The Clear Horizon

From oblivion of alcoholism into the light of sobriety

  • Alkohol happiness vs Real happiness

    Well. I would like to dive into something that has been on my mind ever since cutting back: Is the “happiness” that alcohol deals you, really happiness? And if not, what is, then? Well, cutting back or stopping to drink alcohol seems to be a double edged sword at first glance. At second glance, however, Read more

  • How to Deal with Cravings?

    Today I’d like to say something about how I came away from cravings and triggers in the first couple of days and weeks of my cutback and sobriety voyages. I will not dive too deeply into the psychology of habits or the neuro-physiological aspects, but one thing your craving tells you is: “Give me something Read more

  • Pros and Cons of Alcohol

    The big question you might ask yourself: Are there any benefits to alcohol anyways? I crawled through my mind to find arguments that speak against or in favor of drinking alcohol. Since I decided to stop drinking, let me start with a contra list: That’s just 15 arguments I could think of that popped into Read more

  • Rethinking

    At first, I didn’t even want to become completely sober. I just wanted to drink commonsensical, meaning I wanted to drink like anybody else. Thing is, I found out that on occasions of commonsensical drinking, it was an illusion all along. I drank way too much on these occasions, so all set boundaries ended up Read more

  • And then it all went over the top

    After a couple of years, I felt it was time to get rid of the feeling of having no proper qualification (in teacher education, you were only deemed as “qualified” once you had both degrees of teacher education, at least if you want to work in a public school, and I wanted to get out Read more

  • No Drugs – But why has all the Fun gone?

    After nearly choking off my life motivation and sinking headlong into a deep depression, I finally made it to get rid of smoking cigarettes and abolishing dope, I mustered the strength to get my life as straight as possible: I declined a possible apprenticeship as a programmer and inscribed as a student again. I moved. Read more

  • Celebrations without Booze

    Just a quick note: I had a lot of anxiety about yesterday’s holiday party from my company. Since I have only been sober for two months, I thought I would have massive cravings or would be triggered to having a drink. Instead, I didn’t have any cravings or triggering situation at all. I even found Read more

  • Procrastinating through college – or: Who needs a Future anyways?

    After I finished my Abitur (Giving you the permission to study at a university) I did my substitute service instead of military service (which, no doubt, included as much drinking as having been a soldier would have). This is a fuzzy era, I only know that I hated this time and took every opportunity to Read more

  • A promising Drinking Career

    When I was about 16, there was a pub in the city I lived in, where you could get drinks so cheap even a teenager with his pocket money could get hammered that one day in the week without getting broke. The pub was called Eulenspiegel and you could get either half a liter of Read more

  • How it Began…

    I think it makes sense to work on three levels here: Firstly, there will be postings about my “drinking career” and secondly my “sobriety career” and then postings about aspects, situations, methods and thoughts that help me to get on in my sobriety career and to share worries, happy thoughts, daily snippets and stuff. Let’s Read more