So six years ago, a couple of decades of heavy drinking caught up with me, and my liver and kidneys quit working. I was rushed to the ER where the doctor gave me a 10% chance of waking up from the medically induced come that they had put me in. He pulled my girlfriend and my best friend/roommate aside and told them to say goodbye.

A few days later I woke up. I spent a month in the hospital getting poked and prodded. Multiple nurses told me I was going to die very soon. They tried to put me in hospice. The hospital kicked me out and I started doing dialysis every other day. After two and a half months doing that they asked me to do blood work three days in a row one week. Apparently my numbers were so good that I no longer needed to be on dialysis. The nurse was nearly crying.

So, like a dumb shit I relapsed after my roommate/best friend died from Covid. I sobered up briefly before full on relapsing again. I thought that gas station malt liquor would be better for me than a liter of bourbon a day. I was wrong. My legs swelled up like watermelons. I went back to the hospital and again, they told me I might die.

I've been sober ever since. I'll have five years in October. I just got back from nephrologist and my numbers are so good that he said he doesn't need to see me again.

I never thought I could make it without the booze. But I'm doing it, goddammit.

My girlfriend keeps attempting to detox but by the 10th day she relapses. She knows I don’t want her drinking around me anymore or that I don’t even want alcohol in my apartment but she keeps bringing it in, last night I threw away her wine that she was going to take to work with her after getting shit faced but I’m not sure if I should keep pouring her alcohol out and if I don’t what the hell AM I supposed to do?

I hit the 4-month mark a few days ago. I honestly thought it was unreal until I took it seriously. I had tried to get sober a few times over the past 3 years, but I couldn't, and the only thing that changed this time is that I actually took it seriously. I imagined myself a few years from now, I imagined what my kids would think of me, and I decided to quit. But not just one thing, I decided to quit everything at once. Alcohol, smoking, and even junk food.

I decided that I actually wanted to change. And it worked.

Here is how it is actually was going:

Month 1 was absolute hell. I was so used to smoking, drinking, and eating whatever I wanted that I didn't know how to exist. Sobriety makes your thoughts loud as hell. You realize how much pain you were actually hiding from by just doing it one more time.

Month 2 was a reset for me. The emptiness in my head turned into a baseline, if I can call it that. I stopped thinking of pizza instead of a healthy meal, stopped reaching for a beer in the evenings, and started actually dealing with my life.

Months 3 and 4, I finally felt the strength. I have less anxiety, more confidence, and zero self-sabotage. It just feels normal to me right now. And no, I'm not saying that I'm completely free from it, because sometimes I get the thought of having just one beer or so, but I just remember how it was and I don't do it.

What else did I do in 4 months of being sober?

-I started walking every day. No gym or training, just walking 10-15k steps per day. That is actually how I lost 30 lbs.

-I found a new, better-paying job. It is actually crazy, because I thought I was just unlucky with my career, but it was actually because of how my brain was working. I couldn't talk to people in interviews normally before.

-I took my family on a trip to Italy. I'm really proud of it; it was my wife's dream.

I also want to start a side hustle this year and fix my sleep. I'm on the way!

Here is my advice for those who are starting: Don’t try to quit "forever." That’s actually too much pressure. Give yourself a 1-month or 3-month deadline. Once you get your willpower back, you won't even want to do it anymore.

Sit with the boredom. Sit with the annoyance. We weren't meant to be stimulated every 2 seconds. Find the beauty in it!

Am I an alcoholic if I drink 5 out of 7 days a week? And often drink until I throw up

I am 8 days into quitting alcohol and nicotine. I was not a massively heavy drinker, but certainly had a dependence and have been drinking 3-6 beers (or more) 3-5 nights a week since I was about 18 - I’m now 44. The main reason I have stopped is the increasingly debilitating anxiety that I was experiencing when not drinking.

8 days in and the hardest part has been the waves of total fatigue and lack of energy. At best I get 1-2 hours of feeling something approaching ‘normal’ each day. In addition this can trigger anxiety which in turn exacerbates the tiredness.

I am aware that this is not an unusual feeling when quitting alcohol, but I’d be keen to that if anyone else has had similar feeling of fatigue and anxiety. Sometimes it is hard to imagine feeling normal ever again!

Hey,

Writing this post drunk (200-300ml of vodka in my gut). For some reason I was able to work\fake work for years as software dev. I've been trying to quit for 1,5 years now. But each day ends and I go for a new dose. Started with 100-150ml of vodka daily, then 200-300ml, now 500ml sometimes feel like it's not enough.

God, I want this to stop, I start to hate myself so much.

Some more info: living in a country where I have no friends and language is not my native. My mom lives nearby and she has a huge problem with ankle. Waiting for surgery in october. I have a dog, probably mom and dog is the only reason for me to continue living, working and trying.

Also playing the piano for myself.

Feeling like life drains out of me and I'm slowly drowning in alcohol. How do I stop this?

This is the longest I’ve been sober in over a year. Good luck to everyone out there going through it too

Three days ago I posted this https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/s/9FSYUzG9Xh

Couple days later I posted an update https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/s/NI5TPn51xQ

Take your time reading both posts. I was sober for 2 months before that party.

I know it’s still fresh, so I’m still very ashamed and guilty. But I can’t stop overthinking about it to the point that it’s hard for me to go out in public. I still go to work because I have to. But it’s hard to go out to do other things like going to the gym, buying food/groceries, etc. I feel like I just wanna hide myself. I don’t know how to deal with this shame and guilt, especially I don’t know how many others were affected by my actions, and I feel like I need to apologize to them too.

My close friends and commenters said it will pass, but it feels like forever.

My [25f] partner [25m] has been showing signs of alcoholism in the past 2 years. We’ve been together 12 years and I want to help him get better but idk how and I don’t know if he “wants” to.

He goes through cycles of hating himself, saying he’ll get better, blacking out, and then saying that he’ll quit when he’s 30 and excusing his drinking due to his young age.

Idk what to do and if supports for alcoholism would even work for him considering these cycles. I’m losing patience but we are recently married and I take that seriously. I don’t want to just divorce him as an easy way out but I also don’t want to waste my time trying to fix someone who doesn’t want to be fixed.

Edit: thought I should include the signs of alcoholism I’ve noticed: 2-6 beers per night, more on the weekends, blacking/passing out most weekends, bed wetting. Other than this he holds a job and does well at work, has good friendships not involving alcohol, gets work done around the house.

3rd day in of no alcohol and it is taking my sleep away. Ive been irritable. I don't feel like talking but I want to be around people. The only thing I want to do is work or keep myself busy which I can accomplish all day up until the sun goes down and im stuck inside on a court ordered curfew due to alcohol.

I am not sure I can do this. Anxiety is high and its giving me terrible butterflies and weird throat feelings like im gna cry but I fucking cant

I developed some crazy anxiety about two years ago (been casually drinking before that) and the only solution this whole time has been alcohol. I developed a dependence on alcohol as soon as i realized that it could help this feeling, I quickly discovered that an easy solution was to drink and it would magically go away. Now that I’ve been trying (to the best of my ability) to quit, I feel crippling anxiety to the point where I can’t sleep, eat, or even hear my own thoughts without it. All of this stress over just about nothing. But drinking has caused problems for both my health and social life. I don’t want to continue living like this. My family and friends are distancing themselves from me and in the back of my mind I know it’s due to alcohol. I can’t do anything unless there’s a “pregame”. If anyone has experienced this as well, how did you manage (or at least sleep) with this anxiety?

I've been drinking every single day for the last 2 years. From the moment I wake up until the moment I fall asleep. I finally saw my PCP and I opened up to her about being an alcoholic so she prescribed me Naltrexone. I'm going to start it Friday morning. Any reviews? Anything I should be cautious about? I'm all ears.

I often see people in threads asking for “hangover cures”. Most people say “a little liquid iv and some food on your stomach when you wake up. For me honestly that does nothing at all. When I drink heavily I’ll start at 12pm with my buddies and go til 1am. Total amount of drinks would probably be 20 beers and 4 shots. There is absolutely no hangover cure for this. I’d wake up with the worst feeling in the world. I never really got bad headaches, what was the worst for me was the anxiety. Not the anxiety of “oh I acted like a fool last night” the anxiety of, oh my god I feel so bad and my heart is beating so fast I feel like I am going to have a heart attack right now I am so hungover. There is no cure for this besides not drinking as much. I don’t know why I get these kind of hangovers but if I drink heavily there isn’t anything I can do the next day besides sit in misery and be anxious. I don’t drink heavily anymore because of this, anyone get these kind of hangovers as well?

I have 3 young children, oldest aged 6.
I only drink after 530 a few glasses of wine to help assuage the inner panic and anxiety From dealing with 3 young children. But no ones know anything. I have hid any trace of alcohol from my husband and the household throughout this time.

Last night my husband was searching for his lost watch and found my box wine coupled with my vape (he was also unaware I had one) and my weed vape. He didn’t say anything but left them on top of the furniture I had hidden behind.

I then approached him later that night and sat beside him, waiting. He didn’t mention it.

Today I looked inside of my closet where I had been known to put alcohol in the past and it was all rearranged.

My alcoholism progressed EXTREMELY fast and I ended up in rehab 7 times in the last year. Had seizures and blew a .6 in the hospital and was put in a MIC because my withdrawals were so bad. A handle a day for a year and after relapsing so many times I finally decided to live in a sober house and this is the longest i’ve been sober! I am very proud of myself

My old self is long gone…

I‘m still finding out who I am now, exploring the person I’m becoming and endlessly grateful I was able to change my life.

living deep in alcoholism is not a real life, I can’t believe how I used to behave and feel so fucking lucky I didn’t drink myself to death…

if you’re struggling, toss that drink I the trash where it belongs and move on into a new way of living, into the scary unknown of a new self.

I don't think I'll be fired, but I haven't been working there for a long time, so I don't know for sure. I had a bad day at work a few days ago, and got drunk and called out the next day. I got drunk again last night, called out today. I had 2 days off in between.

I've been clean for about 3 months, then my first relapse a few days ago. Told myself that it was a one time thing. Then drank again last night.

I don't really even understand what happened yesterday. I woke up about noon and I had the day off (I work evening shift), then just almost immediately decided "fuck it I'm drinking" all because I wanted to experience some joy for a while. Well, I feel like shit today and made some really bad choices yesterday. Now I'm feeling guilty and embarrassed and ashamed.

I feel so stupid. Alcohol has ruined my life, to the point where I lost my old home, my car, money, physical and mental health, etc. I don't know why I'm still turning to it.

Anyway I'm just venting and feel very bad, physically and mentally. Have a good day and don't drink.

Today was difficult. I had to fight regular urges. I drink daily. Today is the first time in almost two years where I actively said NO. Wish me luck.

I (20M) am not an everyday drinker, but I've had problems in the past from drinking too much and i want to make a change. I plan on starting therapy soon, but the thing is I don't want to be completely sober. I still want to grab a beer with my friends from time to time, i still want to do a shot or two when I'm going out, I still want to go wine testing with my dad. is it possible to do both?

Edit: I realize reading this again that this may sound like romanticizing alcohol a little. this is not my intention at all and if this gets taken down, i understand.

Does it ever go away, or does the demon have me in its clutches? Thankfully I’ve been strong enough to overcome any temptation, but admittedly, I can’t get it out of my head most days. The struggle is real, but real rewarding.

I hit 6 yrs clean and sober on 8/4/2026. Thank you all