How Reddit Saved My Sobriety
This unlikely source of support helped me through one of the worst days of my life.
When I was about eight or nine months into my sobriety, I had one of the worst days of my life.
My problems started at work. I was a recent law school graduate working at a mid-size public defender’s office in Florida.
Public defenders are court-appointed lawyers who represent criminal defendants who can’t afford to hire a private attorney. It’s an incredibly stressful job, with high caseloads (sometimes over 100 open cases at a time), long hours, and low pay.
For me, the most difficult part of the job was the emotional toll. My clients, in general, had extremely hard lives. No matter how much work I put in, even when I won cases or got charges dropped, there was often nothing I could do to help my clients in the long run.
This was especially trying because the vast majority of my clients were juveniles. I worked with kids who were in truly horrific situations, and I often went home feeling defeated.
I won’t get into the details of what went wrong at work—in part out of respect for my clients and attorney-client privilege, and in part because after six years, I don’t remember all of the details anyway. Suffice it to say, work always left me miserable, and that day was particularly bad.
I was already craving a drink as I headed home, and when I walked into my apartment, things got even worse.
The woman that I had been in a relationship with and living with for the past six years was sitting on the couch with a packed suitcase next to her. She hesitated for a moment, then told me that she was moving out.
The decision hadn’t come out of nowhere, but I still wasn’t expecting it. It hit me like a ton of bricks, and I was left speechless and crying as she headed to a friend’s house.
At that moment, I felt lower than at nearly any other point in my life. Normally, when I was craving alcohol, I would tell myself that I just wanted one or two beers. That evening, I thought to myself that I’d like to go back to drinking and never stop.
I thought about going to a meeting, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I thought about calling my friends or family, but I was too embarrassed.
One of the sad truths about sobriety is that the times when it is most important to reach out to someone are also the times when it is most difficult.
However, I knew that I wasn’t going to make it through the night without help. So, I turned to an unlikely source for support: Reddit.
I think that most people these days have heard of Reddit. In case you haven’t, it’s a website made up of thousands upon thousands of forums about different topics.
There’s a forum for just about any topic you can think of—from Pokemon to opera to traveling to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Popular topics even have multiple forums devoted to them.
Reddit is free and anonymous, so anyone in the world can sign up and join in the discussion.
There are quite a few pages on Reddit dedicated to addiction recovery, the biggest of which is called StopDrinking. In its own words, StopDrinking is:
“A place to motivate each other to control or stop drinking. We welcome anyone who wishes to join in by sharing our experiences and stories, telling others what is helping us to overcome our challenges, or just encouraging someone who is trying to quit or cut down.”
The forum has a lot of readers who are in AA and similar programs, but it also has people who are trying to quit on their own or through alternative methods. Although the blurb says that people who are trying to “cut down” are also welcome, in my experience, nearly everyone who posts to the forum is trying to quit drinking altogether.
The StopDrinking Reddit has helped me many times throughout my sobriety. It’s where I learned many of the methods that I use to control my cravings, and it’s where I’ve found tons of stories from alcoholics who experienced problems nearly identical to my own. It’s been an amazing source of inspiration and support.
A great example of this is the day that I described above. Although I couldn’t bring myself to go to a meeting or reach out to a friend, I did manage to convince myself to write a post on the forum.
I explained in detail everything that had gone wrong and exactly how I was feeling. I wrote how I just couldn’t imagine getting through the night without a drink.
Within just a few minutes, my post was already getting replies. Some people gave me advice, some shared similar experiences, and some simply left words of encouragement.
There was one person who had gone through a nearly identical day and stayed sober. His reply truly helped me to feel like I could do it too. It showed me that I wasn’t as alone as I thought and that my situation wasn’t as impossible as it felt.
By making that post and reading the encouraging replies, I was able to get through those first few hours of the evening without a drink. Later, I pulled myself together enough to call a couple of close friends, who provided even more support.
Life remained hard for quite a while after that day. Work was miserable, I felt like I’d never be in another relationship again, and sobriety was tough.
However, despite all that, I was able to avoid a relapse, thanks to a handful of anonymous strangers on the internet.
With time, my life has drastically improved. I switched to a job that I love, I found other people to connect with and date, and sobriety got easier.
What I learned from that day is that when sobriety is at its hardest, we need to connect with other people, even when it isn’t easy. Although I’ll never meet them in real life, I’m forever grateful to those fellow recovering alcoholics who saw my Reddit post and helped me to make it through the evening.