sleepie

Is it after 3 months? 6? More? How long is considered long term?

RobbyRobot

For me early sobriety meant I was still struggling with establishing a sober lifestyle that had not as yet completely removed drinking off the table. So, more than just quitting and never drinking. A real revolution for living alcohol free by whatever means works. A mature sobriety is a different fit for all of us as individuals. Moving past the initial quitting is a learned practice, imo.

I think sometimes people generalize their own experiences with others to feel more of the winning crowd. Myself, I always did, and always will walk to my own drumbeat as much as I can. Anything less is baiting myself for complications that otherwise could have been avoided.

It took three months for me to understand I would be staying sober. Before that, I was working hard to gain that said understanding. After a year, I was fully engaged in a new sober lifestyle, and still am.

dwtbd

Since I'm not sure, I put a call into headquarters , they will get back to me soon, they also were curious as to how an official answer would be helpful.

skg

Hi, Sleepie.

Real 'hard-core' alcoholics would probably say that you only have to stay sober for today; tomorrow's not promised. I'd say it takes a lifetime--because it's about a design for living, not just quitting drinking. This is my experience.

I tell sponsees, "Work the steps and take it one day at a time." The first year is about getting sober, the second year is about living sober: They are two different things, imo.

By the way, I don't sponsor people who don't do the steps. There's no point, and there are plenty of people who WANT this way of life...

doggonecarl

When I realized that the emotional roller coaster had evened out, that I had embraced the sober life, that I no longer struggled with craving and I didn't mourn the loss of alcohol, I figured I was out of early sobriety.

Between a year and two years for me.

Getting impatient, Sleepie? Quickest way to get out of early sobriety is to just stay sober.

sleepie

Okay guys, no snark ok? Pretty please? I am having a tough time here. Thank you.

dwtbd

I meant to try and use humor, minus snarkitude, to ask why it was important . Did not mean to make you uncomfortable, quite the opposite in fact, I'm sorry if I offended you, truly not my intention.

Gottalife

I read somewhere that the AMA defines stable recovery as being 5 years continuous abstinence combined with full rehabilititation into the community.

AA describes the recovered state as follows, without any time factor. Progress with the program is the sole measure.

"And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone - even alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. Wereact sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality - safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is our experience. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition."

In a practical sense I would have thought that 0-2 years would cover the period of early sobriety as it seems that it is within this period that most of the major changes will occur. Its a pretty exciting time

sleepie

Interesting gottalife

I was asking because I need to see some light at the end of the tunnel. As I said I am just feeling really uninspired.

doggonecarl

Sobriety can't depend on being inspired, because your addiction is doing everything it can to make you uninspired. But enough continuous sobriety is, in itself, inspiring.

Just stay the course. Every time you relapse you are "resetting the clock" so to speak, and you have to go through the whole difficult early period.

dwtbd

The light could be all around you right now, but for whatever reason is being blocked from view. Have you decided to quit drinking( made the decision to not drink again because drinking is nothing but a negative drain on your life) or to give up drinking because you "should"?

tomsteve

Thatsa pretty good question, one I think would go along with when does someone stop being a newcomer.
I think there are many different opinions. For me? Welp, I think even my opinion can change and/or have many different ideas.
I think part of passing early recovery,for me being in AA, would be completing the twelve steps and starting to practice the principles in all my affairs.
When the craving,compulsion, and obsession have left, which gottalife posted the tenth step promises that happened for me.
When life on life's terms came up and first instinct wasn't to drink.

But as far as a time frame? I don't think thats too easy to set. I think it all depends on the individual, which that could be a matter of how much footwork the person is committed to putting in on themselves to get Weller, no matter what method of recovery is used.
But it may involve more.
For myself...he'll, I know when I speak I speak of when I was in early recovery, but I really can't say when I passed that as I am still learning and growing. I may be ten years sober, but I can still feel I'm early in sobriety/ recovery. In all honesty, I prefer to consider myself early in recovery. I have a feeling iffen I were to start sayin I'm an old timer I might get some ego inflammation and I don't like that.

I was asking because I need to see some light at the end of the tunnel. As I said I am just feeling really uninspired.
Can you explain on how you feel uninspired?
Remember feeling aren't always true.

Dee74

If you mean how long till you feel better I think the answer varies. You're also coming of benzoes so it's probably not going to be better in a week - but it's not going to be forever either

I felt better at one month and pretty well ok at 3 months. If the benzo thing is complicating things for you it really is best to see a Dr I think?

D

sleepie

Well, a life without inspiration is not worth living, to me.

I don't feel myself bouncing back. Maybe it's age and the unpleasant experiences I have had. But I feel more like life is a thing that just has to be done, and don't get hopeful or excited about much. I know it sounds like depression. But it's more like "Been there, done that" and I wish I could be surprised or stimulated. I'm not. Nothing surprises me anymore.

I quit drinking because I wanted to get healthy and focused, also it was getting to be a one way street to nowhere good. It didn't enhance things anymore.

sleepie

Dee no doctor will have me- they refer me to the limited clinics in the city and nobody wants to deal with benzoes. As soon as they ask me how I acquire them- I'm out.

RobbyRobot

I think a life without inspiration is one lived awash with sorrow and despair, yet still worth living because despair and sorrow can be mitigated. I've had times of serious despair. Sure I was suicidal too. At such times, it helped me immensely to see how others in even worse straits then myself could still discover all kinds of inspiration for themselves as they learn to appreciate just how resourceful and powerful is the human spirit to not only survive, but to also flourish.

As you know sleepie, I've had several serious challenges in my 57 years. It really has brought me to the brink several times. Still though, there is always somebody worse off, and managing as best they can to get the most out of life.

Sometimes it helps me to just bite the bullet and get on doing the next right thing rather then attempting to understand every nuance of whatever dilemma I'm facing.

Despair is a horrible abyss which can only lead to even more misery is my personal experience. When we are earnest about are positives, and less troubled by our negatives, we can often as not move mountains.

Its not easy, but its doable to free ourselves from despair, misery, and depression enough to yet enjoy a wonderful life.

All my best hopes for you sleepie.

Dee74

I understand your difficulties sleepie.

I'm not sure how likely it is there that people are going to call the police on you for unprescribed benzoes but I understand that fear.

If Drs are out you'll have to get through it - it may take a little longer than you'd like, but you'll get there

D

Aellyce

I did not compartmentalize my sobriety this way inside my own head much, but I did wonder too given these concepts about "early sobriety" or "long-term sobriety" seem so ingrained in the recovery communities. If I had to define what was early for me, I would probably say the period of time when I still had a fear of drinking/relapsing, and I used negative reinforcement to keep myself off the drink (which was very effective for me in the first few months, btw). I definitely felt like I'd arrived to a different stage when thoughts of drinking became very few and far between, and even then just fleeting moments. When "recovery" became simply just life, and my issues not issues related to my active alcoholic past, including lifting of the guilty and shameful feelings related to my drinking behaviors. As for the holistic approach others mention, I think I started out the whole recovery that way, sort of after the first week when my physical withdrawal was over, and I kept dealing with something step-by-step gradually, on a daily basis really. But I have always been that way as a sober person, very much into personal development, so that's not a new, sobriety phenomenon for me, more a return to my healthy self. I've figured out and tried to improve many things in my ~15 sober months though. I think around the one year mark was also a turning point for me in a few ways, emotional stability and regaining my full level of motivations, familiar internal source of inspiration, and the self-actualizing spirit that has been quite characteristic of me in my life, except my worst drinking years. Of course all this does not mean at all that there no longer are challenges about all sorts of things in my life. There always are and will always be, I think.

I think this all is very subjective, and I am not even sure everyone gets much out of "staging" sobriety at all. For me, it's like everything in life: a continuum that I don't expect to stop being dynamic until my death, unless something disrupts it again, but I hope it won't.

Sudz No More

For me, 6 months was the benchmark I needed to hit to get past the worst of the mental impulses. Maybe you could try counting day ones backwards and pass 0? It might give you motivation to count down from something and see the number get smaller. Watching a number get bigger always seems daunting when you are talking about 180 of them but going from 180 to 0 will seem easier with each day. After you finish the countdown you won't need to count anymore.

Can you go without the Benzos? Adding other sedatives to replace alcohol will likely only prolong your agony, the sooner you are completely sober including other drugs the sooner you can get beyond it.

Congratulations on 172 days, tomorrow is 171.

sleepie

oh, Dee- no I didn't mean "I'm outta there"- I meant they won't have me. They are seeing my asking for help, which would necessitate a prescription- as drug seeking behavior. Which I understand. So they just won't. Places are loathe to go near anyone mixed up in benzoes here. And in the past my doctor did a rapid taper- big mistake. Ended up in the hospital. The whole situation is my fault, I have to get my own self out.