One year, one trip around the ☀️

https://www.reddit.com/r/stopdrinking/comments/1igodyn/one_year_one_trip_around_the/

created by WolfCurrent5198 on 03/02/2025 at 12:53 UTC*

28 upvotes, 6 top-level comments (showing 6)

I’ve been looking forward to the opportunity to write this post for a long time. I haven’t had a drink in one year. One full trip around the sun.

The reason it took me a couple days to write this since the one year anniversary is because my wife and I welcomed our first child this past week. Our beautiful baby boy has been keeping us busy.

I can’t express to you all how blessed I feel. How proud of myself I feel. How grateful I am for my amazing wife, for my friends and family that love and support me, for this group.

This stopdrinking community is special. It has provided a safe space to read first hand accounts from other folks that resonated with me, made me feel like others understood what I was going through - how deep the pain was, how hard it was to stop, how I just wanted to be better. That’s the thing I love about this group is that we’re all just humans who are trying to better themselves, and that’s a quality in a community of people that I will always relate to and ride with.

It’s easier to keep on going being a subpar version of yourself - this world is tough and, as we grow up, we find all the pain and darkness that’s in the world. It’s hard to create real positive change for yourself, to move toward a better version of yourself, to look for the light where there is darkness. It takes discipline, hope, self love, forgiveness, bravery. All of you that are here and reading this post share these qualities. You’ve seen the darkness and yet you’re still out there searching for the light. And that’s fucking beautiful.

I drank nearly every day from 18-33 years old, and it became 6-10 drinks every night over the last several years before I stopped. For those looking for inspiration, I told my wife (then girlfriend) 5-6 years ago that I thought I had a problem and it was getting tough to control. I wrote that a lot in journal entries back then. I was really struggling to stop. For years. I believe that all those years of self reflecting, realizing that I was hurting myself and others I loved, that I could be a better version of myself, that it wasn’t cool or fun to drink like this like society/my upbringing had lied to me about, finally ended up sitting in. I wish I would have stopped years ago, but the point I’m trying to articulate is that just the fact that you’re here means you are putting in the work. You are realizing you’re not the best version of yourself and are somewhere on your own personal journey of working out how you can be accountable and change. Keep going, those reps will eventually pay off.

As others who have posted, when you stop drinking for a longer period of time, it still won’t solve everything. I was numbing a lot of pain for years. Childhood pain. Mistakes I made that hurt others. Regret, shame, a lack of self love. That all came to the surface more after I stopped drinking. But as others have shared, it’s so much easier to handle life, to work on yourself more gracefully, to look at the world with gratitude, to find peace. I’m constantly still trying to forget the past, live in the present, and be grateful for what I have. It’s still hard. But I’m finally growing, I’m improving, I’m proud of myself, I have higher self esteem, my wife is proud of me, I’m healthier mentally and physically. Trust me when I tell you that it’s not easy, but it’s been so worth it.

The last thing I’ll say is that I believe a lot of this lies with healing through self-compassion. I still haven’t fully found self-love. Maybe it will always be an ongoing journey. But I believe a big reason I was able to stop drinking was because I wanted to finally start living, I tried to tell myself I was worth this investment. I did it for me, that I deserved to see if this life could be better and more fulfilling than the self-destructive rut I was in. I stopped for my health, for my body, for my mind, so that this potentially healthier version of me could better be there for myself and my family and friends, that I might be able to live more closely to the person I want to be every day. That I might be able to find some peace.

Thank you to you all. I’m very grateful for this sub. Keep going, you’re beautiful, you’re worth it. Love you guys ❤️

Comments

Comment by Alkoholfrei22605 at 03/02/2025 at 13:02 UTC

2 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Bravo on 1 year! You are worth it. Congratulations to a beautiful wife and child.

Comment by DazeofGl0ry at 03/02/2025 at 13:03 UTC

2 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Woah! Congratulations on all of those wonderful things!

Comment by suilbup at 03/02/2025 at 13:13 UTC

2 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Congratulations! What a gift for your new child — a lifetime with a sober parent!

Godspeed, my friend.

Comment by Historical-Fox431 at 03/02/2025 at 13:25 UTC

2 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Congratulations on one year. A feat that surely can not go unnoticed. I'm happy that you were able to get there and now have the opportunity to be a more present parent for your newborn. Congratulations on the baby too! Another struggle but also so very worth it.