re "better me"
MAOM... I actually get you when you say a "better me"... for years I drank a (750ml) bottle a day, 151 proof most days, 80 on "light drinking days"... since coming to SR I've had my ups and downs, but I've been sober more days than not... and during relapse days I've lowered the proof (if not the quantity) down to 80 all the time... and that's a better me. Better, but not very good.
This isn't to say this is how I meant it to be. I was hoping that I could just quit, but that's not quite how it worked for me. I just kept stumbling--sober 20 days, drunk 5, sober 11, drunk 4, like that. Which was better than drunk 365... but didn't feel so good some of the time.
However, I can look back on the last 6 months and realize that while I could have done it better, I did do pretty good for me all alone. But now that's not good enough, now I want to be sober all the time--I guess it's just a case of never happy with what you got.
Start out with whatever goal you like, if you like staying sober you can always change your mind. Yeah, I'll probably get torn apart for that sentence alone. But when I was beginning this walk down the sober path, I didn't know a whole lot of what I know now, about both sobriety and myself... I was bound to change my mind.
I wish you the best of luck, and apologies if any of this wasn't quite clear... I'm still on day 5 myself...brain's still getting back to normal.
Take care, and remember to follow up on what you're typing now...
TB