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The original was posted on /r/getmotivated by /u/jmh238 on 2024-01-13 04:41:15+00:00.
When I was a child, I watched my uncle spiral into crazy drug addiction. To see the affect that had on my family (parents/grandparents) was horrible. A good man, taken by addiction, with no return.
I have no idea where he is now, or what he is doing, but this was the catalyst for me to never touch drugs. And I still never have.
But, 12 months ago, it was like I had an epiphany. I was a "heavy-ish" drinker of alcohol, all around social settings - but these social settings turned into 4-5 days a week. Dinners, steak nights, pubs, bards, wine bars - you name it, and I found an excuse to be there.
It got so bad, that it was affecting my life in a very negative way. I destroyed 2 previous relationships, got fired from my previous job, and quit my other job because it didn't suit my lifestyle.
But this lifestyle was quickly becoming an addiction, and one that had been brewing for a long time.
I had just got a new partner, and she is amazing. But we had a fight in March, that would not have been a fight had I been sober - when I get drunk, I get argumentative and demonstrative. To see the outcome of this, and be staring down the barrel of another relationship torched, I decided then and there to make a change.
I am now approaching 300 days sober, am in a very happy and committed relationship, have started a company that I have wanted to start for years, and am about to launch our first product (it's an app). I have read close to 40 books in the last 12 months, have not been to a pub or bar, learned to code, got in the best shape of my life, and feel extremely fulfilled.
I am about to launch a weekly podcast interviewing guests about their struggles, and started a newsletter called The Champions Journal of which is scaling faster than I thought.
Essentially, I have discovered, at the age of 33, that you do not need alcohol to have fun, and to be happy. For so long, I thought I needed to drink - but I don't.
I'd love this story to be a source of motivation for people reading it. But I'd also like to pose the question - have you thought about giving up alcohol? If so, did you, and why? And if you have thought about it, but not given up, why?