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View Poll Results: What date do you use for your Sober Date?
First day of no drinking
224
85.50%
Last day of drinking
38
14.50%
Voters: 262. You may not vote on this poll

Date of Sobriety

Old 03-18-2015, 02:59 AM
  # 41 (permalink)  
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Jeez... Is there really a point to even remembering your sober date? I really don't know and I like to just try and not drink. People counting days since their last drink and everything is weird.

BTW - Today is my day 50!

I'm weird.
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Old 03-18-2015, 04:10 AM
  # 42 (permalink)  
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6.11.14....or as recently posted on our sobervapers thread, about 5,000+ cigarettes NOT smoked and 270+ bottles of vodka NOT drank....and all those extra trips to the b-room
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Old 03-18-2015, 04:35 AM
  # 43 (permalink)  
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I don't remember the date of my last drink. I woke up with a hangover after a blackout and 4 or 5 days later I had what I know was my first day sober. Not really sure if I drank or used in the days between.

-allan
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Old 03-18-2015, 05:49 AM
  # 44 (permalink)  
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Yeah, first day without drinking here.
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Old 03-18-2015, 06:11 AM
  # 45 (permalink)  
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I didn't start counting untill after 3 days my sister was saying i still had alcohol in my system

really my date should be the 11th but i always class the 14th as my official date and always will

14th july 2013 the day i saved my life
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Old 03-18-2015, 06:24 AM
  # 46 (permalink)  
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I just interpreted this using my logic: "Sober" date is technically incompatible with a day when I'm still drinking, so the day after.

I had an "incident" though a couple weeks into my first quitting though, which is kinda funny in retrospect. I was out with two friends in a restaurant, they ordered cocktails, and I got curious about how one of them tasted, so I took two sips from his glass. I had no conscious desire to drink any more or to order a drink for myself. We then had appetizers. Next thing I know, I'm having a serious allergic reaction, and we are heading to the ER... My crazy mind associated the sip from the cocktail with that reaction ("allergy to alcohol", literally). Of course the doctors told me it's more than unlikely. It did scare me though, and I came to SR right after being back from the ER to report this... Then I was told that it might be helpful to change my sobriety date even though I did not get drunk at all from those two sips, to remind me of my commitment to never drink in any form. So I did. I found out later what caused the allergic reaction, it was a type of fish, and I even got it later again with the same result. It's still a weird and scary memory in my mind though.

I think it's best to use whatever is helpful for an individual.
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Old 03-18-2015, 07:42 AM
  # 47 (permalink)  
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For me it was the first day that I didn't drink, but then when I think of that my day is when I wake up and go to bed the next night, because my last drink was probably in the early hours of the morning the night before!!
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Old 03-18-2015, 08:46 AM
  # 48 (permalink)  
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Let's start by saying I was an alcoholic, benzodiazepine addict. The last day I drank was August 10 2013. The morning I went to rehab was August 11th 2013 and I even took 2 valiums in the morning before I went to rehab. I call August 11th 2013 my sobriety date because I wasn't getting trashed. I wasn't even getting high. 2 valiums at most could keep me from having a seizure, so I don't feel guilty about that being my sobriety date. That is the day I decided to change my life. Hope this helps! <3 Sobriety
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Old 03-18-2015, 08:56 AM
  # 49 (permalink)  
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For me it was my first day not drinking which was also the day I went to AA.

The early AAs seemed to go with the day they had the last drink which seemed to coincide quite closely with the day they got the AA message at times.

But what about your birthday. Do you celebrate that on the day you were born or the first full day after you stopped being born? Some of us alcoholics believe we have been reborn.
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Old 03-18-2015, 08:58 AM
  # 50 (permalink)  
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My last drink was on 10/23/14. I don't count the start of my sobriety until the 31st because that was the first full day out of detox. The day the choice to not drink was put in my hands. Someone once told me the 31st doesn't count because I was taking Benadryl to help with sleep for a couple weeks after I got out.

I stick with the 31st. It's the last day of the month and it's fun for me to think that I came back to life on Halloween.
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Old 03-18-2015, 09:11 AM
  # 51 (permalink)  
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I don't think it really matters, but I've been using the last day I took a drink as my sobriety date. Basically, Christmas Eve I got ridiculously hammered and damn near died early Christmas morning. I choked down a few glasses of wine to get through a painful Christmas dinner with friends. The morning of the 26th I found a little shooter bottle of vodka and drank it because I was still hungover from Christmas Eve.

I don't count days or weeks or months anymore (last drink was 12/26/13), so it doesn't much matter. The date sticks with me because it happens to be St. Stephen's Day, and being an old deadhead, it just seemed like a good date to say I quit. I've never been much for rules or much of a joiner for that matter. These lyrics speak to my adventure, though:

Saint Stephen with a rose
In and out of the garden he goes
Country garland in the wind and the rain
Wherever he goes, the people all complain

Stephen prospered in his time
Well he may and he may decline
Did it matter, does it now?
Stephen would answer, if he only knew how

Wishing well with a golden bell
Bucket hanging clear to hell
Hell halfway, twixt now and then
Stephen fill it up and lower down and lower down again

Lady finger, dipped in moonlight
Writing, "What for?" across the morning sky
Sunlight splatters, dawn with answer
Darkness shrugs and bids the day goodbye

Speeding arrow, sharp and narrow
What a lot of fleeting matters you have spurned
Several seasons with their treasons
Wrapped the babe in scarlet covers, call it your own

Did he doubt or did he try?
Answers aplenty in the bye and bye
Talk about your plenty, talk about your ills
One man gathers what another man spills

Saint Stephen will remain
All he lost he shall regain
Seashore walk by the suds and the foam
Been there so long, he's got to calling it home

Fortune comes a calling, calliope woman
Spinning that curious sense of your own
Can you answer? Yes I can
But what would be the answer to the answer then?
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Old 03-18-2015, 09:20 AM
  # 52 (permalink)  
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I'm not drinking today and that's the only day that really counts
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Old 03-18-2015, 11:01 AM
  # 53 (permalink)  
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I say either way. You know that date and time when you have drawn that line in the sand. That is the day it should be
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Old 10-14-2015, 05:47 PM
  # 54 (permalink)  
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December 4, 2014. Closing in on a year.
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Old 10-14-2015, 05:57 PM
  # 55 (permalink)  
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I only remember cause I was drinking in an airport and on the plane on my way to rehab so my tests would come up positive. Had to show medical necessity to get insurance to pay for it. This had all been planned out with the help of the rehab 2 weeks previously. I recall the anxiety waiting for the day, Tues 10/9. I had already been sober a month but was pressured into rehab. Had to get my "disease" cured you know. What a waste. I consider my first full dry day of detox my date 10/10 but it doesn't really matter. All that matters is that you realize your self destructive patterns and take the responsibility and measures necessary to regain control and contentment. Playing the victim will get you nowhere.
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Old 10-14-2015, 06:17 PM
  # 56 (permalink)  
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I think my first day sober was March 31st, but I "rounded up" to April 1st because I liked the date more
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Old 10-14-2015, 07:23 PM
  # 57 (permalink)  
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I don't count days, I don't really care.

I was sober yesterday, so far I'm sober today, and I expect to be sober tomorrow. That's about the extent of my vision.

(I also know I'm well over 5 years).
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Old 10-14-2015, 10:14 PM
  # 58 (permalink)  
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I use my most meaningful transition date too.

I had tried to quit almost everyday for years - so the moment of 'deciding to quit' wasn't the day. Instead for me it is the day that I actually DID stay sober the full day is the day that I celebrate.
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Old 02-18-2016, 07:45 AM
  # 59 (permalink)  
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Very interesting topic! Like many said, it really is somewhat of a moot point. The night of April 16 I decided that I would not drink the following day. A local radio station was playing 24 hours of Grateful Dead music on April 17, and being an old Deadhead also, decided on the 16th not to drink on the 17th and enjoyed a great soundtrack for my first day not picking up a drink!

For me, it is more of "the weekend I quit" than an exact date. I went into it drunk and ended it a changed man. Those bright early spring days marked the first steps of an incredible journey that have seen me put ten months of sobriety under my belt.
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Old 02-18-2016, 08:01 AM
  # 60 (permalink)  
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Sober dates are tricky. I can't tell you how many days I've continued to drink because I didn't like the date for my sober date. Someone's birthday, death, a holiday, all excuses to keep drinking till I got the date "right". I finally settled on 2/13, yep unlucky 13. My therapist told me every day of the year has something funky to it, so I gave up.

To the point, I use my first day sober. I have a sister who uses the day she picked up a white chip, which was several days after her last drink. To each their own.
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