Today is day 78. It shocks me to be where I am. I never thought I could get past day 3 nor did I think I would have the strength to post some of my feelings for everyone to read and discuss. For me, like many of us, it was a matter of life and death. I had hit “rock bottom” so many times until 78 days ago something finally clicked. Acceptance is something I am still working on and struggling with that more than the addiction itself. I no longer feel like alcohol would make any situation more fun or drinking alone would cure any boredom i have on my days off. Like many I am terrified of what might happen if I allow myself to enter the liquor store parking lot. Most of the time in the past that would be the last memory I had until waking up the following day completely hungover scared to find out who I hurt the night before. I could enter any situation claiming I was only going to have 2 or 3 drinks. Before I even finished the first I would be anticipating the 2nd and angry by the end of the 3rd because I knew I had reached my limits. My brain started to wonder and plot how I would maintain/gain that buzz we all fell in love with. I am blessed in being able to say in my 6 years of drinking off and on my body was never physically addicted. I never drank to cure shakes or to just feel normal. I drank to mask feelings or to forget about everything that had been going on that day. Sometimes I drank just because of boredom and for whatever reason when I was drunk music sounded better, cigarettes tasted better, and I could be whoever I wanted to be (outgoing, goofy, ambitious) no one came up with better ideas than I did drunk. That’s what I thought anyway. Too bad those ideas were never remembered and some how those great times I thought I was having turned into cheating, losing so much money, and throwing away relationships I had for years. When I hit rock bottom my wife finally had left me after nearly 4 years of putting up with my crap. She fell in love with me in a time I was sober and hung on to every memory she had left until the bad had finally out weighed the good. She left for 3 days and would not return text/calls etc. I did not talk to her for those 3 days and in those 3 days some how I maintained being sober and decided regardless of what the outcome may be for me I needed to be sober because my life had finally reached the point of unmanageable. My wife did decide to come back with the agreement that if I ever drank again that would be it. It was very easy for me after that. Until recently I didnt think about drinking or think about going out to eat and having a beer with dinner. In the past couple days acceptance has become something I am struggling to understand. Now that all of the negative has subsided and life has returned to a normal pace I for whatever reason feel like I could have a drink and that be it. To be able to drink socially and enjoy it like everyone else does. So I guess my long drawn out post is kind of a reach out for some advice in seeing what everyone else has heard or has come to understand with acceptance. How does everyone else get through the urge to just go wine tasting or to a brewery and have a couple drinks socially with friends etc? I know in my mind logically thinking that everyone else (“the normal ones”) would have a drink with dinner and that would be it. They wouldnt have to think about how they would gain more of a buzz. Maybe my mind set has changed and I wouldnt want more than one or two but, maybe it hasnt. The what ifs outweigh the “gains” of drinking. How great it would be to find out I can be normal but how terrible it would be to find out I cant and that I threw away 78 days of being sober. 78 days nearly 3 months to an alcoholic is a lifetime but to everyone else that is such a short amount of time. Non-alcoholics do not think about the last time they drank and keep track of how many days they went without. Anyway, thank you for any advice you may have and for reading my novel of a post. I hope everyone has a blessed and sober day.
I’m on day 80, those thoughts do enter my head but I need to be realistic, I am not saying I will never drink, I can’t promise that to anyone, not even myself. I know that I have a choice right here and right now, try not to see into the future, it’s not in your control right now but today is. I have a night planned with friends next month, I was truthful about my sobriety and I am a horrible person drunk, they completely understood me and now we’re not going to town but having a girly night in, one has offered to stay sober with me and another said she’ll curb her drinking. Being honest with others go a long way, I’d also recommend telling your wife how your feeling, I tell my husband how I feel when I’m finding it difficult, you’ll get through this. I’ve Heard that milestone are a particularly difficult times, @MoCatt do you have the link to the article again please
That is very helpful. If I can just stop and think logically and live for today I make it through. Sometimes thinking logically is the hardest thing to do. Thank you for your input.
I thought it would get easier after 30 days, but still get bad days even now, always new sober scenarios come up and I’m still struggling to get through a stressful day sober, I keep hold of the fact that if I can get through the day sober I’ve learnt from it and it will get easier the more I expose myself to it
Congratulations on your 78 days. Great bunch of numbers! I know acceptance seems to be hard sometimes but honestly, what positiv things would alcohol bring to your life again? Anything positive? I don’t think so! Right a letter to yourself. Explain in it what made you quit drinking in the first place. Write down how you felt after drinking. Keep awake the terrible emotions going through a hangover. Make yourself remember the bad things of drinking and how good it feels to wake up without a hangover, clear minded and in control of your life. There’s nothing positive coming from going back to drinking! You’re not decline anything you gain back freedom from alcohol. I recommend Allen Carr’s book The easy way to control alcohol. It helped me a lot to recognise alcohol as what it is… It IS a POISON. You actually don’t want to put it in your body and there’s nothing to gain from drinking! Have a good sober day!
Thank you 
Man, I struggle with this still at day 485. Here is what I do… I let myself plan that first drink and pay attention to the way I feel about it. You know how I usually feel about it? Like I can’t wait for the second, third, fifth drink. And that’s my answer right there. I will never be able to be a “normie.”
Now, how do I accept I will never be able to safely drink again? I go back to the days before I quit this shit, then the awful detox, I let myself feel how terrible it felt to know I would either die or quit. And then I just get the sober, good fuckits. “Fuckit, NOTHING is worth going back there!”
That’s an excellent plan right there. When I’m honest, I know that one is a mere appetizer.
I’ll hit six months on Friday, and I’ve been having many of the same feelings. The article I linked helped me understand this nagging little phenomenon.
Congrats on your time. I know it gets better. I got through 90 and felt great until recently. Use your tools and push through this, friend.
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Day 73 for me and I needed to read this, thank you for sharing. I have been so busy with work and my girls I have been finding it hard to check in here and do my readings, that is making me nervous because i am also scared if I don’t stay on top of this I will go back to where I was. I hope you find the info you are looking for.
Maybe ameeting might help helped me stay sober wish you well
Hello. I too am on 78 days. I’m Karci your sober twin 
I was the same as you. Always yearning for that buzz, and anticipating the next drink before the first was even done. I’d get blackout and hurt the people I love the most- it isn’t worth it. I live in what we call “wine country”… the sunny Okanagan of BC Canada and wine is my drink of choice. I have probably turned down 6 wine tours since the end of summer, and it was hard to “accept” that I will likely never go on them again, and if I do it will be sober to be DD. Just the fact that your wife gave you one more chance, which is contingent on your promise to stay sober, should hopefully be enough to keep you in check. It’s funny because we like to throw around the terms “drink socially” but really what is that even? I get that “everyone is doing it” but does that not make it any less messed up? Alcohol is a drug and the fact that we feel like we need to consume it to fit in, be more social, loosen up, or whatever speaks to our concepts of ourselves without it. I used to believe that I couldn’t be any of those things without it. Are you seeing any outside agency to help you in your recovery? AA? A therapist? The thing is, once we have a bit of sobriety under our belts it’s easy to romanticize drinking again, to think that maybe now I can have one “social drink”. Wrong. We have alcoholic brains that will never be satisfied, because that’s how alcohol works. It is not worth the risk, and if you’re having these feelings, I would encourage you to dig deep and really question why you are feeling this way! I’ve had to do the same.