Originally Posted by
daredevil 
JeffreyAK: you said you have had no desire to drink, no PAWS, and take no meds: how long will it take me to get to that point? When I was sober for 5 months, after 3 months, I was pretty good. Does that sound about right?
I don't know for you, for me I didn't really feel stable until I was 10 months sober, before that I felt kinda scared, I suppose - scared that some tiger was going to jump out from behind the next bush, and I was going to suddenly start drinking again. Something might happen and I'd lose control. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me now, but I guess at the time it was totally new psychological territory, and the weight of how badly shaken I had been still seemed heavy. So I did a lot of planning out my days, went to a lot of meetings, and spent a lot of energy on it all. But it all worked out, so no complaints - that's the only important thing, I didn't drink.
I guess it was 18 months for me before I'd say I was fully recovered and didn't feel a need for all that planning and organization, I was fully confident that there were no tigers behind any bushes, and I was always going to be in control. That's the sort of time frame people talk about for recovery from other major life events, like a divorce, and having gone through one of those too many years ago, that seems about right - up to 2 years before you're fully over it.