complete destruction of me and our family and I wasn’t having it. In order to save my life I would have to be sober for the rest of my life. I was so sad about it. I felt like a failure. Defective. Weak. I was scared. My life was clearly not working for me, but yet I was clinging to what I knew and I didn’t want anything to change.

I was mostly afraid of how this would affect my relationships. I wouldn’t want to hang out with a sober person, so I couldn’t imagine anyone else would either. I had surrounded myself with drinkers, which is all I knew how to do. I didn’t know any happy sober people. I didn’t know any successful sober people. I knew two sober people who were addicted to other things. I didn’t know any people who had successfully quit drinking and were happy about it.