30 days
 

Well I managed it.

I gave up on the 3rd December so today is my 30th day sober. I really needed SR during this time to keep me busy, posting, communicating and reading. Thank you.

It's a clear memory that on Day 5 I worked out that January 1st 2018 would be Day 30 if I made it. I remember telling my wife that as we went on a walk. If I'm honest I'm not sure I believed that I would make it to this landmark - I have never achieved 30 days of sobriety in well over 20 years. But here I am and I did it.

It feels great to have all those sober days tucked into my back pocket as the New Year has started. In the December Class thread I was always encouraging everyone to imagine how good any number of sober days would feel (1 through to 31 completed) come this morning and the advent of a new calendar year.

Anyhow. I'm rambling a bit now. I have other milestones in my head I now need to achieve. Day 40 is the first one and is really important to me - I see a group of people for the first time in two months on that day - the last time they saw me I was a shaking, overweight, grey faced, wreck. Without immodesty, my physical and mental state has been through a hell of a transformation in 30 days already - so I'm looking forward to seeing them all (whatever works to motivate right?)

Regards,

JT

Congratulations on 30 days Tony! That is a fantastic way to kick off 2018!! I am looking forward to celebrating each of your milestones! Happy New Year!:c011:

Congratulations again Tony - you've done yourself proud :)

D

Many congratulations Tony - you're doing fantastically :You_Rock_

Your posts are a great help to me and I'm sure many others.

Happy New year!

Well done Tony :)

Well done JT. Congratulations.

Onwards and upwards - keep going.

BB

Congratulations Tony, your honesty has helped me too. I'm sure your wife and (group) colleagues, will be delighted with your progress. Keep going and good luck. Here's to a sober 2018!

Enjoy the feeling during your 'reunion' with those folks; pride in accomplishment is a huge bump for motivation. You're saying "look what I've managed to do" without uttering a single word! Happy 2018 :)

Great going Tony! 30 days is fantastic.

Congratulations, Tony!

Way to go, Tony! Your posts inspire us all. Stay focussed and keep it up because we can’t afford, in our own recovery, to lose you. Also, you’re doing to great!!!

It seemed to me like that first month would never be over.

You sound determined this time! I did it the other way 'round. Lost the weight, took up exercise and healthy eating...looking to feel as good as possible, then the drink had to go didn't it?

Congrats! Well done.

Well done Tony!
Not only on your sobriety and improved health,
but on all the helpful support you've offered others on the site since you've come back.

Happy New Year!

Way to go Tony..
30 days is a fantastic milestone.
It gets better every day.

Congrats Tony on 30 days:c011:

Well I'm kind of bowled over to be honest. So many really kind remarks I'm a little overwhelmed. If my daily postings/ramblings have help others then I'm as pleased about that as I am about the 30 days!

Thank you so much. Sincerely.

Thank you tony for all your encouragement that you give it all... And your rambling and humor is funny !

Way to go, Tony! 30 days is amazing, not to mention eating well and working out too?! You're my hero! :)

LOL - I'm certainly no hero to anyone but I did want to reply to this - specifically the exercising and dieting bit.

When I first came on here a lot of the 'old timers' kept talking about recovery and not just sobriety. You know what? I didn't have a clue what the difference was or what they were talking about. Sincerely I had no idea - and at the time (arrogantly) I couldn't be that bothered to ask. I suppose - if I'm honest - I thought it might be some AA mumbo jumbo...... (DISCLAIMER - I'm not in AA, but it clearly does a fabulous job and it certainly isn't mumbo jumbo - I'm just describing what I was thinking over a month ago).

Being a tremendously vain person, one of the things I hated most about drinking was how I put on weight and lost my fitness. So in some ways, giving up alcohol had as much to do with vanity as it had to do with my liver dying inside of me (stupid eh?)

So after a few days I really started to think about diet, exercise, wellbeing etc as my primary concern. I also found more time for mindfulness as I woke early each morning - noting down things I wanted to do that day as well as exercise (read, sleep, shop, coffee, visit parents etc). I started to fill my days with things I wanted to do and not just one thing I didn't want to do (drink). It then began to creep up on me that this MIGHT be what people were talking about when they said recovery and not just sobriety? (I still don't know if this is what 'they' meant by the way). I was rediscovering and recovering my LIFE.

So far from being a multi-tasking hero, I think I stumbled across my version of recovery and not just sobriety. In other words I had to have all these things going on concurrently or I would have just caved in one night and started drinking again.

So my strong encouragement and advice to anyone on the start of their non-drinking journey is to find all the other things in life that you love (or used to love) and reintroduce them to your life as soon as practical. Then (perhaps) the drinking/non-drinking is just part of your existence and not your whole existence?

I hope that made sense and is helpful to someone?

Regards,

JT

Good job Tony, this is a great start to 2018!
:grouphug::You_Rock_