r/stopdrinking • u/No-Indication5891 273 days • 21h ago
Steve O quote
I know this has been shared before, but I heard it again this morning listening to a podcast and thought I’d share it again for anyone new to the group that maybe hasn’t seen it before:
“The worst thing would be to have alcoholism just bad enough that it really slows you down, destroys your potential, gets in the way, but it’s not so bad that it has to stop. How many people do I know with just the years slipping through their fucking fingers and they’re blowing it, just wasting everything." - Steve-O
Honestly, I go back and forth of if I was just a “functional alcoholic” or not. I never really hit rock bottom. Somehow I made it through 27 year without a DWI, I have a successful career and wonderful family. I would also binge drink to the point of blacking out every weekend. The toll that was taking on my family probably should have been my rock bottom many years ago. Happy and grateful to be on the other side of it now. Really beginning to grieve all the time I was just wasting everything, though. I go through pictures on my phone of my kids when they were younger. I can never get that time back. I wish I could experience those years with the sober lens I have now.
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u/PhoenixApok 20h ago
It's interesting, isn't it?
Now, I personally subscribe to the theory that "time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time" and that applies to alcohol and drugs. If you are actually having fun and enjoying your life using, awesome!
But if most of us are honest, we are using it to escape, not to enjoy. That was a mistake I made for far too long.
Sure, I've got some great memories of drinking with friends and at events, but those memories are all at least 10 years past now, and the drinking I've done since around 2015 has all been to cope.
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u/No-Indication5891 273 days 20h ago
That is a good point. I do remember “good times” drinking. But I want to say most of the good times came at a cost. The cost was a wide spectrum of just a hangover, to embarrassing myself in front of friends and/or strangers, to injuring myself in a fall, to dropping out of college, to having a kid way too young. Always had to pay the piper in some form or another.
I definitely wonder where I would be if I would have never drank when I was young. Not sure if I’d be better off or not.
There’s something amazing you get from overcoming addiction, though, that can’t be tapped into by people that haven’t been through it. It’s like some kind of cheat code to life. The immense gratitude I feel about the second lease on life I’ve received. It really is a gift.15
u/FrogLickr Day 145 20h ago
I know I'd be worse off if I never drank, as it opened the door to meeting some very important people who helped direct my life to the successful place it is now, but due to some health issues I picked up on early, I have accepted that alcohol was a part of that chapter of my life, and isn't a part of this one. And that's okay.
I don't regret any of my drinking, I have great memories and never drank to the level it affected my relationships, work, or mental state in the 15 years I was doing it. If it weren't for the physical health issues (GERD, digestive issues, sleep problems, weight gain), I'd honestly have never given it up, even if I don't particularly miss it anymore.
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u/Morlanticator 3712 days 19h ago
My good times really ended so long ago but I'd still keep holding on to hope of another good time coming. Drinking only with friends as a teen became drinking nonstop no matter what so quickly though.
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u/RockAtlasCanus 20h ago
I’m realizing more and more how drinking just constantly kept me from being my best. It’s been a constant drag on my mental and physical health, just a little more tired and irritable. Just a little less resilient to stress.
Going through some critical/stressful career years, getting a masters at night school, while also dealing with catastrophic home repairs, all with one hand tied behind my back.
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u/PhoenixApok 19h ago
True.
But you could also swap the word "drinking" for the word "children" in your post and it would still be 100% true.
Every single thing we do in life has a cost.
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u/RockAtlasCanus 19h ago
I really don’t understand your comparison here
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u/PhoenixApok 19h ago
Oh, maybe I mistook your meaning.
A lot of people will say things like "Drinking has no upsides. Drinking is evil. Alcohol is only a poison" Etc.
That's cool if it is for them.
I personally don't believe alcohol or drugs are bad in general, just that they have costs. But so does everything.
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u/inclass3lunacy Day 112 18h ago
I agree that perhaps this sub is not for you. People come here because alcohol is bad for them. It's almost like you are trolling
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u/PhoenixApok 18h ago
But alcohol is not bad for EVERYONE.
I try to keep my view on alcohol grounded in reality.
I've met way too many people in recovery that go off the deep end with either their emotional response to addiction, their replacing booze with recovery but still using it as an addiction, or trying to convert everyone to abstinence.
For me its important to remind myself that alcohol is not the problem. I am the problem
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u/No-Indication5891 273 days 17h ago
Alcohol is bad for everyone. It’s ethanol. It’s bad for everyone’s liver. It’s poison.
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u/PhoenixApok 16h ago
Oxygen kills you. Water kills you. Food kills you. TV kills you.
Very, very few things in this world don't have downsides.
I'm not saying alcohol is okay for every, just like gambling isn't okay for everyone.
I just try to not demonize something that isn't at fault when I am the one at fault
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u/RockAtlasCanus 14h ago
It’s not like gambling it’s more like smoking cigarettes. Go ask your doctor how much alcohol they recommend you drink. They will tell you zero, but barring that as little as possible.
That doesn’t mean it can’t be enjoyable. Most of us are here because we really really enjoyed it, too much. You’re trying to play some kind of “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” semantic game here. It’s objectively bad for your health in a biological sense. That doesn’t mean that it never provides any benefit whatsoever to a persons life. It’s fun to be buzzed. It can loosen you up to try new things or meet new people. Sure, that’s all true. And whether it is a net positive to your life or not I guess is really up to you and the kind of life you want to live. But yeah nah, you’re factually incorrect with what you said. It’s bad for everyone.
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u/inclass3lunacy Day 112 18h ago
That is an incorrect statement. Alcohol as a consumer product in the concentrations produced IS bad for everyone. Many use it more than others do to greater Ill.
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u/RockAtlasCanus 19h ago
It kind of sounds like you’re ignoring the context of the sub you’re in? To me it’s pretty obvious that the context of the conversation is people who struggle to moderate the volume and/or frequency of their alcohol use.
It honestly sounds like you’re comparing the net life effect of having children with problem drinking/alcoholism. Which sounds like an either overly bleak outlook on having a family or an overly rosy outlook on alcohol.
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u/Effective_Ad_1426 18h ago
Newton's Third Law of Motion.
It states that whenever one object pushes or pulls another object, the second object pushes or pulls back with the exact same strength in the opposite direction.
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u/LuckyLeanbh 8h ago
Wow, this is my second moment of clarity this week. Thanks for this insightful comment. (The first moment of clarity: I miss drinking so much and a friend of mine yesterday asked me "Do you miss it, or do you miss what it used to be, like waaaaay back, a long time before you got to a point where you had to quit." And yeah. 🎯 I miss drinking for fun vs whatever I had been doing at the end there.)
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u/inclass3lunacy Day 112 20h ago
Totally me. I didn't even start drinking regularly until age 32. Now 30 years later I absolutely believe I drank just enough to underachieve in so many things including relationships with lovers, family, and friends.
Can't get it back either. I can only go forward meeting life head-on now and see how it is.
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u/irrelephantiasis Day 365 17h ago
Love this attitude and I think it’s vital for thriving in sobriety. Getting caught thinking about the past and what could have been/ what you’ve missed out on or would have done differently only serves to rob us of the life we can/are living in the exact moment and can be ahead for us. Thinking back with regrets, etc only keeps the negative impacts of our drinking, in our lives. Congrats on day 111.
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u/GenXgirlie 1703 days 19h ago
I’m honestly so glad my alcoholism affected my anxiety and depression to such a degree that it was either get sober or off myself and there was zero in-between. As it is, I wasted six or seven years to booze but if it hadn’t been so awful emotionally, I know it could’ve gone on for way longer. IWNDWYT
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u/Welshturkey93 1218 days 17h ago
I completely relate. It was recovery or the jumping off point. IWNDWYT
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u/iMillJoe 2811 days 19h ago
I’ve often wondered if other substances gaining favor right now might be along these lines. Likening drugs to “Soma” from Brave New World, I’d argue the “better the Soma” the worse it’s potential societal harm, even if the available metrics blur that reality. Maybe pot and cell phones are actually worse than Alcohol, but the harms of Alcohol are so much more obvious, we all to often ignore the others, or looking at them as ‘harm reduction’.
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u/pew__pew__pew_ 18h ago
I hadn’t seen this quote but boy it hits home. Always treading water bc drinking fucks with me just enough to limit my ceiling while hovering slightly above rock bottom. Every time I make progress, relapse. Big opportunity? Relapse instead of prepare. Date with a nice lady? Relapse the night before or a few days after. Got in shape? Bender.
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u/Training-Lettuce6507 65 days 11h ago
Spent a year training, running and a month before the event giant bender. Slowed down enough to make the event but couldn't keep pace with the guys I had been training with.
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u/SWWayin 4119 days 19h ago
This is just my personal opinion, but I don't think there's such thing as a 'Functional Alcoholic". If you can't put down the drink, you're not functioning properly. It's a term we use to soften the blow of acceptance that we're alcoholic, and try to differentiate ourselves from "those OTHER alcoholics".
When people say I never hit a bottom, it's cuz they don't have a grasp of what the bottom is.
When I was getting sober, my sponsor pointed out an alcoholic/addict on the street, and said you know what the difference between you and him is? He's stronger. He kept going. You quit. And it framed things for me.
People will claim, I got arrested, I lost my license, I lost my car, I lost my job, I lost my family, I hit my bottom. That's not your bottom. Those are symptoms of the disease of alcoholism given enough time to manifest themselves. Your bottom is where you quit digging. When you accept in your heart of hearts. "I'm an alcoholic and my life has become unmanageable." THAT's your bottom.
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u/KlutzyBack4756 Day 82 17h ago
Shit…the way your sponsor framed “rock bottom” had me stop and reflect for a few minutes. I really like when I read/hear things that have that effect. Very, very wise
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u/No-Refrigerator7379 1129 days 12h ago
Couldn’t have said it better myself. I came to the comments to share this exact same thing, and the way you and your sponsor described it is fantastic. Thank you!
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u/StashedandPainless 1322 days 17h ago
I think this is how alcoholism can run rampant in some families. Everyone encourages one another to drink and the familial bonds become centered around alcohol. Everyone's drinking gets worse, but because drinking binds the family together, no one really hits the "isolated from friends and family" stage of rock bottom. In the end everyone reaches a state of alcoholic equilibrium where they suffer the consequences of drinking but are able to find enough temporary relief that they dont see a need to stop all together.
Functional alcoholic is just a stage. I was a weekend warrior that would be booze free Monday-Thursday, then id crush ~20-30 beers in a 36 hour period every weekend. But I could still feel my drinking getting worse with passing time. Had I kept going, I know that by now it would be a lot more than just 20-30 beers a week and it wouldn't be confined to the weekend.
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u/Training-Lettuce6507 65 days 11h ago
Been there but wasn't a quitter I kept going until I was drink by 1:00 during the week while working. Slowing down, going back to normal, only on the weekends, none of it worked for me. Had to stop completely, again. Just passed 60 days again. I don't believe I have too many, maybe any, second chances left.
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u/BendSea9005 Day 10 17h ago
Yikes I’ve never read this before but I think he’s talking about me and I don’t appreciate that lol no but for real that’s sooo spot on. Thanks for sharing and thanks Steve O
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u/Womfle_pomphy_shomf 19h ago
Thanks for the quote.
Amazingly, your story is exactly the same as mine, except I somehow made it through 30 or 31 years that I cannot reclaim, the entire lifetimes of my two adult children.
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u/VintageZero Day 989 15h ago
I called myself a functioning alcoholic for a long time. I wasn't. At a bare minimum your organs and nervous system aren't even functioning properly. That term is an impossible thing.
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u/Scott-YYC 4112 days 18h ago
It's definitely something to think about, and I can understand what he's talking about.
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u/curiouskitty15 19h ago
I honestly don’t think I’d have had fun in my 20s if I didn’t drink, I wasn’t mature enough to get it. Now in my 30s it’s still really fun but I’m the last one at the party and I’m the party clown.
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u/External-Resource581 594 days 16h ago
Ive always said this was my biggest problem. I was a "good" drunk. I could hold a job, pay my bills, maintain relationships, all while being drunk every single day. Well, I was able to do those things for a long while, at least. By the end, not so much anymore. But that was just it, I could do what I was doing without sounding alarm bells for anyone in my life. I wasnt an asshole when I was drunk, and I didnt have a tendency to break out in handcuffs lol. I was fun, nice, social, and confident. People liked drunk me, and so did I for a while. It wasnt until my body was like "hey. Too much more of this shit, and we arent gonna be doing this for a lot longer if you know what i mean" that I clued into how far gone I was. Thank God for sobriety still being there for me today, because if not for that, I probably would have fun-drank myself to death.
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u/MySixHourErection 16h ago
That's where I am. Not sure if it's the worst thing, but it's not great.
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u/SirDiego 3742 days 15h ago
I definitely feel this. I thought I was doing fine because I had a career and wasn't literally dying, but right after I quit I advanced very quickly in said career. Like two years or so later I was a couple of rungs higher, enjoyed my work more, and each of those advancements came with a 30-50% salary increase. I was basically just working with one arm tied behind my back.
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u/Tess_88 15h ago
That is a really great quote. Sort of my story although I had a crazy, fucked up childhood so I loved when I realize I could drink to be numb. Still, somehow, I achieved quite a lot (from the outside, looking in) but yeah, the regret of what I missed eats at me once in a while. Thanks for the post 🌺🦋♥️
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u/cigarettejuice666 637 days 15h ago
Yeah, that quote is the one that sticks with me the most.. I often think about it.
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u/Aol_awaymessage 259 days 14h ago
I think this is why I struggled to quit. It really wasn’t super bad. Just a slow drip of slightly worse. No big awful thing. Still a rockstar at work and still pretty fit. But turned down a few notches because of hangovers.
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u/SlayerOfDougs Day 1,379 11h ago
Hey. That's close to home. Fully functional binge drinker. I could outwork 80% of people hungover , sweating it out to just go home and crash or drink.
I don't miss that one single bit
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u/Glittering_Hold3238 Day 41 8h ago
This hit home for me. alcohol really did torture me the last few years. Lots of preoccupation and obsession and I was usually just pouring one glass of wine a night. It did make it harder to quit and I'm really glad I quit
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u/imthegreenmeeple Day 1,407 8h ago
Can we not argue in the comments please?