dickensen

8 months today!
Every day without booze is a blessing.
Would not have made it without SR's encouraging and enlightening posts.

meetmesober

Congratulations Dickensen! I needed to see you celebrate today. I had a stressful day yesterday at work and considered a drink for longer than usual. Telling myself that 8 months is just around the corner got me to quit thinking of it though. You just made me smile.

Have a great day! You have a lot to be proud of. Way to go! :-)

ViciousCycle

I echo that Dickensen! Nice job. Treat yourself to something special!!

Guess that puts me at 8 too!! I kind of lost track........

I think about drinking sometimes........and then realize how much better off I am to be living just like this.

Dee74

congratulations you guys

have a great weekend everyone

D

MrSilver

Happy St. Patrick's Day Julians! Go green!

1983ritag

Happy st. Pattys day to y'all! I guess I'll be drinking green koolaid this year.
Stay safe everyone!

Cerberus

Hey everyone just checking in to check in on everyone. How are you all doing?

dickensen

Cerebus,

Cruizing right along with the no booze program. My mind now considers alcohol as evil, dangerous and to be avoided. The AV is having a tough time. Currently, I am trying to get my blood sugar down with a low carb diet and exercise. Of course it helps not to add 800 to 1000 daily calories from booze.

ViciousCycle

Hi Julians, doing ok here too............no booze since July 4th. Have to say most of the time I could care less as my life has become so much better.......then there is the social aspect.......like everyone at work getting together kind of thing.......but it's a small detail compared to how much sobriety means to me.

There is no fun in drinking......it brings me misery.....period.

Glad to hear you guys are doing well!

meetmesober

Hi all, doing well here too. 8 months tomorrow I just realized!! I really really like how I feel

Happy to see some posts. I hope everyone else is well and good.

dickensen

Congratulations Viscious and Meetmesober for 8 months of abstinence.
Isn't it nice for the opportunity to have a meaningful life.

Cerberus

yes I second those congratulations to all of you! meetmesober - you reminded me that I am now at 8 months too! never thought, way back in July, that it would ever happen. And like you, VC I feel pretty much the same. Most of the time, whatEVER I don't drink and I'm fine with it but every now and then.... And the thing is it's usually when there is some kind of social thing going on. Fortunately, I can see, for me, that it is totally my AV just calling me out one more time. Things were NOT better when I was one of them.

In a twist, my hubby's 17 YO son just came to live with us. The first day here he actually said "I can't believe you guys don't drink anymore" I was happy to be able to hear him say it, even if it sounded like he had some regret about it. I am wondering if he thought moving here would be like a party house! Sorry to disappoint you, dude.

Keep going strong guy!

Dee74

LOL awesome Cerb!

D

MrSilver

After 8+ months of doing everything I could to avoid drinking, I drank twice in less then a week. Once on St. Patrick's Day where I had only a few, but then Thursday night I drank a lot. It was one of those nights of drinking where I was still sucking them down after the sun came up. I spent most of my Friday feeling sick. I was throwing up, had a headache, and felt dizzy when I would get out of bed. I didn't feel like well all day. What happened was I got caught up in a mode of depression and somehow decided that drinking was OK. Not sure what happened, guess I stopped thinking. Oh well. It's not that big a deal to me, however the being sick did remind me of one good reason to not do this anymore. In fact it's probably a good thing I got sick because it reinforced my dislike for the effects of drinking. I think I got my butt kicked so hard by the booze that it will lead to another long sober period. It feels like my July 4 drinking experience all over again. I won't promise to anyone that I will never touch booze again. In fact I won't promise anyone I won't have a drink later today. The temptations can come at anytime, anywhere. If I am not thinking clearly it's easy to fall into that trap. It's just how it is. I enjoy going out and having fun, meeting new people, ect however I sometimes have trouble doing that without drinking. After so many years of associating alcohol with such emotional times in my life, I have found moving on without it to be tough at times.

Dee74

I understand you're a young guy - I knew I had a problem around your age, but I didn't want to look different, I didn't want to change my life....so I didn't.

Some weeks, even months, I did ok...some nights were drunken catastrophes - but I kept drinking.

Eventually the catastrophes became the norm - and I couldn't stop.

You've got a great opportunity to sort out your future now Mr Silver and make it what you want it to be.

I think you have to choose between that and drinking tho - we all have to.

I really wish I'd had the courage to walk to the beat of my own drum a lot sooner than I did.

D

MrSilver

I don't want drinking to be part of my life anymore. That much is clear to me at this time. Honestly I think this is a minor setback. Nothing more than a bump in the road. That's the good news. The bad news is I don't have complete confidence that I won't fall back into a night like that sometime down the line.

dickensen

Mr Silver,

Alcohol is a mean beast. We all wish that we could take back all the not so smart things we did with booze.
You had a great run at 8 months. Here's hoping you get back on the horse and stay away from booze one day at a time.

Cerberus

Dee is giving out some great advice here. I know it's not often that you can truly benefit from someone else's mistakes - you usually have to experience things yourself to get it - however, in this case I plan on listening to and really hearing the smart things I hear from people who have been there. I can relate all of my 'drunken' experiences with them. We all talk about how bad things were and the reasons we wanted to stop and they are so very similar! So I am going to extrapolate from that and decide that the ones, like you, Dee, who have successfully quit long term are also telling the truth when they say how much better things are without booze. I have given up on any fantasies that I would be able to manage drinking. I will never drink again and I will never change my mind.

Hope everyone has a great day.

~C

ViciousCycle

Extrapolate? Now there's a word I have not heard in awhile! lol.......love it.

I have been reflecting back with all the things I read here on SR. As much as I sometimes think I miss drinking, if I really look hard at my past I can CLEARLY see that alcohol has never ever been a friend of mine. The quality of my life right now far exceeds that short-term buzz one night...........when I was drinking I was not really living. The older I get it seems I hold on to life a little more dearly......I will not jeopardize that serenity by getting back to the old ways. For me, it's just a path to unhappiness.

You are exploring these alternatives much sooner than I ever did Silver. You are way ahead of the game.....

Have a great one today peeps!

Cerberus

Bahahahaha! awesome, you made me laugh out loud, VC.

I hear exactly what you are saying about holding on to life a bit more dearly. I don't know what it is except maybe getting older? Realizing that you so are not indestructible? in my case, having kids maybe? Whatever it is, it feels right and I'm just gonna go with it.