I was a little boy in the late 70s /early 80s. Early and often it was drummed into my head that men drink. The Duke boys would stop Boss Hogg's latest scheme and give the money to the orphanage, then head over to the Boar's nest for a beer. The football and baseball players in beer commercials. The young adults I looked up to. Most of them weren't bad or wrong or immoral, they just reacted to alcohol better than we do.
In those days my father would take us out to dinner every Friday night. Then he would head around the corner to play cards and oh boy could he put down alcohol. Driving wasn't an issue back then, or at least in most of his years. Never had a DWI. Never got abusive or anything like that and rarely drank any other time besides Friday.
Meanwhile my mom was stuck with me on Friday nights after dinner. I remember being like 7 or 8 years old. Sometimes she would unwind with a beer watching Dallas and Falcon Crest. I mean really, one beer, who does that? I would beg for a sip and remember at one point she is like you can have a shot glass of beer. I thought this was the greatest thing I would beg and plead for another. I probably would have out drank her at 7 years old if given the chance.
At least for me its difficult to unprogram that out of my head. That idea that I am suppose to have beer. Time is on our side in early sobriety. The obsession doesn't drop steadily. Its more like a stock graph. A stock that falls from 76 to 50 in 6 months doesn't just drop in even increments of 1 every week. It may drop from 76 to 73 and back to 74.5 and down to 71 and up to 74 and down to 68 and so forth. Sometimes the obsession gets a little worse but it trends downward over time. Even when I was over a year it never completely went away but so much easier to deal with once I had some time completely away from alcohol and it just wasn't in my routine.