How to Quit Drinking and Get Sober Without AA
This is my guide on how to get sober without AA. I have nothing against Alcoholics Anonymous, and to be perfectly honest I did go to AA a grand total of three times when I first quit drinking for the last time. At those meetings I received a copy of the Big Book and learnt about the 12 steps. I encourage anyone trying to get sober to at least give it a try. In my case, partly due to the pandemic and partly due to my introverted nature, I quit drinking and got sober largely on my own.
What follows is as much about my older brother as it is about me, but our stories are intertwined as you will read. My brother would hate for me to tell you this. I can only hope that through reading this you can learn from his mistakes and what happened to him won’t happen to you.
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Table of Contents
The Formative Years
Like most young people growing up in western society, I was brought up thinking that drinking alcohol was the epidemy of coolness. TV shows, movies and commercials portrayed alcohol as something that created good times with good friends and sexy women. I’ll take that martini shaken not stirred.
During my mid teens I got a fake ID and was able to go to bars and buy alcohol from age 16 onwards. I partied most nights and drinking became a nightly thing, becoming blackout or close to blackout drunk regularly. This type of drinking was normal, accepted and celebrated in my group of friends.
My older brother Casey was just like me in that we both drank and partied hard. We grew up in Calgary on the Canadian prairies with the Stampede and beer gardens for 10 days every summer and electric avenue, a street packed with bars, the rest of the year. We were both good athletes and bad students. Him on Canada Team for water polo, me on Canada Team for Diving. Casey is exactly 2 years older than me. Our birthdays are on the same day, and after high school we became very close, traveling and drinking together for the next 20 years.
As the years passed our drinking became more problematic. Casey and I had no problem drinking in the morning to get rid of a hangover. This was our downfall. If we could have abstained for at least a day or two between binges this could have saved us. But, as with many problem drinkers, that just wasn’t the case.
The Consequences of Drinking Too Much Alcohol
Around Casey’s 40th year he had his first close call with death. One afternoon he started to feel decidedly shitty. So, as per usual, he had some beers to try to alleviate his symptoms. This didn’t help and soon after he started throwing up massive amounts of blood. His girlfriend at the time drove him to the hospital where he was rushed to emergency. He was bleeding from a ruptured vein in his throat. Casey’s liver, it turned out, was already so scarred that blood had been bypassing the organ and engorging the veins in his esophagus. One of these had ruptured, bleeding internally into his stomach. The first symptom he noticed was a tar like bowel movement. This was the blood in his stool. If you ever have a black, tar like bowel movement, go strait to the hospital.
Undetected Advanced Liver Cirrhosis
Casey already had advanced cirrhosis of the liver and was told in no uncertain terms that he had to quit drinking or he would literally bleed to death.
To be clear, Casey didn’t come across as your typical full blown alcoholic. He was relatively fit, hale and healthy. We spent many an afternoon throwing the frisbee or football around and he regularly took 3 to 4 hour walks around his Vancouver home. He rarely got out of control drunk and only ever drank beer.
Attempts at Quitting
For the next year Casey abstained from drinking alcohol completely. However, at the end of that year, feeling depressed, unmotivated and unhappy in his sober life, he started drinking again. He tried to drink in a responsible manner but, like me, he was unable to drink moderately.
The second time he was rushed to hospital the nurses had to give him something like 10 pints of blood to keep him alive. He again quit drinking completely, but was unable to remain sober for long. Unfortunately, my brother didn’t do enough of the work required to find happiness in sobriety, assuming he could have found it at all. Some, I believe, are doomed to die from their addictions, whether that be from alcohol, drugs, food or adrenalin, and he may have been one of them.
Quitting Through Sheer Will Power Doesn’t Work Long Term
Quitting through sheer will power and merely living or existing in sobriety without doing the required amount of personal development and self-reformation, just doesn’t work long term. New strategies for living in sobriety have to be found, explored and implemented. The change from drinking daily to not at all is profound and you have to find new ways to live.
I followed a similar pattern to my brother in our on and off again relationship with alcohol. Both of us trying to remain sober. Him trying to get into hiking and buying an Enduro BMW motor bike to tour the country. Me, thankfully without the advanced liver disease, working on mindfulness, yoga and tai chi while studying addiction and its causes. I would get sober for a few months, begin to feel better, then start drinking casually again. Every time I started drinking again with the best intentions. Foolishly thinking I could moderate my drinking with my new found knowledge and wisdom. Only to find that within a week, I was drinking to excess every day, unable to control myself.
After this second bleeding episode, Casey’s liver was severely scarred and couldn’t process liquid at all. His abdomen would fill with liquid, expanding to huge proportions so that he had to get drained regularly. On a monthly basis he would go to the hospital to get a large needle inserted into his abdomen with an attached tube and bag. This slowly drained the accumulated liquid over the course of several hours. As Casey became sicker and sicker with his quality of life dropping lower and lower the only relief he found was in alcohol.
Dying from Alcohol Related Liver Disease
On the day of Casey’s death, I showed up to his apartment at around eight in the morning. He was scheduled to go to the hospital to get drained and I was there to take him. When I walked into the room he was lying on his bed, covered in blood. The veins in his esophagus had ruptured again. I tried to get him into a wheelchair to take him to the hospital but he had no strength and no inclination to go. I offered to call an ambulance but he refused, preferring to stay and die than continue living. Seeing him suffer for the last few months, I could understand why.
Last Hours
By this point, his quality of life was horrible, unable to really move or eat, he was living in continual pain. He had a stick thin body other than a hugely bloated stomach with a skeletal face and hollow cheeks. I clearly remember his bright blue eyes pleading with me to let him die. And so I did. I sat together with my brother that morning for hours, as we had so many times before. Him bleeding, getting weaker and weaker his breathing becoming shallower and shallower. Me drinking a beer and reading Shogun aloud, one of our favorite books, as he bled to death beside me. Periodically holding his hand and wiping away the blood he was weakly puking up.
Death
He finally stopped breathing at around eleven in the morning. I waited for about an hour before calling the ambulance, wanting to be certain he couldn’t be revived, double checking there was no pulse to make sure he was truly gone. Casey was 46 years old.
I don’t know if I could have done anything different during our life together to convince him to stop drinking before it was too late. But I didn’t or couldn’t, I had my own demons in those days. I was able to stop drinking on occasion, sometimes for months at a time, only to fall back into my habit of drinking a 15 pack a day, usually with vodka or Jägermeister on the side.
My Last Years Before Getting Sober
To sum up the last years of my drinking, I crashed a car, got divorced and sold a house when I really shouldn’t have, mainly to pay off debts. My mental and physical health deteriorated and while going through detox on more than one occasion I was shaking so vigorously that I couldn’t feed myself. On one particularly severe detox I started hallucinating so badly that I saw giant insects crawling on the roof and walls around me. I once went to a hospital to inquire about detox programs and they checked me in then and there, thinking it was better not to wait.
I regret none of these things, as they made me the person I am today. As I said previously, I don’t know if I could have helped Casey, but I do know that going forward, I can take control of my own life, doing my best to thrive in sobriety, share my experiences and help others to live more mindful, happy and healthy lives. The photo on the left was taken at Brendan’s 30th birthday party. This was shortly before Casey’s first bleeding episode and during one of my sober sessions. Casey in the red Flames hat, me in the middle and Brendan on the left.
The last drink I had was with Brendan on the day we cremated Casey, and I hope it will be my last.
Some Sobering Stats
- Worldwide, 3 million deaths every year result from harmful use of alcohol.
- According to the NIAAA, in the US, an estimated 95,000 people (approximately 68,000 men and 27,000 women) die from alcohol-related causes annually, making alcohol the third-leading preventable cause of death in the United States. The first is tobacco, and the second is poor diet and physical inactivity.
- In 2019, of the 85,688 liver disease deaths among individuals ages 12 and older, 43.1 percent involved alcohol. Among males, 53,486 liver disease deaths occurred, and 45.6 percent involved alcohol. Among females, 32,202 liver disease deaths occurred, and 39.0 percent involved alcohol.
- From 2010 to 2016, alcohol-related liver disease was the primary cause of almost 1 in 3 liver transplants in the United States, replacing hepatitis C virus infection as the leading cause of liver transplantation due to chronic liver disease.
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Research has shown that people who misuse alcohol have a greater risk of liver disease, heart disease, depression, stroke, and stomach bleeding, as well as cancers of the oral cavity, esophagus, larynx, pharynx, liver, colon, and rectum. These individuals may also have problems managing conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, pain, and sleep disorders. They may (I’m going to say definitely!) increase their likelihood of unsafe sexual behavior.
- Alcohol consumption is associated with increased risk of drowning and injuries from violence, falls, and motor vehicle crashes. Alcohol consumption is also associated with an increased risk of female breast cancer, oropharyngeal cancer, esophageal cancer (especially in individuals who inherit a deficiency in an enzyme involved in alcohol metabolism), and harmful medication interactions. Alcohol consumption has been linked to risk for FASD in the offspring of women who consume alcohol during pregnancy
Strategies on How to Get Sober Without AA
- Do The Wim Hoff Method breathing exercises. This is a life changer! It helps with stress, anxiety and sleep along with many other benefits.
- Take a cold shower or plunge every day. This is excellent for stress relief and is a great way to get a dopamine boost! To get started, read about The Benefits of and How to do Tummo/Wim Hoff Breathing and Cold Water Therapy.
- Start doing affirmations. Keep them positive and end them with thriving in sobriety. For example, ‘I am healthy thriving in sobriety’. And don’t just mindlessly say the affirmations. While repeating the affirmation think about what it means to you, what barriers are in place that are stopping you from achieving that affirmation and what you have to do to overcome those barriers and realize that affirmation. To use the above example – what do you consider healthy and how would you like to be healthy, what is stopping you from being healthy and how do you overcome those barriers to become healthy. My personal affirmation is ‘I am happy, humorous and healthy, virile, wise and wealthy thriving in complete sobriety’. Feel free to use mine or parts of mine but also come up with some of your own.
- One of the most important things you must do is convince yourself that alcohol brings you pain, and not just pain but massive amounts of pain. The insidious and difficult thing about alcohol is that it does, in the short term, bring pleasure. The first few drinks of alcohol triggers a release of endorphins – chemicals that bring feelings of pleasure – and after years of drinking this is ingrained in your brain. To break this pattern you need to stop drinking for one, but you also need to think deeply about how alcohol has brought you pain and how abstaining will bring you pleasure. Affirmations are meant to be positive but you can turn this into an affirmation of sorts. Remind yourself daily of all the different ways alcohol brings you pain and how quitting will both stop that pain and bring you pleasure. As time goes by it is best to focus on your positive affirmations and how thriving in sobriety brings you pleasure. But, at the beginning you need to remind yourself why you are quitting on a daily, if not hourly, basis.
- Read The 30 Day Sobriety Solution: How to Cut Back or Quit Drinking in the Privacy of your Own Home and DO THE SOLUTIONS! This is a must read book for anyone trying to quit drinking on their own.
- Read the BIG BOOK from AA. This is a great resource even if you don’t want to go to AA. The Big Book has a great explanation of what alcoholism is and lots of good stories and strategies to help you with your sobriety journey.
- If you relapse and fall off the wagon, don’t be too hard on yourself. Refocus, regroup, identify what caused your relapse and try again. Do this as many times as it takes. I quit more than 30 times before quitting for good.
- Start a moving mindfulness meditation practice such as yoga or tai chi. You can find lots of free resources on the web or go to a class.
- Get a good nights rest. Follow these recommendations from Huberman labs Toolkit for Sleep.
- Find great drinks that you love to replace your alcoholic drinks. Buy a SodaStream and try all the different flavors available. Make your own delicious fizzy drinks. One of my favorites is 1 tsp. lime juice with 1 tsp. apple cider vinegar mixed with soda water. Up your coffee and tea game. Explore the expanding world of non-alcoholic drinks.
- Eat a Whole Food Plant Based Diet. The key word here is WHOLE FOODS, try to eat as many actual foods as possible. To get started, you can find some free, useful information here.
- Take a probiotic and eat probiotic foods such as sauerkraut, kimchee and yogurt and drink kombucha to re-establish a healthy gut biome.
- Take a good multivitamin and drink a high quality green nutrient drink to replace depleted vitamins and minerals that alcohol consumption causes. If you are following a whole food plant based diet you can now take a multivitamin designed especially for you!
- Make sure to get your Omega-3s by eating high quality fish, flax seeds and taking algae or fish oil.
- Find a fun, active, healthy hobby. Something you can pursue that you will do better at when you are sober and fit. As you may have guessed, I love stand up paddle boarding, surfing, tai chi and yoga.
- Strive to become more mindful. Along with moving mindfulness practices do some research on the subject and try some different meditation strategies. The best book I have read on mindfulness is The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.
- Keep vigilant and continue with your affirmations and sobriety strategies.
- Practice gratitude.
- Be forgiving, especially with yourself.
- Be compassionate, especially with yourself.
I wish you the best of luck. In the process of working through the above strategies, you can hopefully expose and deal with the root cause of your alcohol addiction and truly realize the potential of the new you. My life has changed for the better in every possible way since becoming sober. In the future, I will mainly share positive stories as it is important to focus on the positive. But the history was there to be told. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Remember that, thinking of your own trials and tribulations. I hope you take something meaningful away from this. I hope my story, and the suggestions in it, help you overcome your obstacles. I truly do love being sober and I hope you find the same enjoyment in sobriety that I have, and that I wish my brother could have found as well.
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