Jack465

Once we get and stay sober?

I know it's probably different for each person, but in a thread I posted before, someone mentioned a timeframe of 3 to 6 months to start feeling recovered or close to it. Is that in the right ballpark? Or are there too many different factors to give an estimate?

Dee74

I felt a real shift at 3 months Jack...but it probably took me a year to appreciate my new life and really prefer being sober.

D

paddyjnr1

For me it's a Journey not a destination...

zjw

lol was gonna say the same thing.

but yeah I think theres turning points along the way 3 months 6 months 8 months a year 2 years for me anyhow but i mean i wasnt exactly recovered at those points. I still dont think i'm really recovered at over 4 years. I'm not sure if i'll ever be able to put this addiction to bed to be honest. I think its always gonna be something I at least need to be cognescent of and careful about.

I guess it got easier the day i quit and just got easier every day since tho.

JeffreyAK

Post-acute withdrawal is a phase that can last 2 years for some people, for me it was probably 18 months before I felt fully stable but YMMV. You can decide at any point along the way that you are "recovered", with a suitable choice of a definition of that word, but that's up to you and what you think it means.

gaffo

I started to feel a lot better after 90 days. I have read that is the amount of time you should refrain from alcohol to see if you have a problem and I've known some people who took 90 days off then drank again. At that time I felt like the last thing I wanted to do was start again then have to repeat those 90 grueling days! I still had a lot more growing to do though. I'm at about the same time as ZJW and I agree with everything he said. I think I was done with battling the cravings after two years. Of course, by then I was really good at it.

Mountainmanbob

What do we recover from ?

Our past.

May take a while.

MM

Andante

I don't think there will ever come a point where I can say "Whew! OK, great, I'm all recovered now! Thank goodness that's over, and I can go back to living the way I did before this pesky alcoholism thing temporarily got in the way!"

If you're asking how long it takes to feel more or less physically and mentally "normal" again, and no longer disrupted by the after-effects of long-term alcohol abuse, yeah, the overall median seems to be about 3 to 6 months, but it varies quite widely according to the individual.

paddyjnr1

The Day we think we conquered this is the day towatch out for, It's known as complacency and it's one of my defects of character, I took my eye off the ball after 8 years sobriety . i.e no meetings, no practicing the 12 steps and bamn I was sitting there with a pint of Cider in my hand which inevitably turned into a litre of Gin a day along with pills because nothing was stopping the madness that was swirling around in my head.
I even resorted to shooting up heroin for the first time at 46 and my heart stopped 3 times I was told by the doctors in A&E , probably more because my friend had to preform CPR on me while waiting on the ambulance.
It may well be different for others but I do hear time and time again in the AA rooms that complacency and resentment are the top 2 offenders of relapse.

Bird615

Same thing for me after 30 years without a drink. Complacency.

No recovery meetings for 10 years and gradually drifted away from practicing the steps and drinking once again looked like a solution.

This time around for me, I'd say just before 6 months is when the cravings occurred a lot less and became much easier to deal with.

tomsteve

although i have recovered from the hopeless state of mind and body that made me drink, im still in recovery.

jack, im thinkin maybe yer wondering how long before your thinker starts thinkin better?
or maybe how long before the craving and compulsion to drink leave?

Optimist4ever57

So true. Some of us must find the root of our addiction and deal with that. Mine is anxiety. If I can't get that under some kind of control with prayer (my preference), meditation or therapy (currently in therapy) it takes over and it will indeed take awhile.

Jack465

Yep, pretty much that.

I haven't been able to make it past about 40 days, it's looking like it will take a lot longer than that.

zjw

i wanna say a year then. the only reason i say a year is because that factors in all the major holidays and such. I found once i was able to say no to those at least once it was a big victory to me.

But i guess after 90 days or so i still felt a bit lost in the dark but didnt see much point in drinking either even tho i still wanted too i new it would just backfire anyhow so that kinda made it easier to say no.

Fly N Buy

Hi Jack!

I had, as many do a mental obsession with drinking. Much of this was the habit side of things, very Pavlovian. Reward or comfort myself with alcohol trying to get that same feeling from when I first drank.

Once I followed a path to break the mental obsession I was on my way. Somewhere around 90 is when this happened for me.

I found there is a difference between the obsession and a mere thought. I find a way to not act on either of them at some point. Filling time for many is a big thing - getting our minds focused on other activities was important for me.

Have you added some things to fill time??

FBL

I've heard it said that drinking is progressive...I feel the same way about recovery.

I felt pretty decent after 90 days, better at 6 months, better at one year, and so on. Of course, your mileage may vary

doggonecarl

If you are drinking every 40 days, then yes, it's going to take you a lot longer for the craving and compulsion to drink leaves you. Cause you're still drinking.

But get past that hurdle, stay sober, and it will be sooner than you realize.

SoberCAH

I had noticeable improvements every month for the first year.

After that, I started thinking better.

If you want to short-circuit the process, I find that actively working the steps with a sponsor and developing and maintaining a close relationship with God is quite helpful.

Going to meetings, making friends in recovery and helping other drunks doesn't hurt.

Nor does making recovery reading a part of my daily discipline.

Seems like I paid around $15,000 to learn what I just encapsulated in the last few sentences.

Best money I ever spent, along with the $1.00 I put in the 7th Tradition basket at meetings.

It's cheaper than getting drunk everyday, and I feel a lot better, too.

eyeshake

I spent about a decade destroying myself. So, I anticipate it'll take at least another decade to rebuild myself.

least

It took me at least 3 months to feel better. Six months, better still. And at a year I felt better yet. Stay sober. If you drink, you go right back to the beginning.