Quitting Alcohol - Small Steps Toward a Bigger Goal

Why Recovery Must Be Taken Day By Day

There might be an unlimited supply of resources available for alcoholics to utilize in order to quit drinking. There are local support groups almost everywhere. There are books, essays health journals, pamphlets and endless other resources. There are websites, internet forums, family, friends and even a limitless amount of strangers who care enough to help the alcoholic fight the battle and kick the addiction.

None of that can stop an alcoholic from drinking. The information exists. There is no assurance that the alcoholic will even attempt to find any of the information. Even if they do, it might not make quitting drinking any easier. It is one of those miserable situations where the activity is easy to contemplate and yet extremely difficult to actually carry out.

Why is it so hard?

 Why is it that an alcoholic can desire to quit drinking alcohol and yet be completely unable to do everything that they know is right in order to stop? Why is it that the alcoholic is capable of feeling tremendous guilt about how they are affecting the lives of those around them? Why is it that no matter how much they love someone, they just can’t put that bottle down and do what it takes to maintain the relationship? How is it possible that an alcoholic can gaze into the faces of their children and long to be a better parent—knowing deep within that the alcoholism is the solid root of all of their problems—and yet that same person is unable to let the alcohol go?

It is not easy to quit drinking even when an alcoholic has a definitive grasp of how much better their life would be without alcohol. Alcohol is like an old friend to them who has been there through good times and bad. Alcohol becomes more than a simple beverage to be bought and consumed. It becomes a part of who they are and something that they can’t imagine living without. It is the only thing left when the whole world falls apart, and ironically it is the reason that their whole world falls apart. It is somehow salvation and destruction simultaneously.

When an alcoholic finally makes the big decision to quit drinking alcohol, no matter how firm the resolve, it is extremely difficult. They are putting that good old friend to rest. They are burying something that has become a piece of them when they bury the bottle. They are letting go of something that has become the entire focal point of life.

That is why quitting alcohol is a task that must be taken day by day. Once the major withdrawal symptoms have subsided, there is still a burning urge to return to drinking. For some people the urge decreases over time. For others, the urge never ceases and twenty years later they might still be fighting daily to not take that first drink.

There is no reason to despair and yet there is every reason to despair. There is no reason to despair because every day is a new day and every day is one more day that an alcoholic makes it through without a drink. There is every reason to despair because one failure in will power or judgment can be the beginning of the end of a good recovery.

Even when an alcoholic realizes how much life has changed positively since they laid the bottle to rest, the progress and benefits are not necessarily able to curb the desire for alcohol. Even when a child tells a mother or father how much better they are and how much they have changed for the best, it cannot curb the desire for another drink. Tender hearted people can be alcoholics. Loving, caring, intelligent and down to earth people can become alcoholics. Quitting is no less hard for those people.

Every day serves as another chance to fight the alcoholism and win another compliment from a child who thinks the alcoholic is their hero. And the alcoholic may indeed be their hero. It is little things like this that are actually big things for the person trying to quit drinking. Daily glimpses of hope can make a huge impact upon persistence.

Every day is a new chance to reach a goal of one day of no drinking. Each day is a huge accomplishment when one has let go of something that had such a huge negative impact on everyday life. When a person is trying to quit drinking, the goal can only be for one day because each and every day is a struggle, especially in the beginning.

Even though the alcoholic contacts someone for support when temptation sets in, alcoholism is a very personal struggle. The struggle becomes even harder as the clean and sober person is finally clear from the influences of alcohol. Thinking clearly is tough because that is the time when feelings of guilt really begin to form.

A person who has been an alcoholic for so long and is suddenly thinking without the haze of alcohol will begin to go through all of their regrets and remember how much they let other people down so many times. That is hard to contemplate and makes them desire to drink again and forget. Each day is a battle as the alcoholic faces those realizations and stays sober and takes responsibility instead of slipping back into the habit of alcohol induced drowning of memories.

Taking recovery day by day is the only feasible way to make it through recovery. Every day brings new memories, new battles with personal failures, and more regret for the choices the alcoholic has made. Each day the alcoholic must cling to the progress that they have made and refuse to back track—just for the day.

The alcoholic’s usual drinking friends might call and want to get together. Each day is another day to make choices. It’s another chance to make the right choices. It’s hard to deny old friends but necessary to make it through just this day.

One day it’s the recovering alcoholic’s turn to do the grocery shopping. Although attempting to avoid the beer aisle, the alcoholic catches a glimpse of the cold, frosty and colorful array of alcoholic beverages that line the shelves. They turn away and pass it by, just for this day.

The house is quiet and nobody will be home for hours. This is a time when the recovering alcoholic could drink. The alcoholic lets the thought become a fleeting thought and makes it through the solitary day, at least this one day.

The only way to recover from alcohol addiction is to make it a daily goal rather than long term. That’s because every day there is going to be some new temptation or reminder of how it feels to be intoxicated. The recovering alcoholic needs to make it through each day individually because each day is another day that they fought for their health, their job, their family and their sanity.

It is good for the recovering alcoholic to resort to reading many materials and especially to accept the comfort and help that other people offer. People need support systems to encourage them and give them hope when life seems hopeless and when they don’t have the will power to achieve daily goals all alone. But no matter what, the internal struggle must be faced one day at a time in order to take back one’s life and continue with recovery.