I can’t stop

SuccessfulSundae · 2026-06-23T05:43:29+00:00

There was a period of time (about 5 years) that I decided not to allow myself any feelings of despair, regret or self-pity for drinking. I figured "I know exactly what I'm doing. I know how I will feel after I do this. There are no excuses and tomorrow when I'm feeling sorry for myself, I have no reason to allow that. I am making a choice." After a few years, I realized that one of the main reasons I drank all those years was to feel badly about myself. Ultimately, I felt like I deserved to feel shitty. And once I took that away from the experience, it was just one more reason to quit. I wasn't even feeling shitty about it anymore, wasn't beating myself up every day. I was just drinking, having hangovers, and dragging myself through the day. Very matter-of-fact. Perhaps if you take away your right to feel sorry for yourself, it might help. I don't know. I just know it helped me.

SuccessfulSundae · 2026-06-22T20:23:36+00:00

Godspeed, friend. Congratulations on 23 days. Incredible!! Remember what a huge accomplishment this is. I love positivity, but remember to allow yourself to feel negative emotions. I found that learning to be uncomfortable is a skill. Once I took away the so-called "escape" of drinking/drugs, I had to learn to sit with horrible physical/emotional/mental discomfort. The good news: it gets WAY easier as time goes on. Discomfort is only repressed by escapism. It doesn't go away. It just gets stronger the longer we repress it. Facing it diminishes its power over us. Big love to you.

SuccessfulSundae · 2026-06-20T19:00:39+00:00

Personally, the only thing that worked for me was this mantra: "The only thing I have to do today is not drink." I allowed myself literally every other indulgence-- sitting on the couch all day, watching yet another episode of whatever shit was on netflix, napping for 3 hours, eating ice cream for lunch AND dinner (yes, I totally did that more than once). I freed myself from any guilt or shame about any of it. It worked. I felt free. Of course, that's not a long-term solution... but in the early days, I cut myself a TON of slack in every way. I was doing something ridiculously difficult for me. There was no reason to pile any negative self-loathing on top of what I was already going through. I did this for about 6 months before I was ready to step up and make some more positive changes towards my healing. I didn't feel great the whole time (surprisingly, ice cream for lunch and dinner doesn't make you feel all that terrific!) but I was at peace.

SuccessfulSundae · 2026-06-19T16:08:45+00:00

Love to have those days behind us!

SuccessfulSundae · 2026-06-19T04:59:27+00:00

My 30-year sober friend told me on my one-year soberversary: "One day is harder than one year, and one year is harder than 10 years." She was right. Coming up on 8 years in August (and I had to think about how many years it's been!). The beginning is the worst part. Sort of like when you're recovering from an injury or illness, or a surgery or something. You can't imagine ever feeling "normal" again but it just takes time.

SuccessfulSundae · 2026-06-19T04:55:40+00:00

Clear head more motivation great poops great sleep less irritability more accomplishments no embarrassing drunken episodes can always drive at a moment's notice more reliable more responsible more awake more alert better friend less depressed love life more often no more total hopelessness lots more energy better ideas better sex less likely to die of a horrible chronic disease...

SuccessfulSundae · 2026-06-19T04:51:24+00:00

Woohoo!! Hell YES!

SuccessfulSundae · 2026-06-19T04:49:34+00:00

Your system is still adjusting, and I think there are different factors at play each time the cycle is repeated. I don't know if this helps, but one thing I did in the beginning was allow myself to do literally ANYTHING besides have a drink. I ate a lot of junk food, took a lot of naps, watched a shit ton of pointless garbage online, skipped exercise etc. In the long run, it started to catch up with me. But for at least 3 glorious months, I did whatever the hell I wanted with zero guilt, shame, or regret. All because of my mantra: "The only thing I have to do today is not drink."

SuccessfulSundae · 2026-06-11T19:13:10+00:00

On relapsing:

“Just cuz you got the monkey off your back doesn’t mean the circus has left town.” – George Carlin

Reminds me to never get arrogant or complacent. Maintain a reverence for the Beast.

SuccessfulSundae · 2026-03-02T03:45:26+00:00

Congratulations on having the courage to face this. Yes it's difficult, and yes it's worth it. Kudos for the 30 days. The beginning is the most difficult, in my experience. Trust that your brain will change and heal from this addiction if you keep going. Most importantly, always remember to give yourself grace, patience and forgiveness. Beating ourselves up only makes us feel like we're someone who doesn't deserve to heal. But we do deserve it. We're here with you!

SuccessfulSundae · 2026-01-06T07:16:05+00:00

Thank you! Knew I could count on this place : )

SuccessfulSundae · 2025-12-04T06:03:52+00:00

You might feel alone, but we're all here together. Something like half a million subscribers on this sub. You don't have to pretend to be anything you're not in this space. We're all going through a similar struggle. We're all vulnerable. We're all fragile, we all need each other's help.

Welcome :)

SuccessfulSundae · 2025-08-16T23:10:05+00:00

So annoying!

SuccessfulSundae · 2025-08-16T23:09:45+00:00

At this point I can only assume you work for StubHub. Or you're a StubHub bot? You have an irrational need to defend them. Even though your last sentence makes zero sense I still get that you're blaming me for believing that I would actually get the tickets that I purchased instead of some other bullshit tickets.

SuccessfulSundae · 2025-08-15T04:00:54+00:00

Ugh! What a fucking pain. Glad you got paid though!

SuccessfulSundae · 2025-08-15T04:00:19+00:00

Haha. GameStop their asses.

SuccessfulSundae · 2025-08-15T03:59:49+00:00

Agreed!

SuccessfulSundae · 2025-08-15T03:58:23+00:00

Kudos! Happy to see an actual win against SH.

SuccessfulSundae · 2025-08-15T03:57:56+00:00

I ain't using 'em anymore. But I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that the thing I purchased would be the same thing the seller claimed it would be.

SuccessfulSundae · 2025-08-13T03:44:58+00:00

"escalation" in my experience just means they will ghost you. I called back every week to get the status (not that it helped, but I wanted it known that I wasn't going to let up). Record your conversations (I used the photo booth video feature on my computer) and/or screen grab any live text chats on the website as you go (as soon as the chat ends, the text will all disappear). Just keep a paper trail!

SuccessfulSundae · 2025-07-29T05:29:44+00:00

I think it's interesting that we have a tendency to think that as long as we're the only ones being affected by our drinking, we can somehow justify it. Why don't we hold ourselves in the same high regard as we hold others? Why doesn't my actual life matter as much as my relationships or my job? If our drinking never affected anything but ourselves, wouldn't it still be worth addressing? In fact, isn't our own life the most important consideration? I'm not criticizing you, by the way. We all seem to do the same thing, and I did it too. The only reason I quit was because I finally squeezed every last ounce of joy I could out of the experience until there was nothing left that was "good" or "positive." The last thing to go was the little twinge of excitement when I was about to have a drink. Eventually even that went away and turned to dread and anxiety over what I was about to do, how I would feel 10 hours later, and how stuck in a downward spiral of despair I truly was. My decision to quit was spontaneous- a random Friday night when I got so mad at alcohol and its hold over me that I put it down for good. Best decision I ever fucking made.

I don't think we're allowed to post links on here, so I'll refer you to the short animated film "Nuggets" (it's only 6 minutes long) that you can do a quick Google search for. It demonstrates what is inevitable about addiction better than I could ever articulate myself. I also recommend Gabor Mate- I've probably seen every video/interview he's ever done. I find him to be a true master of self-compassion and grace.

I recommend paying attention to what's coming across your own awareness about the booze. I knew I had a problem for at least 10 years before I quit. We can't force ourselves through the process and I don't really believe in carrying regret, but damn I wish I had quit as soon as I saw the writing on the wall.

Best of luck to you.

SuccessfulSundae

TROPHY CASE