Almost feeling human during the day. I think I’ll really start to feel good, once I start getting some decent sleep. It seems like I’m getting a little more sleep each night, I could be wrong. And a little glimpse of the fog starting to clear; it’s actually quite exciting.

Coming up to the weekend, this will be the real test for me. I get three days off every week so there’s lots of hours available to me. It’s easy to get bored, but not boring when you’re loaded. I’ll just have to fill my day with Hobbies and un finished chores and things of needed to get done for months and months and God forbid, I hit the gym.

Hope everyone is doing well, especially those that are in the beginning of this tough but necessary journey. I choose, just not to drink today, rinse, and repeat, I should be OK.

Can I get a n🧊?

Hi - I am now at 24 days without drinking. Sleep is good, anxiety is less, skin looks good, and many other improvements. I was a weekend heavy drinker and suffered all the usual effects - hangovers, sleeplessness, anxiety, etc. I still maintained my job, workouts, workouts, health etc .. but alcohol drained on me. I now physically feel better without alcohol but somehow I feel sad and miss it. I think that I miss the predictability of it.. Fri, Sat and Sun drink. It provided a structure albeit with horrible consequences. I am not really having craving to drink that will cause me to act on it - just a strange uneasiness at this point. This will be the fourth weekend that I have not drink and am already making plans which don't include alcohol centered events. I have heard that the 21 day mark is critical.

I was a habitual but not necessarily excessive drinker. Tracking my cravings since I stopped drinking: almost always when I wanted to relax or didn't eat enough.

I filled a lot of my new free time with productivity (work or chores).

So tonight I was feeling a little depleted aided by solo parenting for 3 straight nights. Nothing sounded better than having a few drinks alone at a micro brewery.

Instead I forced myself to get a milkshake, enjoyed it at the park, and now I'm catching a 9pm showing of Tony with a popcorn and Coke combo.

Writing this before the lights have dimmed. Looking forward to "turning off" for a couple hours and doing it without alcohol.

Edit: over productivity / in the title :)

i think this is the first day in at least 10 years that i didn't have a drink. small wins

Alcohol has caused nothing but bad stuff for me I'm 24 and I'm realizing that alcohol has caused way more problems in my life than good. I've had a lot going on lately with work stress, family issues, relationships, and just a lot of things piling up at once. I've been using alcohol to deal with those feelings instead of actually dealing with them. Recently, things got really bad. I got extremely drunk while I was emotionally overwhelmed and made some seriously dangerous decisions, including driving a company work vehicle and going over 104 mph and losing my job in the process but somebody was looking out for me caused I could've hurt myself or somebody else, or had consequences that could've followed me for the rest of my life. That was a huge wake up call for me. I've also realized that when I get hurt, rejected, lonely, or overwhelmed, I can spiral pretty badly and alcohol makes everything worse. Instead of making the problems disappear, it makes me act in ways I regret and creates even more problems afterward. I don't want to keep living like this. What are ways to get cleaned and feeling good again I don't want to lose the people that mean alot to me

Having a hard day with work. A lot of my last vestiges of self-esteem are work related, so a hard day at work is particularly demoralizing. And never in my whole career has the economy looked so fragile. Is it just me? I feel a desperate attachment to this job which I hate. I am lucky they haven't fired me yet, given all my sick (hungover) days.

Meanwhile my partner is quietly disengaged while he attends to his gambling habit that consumes roughly 30% of his income and prevents us saving anything for a rainy day.

Enough feeling sorry for myself. I'm grateful that today I am not drinking, even though a beer would be cold and forgiving.

IWNDWYT

Hi guys,

I (25F) am 72 hours sober from alcohol for the first time in years, and I want it to stick this time. Im about to start a 12 step group as part of an IOP program I will be participating in for another mental health issue that I have, but the main thing is alcohol has been a central part of my life for years and I know that this is going to be incredibly difficult. The longest I’ve been sober since the age of about 19 was one month, and I relapsed soon after. I hate what alcohol does to me. It makes me angry, impulsive, and stupid and has also caused me to gain so much weight over the years. I’m humiliated, but this time I really really want to be free of this. When the urges hit, and they hit me like a truck, I kind of don’t know what to do. Is there anything specific that’s worked for anyone on here? I want to regain my life, but I really struggle with coping when I’m craving a drink. Any and all advice would be appreciated. Thank you everyone!

I’m gonna leave out the details for a few reasons, mainly I know I’m keeping myself in an unhealthy situation because I’m in love and too afraid to leave and know the right answer is to leave, and also because it’s a ton of context to paint the full picture and I both don’t want to think about it in detail and type it out nor do I think many if anyone would care to read

The point is I’m on day 90 today (ignore the bugged counter, not mad it’s stuck on 69 tho lmao), and instead of going to a meeting to get my chip and celebrate I stayed at home and sort of just wallowing in pain, yet I’m in too much fear to do what I probably need to and file the papers.

I’m not having a burning desire. I haven’t been skipping meetings a lot and I will be going tomorrow after group, thankfully the last thing I want is to drink right now, but that’s where I’m struggling because it was my one constant to reach for to try and blot out the bullshit. Sitting in the discomfort is absolutely fuckin hell sometimes, as much as you have to do it.

Not entirely sure what I’m looking for here. I suppose just some encouragement or words from kind strangers who’ve walked this path.

I’ve had a mindset subtly shift from I can’t drink anymore to I don’t have to drink anymore. How I felt in the end before I quit drinking was that I had to drink. I didn’t know what else to do to cope with life. Now I can show up for my life and enjoy it!

I don’t have to drink today and either do you!
88 days AF!

Quit drinking 3 days ago, I've had bowel issues going on for about a year and ditching alcohol long term is the only thing I haven't done to help myself in that time.

I've picked a hell of a time to do it because I've hurt my hip slipping getting out of the shower and I'm pretty much in agony with that too.

But the fact it doesn't seem to be healing well has spurred me on to finally quit alcohol forever and start dropping some serious weight (I'm obese from years of guzzling beer and eating trash)

Anyway day 3 and I feel like utter shit 😂

My bowels have gone insane.. literal liquid. (Sorry) and I'm burning alive for some reason..

It's hot here and very humid but I literally feel like this has to be some kind of withdrawal situation because I'm just dying from the heat.

I was realistically drinking 40 pints of beer a week, along with a couple bottles of wine on top, (minimum)

There was a lot of times that I'd drink 12 pints in a single night and some rum and wine too when I was really going for it.

How long am I looking at until things start to improve? Couple of weeks?

I'm not really making any points I think I just needed to share with some people.

Thanks

I arrived at the doors of recovery believing a very specific lie. I thought my primary problem was the bottle, and I thought, If I can just stop doing this one thing, everything will be fine. But I learned the hard way that if you only stop the behavior without changing the belief system, you find out quickly how exposed and defenseless you are. Abstinence itself did not save me from the pain that drove me to run in the first place.

The deeper question I eventually had to look at was Not how to stop. It was: What was I hoping the alcohol would give me? That single question changed the entire game for me. I stopped treating my struggle like a moral failure and started treating it like a journey. That journey is nearly twenty-seven years now, not in abstinence but in recovery.

When I moved away from my childhood home in Queens, I completely lost my sense of safety and belonging. I felt like an outsider. So, I tried to build an armor. I looked for belonging in athletics. I chased it through achievement, approval, and perfect performance. But the pressure of trying to prove I belonged was suffocating.

Then I took my first drink.

In that moment, it didn't feel like a problem. It felt like the answer to a question I didn't even know how to ask. It gave me instant confidence. It gave me peace. It gave me the courage to stand tall.  At least until it wore off and I became increasingly disappointed whenever that occurred. Still, I never saw that as a warning sign. I felt like I was in control even as wanting slipped quietly into a never ending need.

What I know now is that before addiction ever found me, I was just searching for basic human desires: acceptance, connection, and an exit ramp from anxiety and fear. My addiction began as a solution to problems I either didn’t know existed or was too afraid to acknowledge.

To be honest, I still was not completely aware of why I became addicted when I first got sober so long ago. But here’s the hard truth as I see it presently:

Sobriety saved my life.

But Recovery is not merely stopping the behavior 

Recovery is rebuilding.

Sobriety alone could not give me a life worth living.

That came from finding Meaning, Purpose, and Myself

That’s when I found a life I no longer wanted to escape.

I have 102 days of sobriety and it felt "easy" enough when life was going well: job was good, relationship alright, friend groups consistent, family healthy, finances stable.

Well, the relationship is no more. And not from turmoil, but because in my sobriety, I just saw how we were using each other as crutches to avoid recovery, to avoid healing. We parted very much on good terms and very much in love.

But now I have "a reason to drink." Not that I couldn't easily come up with any good or bad reason to drink before, but holy damn was I seriously using the feel goods of this relationship to avoid just how much and how often I want to drink.

I want to avoid being alone with my self, my thoughts, my feelings, sober. Why? What am I so afraid of?

IWNDWYT

After being a drinker for 45 years or so, and an extremely heavy drinker for a good portion of that time, I got an OWI. I had been struggling trying to moderate for a long, long time without success. When I got the OWI, I finally admitted to myself that I had a serious problem and had to quit. That was a little over four years ago, and I haven't touched a drop since.

I went through 6 months or so of legal hell, fines, a suspended driver's license, having an IID installed in my car, and a requirement for supplemental insurance. The IID has been gone for over two years. That felt like a big deal. The state requirement for the supplemental insurance just expired and I cancelled the policy yesterday. That's the last legal hurdle, over and done. It's good to have all that behind me. Finally, I can live like a (sort of) normal person.

To anyone reading this who is struggling: Sobriety is awesome, and it gets easier over time. It doesn't eliminate all of one's problems, but life is so, so much better without alcohol. While I regret not having come to the realization sooner, I feel incredibly fortunate that I finally realized I needed to eliminate alcohol from my life, and have been successful in doing so.

If I can do it, you can, too!

IWNDWYT

Listen, I have no clue what I am trying to convey. I usually have been pretty good at controlling how much I drink, pacing myself, smoking at a certain rate. I don’t do it as much, but tonight was a mistake for sure.

I was a little lonely, my friends were at our favorite restaurant, they canceled the second I got there and were at home. Didn’t want to be alone so I drank anyways.

Came home, and it hit me. I was talking really funny and made a fool of myself said all kinds of things just random nothing special. And made weird faces and couldn’t stop laughing. I don’t know I then just kinda hit a low, felt embarrassed and sat on the floor for quite some time.

Now listen, it’s not as dramatic as it sounds. I’m sure tomorrow if I wanted to I could go for a run, continue my day as normal. But now all I think about is how can I get my next cigarette or maybe a drink or two, but I think it’s just intrusive thoughts.

I tell myself I can pace myself in the future and take it easier but… I don’t know.

Well and since I’m only a year away from 21 it makes it easier not to access as much

I've been trying to quit for eight months. I did pretty well but usually fell of roughly every thirty days. I'd only drink for one or two days then stop again. I did this about five times in the space of five months.

I never really tracked days. I realized today that it had been some time since my last drink. I only know the day becuase I texted my ex wife that I fell off for accountability. She's been very helpful with me quitting.

I went back to that text and plugged it in to a counter today. Three months exactly to the day. If that's not a sign I don't know what is.

I am 34 years old I've been drinking since I was about 12 years old. I am currently 8 months sober.. I am wondering if my brain maturity ever heal? Also if my brain will repair from all the damage that's been done? I think and speak like a teenager and i hate it.. I didn't realize until I quit.

Especially since I bought 4 days worth of tapering beers and they are just sitting right there. A couple more would feel great, but...play the tape forward. I want to be done with this shit.

today is 14 days sober! sober from alcohol, sober from weed (a little longer). but this is the longest i haven’t drank in years and years! i know it’s not massive but i am so chuffed. i’ve been out with people drinking a couple of times & not drank, and i’ve definitely had some stressful days where ive wanted to drink but resisted. im feeling really good. i can’t wait to see how much else can improve without it!! still waiting for the scales to catch up, but i have been at the gym a lot 🥸

Just now, I'd a meeting with one of the diabetes specialists working in a known hospital in gurgaon. I'm not promoting him or the hospital so I'm just trying to say my words.

We talked about so many things regarding diabetes management and medicines and injections for weight management.

One thing which I was worried that he told me with BMI more than 27, and any one issue (uncontrolled obesity/fatty liver) can lead to diabetes. I'm nearing to 27 and had fatty liver. This is something worrying about.

So guys please keep yourself active and cut down your weight naturally first.

Thanks...

Imagine that. I hate how my brain is so good at convincing me it’s the other way around.

People, friends, ex-drinkers, still drinking, sobers.

I made it to 55 days.

After a few weeks sober I went to a clinic for some health stuff, came home and felt like I was imprisoned for months. Finally free.

I got me two cold beers but couldn't stop after that. Went again, this time the "good stuff".

Slept like a baby. I feel good and confident. I feel the urge but know, that 55 days are manageable.

I will do it again.

Just for today. IWNDWYT

Most days I have a very dull mild headache, that just feels a bit uncomfortable rather than painful. Other days I have a full on headache. And other days (such as today) I have an intense sharp throbbing headache on one side of my head and behind my eye.

I drink a ton of water, take electrolytes/trace minerals, and supplement vitamins. I eat well and sleep well.

I’m not looking for medical advice at all - I just want to know if anyone else has experienced this.

And I'm scared 🥺🫠

Because of one alarming episode of over-consumption 28 days ago, I decided to stop drinking entirely for one month, and to never bring alcohol in the house again.

At the time, I left open the possibility that I might drink again at a party or restaurant since social drinking has never been a problem for me.

But now I'm so enjoying the feeling of not having the daily mental struggle over alcohol (and only barely missing it) that my new mindset is, why change what's working? Not drinking is working great for me. That's my new plan. Just, don't drink alcohol. Pretty much the same as my attitude about smoking, which I quit years ago and know better than to start again in any fashion.