Originally Posted by
lessgravity 
Although I agree with Dee and Scott, I think their positions are from the perspective of long term sobriety. I can now see and feel that by giving up drinking, in the end, I gave up nothing but pain and suffering. However I also know that during my struggles to get sober, and also during early sobriety, I did have to sacrifice certain things.
That is certainly a fair assumption, I've been sober now for a little over 6 years. I would say that it took me at least 2 years to start seeing things in a much different way. The first year was a very much a rollercoaster - everything was a "first". The first christmas without drinking - the first deer hunting season without drinking, the first super bowl without drinking...etc......
It was not until sometime in the second year that I was able to start really looking holistically at the other problems I had been running away with. The main one was anxiety for me - it took me well over a year to even accept that it was even a problem, and then longer to view it holistically enough to seek the necessary help that I needed. My physical health improved drastically when I quit drinking, but my mental health took far longer to address.