Two years sober on May 9.
My journey went from near death to inpatient to psychiatric treatment to AA to outpatient to a lot of self work on my health and body to individual therapy. I'm not an AA person but found it very useful in early sobriety. Also tried and liked Smart Recovery and use the principles of AVRT.
The core actions that have kept me rock-solid sober were truly realizing in my gut that I've been an addict/alcoholic all my life and that the periods of sobriety were respites only. So I really cannot drink or take a sedative like Xanax at all. Ever. No coke or other addictive drugs either. Then I defined myself as a non-drinker, and made a commitment to never taking a sip of alcohol again, or I'd end up where I was. AA would call that surrender, and to a degree I agree. If I take one sip of alcohol it can and probably will take over. My power is not ever taking that sip. Then I did everything I could to insure that I'd stay that way.
Once you have some time under your belt, you can get a realistic perception of drugs and alcohol. How great is that buzz anyway? It's not really all that to anything else other than the tiny lizard brain/id. Were I a 12 Stepper my higher power is my higher brain functions in the cerebral cortex. The addictive voice and the alcohol buzz are in far more primitive parts of my brain, unfortunately they are tied up with survival, as I believe they are with nearly every addict. I found that after a bit of sober time, looking at the cravings objectively revealed how small and fragile they actually are.
You can do this, lots of us have. Use the community, make the commitment, and use whatever resources work to get and stay sober.
It's pretty simple, actually. It's just not easy.
One exercise I found really useful was to make the following four lists:
The Pros of Drinking
The Cons of Drinking
The Pros of Not Drinking
The Cons of Not Drinking
Try it if you like.
How is Day 3?