frances2011

My experience is that every day that starts without a hangover is a good day. I am grateful for that fresh positive start every day.

I didn't have pink clouds or unicorns. I had brain fog and leaky brain. But every day sober was so much easier than getting drunk. I'm so happy to be here today!

One thing that was really easy for me, and I really like about SR, are the grat threads and the One Day at a Time reading threads. It is just the right amount of Good Stuff. A little bit at a time. Positive thoughts and actions and Recovery Tools dripped dripped dripped into my brain.

onlythetruth

It was challenging at first, but it was never harder than drinking.

These days, it's neither easy nor hard. It's just my life.

Mo S

Unlike a few of who've posted: even my early recovery was "easy". I had alienated all my "old" people places, and things due to my addiction. So, the people in AA scooped me up and helped me change everything. They "sucked me in" (lol) to AA and there was no time for thinking about drinking.
It's alot easier to build a life sober and feels alot better than destroying it drunk.

flutter

Mostly effortless at this point. Living as an active alcoholic was traumatic. The freedom from addiction is beautiful.. living life honestly, well intended, grateful for every moment (good and bad), being present in my relationships, loving myself.. it's a much easier life than all the pain, shame, lying and hiding, physical issues, mental craziness. I'm content, I'm at peace with my life.

Purplecatlover

My recovery this time was much easier b/c I ACCEPTED that I can not drink like other people, never will be able to. I decided that alcohol was not an option for me anymore.
And I was good w/ that.
My life now is awesome. I feel like others have said. More peace, calm, patient, & stable.
The first month was an emotional rollercoaster but it levels out.

While drinking I was consumed w/ thoughts of alcohol, all my attention on planning, obtaining, drinking, hiding, withdrawing, secluding, surviving hangover after hangover.
All that energy wasted on a poison that distorts all of our faculties.

I am not barely surviving anymore, I AM LIVING....enjoying life & all it's ups & downs. Feeling like a normal, healthy, mature adult taking care of responsibilities & being "there" for my husband & little girl.
I wouldn't trade this for one drop of booze ever again!

RobbyRobot

Easy is such a subjective experience and when comparing recovery to addiction absolutely recovery is easy and addiction is difficult. In the first days or weeks of my last quitting back in late July of 1981 I required a supervised detox and rehab stay for 90 days. My actual detox was rough and not easy and that was so because my addiction was still very much awake and effen me up bad. DT's and delusions were the menu of the day served cold. Tough times. I didn't talk much about recovery those first few weeks. I just surrendered heart, mind, and body into never again ever getting drunk. It was the surrender that eased the trials of keeping away from that next drunk. I didn't care about recovery whatsoever at the time. I was too busy not getting drunk and coming to my senses.

Addiction itself is not easy of course. An alcoholic mind is a terrible thing. Obsessions and cravings are troublesome and worse. Physical consequences from boozing take a process to heal and that takes time. Mental and emotional damage even longer, imo. A real messed up guy at 24 years old.

I attended and did the AA program during my stay and after as well. AA worked for me giving me what was promised: my drinking problem was removed and my alcoholism illness was arrested and put into a coma, haha. Awesome.

I remember the night I last felt seriously challenged by my alcoholic mind before it was finally and forever put down. I was under two months and over 30 days when I stayed back from the sober dance at the church by hanging around the rehab which was really just another old three level home on the street in Ottawa. I hung out on the porch and smoked cigarettes and drank coffee and thinking and feeling raunchy. Of course it being a sober dance people were dressed up and the girls were not disappointing and they enjoyed being with sober guys. The dances could often attract into a hundred people or so and was a real part of our social recovery strategy. This was back in 1981. "Another One Bites the Dust" by Queen was playing the airwaves everywhere off the 1980 album by the same name. A world wide hit. I was 24. I was lonely. I was wanting to party. I was sober. I was feeling lucky.

I and a beautiful girl who was a former prostitute who at the time had nine months of sobriety hooked up. She kept hanging around the rehab with me asking me to the dance. We morphed into instant friends with benefits. We went to her place which was in Lowertown, east end. The bad side of town. I didn't get back to the rehab until after curfew. So of course I was locked out and told to think about what I was doing and to frigg off until morning when they would decide if I was kicked out for good. We had a detached garage and so I slept in the garage on stacks of newspaper which was stored for recycling. Not too bad really. Dry and out of the wind. I felt my date with my new friend was worth the trouble. Being kicked out could be a problem though. I had no place to go but back to where I had come from: the streets. Not good. Drinking became an option in a way that I had never been aware of before. I could actually see how it was a choice that was always going to be there for me no matter how far away I made my last drunk.

I had always dealt with the harshness of addiction ambivalence beating me down. First time ever I experienced the freedom of choice to just keep saying no to that drink. For the life of me I could not see the problem existing. The struggle was gone. I knew in my heart and mind I would never drink again because I had no more drinking problem. I could clearly understand why I drank before and understand why I would never drink again. It was an epiphany which revolutionised my psyche. My life behind me and before me was then and always has been since in an enduring and open revelation: I had finally come to my own understanding of my Higher Power. Keeping clean and sober has always been easier since that wonderful night. It keeps getting easier too.

As for the rehab powers that be they had a meeting and I presented as much too happy and seriously sober for them to kick me out to the curb. I enthusiastically graduated from the six month rehab at three months and moved into a highrise rooming house in Lowertown. The beautiful girl and I broke up during the Christmas holidays.

To thine own self be true. Live and let live. Its a journey not an event. Enjoy the ride its worth the trip.

Zencat

Active addiction with all the harm to others, self-loathing, physical injuries, self-inflicted emotional punishment, criminal activity, jail and the list goes on.

Compared to getting my life in order, practicing a daily dual-diagnosis treatment and adjusting my attitude as an endeavor to being happy, joyous and free is like a fresh breeze.

hcd

Great thread. Thank you. Day 6 and I want to drink. Thought about all the little drinking rituals I have to stop and got stupidly nostalgic. But your post is making me think of how much less foggy things have been. Alcohol turned into such a fixation -- when can I drink? -- and now I'm thinking at least a few thoughts I haven't had in years, like places I want to go that have nothing to do with booze. Drives I couldn't have taken drunk. So, thanks for the reminder that there's a MAJOR upside.

GirlFromCO

Yes! :ghug3

GirlFromCO

Easy peasy lemon squeezy. After I clawed my way back from hell in the first days & weeks, I feel like I'm living in the promised land.

Terminally Unique

I do believe eJoshua has very aptly summed up my view of how this recovery thing works.

langkah

Not drinking? As easy as not building a 6' high fence from the Pacific to the Atlantic.

If not building that fence is hard, it means that you really want to build the fence. My experience is that people usually wind up doing what they want to do.

katrinka

It's so much easier for me to remember what my kids or husband talked to me the night before. Sometimes my daughter would say, "We talked about that last night, don't you remember?" It was so embarrassing. Or my son would call and I'd have a whole conversation with him that I didn't remember. I just don't have to worry about it anymore.