Hello, fellow Sobernauts!

Welcome to 'Tude Talk Tuesday, where you're invited to share what changes you've noticed in your attitudes and perspectives since you've gotten sober.

I once heard someone say "If a lot of other people can do it, so can you" and that resonated with me.

When I was faced with getting sober, it seemed like an impossible task. But then I found /r/stopdrinking and two things happened in rapid succession: 1) I finally read posts and comments from people who understood and experienced alcohol the way I understood and experienced alcohol and I suddenly felt like I was no longer alone and 2) I realized those people who drank like I did were now sober. They had found a way to leave drinking behind, and if they did it, I figured I might be able to as well.

So how about you? What convinced you you might be able to get sober?

Hello, fellow Sobernauts!

Welcome to 'Tude Talk Tuesday, where you're invited to share what changes you've noticed in your attitudes and perspectives since you've gotten sober.

I once heard someone say "we're ashamed of our [problematic relationship with alcohol]" and that resonated with me.

When I was drinking, and I was starting to suspect I might have a problem, I quickly developed a deep sense of shame. What was wrong with me? Why couldn't I stop? Why was I sneaking drinks? Why was I lying to the people I loved and who loved me? Why did I do [insert some embarassing/dangerous/upsetting event here] while I was blacked out last night?

Drinking caused me to do a lot of shameful things. How alcohol was able to take over my life made me feel weak and ashamed. I felt like a broken person. I felt like a leper.

Finding this community was one of the best things that ever happened in my life. Here people were sharing their shame, their fear, their guilt. I quickly realized I wasn't broken. I wasn't the only one like me. I wasn't alone. They eased my shame.

But even better, people shared their success, their journey, their struggles, and their victories. They shared their secrets to success and the pitfalls along the way. They gave me hope.

I'm 6 years into my journey and I've made a lot of healthy progress. But, at times, I still feel a little bit sad, or a little bit broken, or a little ashamed. But I have this entire community here to remind me that I'm not alone and that there is hope. Thanks, everyone!

So, how about you? What role did/does shame play in your life?

Hello, fellow Sobernauts!

Welcome to 'Tude Talk Tuesday, where you're invited to share what changes you've noticed in your attitudes and perspectives since you've gotten sober.

I once heard someone say "My definition of bad got worse" and that resonated with me.

As my drinking progressed, I found myself playing a never ending game of liquor limbo -- how low could I go? Every line in the sand I drew, every promise I made to myself to slow down or moderate, every principle I held dear I would ultimately discard in favor of taking that next drink. And as I cast aside all these things, I found my tolerance for "bad" needed to expand to accommodate the decline my life was taking.

I'm not going to say that my life suddenly got better when I got sober, but it certainly stopped getting worse.

So, how about you? How has your definition of bad changed in drinking and in sobriety?

Hello, fellow Sobernauts!

Welcome to 'Tude Talk Tuesday, where you're invited to share what changes you've noticed in your attitudes and perspectives since you've gotten sober.

I once heard someone say "I think it's cool to be part of a group that wants to do better" and that resonated with me.

Early in my drinking, I began to seek out those who drank like I did and that was pretty much one of my main criteria for friendship. As my drinking progressed, my peers began to dwindle as they drifted from partying and drinking. Ultimately, I ended up drinking myself to blackout every night all by myself.

In sobriety, I find myself gravitating towards people who are trying to improve, trying to recover, trying to do better. That's one of the main reasons I was attracted to the /r/stopdrinking community and a huge part of why I'm still here. I think it's cool to want to do better and this is a place where I can learn to do just that.

So how about you? How has your attitude towards improvement changed in sobriety?

Hello, fellow Sobernauts!

Welcome to 'Tude Talk Tuesday, where you're invited to share what changes you've noticed in your attitudes and perspectives since you've gotten sober.

I once heard someone say "getting help helps" and that resonated with me.

When I was deep in my drinking, I tried to hide it from everybody. There's a lot of complicated thoughts and feelings that went into this behavior, but one that I commonly cited to myself was I knew the people in my life who loved me and cared about me would be worried and would want to help me stop. And I didn't want to stop. I wasn't ready. And I knew that I'd choose alcohol over them and I'd hurt them and our relationship in order to keep drinking.

In sobriety, I still wrestle with help. Nowadays I find myself still resisting help because I want the pride of "handling it myself" or "I don't want to bother them with my bullshit" or "what if they say no" or "what if they think I'm weak". It amazes me that I get stuck thinking this way. When the situation is flipped, I love getting to help those around me. I like being useful and easing someone's burden. I don't think they are weak, burdening me, or bringing me bullshit.

Lately, I've needed to ask for help. I have a thyroid issue and I've needed to see a doctor to treat that. I'm starting therapy back up because I'm overwhelmed. These are things I can't do myself, but I need help doing because it will help me be a better me and a better me can better help those around me.

So how about you? How has your sense about getting help changed in sobriety?

He's actually really sweet and his face only gets stuck like that due to a missing tooth

Hello, fellow Sobernauts!

Welcome to 'Tude Talk Tuesday, where you're invited to share what changes you've noticed in your attitudes and perspectives since you've gotten sober.

I once heard someone say "I started to put alcohol before everything else" and that resonated with me.

In these posts, I often say something like "as my drinking progressed" or "further into my drinking career" and this quote best captures what I mean by that. I'm really saying "as alcohol became an ever-increasing priority", "as alcohol crowded out all other things in my life".

I had to stop drinking because it got to the point that alcohol was my highest priority. It was more important to me than my wife, my kids, my job, my family, my friends, my own well-being. If I kept going, there is no doubt in my mind that I would eventually excise everything from my life in order to keep drinking.

My addiction was sneaky. It took a long time for me to get to this point, but, looking back, it alcohol just kept chipping away at my priorities until it was number 1 and everything else was some sort of hurdle I needed to overcome to get back to the bottle. In hindsight, I'm glad that alcohol finally asked me to sacrifice something I wasn't willing to give up and it made me reevaluate my relationship to alcohol and discover that I needed to get sober. Maybe that's what rock bottom really is, alcohol crossing a line you're unwilling to cross. In hindsight, it is amazing how many times I let alcohol cross lines before I finally became aware.

So, how about you? When did you start putting alcohol before everything else?

Hello, fellow Sobernauts!

Welcome to 'Tude Talk Tuesday, where you're invited to share what changes you've noticed in your attitudes and perspectives since you've gotten sober.

I once heard someone say "We weren't meant to do this alone. It's a scary journey out there" and that resonated with me.

By the end of my drinking, I had really isolated myself from the world so I could hole up and drink the way I wanted to -- uninterrupted.

When I found the SD community, I started to open back up. I stick around here because this place nourishes me on my sobriety and maybe I can help give back some of the same love and support that helped me get sober.

So, how about you? Do you do this alone?

Hello, fellow Sobernauts!

Welcome to 'Tude Talk Tuesday, where you're invited to share what changes you've noticed in your attitudes and perspectives since you've gotten sober.

I once heard someone say "My body was like a robot just pouring the booze even when I thought 'no, I don't want this'" and that resonated with me.

I spent years waking up hungover, swearing off drinking forever...or at least for that day, then finding myself pouring vodka into a water glass later that evening, feeling like I was just a passenger in my own body, watching it do its own thing.

I still have that happen, but at least not with alcohol. Last week I there was a situation at work and within minutes I found myself standing in the pantry, stuffing mini chocolate bars into my mouth as fast as I could unwrap them. As I've mentioned before, I view my "lesser" addictions (chocolate being one of them) as great case studies for my problematic relationship with alcohol.

So, how about you? Any lingering behaviors from before you were sober?

Hello, fellow Sobernauts!

Welcome to 'Tude Talk Tuesday, where you're invited to share what changes you've noticed in your attitudes and perspectives since you've gotten sober.

I once heard someone say "Alcohol helped me cope with that fearful, fearful world" and that resonated with me.

Fear was a major factor in my drinking. I was hyper-anxious and alcohol helped me run away from and (temporarily) escape all my problems. As I started to realize that I had a drinking problem, I became even more afraid. What was wrong with me? How could I possibly get sober? How would I live without drinking?

I feel like it takes some amount of bravery for me to live a sober life. I have to be brave enough to acknowledge that my relationship with alcohol isn't healthy or something I can moderate. I have to be brave enough to avoid alcohol in social situations. I have to be brave enough to deal with or at least sit with my fears rather than try to escape them.

When I look at all the people posting and commenting in this community, I see people with a lot of courage and it blows my mind and fills my heart.

So, how about you? Did fear play a role in your drinking?

Hello, fellow Sobernauts!

Welcome to 'Tude Talk Tuesday, where you're invited to share what changes you've noticed in your attitudes and perspectives since you've gotten sober.

I once heard someone say "the opposite of addiction is connection" and that resonated with me.

As my drinking progressed, did my best to cut myself off from the world. I canceled plans with friends. I avoided talking with coworkers. I just wanted to shut myself away and drink in peace.

In sobriety, I have begrudgingly made connections with others. I'm an introvert by nature and socially anxious and have long held the belief that I just really don't like or need to interact with other people.

I'm wrong. I hate the phone. I hate talking to people on the phone. Today, I forced myself to call three people instead of emailing or texting them. After every single conversation, I felt much better. I was downright giddy actually. I learned things about people. I got a chance to be nice and spread some positivity. I had a much better day than had I kept to myself.

I don't want it to be true, but it is, at least for me. Connection takes me light years away from where I was in my addiction.

So, how about you? Does connection help with your addiction?

Hello, fellow Sobernauts!

Welcome to 'Tude Talk Tuesday, where you're invited to share what changes you've noticed in your attitudes and perspectives since you've gotten sober.

I once heard someone say "Drinking is gross" and that resonated with me.

I remember early in my sobriety I was driving somewhere and suddenly I was overcome with a desire to have some whiskey. Oh how I longed to sip a nice, neat rye from a glass, that feeling of warmth as the liquor slide down my throat and spread through my stomach. Perhaps I'd even be wearing a smoking jacket, sitting by a fire, reading some Chaucer.

Then I realized I was romanticizing drinking. I rarely, if ever, drank from a nice glass. At the end of my drinking it was warm vodka from a water bottle I'd snuck upstairs. I didn't sip. I chugged. I didn't read Chaucer, I drunkenly watched Mad Men to normalize my alcoholism. I didn't even own a smoking jacket!

And I never drank for taste! Whiskey tastes like jet fuel that's been sitting in an old cowboy boot out in the sun. The only reason I could stomach it is because it would get me drunk.

Nothing about drinking, at least the way I drank, was romantic. It was out of control and it was gross.

So, how about you? How does drinking appear to you now?

Hello, fellow Sobernauts!

Welcome to 'Tude Talk Tuesday, where you're invited to share what changes you've noticed in your attitudes and perspectives since you've gotten sober.

I once heard someone say "If I ever think 'I got this', I don't" and that resonated with me.

In the winter of 2017, I had a series of drunken events that gave me some concern. A few days after New Years, I heard about "Dry January" so I figured I'd give it a shot. I started on January 7, avoided drinking until January 28 and then declared I had accomplished "Dry January" and went back to drinking. This was my "I got this" drinking thing under control moment.

I did not indeed "have it". My drinking continued to spiral until I hit my rock bottom in July of 2018.

Early in my sobriety, I had a couple of relapses as well, many times hot on the heels of a feeling like I really had alcohol beat and didn't have to worry any more.

These days, I don't entertain the notion that "I got this". I have these 24 hours and this community I try to make the most of both as they have helped keep me sober.

So, how about you? Do you "got" this?

Hello, fellow Sobernauts!

Welcome to 'Tude Talk Tuesday, where you're invited to share what changes you've noticed in your attitudes and perspectives since you've gotten sober.

I once heard someone say "There was nothing I tried at harder than my drinking" and that resonated with me.

Towards the end of my drinking career, it seemed like every spare moment I had, every spare thought I could muster, was dedicated to planning and executing my next drunk. On my way home from work, I wasn't thinking about my wife and kids beyond how I could manipulate them into an early bedtime so I could really get my drinking started. My free time was spent researching how to sneak or prepare drinks and other illicit substances. I spent hours and hours each day and night drunk and hungover. I have never been so focused or spent so much time on any other pursuit as I did drinking.

I'll be honest, even now I don't put as much effort into being sober as I did getting and staying drunk. Sobriety is an important part of my life and I give it the attention and effort it requires to maintain it, but the it pales in comparison to what I devoted to drinking.

I feel grateful to have shaken my devotion to drinking. Anytime I "play the tape forward", one of the first things I think about is how, should I ever take up drinking again, I will once again sacrifice everything else in my life. I don't like to use fear as a motivator to stay sober, but I also don't sugar-coat my drinking days.

So, how about you? Is there anything you've tried at harder than drinking?

Hello, fellow Sobernauts!

Welcome to 'Tude Talk Tuesday, where you're invited to share what changes you've noticed in your attitudes and perspectives since you've gotten sober.

I once heard someone say "I tied my identity to alcohol" and that resonated with me.

When I was drinking, I took pride in how much I was willing to drink at the drop of a hat. I avoided non-drinkers because they seemed suspicious and wussy. I sought out people and TV shows and music that normalized my drinking behavior. Alcohol was fun and so, by ingesting it copiously, frequently, and recklessly, I too was the embodiment of fun.

Until I found myself locked away in a room all by myself, night after night, drinking warm vodka from a water bottle I had snuck upstairs. Even then, I grasped onto the notion that alcohol was my only source of fun and a crucial part of who I was.

In sobriety, alcohol is still somewhat tied to my identity. It does not define me but it is a part of who I am.

So, how about you? How do you define yourself these days in sobriety?

Hello, fellow Sobernauts!

Welcome to 'Tude Talk Tuesday, where you're invited to share what changes you've noticed in your attitudes and perspectives since you've gotten sober.

I once heard someone say "I would draw all kinds of lines and cross every one of them" and that resonated with me.

In my drinking career, I made drew lots of lines in the sand in an effort to moderate my drinking. Just one drink. Just 5 drinks. Not on weekdays. Not at lunch on a work day. Not when I was home alone.

Eventually I not only crossed those lines, I lived for months and years on the other side of them, always making excuses as to why I could do it "just this once".

In sobriety, I have only one line I don't cross -- I don't take that first drink. Just about everything else in my life feels negotiable. I'm still horrible about curbing behaviors (ok, I'll just play one more round of video games, ok, I'll go to bed at the end of this chapter, etc), but my drinking is one line I don't ever care to cross again.

So, how about you? What are some lines you've drawn in sobriety?

Hello, fellow Sobernauts!

Welcome to 'Tude Talk Tuesday, where you're invited to share what changes you've noticed in your attitudes and perspectives since you've gotten sober.

I once heard someone say "I was in it to get out" and that resonated with me.

I drank to escape. I drank for a lot of reasons, the primary one being I was addicted to alcohol, but I find addiction is a complex tangle of many things.

The world was too much for me. I was overwhelmed. Drinking was a way for me to just turn the world off for a while.

But, as my drinking began to consume more and more of my life, I had more and more to run from, and so I'd drink to escape, causing more drinking. It was a vicious positive feedback loop.

I had a hard day today. And now I have to sit with my feelings. Sober. And deal with the situation, preferably in a healthy way, like meditate, or talk things out with people. I'd rather just turn off the world for a while, but I know that drinking, the way I used to drink and would inevitably once again drink, would only cause way more problems than I'm sitting with right now.

I quit for a reason. I was burning my life to the ground. A crummy day is no good reason to pick up and bottle and starting tearing everything down again.

So, how about you? Did you drink to escape? How do you handle hard days?

Hello, fellow Sobernauts!

Welcome to 'Tude Talk Tuesday, where you're invited to share what changes you've noticed in your attitudes and perspectives since you've gotten sober.

I once heard someone say "Why would you do that to yourself?!" and that resonated with me.

I heard this from someone who was contemplating getting a case of wine and breaking their sobriety in a huge binge. Then they asked themselves "why would you do that to yourself?" and were able to stay sober.

I'm a touch over 5 years into my latest sobriety and I still get temptations from time to time. Heck, a few days back I discovered my parents had a certain substance in their house and I immediately began to think about what it might feel like to ingest it.

But I know how to "play the tape forward" and I know that breaking my sobriety isn't worth it. Last time I broke my sobriety, I felt awful the entire time I was in an altered state and then the guilt and shame and remorse lasted for days...weeks even.

I don't deserve that. I don't think any of us do.

So, how about you? How has your sense of what you deserve changed in sobriety?

Hello, fellow Sobernauts!

Welcome to 'Tude Talk Tuesday, where you're invited to share what changes you've noticed in your attitudes and perspectives since you've gotten sober.

I once heard someone say "You held out your hand and changed my life" and that resonated with me.

I got sober through the help of all you Sobernauts here at /r/stopdrinking

Here I found a community of kind, supportive, enthusiastic people striving for and living in sobriety. You showed me it was possible and even enjoyable to live a sober life. You gave me the courage and care to start my sober journey.

So, how about you? Who, if anyone, held out their hand to you? Who, if anyone, have you held your hand out to?

Hello, fellow Sobernauts!

Welcome to 'Tude Talk Tuesday, where you're invited to share what changes you've noticed in your attitudes and perspectives since you've gotten sober.

I once heard someone say "I was avoiding living life" and that resonated with me.

As my drinking career progressed, I isolated more and more. My favorite way to drink was alone so that nobody could judge or try to stop me. In my last year of drinking, I skipped my wife's birthday just so I could stay home and drink by myself.

Oddly, when I contemplated getting sober, I was had so much FOMO. Craziness! Here I was ditching friends, holing up in the guest bedroom, drinking all by myself night after night and I was worried that by stopping drinking I would miss out on something?!

In sobriety, I'm out and about far more than when I was drinking. I've gone to music festivals, weddings, boozy birthday parties, etc and stayed sober at all these events. More importantly, I'm on field trips, at school plays, and on play dates with my kiddos...something I would surely have begged off back in my drinking days.

So, how about you? How are you engaging with life now that you're sober?

Hello, fellow Sobernauts!

Welcome to 'Tude Talk Tuesday, where you're invited to share what changes you've noticed in your attitudes and perspectives since you've gotten sober.

I once heard someone say "change your playmates and change your playgrounds" and that resonated with me.

I think this is incredibly sound advice and its been very easy for me to follow in my own life, due to my specific situation.

In my twenties, I had a lot of friends who were happy to go out and party hard. In my thirties, many of my friends had settled down and were busy with kids and families and jobs. I was too, but I was also drinking daily and slowly isolating. So, my group of playmates, my old drinking buddies, dwindled down quite a bit. So too did my playgrounds. I went from drinking at parties and bars and then more at home to just drinking and isolating at home.

When I got sober, I found new playmates through this community and local recovery programs. I found new playgrounds through those same places.

I imagine, had I gotten sober earlier in life, or in different circumstances, I would have found this advice a lot harder to implement, so I turn to you, SD to discuss this:

What, if any, playmates and playgrounds have you had to change in your sobriety?

Hello, fellow Sobernauts!

Welcome to 'Tude Talk Tuesday, where you're invited to share what changes you've noticed in your attitudes and perspectives since you've gotten sober.

I once heard someone say "I'm just terrified of what comes with my drinking" and that resonated with me.

Towards the end of my drinking, I was scared. A lot. I was drinking without any ability to control it. I was hiding it from everyone around me. I knew I had to stop, but I couldn't imagine life without alcohol.

In sobriety, as time has gone on, I have fewer fears. That said, I still have what I consider to be a healthy fear of what would ever happen if I started drinking again. I'd go right back to the same, frightening existence I was living right before I got sober. I'd risk losing my wife, my kids, my life. I know all these things would happen because my drinking brought me there and I have no doubt it would bring me there again.

I don't spend my time dwelling on these fears or worry about drinking. But when I feel a craving, or a whimsical thought about having a beer or something, I let a little of that fear loose, just to scare some sense into me.

So, how about you? How do you feel about your drinking?

Hello, fellow Sobernauts!

Welcome to 'Tude Talk Tuesday, where you're invited to share what changes you've noticed in your attitudes and perspectives since you've gotten sober.

I once heard someone say "I was this bad, I found a way out, come follow me" and that resonated with me.

At the end of my drinking, I felt like a freak. Every morning I was waking up, swearing off alcohol and by the end of the night I was passing out drunk. What the hell was wrong with me?

When it became time for me to stop drinking, I found this /r/stopdrinking and people shared so openly and honestly about their problems with alcohol. It was so, so helpful to know I wasn't a freak, I wasn't alone, and, not only that, but people like me had found a path to long-term sobriety.

This community is amazing and it gave me my sobriety. I am eternally grateful.

So, how about you? How has this community helped you and how can you help this community?