Hell yeah, almost four weeks sober now 
remember that if/when you relapse, it's not about streaks, but about minimizing damage
This is awesome advice! My gf has been dealing with sobriety from heroin, and early on relapsed more frequently. Shes now over a year without using, but wouldn't have been possible if we had just focused on streaks as opposed to understanding relapse is part of recovery
It's terrible, I just lost my little brother because he kept refusing to understand that aspect of recovery. He just kept lying and lying to himself and everyone around him.
One of the most important things is to have people around you who understand the difficulty of going through that recovery process or at least people that understand the danger of a relapse and are able to help you keep it at just a relapse and not your last relapse.
Congrats – you're sober. It will take a while for your body to remember how to metabolize anything that isn't sugar from alcohol, so you're going to be pretty ravenous soon. Eat plenty. You can expect your coordination and balance to improve in a couple of weeks. In two months, you might start sleeping like a normal person. Full recovery will take years, though. It’ll be depressing. And it’ll be boring. Don’t expect any further rewards or handclaps. This is how normal people are all the time.
Ngl when I first started I was also playing disco Elysium for the first time and made Harry go sober with me, but then went back on that because I wanted the +1 PHYS boost
I have it both with and without the alcohol, so if there is no difference, why pay more?
No it's like. A chemical thing. I've been drinking a six pack or more every night off (and I only work three days a week) for like six months. I've spent literally over half my life shitfaced for the past six months. That causes fundamental neurochemical changes.
Now my brain just doesn't hit the dopamine button as hard or as often for things that used to be a lot of fun. So everything just feels really cold and empty and I know my brain will heal eventually but in the meantime that's the hardest part.
I've tried quitting over and over in that time, and this is always the part that gets me. Withdrawal has gotten pretty straightforward, since I do it to prepare for work every week. It's just shaking and cold sweats and hallucinations for 12 hours, which you can get surprisingly good at.
After that I can manage a few days at a time but eventually I'm just so depressed and I know it'll make it better for a day so I wind up doing it anyway. It's not something you can rationalize or just "get over." You just have to slog through it until your brain rewires itself again.
Congrats! Coming up on a year here. Near beer socially and meditation alone have been pretty helpful.
hell yeah that's the shit i love to hear, keep it up! I'm proud of you!
Hell yeah comrade. I just posted up a year since I quit smoking. It's hard. It's still hard. But it does get easier.
Congratulations comrade (and all the others in this thread). We're rooting for you!
I'm back up to 20sd/week-ish. Couple of pints at lunch when I can't really go home.
congratulations comrade! Thats incredibly difficult, and I'm really happy for youCongratulations! Eventually being sober just becomes something you are, not something you have to think about. How long that takes is different for everyone, but finding new things to do with your time really helps, especially fitness activities. In the meantime, you don't have to worry about staying sober until that happens, you just have to focus on staying sober today. Every day just focus on today. You got this!
I'm really sorry for your loss comrade
