wounds from a friend

Stopping drinking is hard. I've been fortunate in at least 2 ways. Firstly, the challenge of stopping drinking was overshadowed by the challenge of coming off Valium. It wasn't that hard to not drink again because I was engaged in the greater struggle of tapering off Valium. The other way that I was fortunate was that when my drinking problem got severe it happened very quickly and unexpectedly. 

I had turned to alcohol to help me cope with the challenge of tapering off Valium, and that was a more dangerous dynamic than I realized. It just took a hold and I was locked in this vicious cycle where I needed to drink to do anything at all, and my drinking was driving my anxiety and depression and my further reliance on alcohol. It was a hellish situation mentally and physically. 

I didn't know what to expect when I went in for detox. I imagined it was going to be really hard, but the not drinking part wasn't hard. The anxiety and so on, from withdrawing from Valium was hard. I knew that I was saving my life by going through detox. 

When you're drinking, you imagine that life without drinking is going to be unpleasant and boring, but the opposite is true. 

Since I stopped, I'm not even tempted to drink. It's death. It's literally death to me. That's why the only two times that I did actually have a drink - 2 times not long after detox - were the times when I had decided to kill myself, because I was going to die anyway. The reason why I was going to kill myself was to do with Valium withdrawal. I couldn't see any viable future. Not just that I couldn't see a future. I couldn't live in the present. But then, by the grace of God, I found a doctor who worked with me on a taper and I was able to very gradually ween myself off Valium, which I'm still doing. 

I don't crave alcohol. I don't get tempted. It's not an option. Someone said to me around the time I came out of detox, that 'the price of freedom is eternal vigilance'....they were saying that it would always be an issue and I would need to take steps to make sure I didn't fall back into drinking. But no, that's not true for me, because when you taste real freedom, you have no desire to be enslaved again. Why would you?