Devious0ne

Admittedly I'm actively drinking and I really need to stop. But I've become sober in the past and my experience with it was very similar to Dee's.

I would say the hardest part was physically keeping myself from going out and buying beer soon as 7PM hit. I was never a day drinker, only in the evenings, so once 7 hits I go and get beer and by 7:30 I was drinking. It was, and still is like me being on auto pilot.. soon as 7 gets here, that urge just keeps in that I can't resist.

So getting out of that routine and breaking that habit was probably the hardest.

The first week after giving up drinking was pretty much a week of no sleep. No matter how tired I was, I would just lay in bed tossing and turning. There were moments in which I would drift off into a very light sleep, but this would only last an hour or so and then I was back awake tossing and turning.

Eventually though my body adjusted and after a week or two I was able to lay down at 11PM and be asleep by 11:30 without having to take any sleep aid. And the best part was that I was able to sleep through the night and got to a point where I would automatically wake up at 6/6:30 in the morning. And best of all, I woke up feeling well rested. I wasn't groggy, didn't have a hangover.. I felt great.

The other struggle that I dealt with was one that never went away, even after a month of not drinking which was boredom. No matter what, I always felt bored in the evening. Even the evenings where I went out and did something, I felt like I truly wasn't enjoying it or having a good time. I was there, but I was just bored.

Even when I was at home watching a movie, even a movie I really liked, I just felt extremely bored. That feeling never went away.

But the pros were that I felt great, I felt just as good as I did when I was in my 20's, before I began drinking. I had a lot of energy, I wasn't coming home tied and needing to nap. I was able to get more things done at work as opposed to working the night after drinking where my energy is shot, and I'm just dragging.

But the only real difference between Dee and I, when I did become sober, is that my joy and excitement for things never came back. I was fine during the day, because like I said I'm not a day drinker, but once 7PM hit it was like a huge bag of boredom just fell onto my shoulder and nothing I did took that feeling away.

The other nice thing was waking up at 6/7AM on Saturday's and Sunday's and being able to enjoy the full day without being hungover. As it is now, with me drinking, I stay up late drinking and then Saturday's and Sunday's I don't wake up and get out of bed sometimes as late as 1PM. And even then, yes I'm up but I'm pretty much lifeless due to being hungover so I generally make my way from the bed to the recliner and stay there until I'm mostly recovered and feel like I'm human again.. sometimes not until 4 or 5:00. It sucks because while everyone else has enjoyed the day, and probably has done so much, I've spent the day sleeping in and recovering from the night before. So my weekends are pretty much a complete waste.

So being sober, getting the weekends back, was nice.