The hardest thing I've found in sobriety is...
 

For me? Trying to find a new normal! Its almost like I am trying to start a new life in a foreign land.

Any one else?

I feel the same way, and the foreign land is not necessarily a friendly one.

Wreckage left over from a drunken past.
M-Bob

I tend to have a fairly forward kind of thinking and emotional orientation rather than ruminating over the past and mistakes but initially I had a lot of existential angst and was often plagued with frustration over lost opportunities due to my drinking (that I desperately tried to suppress but I could not truly). With time, I've learned to accept these things and found new inspirations, meaning and goals that were realistic and feasible considering where I was at that point in life.

I feel like there is a new person in my life and we are getting to know and love each other with each passing day

Honestly? Nothing. Hard is such a relative term and my drinking life, especially at the end, was so extremely hard that being sober is .... only a positive. When challenges come up....I know i can handle them. If I had to say what is sometimes bothersome, it's anxiety about the future (much less these days) and getting too tired. That first one is handle with a number of tools and that second one, well....not really what I'd considered a hard thing.

Life is not easy, but sobriety makes life about as easy as it can be when I stick to my spiritual fitness and emotional needs.

Growing up was hard. But I gues it is that way for everyone, alcohlic or not.

Dealing with life on life's terms and not running away to numb myself.

I do relate to what you're saying. 'This time' I'm not trying to make anything into anything. In fact, I try not to think too much about much of anything. I go to AA, I exercise, parent, take care of my home/animals and pay the bills. I do the step that is in front of me, right now that's step 4. I am an infamous over thinker, over complicater. And all that does is keep me focused on me me and more me.

I believe that if I keep putting the right foot forward, one day at a time, it all starts to come together. I'll be 6 months on the 18th and the only thing I know at this point is I'm at peace. Oh and I'm sober.

Hang in there. More will be revealed.....

Yep, I'm day 9 after relapsing last weekend after 44 days. I'm petrified and excited at the same time about this new world. Im sure its going to be better than the one I'm trying to leave!

finding happiness and handling my emotions.

+1 for life on life's terms.

Still, it's better than life on my terms. Not too pretty. I guess my ego wants to be out of his kennel every once in a while. :-)

Lots of great, thoughtful posts. I'm on the tail end of my three-day weekend, and its one of the few that I'm sober for. Yeah, the little voice is there telling me to "celebrate", but I think of all the stuff I was able to do... that I couldn't have done sober.

You bet Steve, 100%. Stay the course, it will happen. As you mentioned, you are in a foreign land right now, you'll learn the ropes over time.

Prayers to all

The most challenging thing for me, as with so many posters to this site, was to finally, completely , and irrevocably accept that alcohol had become a problem for me and that I needed to kick it out of my life.

Without the buffer of alcohol to numb it all, I am having a very hard time dealing with stresses and insecurities.

I did not mention the most mundane part, which was definitely the most challenging for me in early sobriety. The intense and frequent alcohol cravings I had for many months after quitting, both around my first quit and after a relapse following ~2 years sober. I am often amazed learning that some of us do not experience cravings (or obsessive impulses, call it whatever) at all or only mild ones after getting sober - it was definitely not my experience. But I have other obsessional tendencies as well so probably not surprising that I struggled with this quite a bit. The momentary cravings were pretty much why getting sober was hard in the first place (I did not miss anything from the lifestyle and am normally not bad at self-regulating my emotions at all) - I really needed to learn how to manage them and not give in to the strong impulses for the high. The funny thing is that I am not an impulsive person at all sober, it was really the effect of alcohol and it took a while to dissipate. No amount of self-awareness, involvement in recovery, connection to other people or abstract things made that go away for me, only time and patient discipline. I think it's a physiological mechanism. If nothing else, the memory of those cravings and obsession is a very potent element that makes even a vague possibility of another relapse highly, highly aversive. I don't focus on that or live in fear at all but it's something I cannot and probably will not forget.

I felt that way the first year and remember thinking I have no idea who I am. Learning how to feel comfortable in your own skin is always a work in progress.

I'd rather be a clueless child learning what I should have a long time ago than a drunk adult who knows better.