GrayJ

Just curious as to how long it took for members with 'a bit of time under their belt' to really feel ... clarity?

I'm at day 57 and not there yet.

Caprice6

Honestly, after my last withdrawal.

Have you checked with your doctor if there may be another underlying issue such as depression?

GrayJ

Hey Caprice,

Thanks for the reply and yes, actually I have, I started a course of anti depressants 2 weeks ago. I would never have bothered seeking help had I still been drinking. Hopefully it helps. Considering therapy too.

travelbug

I am on day 4. Still not feeling euphoric. I heard people talking about hitting that place at some point in early sobriety. I am sleeping lousy. 4 hrs isn't enough, really.

least

It took me several months before I felt 'right'. By six months I was feeling pretty good. It helped a lot that I had started practicing gratitude every day.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/o...pier.html?_r=0

needshelp111

The day after I stopped bc I knew I was now in control of my life and not the booze.

Anna

I never had the pink cloud euphoria people talk about. It took about 3 months before I began to feel positive about my recovery.

WeThinkNot

It took me 21 months to finally get over PAWS and the horrible depression that would come and go in waves. I will have 25 months of sobriety in a few days.

I went through severe withdrawals after quitting cold turkey for the third time after round the clock drinking. My brain chemistry was just fried and the only remedy was father time.

In January the depression finally stopped and now I'm generally happy, positive, and upbeat. This is how I had envisioned sobriety and it finally came true after nearly two years and lots of work on myself.

Dee74

It took me about three months to feel a new normal I could trust in to last.

D

GrayJ

Good to know and thank you for the link, I will have a read

Ah, maybe 3 months will be my milestone too then. Either way, I just have to be patient and committed. Thanks guys.

FlawedNFntastic

Everybody's different, so everybody's time frame on recovery is different too. I missed out on the pink cloud (pretty glad about that as I'm a little ray of sarcastic sunshine all the time and I think my family wouldn't have put up with a euphoric me for longer than a day). The pink cloud didn't even slow down when driving by my house.

I'd been drinking for more than thirty years pretty much straight through, and like so many others, I'd been self medicating my anxiety and depression with alcohol. I kind of hoped I'd figure out once I got sober that I didn't actually have a problem with anxiety or depression. No such luck. About nine months sober, the sad piano hit me.

I was so freaking overwhelmed. Everything in life was so, so hard. But I knew it would be exponentially worse if I gave up on my recovery and myself. So I bit the bullet and asked for help (also hard!) and went and got on antidepressants. It took some monkeying with the dosage, but it was 100% the right move to make for me.

At about 13 months, things got better. I'm so very grateful I stayed the course. My life is my own. Not again, but for the first time, really. And my family trusts me. And I believe in myself. When things go to crap, I know I can handle it and I know I can help my loved ones. That's reaping the benefits for me.

I'll never claim to be wise or understanding of the universe or the odd, odd lifeforms that populate this planet, but at this point, I'm okay with myself, and I'm happy most of the time. Snarky and jaded still, but happy. I don't think I ever had that before.

GrayJ

Hey FlawedNFantastic,

I can be very sarcastic myself and that definitely hasn't changed for me either. Thanks for sharing - it's very reassuring.

Gray.

kinzoku

When I chose to.

Happyvale

I question whether or not some miracle or confetti parade ever happens. I ponder if whether or not we transform into something new - someone with less shame and emotional immaturity. I just want something new - same ole same ole has become quite wearisome.

August252015

I felt a significant shift forward in a lot of things around the 100 day mark. There had been improvements before but I had an extended recovery in every way.

6 mo I had enough energy to go back to a very active serving job. 4 mo had been noticeable irritability. 10 mo saw my first notable bout of depression for a couple of weeks - from the start, I decided that if I saw any red flags of any kind for max 2 wks, I needed to address them.

I considered myself in early sobriety til just past 2 yrs. Emotional sobriety had become and remains my primary focus. Here at 3+ years (so in my 4th yr) I am a healthy, overall happy and grateful 42 yr old. I work a dedicated daily program.

I took everything slowly and things evened out and kept getting better. I think "euphoria" is a misleading term if used - my life has evolved into what I call "the pinks" because unlike a temporary pink cloud, I live with recovery as the backdrop of my life and I have everything beautiful in my life because I am sober.

The best two things sobriety gives me are clarity and freedom.

If you haven't, I'd recommend reading the book Living Sober, which is a great and simple read about the first year of sobriety.

Keep going and the path of sobriety can become the best real life possible.

tomsteve

reaping the benefits and gaining clarity came at 2 different times.
i started seeing the benefits the 1st morning i woke up sober. forstly, i woke up and didnt pass in. then i knew where i was when i woke up and remembered what i did and where i was the night before.

mental clarity took about 6 months before i started feeling it. could have started happening before that but thats when i noticed it

MLD51

Everyone is a little different, some of it depends on underlying trauma or depression that may need to be addressed, some of it is how long and how much we drank. All sorts of brain chemistry gets messed up with prolonged alcohol abuse, and it takes time for things to re-wire up there. Some people can feel better fairly fast, for others it takes longer. For me, I felt better in some ways immediately, because I was finally admitting defeat and surrendering to the fact that I'm an alcoholic, and I can't manage my life while drinking. I was taking concrete steps to finally be free of alcohol and chaos, so that felt very positive and empowering right away. But as far as really feeling better all around, that took longer. I'd say at about 6 months I was consistently feeling pretty good. I was working a program of recovery hard (still do, but not at the same intensity) and the world looked like a much better place. TIME. It takes time. And effort on your part to practice gratitude and see the good all around you. That isn't easy for some of us who wallowed in misery for so long - it becomes a habit to be negative and hopeless. At the beginning I had to almost FORCE myself to make a list every day of a few things I was grateful for, but I did it because I knew that eventually it would sink in and become normal. Now, when I feel blue or stressed or anxious, I can quickly come up with things to feel good about and my mood changes.

Atlast9999

Fearlessat50

Hey gray, I had the pink cloud syndrome after about 2-3 weeks when the physical withdrawals ended. But dark clouds came over again eventually and I was an anxious mess with lots of mood swings for months. I started to level out about 6-9 months. I’m almost 2-1/2 years sober now and I find that I have gone deeper into spirituality. Since I am not stuck in the booze cycle, which was like a prison, nothing is keeping me back from expanding myself and knowledge. It’s a self actualizatiom journey. I have also noticed more in the last six months I have regained parts of my memory and cognitive abilities that I had lost.

abgator

I've never even heard of this pink euphoria deal. The first time I got sober, I didn't feel quite right for a month. The visual/light headedness was almost constant. After that I felt fantastic, energized, and motivated to stay busy. After my bender relapses, I was back to feeling physically great and much mental improvement in 7-10 days.