Originally Posted by
BrianK 
Welcome and congratulations!!!
I'm a week behind you in sober time, and never had over 90 days in the last 20 years, and it hit me yesterday: I don't really know who I am without alcohol. I wonder if that might be part of the equation for you, along with all the other withdrawal stuff.
I used to be "positive" a lot of the time, but for me it was just relief after a hangover passed, or knowing I was going to drink that night so nothing that happened appeared to bother me. Now I'm finding I'm allowing myself to become more present even to negative situations and not necessarily try to be liked by everyone. It doesn't always feel nice, but it does feel real.
Not that this is necessarily your situation, but it came to me while reading your post. I do know that when we stop drinking we don't only lose our one big "coping mechanism", but a lot of the little mental and social games we play to maintain our lifestyle and our sense of "being ok" have to change as well, and for me some of those are REALLY subtle!
For what it's worth, you sound to me like you're taking a serious, honest, self-searching approach to this, and I think that's huge! Glad you're here!!!
Precisely. I was trying to explain this to my wife, and she doesn’t get it but is trying. I suspect I’ve had this little demon on my shoulder for 20+ years. Completely outward functional, but we all know the lengths we go through to keep our little secret. I’ve tried a couple times over the past two years, and once got to 3 or 4 months before I told myself ‘I got this’. Then tried to drink socially again and you know where that went.
But as weird as some days are I am enjoying getting to know myself again during those increasingly regular moments of clarity. I don’t have any intentions whatsoever of going back, but I also know that ‘he’ may pop his ugly head up again down the road. I used to think it might be a good idea to get a tattoo of today’s date to remind the ‘now’ version of me. (Think Memento movie) but I’d have several lines crossed out by now. Onward and upward. Stay strong in what you know today!