Counting Days
Member
Join Date: Jul 2010
Posts: 10,912
Hi Delilah.
Congrats on the 30+
I did not count days in my first month because it had the opposite effect of accomplishment on me: I felt intimidated by how little sober time I had. I think my monthly SR class got me into occasionally counting as others kept reporting the number of days. I remember even saying to a friend here in a PM during my first month that I won't put sobriety date in my profile until I'm sure it's at least one month
I had very little confidence in myself in the beginning.
I did not feel the benefit of tracking my sober time until about 2-3 months, but it was a time when I actually started to use my sober time to work on something related in a larger scale, it was about my problems with acknowledging my achievements in general. I was thinking, if continued sobriety is not an achievement after many years of heavy drinking, then what is? I still never counted days per se, but I did acknowledge every completed month up until a year and it gave me a good feeling. I learned it from this forum, don't think otherwise it would have occurred to me to observe my milestones, but I did find it helpful and inspiring during the first year or so. You know what's funny: now that I'm responding on this thread, I just checked the date and realized I have 17 months today Probably would not have paid attention otherwise.
If counting days is stressful but you do get something out of keeping track of the time, maybe acknowledge each week or month? Perhaps feels less obsessive that way. Something else I did in regards to counting months was that I liked to do something special and nice for myself when I passed the 25th monthly, did not do every single month but in most of them during the first year. I found it rewarding and reinforcing. I never used the "one day at a time" concept like many others, for me I wanted this to be for the rest of my life from day zero and I found that sort of thinking more helpful, so I guess in this context my way of "counting" made more sense to me. I also celebrated my one year anniversary on a nice trip that was really fun, and decided that I would do something similar each year, I think it's a good way to give ourselves credit for all the hard work that goes into recovery.
Congrats on the 30+
I did not count days in my first month because it had the opposite effect of accomplishment on me: I felt intimidated by how little sober time I had. I think my monthly SR class got me into occasionally counting as others kept reporting the number of days. I remember even saying to a friend here in a PM during my first month that I won't put sobriety date in my profile until I'm sure it's at least one month
I had very little confidence in myself in the beginning.I did not feel the benefit of tracking my sober time until about 2-3 months, but it was a time when I actually started to use my sober time to work on something related in a larger scale, it was about my problems with acknowledging my achievements in general. I was thinking, if continued sobriety is not an achievement after many years of heavy drinking, then what is? I still never counted days per se, but I did acknowledge every completed month up until a year and it gave me a good feeling. I learned it from this forum, don't think otherwise it would have occurred to me to observe my milestones, but I did find it helpful and inspiring during the first year or so. You know what's funny: now that I'm responding on this thread, I just checked the date and realized I have 17 months today
Probably would not have paid attention otherwise. If counting days is stressful but you do get something out of keeping track of the time, maybe acknowledge each week or month? Perhaps feels less obsessive that way. Something else I did in regards to counting months was that I liked to do something special and nice for myself when I passed the 25th monthly, did not do every single month but in most of them during the first year. I found it rewarding and reinforcing. I never used the "one day at a time" concept like many others, for me I wanted this to be for the rest of my life from day zero and I found that sort of thinking more helpful, so I guess in this context my way of "counting" made more sense to me. I also celebrated my one year anniversary on a nice trip that was really fun, and decided that I would do something similar each year, I think it's a good way to give ourselves credit for all the hard work that goes into recovery.
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