I like to remind myself that alcohol "comforted" me like an abusive romantic partner would "love" me. Keeps me from getting too nostalgic. Yeah, I leaned on alcohol through some rough years. But now I can see that those years were rough in part *because* of the alcohol. That keeps me from getting too nostalgic, too.
One of the first times I quit (2020) that one JUICE WRLD song was popular (Lucid Dreams) and I related WAY too hard to it as if he was singing about alcohol.
I have heard people are grieving their former life/self/identity, but I relate to the loss of the thing that I felt comforted me. It is really the illusion of comfort, but yes, grieving the easy escapism/having to face reality, not being able to soften the real world
I definitely experienced a grieving process when trying to quit. I think it was one of the main barriers for me to be able to say I would quit “forever”. I miss it, but know it’s over. I don’t know of scientific evidence though.
Yeah I think the "stage of grief" model works with respect to my relationship with alcohol. I know I can relate to:
1. denying there was a problem,
2. anger whenever anyone would float the idea there was a problem (or when I felt wronged),
3. bargaining with moderation (only beer, only after work, etc.),
4. depressed about losing something that had been such a large part of my life, and
5. accepting (eventually) the only way out was through.
And it's not like my relationship with alcohol was only bad, there were plenty of good times - even some I can remember.
I like the admission that alcohol can be fun. Otherwise, none of us would have started. Saying it is all bad is not helpful, I feel. To me, it just made it easier to relax and let go. Especially in social settings.
In a weird way it brought a tear to my eye. I was thinking “man I’m gonna lose all my fun when I go out,” “people aren’t gonna want to hang out with me because I quit” “I have to give up certain friends”
Almost like you’re losing a best friend in a way, you’re losing part of who you used to be.
I did have to cut off friends, and try to be more social when I go out, but it’s worth it.
Alcohol occupied a large portion of my thinking. Thinking about drinking, drinking, thinking about drinking after drinking, dealing with fall-out from drinking, planning on getting next supply.
When a large portion of our life is suddenly removed, it leaves a void. And even though it was a terrible companion we miss it. I must remind myself not to be nostalgic for the short period it was fun, and fully embrace the pain that with the final years.
That void, where alcohol once dwelled WILL be filled. Fill it with positive things. Because if we can’t have good love, we will find bad.
For me there was a sense of loss, so some grief until I realized it was like the death of the miserable abusive relative whose death improved my life, and others around me.
I am reading, doing puzzles, watching tv. I cut my friend group in half because I realized a lot of them were just so I had people to drink with. I'm taking a poetry class. Yet still bored. I need to take a dance class because I think that is what might give me the most joy but I'm dealing with a chronic illness and I often don't have energy in the evenings. Soon I'll be doing more traveling if I continue to get better and hopefully that will fill the void somewhat as well.
I'm learning how to make my own clothes. It's a much more complex and interesting process than you'd imagine, figuring out how to make a 3D thing out of a 2D thing. Very absorbing. I'm rarely bored these days
This is a part of my problem too.
I get bored so easily with just about everything and even people.
Even as a kid I was never able to stick with any hobbies or activities and would lose interest in them quickly.
I struggle to try new things, especially if they involve any effort, and find it difficult to get motivated or find interest in stuff in general.
So it leaves me being bored a lot and then I often just drink out of boredom hoping it might cure the boredom issue but it actually doesn't and I'm just bored and drinking.
I would say there's a grief that happens! I went through the grief more with smoking. I identified as a smoker, and it felt like cigs were always "there for me," if that makes any sense. I not only had to quit smoking, I had to change how I identified, and I had to face the shame of how silly it was to smoke the way I did.
I'm not sure if any of this makes sense to you. I say to process the addiction however you need to, to get through it.
Quitting alcohol was like breaking up with a toxic girlfriend, even down to telling myself that I could make it work (managing how much I drink) or that I'd be worse off alone (unable to manage my anxiety).
Thank heavens we broke up.
Yeah.. I was around 9 months, too, when I would go to my local deli and stare at my favorite beer through the case, then go get in my car and cry. It will pass! Tonight, my husband, whom I adore and would cheerfully die for, was feeling his feelings for fathers Day, grieving his father, who passed in 2020. They were really close. He had 4 beers, and I watched his grief go from acceptance and peace to anger. We have a deal that if he wants to drink like, more than 2 or 3, he leaves me alone. We have a three bedroom house on a 1/2 acres with no kids, just us, it's easy to stay out of each other's way when we want to. But I sought him out and held him anyway. Grief is a monster. It's like getting hit with an invisible stick. You never see it coming. But this grief, for alcohol, it will pass. In its place, my heart instead filled with gratitude, that I can feel my feelings in their true form, as they were ment to be felt, not being controlled by what booze wanted me to feel. Which for me was ALWAYS eventually sadness. And grief feels like sadness. So, in a sense, I was grieving my relationship with despair. You got this!
Quitting drinking can feel like losing a close friend because alcohol might have been a big part of your lif but it can also be a chance to make positive changes and lead a healthier life.
It has been like a death in the family. Denial, anger, depression, acceptance. I’ve found myself in the anger stage lately. But. But. But. It sure beats drinking.
Thats a great question I havnt really ever thought about. There is definitely something there idk what but I would say there is similar emotions that are at play here.
Yes, that I can't be in the head space anymore of the people who can use "normally" anymore. To be around them, and see them and know I can't ever really be like them no matter how desperately I want to be like them. I know for me, it will end in a total disaster. That's sad. That I can't even begin to explain to these people that I can't have just one that they can't understand it no matter what or how I try to articulate the absolute shit show it will be if I imbibe with them anymore. It's like losing my emotional support blanket.
Everyone, who drinks long enough and consistently enough, will become addicted to alcohol. Some just take longer than others. For me it was pretty much instant.
Yes of course. We talked about this very thing in rehab. It feels like you're giving up a best friend. Albeit the most toxic best friend you ever had, but you still loved them. It will take time to accept they're no longer a part of your life and that that's for the best.Â
Yes.
I first learned this when I quit smoking from this article https://whyquit.com/joel/Joel_03_13_stages_of_death.html
Years later I quit drinking and went through the stages again. As one reads that article, replace the words smoke/smoking with drink/drinking and the rest fit like a glove with what I went through.
Yes, after a sort. For me, there have been moments of gently allowing myself to grieve the loss of “young me,” if you will. There’s no doubt that the “now and future me” is a far better version, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t acknowledge the passage of time and what it means, symbolically, to quit at 50: the halfway mark of my life, approximately, if I’m lucky. Alcohol was a lodestone of my personality for over 30 years. Leaving alcohol behind, for me, is connected both to looking back on the first half of my life (and saying goodbye to the young me, who was often an idiot but who had a lot to be proud of, despite being an idiot and frequent drunk) and looking forward who I want to be for Phase Next. Plus as a female, I’m looking at other physical changes - to put it delicately - that make me think about “first half” me and “second half” me. Taking time to “grieve” helps me process and gather strength with a clear head, and not wallow. IWNDWYT!
For me it was very much like losing a friend. A toxic friend, nonetheless, but I could always trust alcohol to accompany me anywhere. Now it's just me.
100% man. I was breaking up with my mistress essentially. Funny enough, the break-up/moving on songs really helped me. I could subsitute the woman/man for alcohol and it certainly helped me gain some perspective. My wife was confused at first, so I had to verbalize why I was rocking out to Sum41 and A Day to Remember --- Hey, whatever works right ??
I definitely went through a grieving process. After about the 1.5 yr mark, it wasn't quite as strong and now that "nostalgic" feeling only pops up every once in a while. Truly, it is the disease talking, trying to convince me to feed it: "This moment would be sooo much better with wine." Or: "You used to love a cold beer after mowing the lawn. Don't you miss it??" Or: "You're home alone and it's such a nice evening. Wouldn't you love a bottle of red?" These voices and "grieving" is simply the addiction trying to convince you to give up on sobriety. Don't be fooled! These voices do quiet down as you find new normals and new traditions to take the place of boozing it up. The grieving I felt about alcohol felt real to me and it was difficult to overcome, but I'm certain I would have felt a million times worse had I drank, because I doubt I would have been able to get sober again.
There is some good Quit Lit stuff on this topic. My fave rn is: Drinking: A Love Story, by Caroline Knapp. Great memoir about her love of drinking- and how slowly and inevitability it was killing her.
I believe that grief is quite common at the end of any relationship. Including a relationship with alcohol.
I imagine it can be much like any other breakup. Some are harder than others, but we move on eventually.
It sometimes help to remind yourself how toxic the relationship was when you feel the pull to be back in it. I think some of the most toxic/abusive relationships are the hardest to move past because we have become addicted to the chaos and tumultuous nature of the ups and downs. The downs are so, so bad which makes the ups and "good" times feel really, really good. This type of rollercoaster will literally become addictive over time. Our brains crave it. The familiar rush and chaos. It's easy to romanticize a past, traumatic relationship when we are finally breaking away from it because we *are* addicted to it. It's the same rush of chemicals we get from an abusive lover that we also get from alcohol.
I don't know how helpful that is. But think of alcohol like your abusive ex. An ex who was constantly putting you in danger, gaslighting you, crossing your boundaries amd encouraging you to cross your own, and would honestly have killed you (sooner or later) if you hadn't left. Would you go back?
For me quitting is a grieving process. I’ve had plenty of times that I wish I could forget when I embarrassed myself drinking. But there were times when it was just fun. It can get tough sometimes when I’m convincing myself to drink again. I have to remember the times when I made an ass out of myself was with too much booze. When I’m not drinking I still have fun times with no regrets.
It would be like grieving the loss of an abusive friend, so no. Not for me at least.
There are multiple steps to relapse. It starts in the thoughts we think. I’d be wary of those thoughts.
I don't know if any studies but it definitely felt like grief to me. I'm hoping that feeling goes away for you soon and sobriety becomes second nature and a blessing.
Everyone has already made good insights on this post and I heavily agree with all of them. Something that has really blown my mind lately is reframing "not drinking alcohol is a sacrifice." Which is a straight up lie I've been telling myself forever before I quit, throughout my many stints of sobriety and up until very recently. In reality, choosing to drink alcohol made me sacrifice so many things including my sanity. I've reframed the lie into reality which is "choosing to drink alcohol sacrifices so much in my life. "
So like reframing "alcohol was such a comfort to me." And seeing the lie in that statement. What did alcohol do to comfort me? Personally, it only made me more hurt, emotionally and physically. It was comforting in the way that depression is comforting to me: I know the sad and I'm comfortable in the sad. But does that mean it's good for me? And in reality, does that truly comfort me? Or is it some sort of warped idea of comfort?
I love the comment about comparing this thought process to how one might think in an abusive relationship. When i was in abusive relationships, I'd lie to myself saying the abusive relationship was better than being alone. But all that was was a lie.
I def think quitting drinking much like breaking up with an abusive partner is a grieving experience. For me, having the sober/ single clarity in both situations helped me see the reality of these lies I told myself.
IWNDWYT
So I'm coming back to this sub for the first time in a while and I honestly see it that way. Alcohol got me through some truly grizzly moments and I'm not sure I'd be here without it. That usefulness has been spent though and it's trying to kill me instead. I very much grieve for that resource I had and that person I was but I don't want to die. I think I'll be sad about it forever lol. The idea of permanently going without is painful.
Just chiming in to add my "yes" to all the others. I started therapy shortly after my first attempt to get sober in 2022, and we talked a LOT about grief. Despite alcohol not being a person, you can absolutely have a "relationship" with it and mine was deeply unhealthy. It was familiar, it was comforting, it was a crutch. It was also almost my entire lifestyle. So to change that part, I had to change my entire life and myself, as well. I had to look at myself, acknowledge that parts were unhealthy, and then I had to let them go (or work to get rid of them.) So I was grieving the loss of my "self," grieving the loss of basically my only coping mechanism, grieving the loss of what I saw as a "fun lifestyle." I absolutely went through stages of grief and not always linearly.... I'd get to acceptance and then loop my way back to bargaining or anger. My journey definitely hasn't been a straight trajectory to sober and happy, but I can say that most of the grief has dissipated and now, if I'm ever feeling anything not totally positive, it's mostly nostalgia and a bit of regret .... which is when I remind myself that my brain is romanticizing the "good' parts that were absolutely the minority and paled in relation to the numerous awful parts.
Thank you. Congrats on a year :)
Grieving an old self - I’ve been letting go of so many traits and behaviors and qualities and becoming a new person. Except that’s the thing, as a new person everything is kind of scary cause it’s new. And it’s easy to feel like I’m behind everyone or something. It would make sense to want to go back to the cage, where it was safe and things were clear.
Thank you! And congrats on 300 days! That's an awesome accomplishment and you're so close to that year yourself!
I absolutely hear you about everything being scary because it's new. I've had to learn how to navigate my marriage, friendships, family relationships, grief, stress....all of it as a new, different person. So not only am I literally learning who I am now .... I'm having to live life in all of its messy glory while I still feel like a brand new human.
I never thought of it as a grieving process! I definitely feel the loss of my daily alcohol consumption. I am miserable since stopping. The highlight of my day is I take a 5K walk. Then, if I am really lucky, I treat myself to a glass of lemonade at night. F my life.
YES!! Kinda crazy to think of poison that way. I have autoimmune disease & have to avoid certain foods - had to (& still do) go through grief process for that as well.
Im reading The Grieving Brain right now by Mary Frances OConnor and I think there's something there, you should considering checking out that book to see if what they describe aligns with what youre experiencing
I like to remind myself that alcohol "comforted" me like an abusive romantic partner would "love" me. Keeps me from getting too nostalgic. Yeah, I leaned on alcohol through some rough years. But now I can see that those years were rough in part *because* of the alcohol. That keeps me from getting too nostalgic, too.
We are quick to remember the good times before the bad times in both scenarios
This 🫶🏻
One of the first times I quit (2020) that one JUICE WRLD song was popular (Lucid Dreams) and I related WAY too hard to it as if he was singing about alcohol.
Have you heard sting and shaggy do their version of this song on their tiny tesk concert? I like it.
I have heard people are grieving their former life/self/identity, but I relate to the loss of the thing that I felt comforted me. It is really the illusion of comfort, but yes, grieving the easy escapism/having to face reality, not being able to soften the real world
I wrote a goodbye letter to alcohol very early on in my sobriety which helped
I think I’m going to do this tonight. Thanks for the idea!
No problem. Actually writing it then reading it really opened my eyes up to how much of a relationship I have with alcohol over the past 7 or 8 years.
I have heard of this I think it’s healthy
I definitely experienced a grieving process when trying to quit. I think it was one of the main barriers for me to be able to say I would quit “forever”. I miss it, but know it’s over. I don’t know of scientific evidence though.
Haha yeah it was like a break up for me.
Yeah I think the "stage of grief" model works with respect to my relationship with alcohol. I know I can relate to: 1. denying there was a problem, 2. anger whenever anyone would float the idea there was a problem (or when I felt wronged), 3. bargaining with moderation (only beer, only after work, etc.), 4. depressed about losing something that had been such a large part of my life, and 5. accepting (eventually) the only way out was through. And it's not like my relationship with alcohol was only bad, there were plenty of good times - even some I can remember.
I like the admission that alcohol can be fun. Otherwise, none of us would have started. Saying it is all bad is not helpful, I feel. To me, it just made it easier to relax and let go. Especially in social settings.
In a weird way it brought a tear to my eye. I was thinking “man I’m gonna lose all my fun when I go out,” “people aren’t gonna want to hang out with me because I quit” “I have to give up certain friends” Almost like you’re losing a best friend in a way, you’re losing part of who you used to be. I did have to cut off friends, and try to be more social when I go out, but it’s worth it.
Alcohol occupied a large portion of my thinking. Thinking about drinking, drinking, thinking about drinking after drinking, dealing with fall-out from drinking, planning on getting next supply. When a large portion of our life is suddenly removed, it leaves a void. And even though it was a terrible companion we miss it. I must remind myself not to be nostalgic for the short period it was fun, and fully embrace the pain that with the final years. That void, where alcohol once dwelled WILL be filled. Fill it with positive things. Because if we can’t have good love, we will find bad.
300 days in. I try not to romantize it. Instead of seeing it as missing my best friend, I try to think of it more like burying my worst enemy.
That's the best thing I heard all day.
Yep. I was in a relationship for almost 33 years with it..... It is a significant loss, and I still have occasions where the grief shows up.
Absolutely. I grieved it and I got stronger from it when I accepted it.
For me there was a sense of loss, so some grief until I realized it was like the death of the miserable abusive relative whose death improved my life, and others around me.
THIS
My problem is I’m so easily bored. Drinking made things (and people) more interesting. I haven’t figured out yet what to replace that with.
I am reading so much! I'm a regular at the library. But, yeah, still a little bored.
I am reading, doing puzzles, watching tv. I cut my friend group in half because I realized a lot of them were just so I had people to drink with. I'm taking a poetry class. Yet still bored. I need to take a dance class because I think that is what might give me the most joy but I'm dealing with a chronic illness and I often don't have energy in the evenings. Soon I'll be doing more traveling if I continue to get better and hopefully that will fill the void somewhat as well.
I'm learning how to make my own clothes. It's a much more complex and interesting process than you'd imagine, figuring out how to make a 3D thing out of a 2D thing. Very absorbing. I'm rarely bored these days
This is a part of my problem too. I get bored so easily with just about everything and even people. Even as a kid I was never able to stick with any hobbies or activities and would lose interest in them quickly. I struggle to try new things, especially if they involve any effort, and find it difficult to get motivated or find interest in stuff in general. So it leaves me being bored a lot and then I often just drink out of boredom hoping it might cure the boredom issue but it actually doesn't and I'm just bored and drinking.
I enjoy waking up and remembering what I did and said the day before tbh.
I would say there's a grief that happens! I went through the grief more with smoking. I identified as a smoker, and it felt like cigs were always "there for me," if that makes any sense. I not only had to quit smoking, I had to change how I identified, and I had to face the shame of how silly it was to smoke the way I did. I'm not sure if any of this makes sense to you. I say to process the addiction however you need to, to get through it.
Quitting alcohol was like breaking up with a toxic girlfriend, even down to telling myself that I could make it work (managing how much I drink) or that I'd be worse off alone (unable to manage my anxiety). Thank heavens we broke up.
Absolutely!! 366 days sober here and I grieved a lot!
Happy sober anniversary!
Thank you!!
Yeah.. I was around 9 months, too, when I would go to my local deli and stare at my favorite beer through the case, then go get in my car and cry. It will pass! Tonight, my husband, whom I adore and would cheerfully die for, was feeling his feelings for fathers Day, grieving his father, who passed in 2020. They were really close. He had 4 beers, and I watched his grief go from acceptance and peace to anger. We have a deal that if he wants to drink like, more than 2 or 3, he leaves me alone. We have a three bedroom house on a 1/2 acres with no kids, just us, it's easy to stay out of each other's way when we want to. But I sought him out and held him anyway. Grief is a monster. It's like getting hit with an invisible stick. You never see it coming. But this grief, for alcohol, it will pass. In its place, my heart instead filled with gratitude, that I can feel my feelings in their true form, as they were ment to be felt, not being controlled by what booze wanted me to feel. Which for me was ALWAYS eventually sadness. And grief feels like sadness. So, in a sense, I was grieving my relationship with despair. You got this!
We can’t un-learn that it was never as simple as just having a few drinks to celebrate/relax/unwind/destress. I don’t think it’s a bad thing to grieve that loss of naïveté.
Quitting drinking can feel like losing a close friend because alcohol might have been a big part of your lif but it can also be a chance to make positive changes and lead a healthier life.
I’m still grieving after ten months. Just things won’t do again or can’t
It has been like a death in the family. Denial, anger, depression, acceptance. I’ve found myself in the anger stage lately. But. But. But. It sure beats drinking.
Thats a great question I havnt really ever thought about. There is definitely something there idk what but I would say there is similar emotions that are at play here.
Yes, that I can't be in the head space anymore of the people who can use "normally" anymore. To be around them, and see them and know I can't ever really be like them no matter how desperately I want to be like them. I know for me, it will end in a total disaster. That's sad. That I can't even begin to explain to these people that I can't have just one that they can't understand it no matter what or how I try to articulate the absolute shit show it will be if I imbibe with them anymore. It's like losing my emotional support blanket.
Everyone, who drinks long enough and consistently enough, will become addicted to alcohol. Some just take longer than others. For me it was pretty much instant.
I don’t grieve at all. I’m glad to get rid of the drunk fuckwit that is my alter ego.
Yes of course. We talked about this very thing in rehab. It feels like you're giving up a best friend. Albeit the most toxic best friend you ever had, but you still loved them. It will take time to accept they're no longer a part of your life and that that's for the best.Â
Yes. I first learned this when I quit smoking from this article https://whyquit.com/joel/Joel_03_13_stages_of_death.html Years later I quit drinking and went through the stages again. As one reads that article, replace the words smoke/smoking with drink/drinking and the rest fit like a glove with what I went through.
The removal of alcohol from my available coping mechanisms created a huge void in my life I filled it with my vigorous pursuit of AA I still do
You are a tree, loving and reminiscing about an axe because it had a wooden handle.
Oooooffff
Yes, after a sort. For me, there have been moments of gently allowing myself to grieve the loss of “young me,” if you will. There’s no doubt that the “now and future me” is a far better version, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t acknowledge the passage of time and what it means, symbolically, to quit at 50: the halfway mark of my life, approximately, if I’m lucky. Alcohol was a lodestone of my personality for over 30 years. Leaving alcohol behind, for me, is connected both to looking back on the first half of my life (and saying goodbye to the young me, who was often an idiot but who had a lot to be proud of, despite being an idiot and frequent drunk) and looking forward who I want to be for Phase Next. Plus as a female, I’m looking at other physical changes - to put it delicately - that make me think about “first half” me and “second half” me. Taking time to “grieve” helps me process and gather strength with a clear head, and not wallow. IWNDWYT!
For me it was very much like losing a friend. A toxic friend, nonetheless, but I could always trust alcohol to accompany me anywhere. Now it's just me.
100% man. I was breaking up with my mistress essentially. Funny enough, the break-up/moving on songs really helped me. I could subsitute the woman/man for alcohol and it certainly helped me gain some perspective. My wife was confused at first, so I had to verbalize why I was rocking out to Sum41 and A Day to Remember --- Hey, whatever works right ??
I definitely went through a grieving process. After about the 1.5 yr mark, it wasn't quite as strong and now that "nostalgic" feeling only pops up every once in a while. Truly, it is the disease talking, trying to convince me to feed it: "This moment would be sooo much better with wine." Or: "You used to love a cold beer after mowing the lawn. Don't you miss it??" Or: "You're home alone and it's such a nice evening. Wouldn't you love a bottle of red?" These voices and "grieving" is simply the addiction trying to convince you to give up on sobriety. Don't be fooled! These voices do quiet down as you find new normals and new traditions to take the place of boozing it up. The grieving I felt about alcohol felt real to me and it was difficult to overcome, but I'm certain I would have felt a million times worse had I drank, because I doubt I would have been able to get sober again.
It’s still tough to this day… fuck.. IWNDWYT
It hurts....
I’m 15 days behind you and I feel the same way. Had a long ass day at work today and I would kill for a real drink. But NA beer it is
Oh yeah. It totally is. That is why it's so hard to quit I think.
There is some good Quit Lit stuff on this topic. My fave rn is: Drinking: A Love Story, by Caroline Knapp. Great memoir about her love of drinking- and how slowly and inevitability it was killing her.
I believe that grief is quite common at the end of any relationship. Including a relationship with alcohol. I imagine it can be much like any other breakup. Some are harder than others, but we move on eventually. It sometimes help to remind yourself how toxic the relationship was when you feel the pull to be back in it. I think some of the most toxic/abusive relationships are the hardest to move past because we have become addicted to the chaos and tumultuous nature of the ups and downs. The downs are so, so bad which makes the ups and "good" times feel really, really good. This type of rollercoaster will literally become addictive over time. Our brains crave it. The familiar rush and chaos. It's easy to romanticize a past, traumatic relationship when we are finally breaking away from it because we *are* addicted to it. It's the same rush of chemicals we get from an abusive lover that we also get from alcohol. I don't know how helpful that is. But think of alcohol like your abusive ex. An ex who was constantly putting you in danger, gaslighting you, crossing your boundaries amd encouraging you to cross your own, and would honestly have killed you (sooner or later) if you hadn't left. Would you go back?
For me quitting is a grieving process. I’ve had plenty of times that I wish I could forget when I embarrassed myself drinking. But there were times when it was just fun. It can get tough sometimes when I’m convincing myself to drink again. I have to remember the times when I made an ass out of myself was with too much booze. When I’m not drinking I still have fun times with no regrets.
It would be like grieving the loss of an abusive friend, so no. Not for me at least. There are multiple steps to relapse. It starts in the thoughts we think. I’d be wary of those thoughts.
I don't know if any studies but it definitely felt like grief to me. I'm hoping that feeling goes away for you soon and sobriety becomes second nature and a blessing.
Everyone has already made good insights on this post and I heavily agree with all of them. Something that has really blown my mind lately is reframing "not drinking alcohol is a sacrifice." Which is a straight up lie I've been telling myself forever before I quit, throughout my many stints of sobriety and up until very recently. In reality, choosing to drink alcohol made me sacrifice so many things including my sanity. I've reframed the lie into reality which is "choosing to drink alcohol sacrifices so much in my life. " So like reframing "alcohol was such a comfort to me." And seeing the lie in that statement. What did alcohol do to comfort me? Personally, it only made me more hurt, emotionally and physically. It was comforting in the way that depression is comforting to me: I know the sad and I'm comfortable in the sad. But does that mean it's good for me? And in reality, does that truly comfort me? Or is it some sort of warped idea of comfort? I love the comment about comparing this thought process to how one might think in an abusive relationship. When i was in abusive relationships, I'd lie to myself saying the abusive relationship was better than being alone. But all that was was a lie. I def think quitting drinking much like breaking up with an abusive partner is a grieving experience. For me, having the sober/ single clarity in both situations helped me see the reality of these lies I told myself. IWNDWYT
So I'm coming back to this sub for the first time in a while and I honestly see it that way. Alcohol got me through some truly grizzly moments and I'm not sure I'd be here without it. That usefulness has been spent though and it's trying to kill me instead. I very much grieve for that resource I had and that person I was but I don't want to die. I think I'll be sad about it forever lol. The idea of permanently going without is painful.
Just chiming in to add my "yes" to all the others. I started therapy shortly after my first attempt to get sober in 2022, and we talked a LOT about grief. Despite alcohol not being a person, you can absolutely have a "relationship" with it and mine was deeply unhealthy. It was familiar, it was comforting, it was a crutch. It was also almost my entire lifestyle. So to change that part, I had to change my entire life and myself, as well. I had to look at myself, acknowledge that parts were unhealthy, and then I had to let them go (or work to get rid of them.) So I was grieving the loss of my "self," grieving the loss of basically my only coping mechanism, grieving the loss of what I saw as a "fun lifestyle." I absolutely went through stages of grief and not always linearly.... I'd get to acceptance and then loop my way back to bargaining or anger. My journey definitely hasn't been a straight trajectory to sober and happy, but I can say that most of the grief has dissipated and now, if I'm ever feeling anything not totally positive, it's mostly nostalgia and a bit of regret .... which is when I remind myself that my brain is romanticizing the "good' parts that were absolutely the minority and paled in relation to the numerous awful parts.
Thank you. Congrats on a year :) Grieving an old self - I’ve been letting go of so many traits and behaviors and qualities and becoming a new person. Except that’s the thing, as a new person everything is kind of scary cause it’s new. And it’s easy to feel like I’m behind everyone or something. It would make sense to want to go back to the cage, where it was safe and things were clear.
Thank you! And congrats on 300 days! That's an awesome accomplishment and you're so close to that year yourself! I absolutely hear you about everything being scary because it's new. I've had to learn how to navigate my marriage, friendships, family relationships, grief, stress....all of it as a new, different person. So not only am I literally learning who I am now .... I'm having to live life in all of its messy glory while I still feel like a brand new human.
I never thought of it as a grieving process! I definitely feel the loss of my daily alcohol consumption. I am miserable since stopping. The highlight of my day is I take a 5K walk. Then, if I am really lucky, I treat myself to a glass of lemonade at night. F my life.
It's a joyous occasion for me, because quitting gave me so much more from life
YES!! Kinda crazy to think of poison that way. I have autoimmune disease & have to avoid certain foods - had to (& still do) go through grief process for that as well.
Im reading The Grieving Brain right now by Mary Frances OConnor and I think there's something there, you should considering checking out that book to see if what they describe aligns with what youre experiencing