Although I drank hard for a long time, I always continued staying active. I drank and surfed, (then got my DUI after driving 6 hours up from Baja Mexico after a 4 day surf trip) in fact we surfed in what we later found out was shark infested waters off Ensenada near a cannery, would not have been there sober. Surfing sober has been much better. I used swimming in my cold pool drunk as what I used to call (the great equalizer), because it help sober me up and wash the smell of beer and booze off of me before the wife would get home. I ran and walked did aerobics and lifted weights drunk to sweat out the booze, I have played in hundreds of drunken softball games and have always been drunk on the golf course.
Now within the last 30 days I have been doing even more exercising, and I am enjoying it more and I am gaining greater physical and mental benefits from it. As I wrote in another post I have lost 10 real pounds, (not just water weight), I have not been feeling the normal aches and pains that I used to get regularly after my workouts. I am really trying to switch my addictive behavior from alcohol to being fit and healthy. It really helps with my depression as well, and my sex life has improved!! Physical fitness, a good diet and no alcohol has been a great recipe for an improved mental state. This is the happiest I have been in a long time!