I just hit 8 months and it was not hard. However I never want to drink again. The easiest way to do that, never take another sip.
I could control my drinking, when I HAD to. It was never an enjoyable experience. My biggest money issues from drinking was over paying bills. Of course I did that sober too, paying my hydro bill 3 times in November.
Someone from the outside looking in would think I went cold turkey one day and that was it. They don't know I have a big plan, that I had to figure out how to (unwillingly) let go of some major resentments, learn coping mechanisms to not create new ones. That I did a pile of bargaining. I can quit for a month, anyone can do anything for a month, I will stay quit six months, a year, a decade. Once I made the decade decision a lifetime seemed doable.
However I have never played with the thought I am cured or one or two is ok. I did a lot of research on kindling. A fascinating phenomena. That is one fire I have no desire to play with.
As time has gone on, I have really thought about booze. Today we are haying, well I am chaperoning a field trip first, tonight a case of beer will disappear down the throats of my husband, grooms and neighbours who come to help. We are racing the rain. I used yo relish those beers on a hot summer day after tossing 35lb bales of itchy, prickly hay for 8-10 hours. I don't want it now. It took me years to develop a taste for beer and for wine. I don't want to re develop that taste, to me, it is revolting. Know what I want? I am going to run the tap in the barn ice cold and drink a big glass of water, let it run down my chin. That is what I crave and that is the best reward.
Trick of the mind I find booze revolting, maybe. It helps. I put as much time reading and researching, thinking about not drinking as I did drinking. I feel confident and looking back it was easy, but that is probably just another trick of the mind.