Eleven people share the moment, or series of moments, that changed their relationship with alcohol.
A sober turning point does not look the same for everyone.
For some people, it is one dramatic event that makes continuing to drink feel impossible. For others, it is a series of smaller moments, broken promises, difficult mornings, and quiet realizations that gradually become impossible to ignore.
One of the things I value most about this community is that we welcome and celebrate every path to getting and staying alcohol-free. No two people get sober for exactly the same reason, and no two recovery stories unfold in exactly the same way.
By sharing a wide range of experiences, we hope more people can recognize themselves in someone else’s story, discover voices that resonate, and feel less alone.
With that in mind, we asked members of our sober community:
What was the turning point in your decision to get sober?
Below are 11 responses from contributors to our My Sobriety Story series.
When Small Moments Become Impossible to Ignore
Not every sober turning point arrives as a single crisis. Sometimes, the decision to change grows from many smaller experiences that slowly reveal the truth.
Sydney Allen
“It was so many small things adding up to something unavoidable. Too many hangovers, or too many broken promises to myself. In the end, I found myself spending almost all of my time thinking about alcohol and drinking while wishing I could think about anything else.
By all accounts, I was a ‘normal’ drinker. But I got tired of pretending I didn’t hate everything about the person I was when I was drunk.”
Jessica Dueñas
“There wasn’t one dramatic moment. It was the accumulation of physical reality. By 2019, my body was failing. I was living in a daily cycle of alcohol withdrawal and drinking just to function, while also navigating a diagnosis of alcoholic liver disease. It hurt to exist.
At some point, the illusion that I could ‘manage’ it disappeared. I realized there was no balancing anymore. I was either going to continue and let it kill me slowly, or I was going to decide to live.”
When Sobriety Starts to Feel Possible
Recognizing the damage caused by alcohol or other substances is only part of the turning point. Sometimes, change begins when a person realizes that another kind of life might actually be possible.
Carly Schwartz
“I’d been in denial about my substance use for a long time: How could the one thing that gave me any relief possibly be the one thing keeping me from truly getting well?
And since my addiction didn’t look like how ‘rock bottom’ is portrayed in wider culture, I was still gainfully employed, I didn’t drink or do drugs every day, I wasn’t under a bridge with a needle in my arm or hoarding bottles beneath the bathroom sink, it never really occurred to me that sobriety might be my path out of misery.
My decision to check into rehab was random, borderline impulsive, and a reaction to yet another bad hangover. I didn’t even go to rehab with the intent of getting fully sober. I just wanted a ‘reset’ and to figure out a more manageable way to engage with substances. (Ha, ha.)
The turning point in deciding to become fully sober was gradually revealed to me over the course of my time in rehab, as I slowly realized it was possible to experience happiness without a veil of substances.
‘What if sobriety was like a whole new substance in itself?’ I reasoned. I hadn’t experienced life without some form of drugs or booze since childhood. That novelty mindset is what carried me through my early recovery.
Today, my sobriety isn’t so much a lifelong mandate as a continuous, ongoing choice to continue feeling good instead of feeling horrible. In the seven years since getting clean, I have yet to slide back into the depths of depression.”
Vince Puzick
“I suppose it was more like turning points, plural. Over the years, I had small glimmers of insight that my drinking was neither ‘normal’ nor healthy: a blackout drinker since I was 16, grocery money spent on weed and alcohol while in college, living a life so narrowly devoted to getting drunk and high that I was missing out on so much.
From the time I was 16 until I was 26, I was plagued with remorse and regret about my drinking and who I became when I drank. I had turning points, little seeds planted along the way, quiet whispers of intuition that I could no longer ignore or silence or avoid acting on.
But maybe the turning point was in the autumn of 1983. I had ‘failed’ at living in NYC while working as a paralegal for a law firm that had offices there and in Palo Alto, CA.
I was on a Greyhound bus from NYC to Colorado Springs, to my mother’s apartment. On that 48-hour bus ride from NYC to my hometown, I was emotionally, spiritually, and financially bankrupt, as well as mentally exhausted. I was drunk and stoned the entire ride. I was completely demoralized.
And I literally, and egotistically, thought to myself, ‘How did a nice guy like you get to a place like this?’”
When Drinking Damages Relationships and Identity
For several contributors, the turning point came when drinking began destroying relationships, changing how other people saw them, or turning them into someone they no longer recognized.
Little Edits Atelier
“In March of 2024, I looked around and realized I had burned every friendship I had ever had, and I was no longer just hurting myself. This was a hurt-people-hurt-people situation, and the public display I was putting on was rewriting a reputation I was holding onto by a string.
I was every kind of alcoholic: Jekyll and Hyde, episodic binge drinker, daily drinker. The works.
What I know now: it was a combination of grief and wounded ego, both making me destructive at events, holidays, parties, and in my own professional life. This slow suicide brought so much pain that I had to make it stop.
Past the proverbial point of no return, I felt no hope for the future. I finally asked my parents for help when they realized how far down the path I had gone.
I knew there was something buried deep inside of me, my truest self, that I used to know. And I had a feeling that I could get her back. There had to be a different way. It felt like a long-overlooked calling.”
Through Sober Eyes
“The real turning point was when my kids started to lose trust in me and told me they were disappointed. I was physically present but not really engaged, and they could see it. I had become the man I never wanted to be.
I knew I had to change. I just wasn’t sure that I could. I had so many ‘I’ll start tomorrow’ moments.
I had every intention of not drinking, but I had reached the point where I couldn’t function without it, the proverbial ‘I couldn’t live with it, I couldn’t live without it.’ It consumed every day.
If I wasn’t drinking, I was planning it, recovering from it, or carrying the shame that came with it.
Life had to change. It was truly unmanageable, and I needed help.
I spent almost a month in an inpatient treatment center. That’s where my mind changed. Life had more to offer than self-seeking and self-sabotage. That’s when I decided I never wanted to feel that way again.”
Rilee Wagner
“There were many situations I found myself in that should have been the end of my drinking career. But I always found an excuse, justification, or reason for why I did or said something, which of course made it all okay.
I was the perfect description of a Jekyll-and-Hyde drunk. Anytime I drank, I needed to get obliterated, and every time I got drunk, I turned into someone else.
It wasn’t until it started to affect my professional life. It wasn’t until I came face to face with losing the people who meant the most to me. It wasn’t until I almost lost it all: the job, the home, the family, the friends.
My trajectory was rock bottom, but I found my way out.”
When the Consequences Become Life or Death
Some turning points leave little room for negotiation. The choice becomes clear: accept help and pursue recovery, or continue toward consequences that may be impossible to survive.
Greg Downs
“Being in that jail cell was the turning point. My career has been spent working as a financial advisor to the ultra-wealthy in Palm Beach. The experience of that dramatic turn from boardrooms to jail cells left me at a crossroads.
I had tried getting sober many times before jail. I would attend a meeting, pick up a white chip, and then go straight to the bar. I probably did that 20 times.
I had never seen any real negative consequences to my drinking up until those last few months. Those last few months were pure hell, though. An affair, a lost job, two suicide attempts, and complete alienation in our local community. All within eight months.
After the arrest, I knew if I didn’t make a change, I would end up in and out of those jail cells. So, I made the decision to really give sobriety an honest try.”
Steve Munro
“I was physically addicted to alcohol. I drank only to hold off the delirium tremens: hallucinations, tremors, and seizures.
My daily mission was to obtain the alcohol required for the next 24 hours, and maybe eat and shower. My time spent drinking was lost to blackouts.
One day, after 26 ounces of cheap vodka, I woke up on the floor mid-seizure. Alone. I had a binary choice: get sober or die.
Although I’d lost my wife, my job, my health, my house, and the majority of my possessions, the will to live won out over despair. It had taken 25 years of numbing myself to a life that never quite felt right to reach that binary choice.”
When Help Arrives at the Right Moment
A turning point does not always come from a consequence. Sometimes, it comes from an unexpected conversation, a familiar face, or someone who is willing to listen without judgment.
Sue McWilliams
“I walked into the church and wandered back to where I could hear some people talking. I walked into the kitchen, where a man was standing on a chair pulling down some Big Books.
I very sheepishly asked if this was the AA meeting. As he stepped off the chair and turned toward me, he said, ‘I would know that voice and face anywhere.’ It was Francis, my late husband’s sponsor.
It was a fairly small meeting, and since I was there for my first meeting, they held the traditional first-step meeting. Everyone shared their story, and as I listened, I thought they were crazy. I couldn’t relate to the way they drank or used drugs.
Just before the meeting finished, Francis asked if I could sit and talk. He shared that he typically doesn’t attend this meeting, but one of his sponsees called and asked if he could run it for him that night.
For the next hour, I talked, and he listened. When I finished, he said, ‘Here is what I think you should do: go to meetings, get a sponsor, don’t drink, and call me if you need anything.’
He gave me his phone number, and I left. I am pretty sure if he hadn’t been there, I would have left and not gone back.”
When You Finally See Through Your Own Excuses
Sometimes, the sober turning point is deeply internal. Nothing outside has necessarily changed, but for one clear moment, the stories and excuses that protected the drinking no longer feel believable.
Hannah Winokur
“The classic sitting on the end of my bed saying, ‘Holy hell, I don’t like anything about myself or my life. I have no idea who I am or why I am doing these things.’
I felt minuscule in my life and like a complete and total victim. Everything, and I mean everything, hurt all the time.
I had no connection to myself or to the world around me. I was running on autopilot and old wounds.
In that moment on the edge of my bed, it was like something in me cracked open. For a brief span of time, I could see through my lies and excuses, and I knew with every part of me that I had to quit.”
What Was Your Sober Turning Point?
Your turning point may have been a crisis, a conversation, a health warning, or a quiet realization that arrived over time.
It may also be happening now.
Whatever your experience looked like, your story may help someone else recognize that they are not alone and that a different life is possible.
We would love to hear from you. Share your sober turning point in the comments below.
If you would like to contribute to the My Sobriety Story series, contact Dr. Dana Leigh Lyons at [email protected] to request the questions and submission guidelines.
We welcome and celebrate every path to getting and staying alcohol-free.
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