birwin91

Hi, this is my first time doing something like this so I'm not really sure how it goes. I'm just over two weeks sober now; I think needless to say alcohol was killing my life. I've been drinking heavily for the past 7 or so years, I'm 27 now. I drank from the early hours every weekend, drank whole bottles of vodka before meeting friends down at the pub for a few casual pints, whenever I saw an opportunity I drank. I KNEW I had a problem, but I was weirdly ok with it, I would romanticise it, look at alcoholic characters on TV and see their struggles and think it was so cool that we were both going through this together. Anytime I had a health problem, when I went to the toilet and it looked weird or a hair fell out or I got spots or random pain, I would be terrified it was because of all the alcohol, but then i'd find out it's something else, and then I'd feel waves and waves or relief, and then of course, I drank, because drinking was a celebratory thing, it was a comfort, I did it when I was happy, not when I was sad. It was a great reward. I thought I was keeping it a secret. Then one night I messed up, and the next day my friends told me that they knew and that I needed to seriously stop.
And I immediately did. I haven't touched a drink in two weeks. For the first few days it would plague my existence, a voice would randomly pop up and say, DRINK THAT BOTTLE, but I could consciously put it away. This sounds terrible but at the start, it wasn't that hard really, and I thought I was doing ok....and then I started thinking, well if its not that hard, then I obviously don't have a problem, and that terrified me. It's like there's someone else in my head that's not me, convincing me it's ok, telling me, oh you'll drink someday, just go a year and then you'll be great. That'll prove you don't have a problem. Thankfully I know that will never be the case, and that's what's really kept me going. Romanticising being sober is also getting me through, I'm trying to turn it into something to be proud of.
Oddly though, it's been the past few days that its started getting harder, not the not drinking, but these like side effects. I'm having the WEIRDEST dreams, not nightmares, but they're so real and vivid I sometimes don't know what's real. And my anxiety will randomly shoot through the roof. I'm also sleeping for such long periods of time, I'll get into bed at 8:30 or 9 and won't wake up until 7 the next day, and I'll be exhausted. I'm not always thinking about drinking and yet I'm always thinking about drinking, I'll be plagued with thoughts about how my life is now different, what happens the next time I meet friends from years ago who want to go for drinks, how I'm going to handle birthday parties and dinners, how am I going to get past such horrible social anxiety without the crutch I'm used to! It's so weird.
I'm just wondering if this is normal? Is it different for everyone? I thought online might be easier to post, I tried AA but I'm not even remotely religious and meetings just weren't for me. I wanna do this on my own, or at least with some close friends, but I'm afraid that people will think that's stupid, or that I shouldn't be trying it like that. I've also read horrible things about alcohol withdrawal that has me scared, does that really happen to people?