Originally Posted by kkik5

Well. It is day 31 for me As of tomorrow I will have been sober for a month!

@jazzfish - I thought sobriety was just not drinking. Turns out, it was not (for me at least). I've mentioned before that I was 9 months sober in order to get my degree. That 9 months was that - just being sober. I knew I couldn't drink, else I'd mess up all hopes for a degree, but I wanted to drink more and more as the time went on. At some point I got used to not drinking, but it wasn't sobriety, because I was still itching to get the school thing over with so I could celebrate with booze. And as a testament to that thought process, on the day I graduated and also secured a scholarship for graduate studies, all bets were off. Even now, I don't view that time period as sobriety, but as not drinking, because I wasn't actively trying to improve anything - I just wasn't drinking.
This time around I am active about my sobriety and I think this is why I feel this certain calm. The big difference was finding SR.

From my experience, I'd say there's a big difference between sobriety and not drinking. While both versions obviously bring positive benefits for problem drinkers, sobriety seems more ... resilient?