r/stopdrinking • u/stupre1972 468 days • 1d ago
Sobriety - a cautionary tale
460 odd days ago, I stopped drinking.
460 odd days ago, my wife lost her drinking partner.
Directly or indirectly, so did her parents, my sister, brother in law and a number of friends.
Today, we have had a get together of 10 of us and what would have been a very boozy get together (historically double figure bottles of wine plus various other) has been a very gentle affair where the grand total is 2 bottles of wine and a half dozen bottles of beer.
All of that because I stopped and others followed....
So a word of caution - your (and my) sobriety can have positive effects way beyond your own little world.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the sub, I raise a glass (of hot chocolate in my case) and salute you all - Be you on day 1 or day 1000 - and say once more IWNDWYT
3
u/Zzzaxx 1d ago
I moved out of state and still kept up with my friend group. I had some chats with my very close friend about our mutual tendency to overdo it. We talked on and off about trying to cut back. Then some stressor in his life had him moving into daily usage of other substances to cope. We got together when I was in town and he told me he needed to stop. We set up a daily call and checking in. No judgement no shame, just bros helping eachother with daily struggles.
Fast forward a couple months and he's off the nose candy, but still drinking. I start to face my demons head on and quit cold turkey. We'd fallen out of.our call habit and I didn't want to have to let him down if I couldn't keep it together.
Got a month or two in when we went to visit again. I told him about quitting, and he was supportive, but was a little surprised i was pulling it off.
A month after that, we're at our kids birthday and I see his wife is off her game. She's not her usual.bubbly self and I chat with her. Turns out she is in outpatient rehab and 2 days into sobriety. My wife and I spent more time with them that trip and I poured my heart out, really pumped her up and kept in close communication over the next couple weeks and she's doing really well. She's out of the fog and her husband is sticking it out with her too.
It's wild how we all came to the same conclusion that we were not doing ourselves any favors to ourselves or our loved ones by continuing our self harm. I'm hoping we all keep it going, because honestly we're better without it. I love them all and I know.im on my path, but it's really reassuring to have your close support system on the ride with you.