How do I do this?

[Marie2109]

I'm hoping today is the first day of the rest of my life, it scares the life out of me to think I can never drink again, can I do this? How do I do this?

[ibizan]

Thank you for the time and effort it took to post this sound and well thought out advice!

[roguevillainakl]

Marie you absolutely can do this.  I've seen friends successfully rehab from alcoholism, and I've watched a sibling fail and is now at the very final stages of dying from alcoholism, so have seen what works and doesn't. Please keep in mind this is just what I've seen as effective for them, so other things may work for you.

Those who succeeded:
1. The HARDEST thing after abstaining from alcohol that I have seen people do is to change their support structures. So many of them were social drinkers, and drank with the crowd that enjoyed honestly innocent wine tastings, a few beers while watching football games, or out for the weekend. They didn't consider themselves alcoholics, yet slowly slipped into it. Yet, when they became sober, and needed support, their previous friends were outwardly supportive yet continued to drink frequently in front of them. I cannot emphasize this enough: When people continue to socialize with drinkers it makes their recovery much, much more difficult.  The saddest thing was watching their relationships with their significant others deteriorate if they weren't supportive. So prepare yourself for needing to make some hard choices. This may not apply to you by any means, but if it does, keep this in mind: Those I saw make the hard choices now have a group of friends that is so ironclad they'd never go back. They went through lonely periods without many friends in the transition, but as they became more and more sober and joined more and more groups, both for recovering alcoholics and social groups ranging from astronomy to biking to bird watching clubs, they gained a whole new set of friends they'll have for life that supports them when they're feeling weak.
2. Eliminate alcohol from the home. You can't have temptation in the home, period. If you are a dependent alcoholic currently make sure to consult your MD though. This is vitally important to monitor for withdrawal symptoms.
3. Hobbies. Now would be an amazing time to get to know yourself again. Become adventurous. Try things that you'd turn your nose up at before. Art galleries make you go "meh, boring!"? Then give them a try. Bird watching seem dull? Give it a go! You never know what may actually turn into something you love. Just make sure it's something without alcohol as a central tenant to it. And as you gain more experiences you'll be more and more distracted from wanting to drink, and even if you don't enjoy all the new things you try, you'll definitely wind up a more knowledgeable, even more well rounded person as a result.

Those who failed:
1. They made their current group of friends, who were all social drinkers, their main source of support. Despite that group of friends loving them dearly, they only wound up adding to the problem, despite their best intentions.
2. Significant others who aren't willing to quit with you to support you. It's inevitable that someone will think one beer in the house won't hurt. It will. And until a significant other understands that, it'll be difficult on you as well (again may not apply to you at all).
3. They never branched out and tried new things, so felt lonely, isolated, and continued to want to do their old hangouts and wound up visiting their old haunts and bars, rather than trying new things sans alcohol.

I hope this helps a little bit, but I wish you the best of luck Marie. You CAN do this. :)

[ibizan]

Don't look at it like NEVER Again,thats too big!its one day at a time one hour at a time.What is your age?tell us more @ your drinking and the problems its  caused you!