madgirl

Hi SR 🙂
For those of you with some sober time, do you remember some of the changes which happened to you during the four to six months time range in early recovery? Will be at the four month mark at the end of this week - I know everyone is different, but I remember reading the 100 day mark is sort of tough (and it was!) so there may be some common themes in the month 4 - month 6 time range. (?)

IvanMike

Somewhere around six months I started to feel actual gratitude.

I also realized that I felt "ok". That feeling I had that although withdrawal was over, something was just "wrong" started to go away.

The idea that recovery was also possible for me began to seem more "real".

Somewhere around 4-6 months I also began to see other people come into NA and I recognized how I felt in the beginning in them...... I started to realize that I had changed.

madgirl

Thanks! I am noticing a shift now to generally being more structured and wanting to deal with things that make me anxious instead of procrastinating and dodging them - and that is pretty cool.

GnikNus

More productive, more focused, greater clarity and peace. I remember that really kicked in by the four to six month mark.

Soberween

I lost all that alcoholic bloat and started to look pretty again in photos. I'm a very thin person (5'7" 112 lbs.), but I looked doughy even though I exercised a lot while still actively drinking. For a long time, I just thought I was no longer photogenic or attractive due to aging, but it was actually all the wine I was drinking ruining my looks.

Gottalife

I was very surprised when my sponsor called me and told me I had been sober for three months. I had no idea. I didn't believe it would work so I never took a note of the date.

The main realisiation was that in all that time it had not occurred to me to take a drink. The obsession was gone. The world had changed form a cold and forbidding place to a warm and welcoming one. I felt inside that at last I was on the right track.

However I don't believe this was a function of time. I was working through step 9 when all this came together in what I have come to know as a spiritual experience. Funnily enough the AA book describes these events occurring part way through step 9, and not at some arbitrary number of days into recovery.

Whe I read AA history I see that they used to work the steps a lot quicker, and these big changes happened much sooner as a result, and I also see people take their time over the steps today, and the big change is delayed, if they don't loose heart and give up altogether.

My experience is for an alcoholic of my type it is not so much time as progress with the steps that brings the big changes.

Ruby2

I started feeling restless and angry more often when I passed the three month mark. I started reaching out more and more often, I haunted SR and I made sure I attended my AA meetings. It was growing pains that I realized would pass.

Soberwolf

I really started to notice a steady decrease in cravings

MIRecovery

I started to see the person I was and the person I wanted to be

doggonecarl

I wrote this at 6 months sober, reflecting on the changes between 90 days sober and 180 days:

Reflections on a 180 days sober - SoberRecovery : Alcoholism Drug Addiction Help and Information

Delilah1

I am close to six and a half months and life is so much better. The past few days I have been away at a work conference. I do very little travel with my job, and in the past I would use this time to sit in the hotel bar after the conference or bring a bottle of wine back to my room. I rarely explored my surroundings, and would sometimes skip a session or two because I was hungover.

This conference is in DC, and I have made the most of every single minute. I have explored DC, Maryland, and Virginia, gone for walks, had nice meals and lots of learning has come from the sessions I attended.

I think at this point in my sobriety I have realized how much fun life can be without alcohol. I think back to how many trips I wasted sitting in a hotel bar! No more of that kind of lifestyle for me.:-)

madgirl

Thanks everyone - @doggonecarl that was great to read, your feelings around this time - I have that feeling of wasted time as well and it's amazing to rediscover things I love, like reading, and learning - I can't believe I ever had the thought that sobriety is boring - far from it! There's not enough time in the day to do all the things I want to do!!!

I am sooooooo grateful to be interested and curious about the world again!!!!

least

At around 3 or 4 months I started practicing gratitude and that made a big difference in my mood. I felt happier. I also noticed my sleep was so much better. And like SW, I noticed far fewer cravings to drink.

madgirl

The obsession has gone, that I recognize. Drinking passes through my mind at odd moments but it sort of feels like memory - like today, sitting in traffic I looked up and saw a truck for Brooklyn Brewery, and the B logo - it didnt make me want to drink, it reminded me of a birthday weekend spent getting dangerously drunk in Brooklyn.

Total abstinence is just such an obvious choice for peace in my soul - I cant believe I was so blind.

madgirl

Interested in working AA steps but the thing that scares me is that "making amends" step - I am so ashamed and horrified with some of my choices as an alcoholic, and would feel deeply embarrassed to dredge up these things with people who I have wronged -

IvanMike

Don't worry about formal amends yet. They scared the crap out of me too.

The biggest amends you can make to everyone you affected when getting loaded (including yourself) is to stay clean and sober. This is followed right up by changing how you behave in general. The first 7 steps aren't to be taken lightly. By the time I got to making formal amends, I had changed a lot about how I thought and behaved. A bonus of all that was that I had already made substantial amends by no longer causing damage, and better yet, I was actually having a positive impact on the world around me.

All this took time.

uncorked

I found a strength and resolve inside of myself that I never knew I had. I'm going through some very difficult times right now on the home front and I'm keeping it all together. Around 6 months was when I stopped really thinking about alcohol. I'm only 8 months sober so I can't go further than that. :-)