Originally Posted by
LostLilly 
So I got to the one year mark. I’m blessed to have gotten to this point after many struggles and so many consequences. Something that really helped me was hanging around with more sober people rather than the ones I used to drink with. I’m also thankful for this board and AA. My faith life has improved a lot as well and needless to say my home environment is more stable. Everything does not get perfect when you get sober, sometimes it’s harder to go through things sober actually. But there isn’t that constant feeling of guilt, sickness, remorse, memory loss. Better choices with a clearer head are a huge bonus
If you are like me, you will look back at your life and say, "What was I
thinking?" When you can see the forest through the trees you realize that in actuality, you chose drinking as a temporary source of feeling better or happy.
Reasons for drinking are driven by emotional factors, usually feelings of helplessness (about whatever in life makes me feel overwhelmingly trapped). You always have a choice.
You can escape the helplessness trap with empowering high value thinking and behavior. We have free will, choose a better life. When and if you, "reverse engineer," your old thinking, you can learn new empowering behaviors.
Values and purpose are the main navigational tools in life. If you don't have them, find them!