You're right - its a good start, but the thing is that AV of ours, (the thing that keeps reeling us in) will never start to get any quieter while we're still feeding it. So while we continue to put alcohol in our systems at all, we keep feeding the addiction beast that preys on us, so it's a bit like playing Russian roulette with our lives.
It sounds like you're pretty close to your Day 1. When is this set to be?
The longer we have gone without feeding our addiction, working on our recovery, the more relief we find. You know, it wasn't 2017 that was the problem, it was the fact that your active addiction has made life unbearable and chaotic. The thing that would make 2018 different isn't a digit. It would be not being in active addiction. Sober. And in recovery. Active addiction could mean continued restricted drinking (like now),and that would still keep that AV loud in your head , which would put you in a place of pain (like now). Nobody here wants that for anyone else, because we remember how horrible it is living with that AV poisoning our thoughts and feelings about our lives, ourselves and other poeple.
I wish you all the best for your sobriety and recovery and hope you give that AV of yours a big fat brush off by starving the little feckface into silence. It really is quite satisfying once you get into it.
BB