Most of my adult life was spent believing that I needed alcohol to function and everyday, I discover new ways that I don’t need it after all. This thread is to chronical my daily discoveries. Feel free to add your own. 
Today I discovered that I don’t need alcohol to be creative. The music I write sober is better than anything else I’ve written.
That’s awesome @Dejavu! I’m 43 days in and it’s winter here, so hopefully come spring, I’ll be a better fisherman!
I’m finishing a doctoral dissertation, and everything that I write now is 10x better than when I was drinking heavily. 11 days in and counting.
Surprise! I do not need alcohol to make real, meaningful connections with others.
In fact, all those alcohol based “connections” were BS because we couldn’t remember them the next day and drunk people are too busy talking about themselves to give a toss about others.
My interpersonal relationships are SO MUCH BETTER in sobriety.
I used to swear I needed alcohol to sleep. Nope! I sleep WAY better now!!
I don’t need alcohol to stay connected with my friends. I’ve read so many stories of ruined friendships due to one getting sober. The disappointment of realisation that your “friends” were nothing but drinking buddies…I am lucky to find out that my friends actually like me for who I am, and not just for the party animal in me.
That’s awesome. I have a friend that quit drinking for the same reason. At the time the alcoholic in me was flummoxed by the thought but I was still impressed by her strength.
Now I need to find out what I can do better sober…well besides life in general.
Today I discovered that I don’t need alcohol to lay on the couch and do nothing all day.
I find that I’m just more productive in general. Work, stuff around the house, life in general. Doesn’t have to be earth-shattering to be positive.
One of life’s greatest sober joys!
I don’t need alcohol to laugh, I can laugh and find amusement in nearly everything sober.
If you mean cleaning my house…not going to happen. LOL
Clean houses are overrated! JK 
This is very true!!
I’m learning that I don’t need alcohol to deal with my emotions. I can feel them, even the bad ones, and I can find healthy ways to decompress. Drinking never solved my problems. It just delayed the inevitable moment when I had to deal with them. Oh yeah, and it created a whole boatload of other problems too!
Today I discovered that I don’t need alcohol to cope with disappointment. Sometimes things don’t go your way and plans fall through, just take a deep breath and make new plans.
When I gained this perspective, I gained a fuck ton of serenity 
I’m learning that I don’t need alcohol to watch my favorite sports teams. Go Cubs. Go Bears. In fact, now that I’m not drinking I am realizing that I watched way too many sports as an excuse to drink. “Hey professional bowling is on! Awesome, let’s get plowed!” “Who wants to meet up to watch the first round of a meaningless golf tourney?” “Me! I’ll buy the first round!”
Reading, writing, concentration, eating, sleeping, emotions, energy are all better. It takes a little while, quite honestly. It varies from person to person. How much was drank, for how long, age, etc. PAWS. Post acute alcohol syndrome is very real. I think it is way underated. If you drank a lot for a while, it is going to take a while for the mind and body to recover. You might feel instant results, but the long term affects take longer. For me it was almost a year before I slept normally, and about the same for my diet. My energy was out the roof for 6 months or so, but it tapers off and becomes more real, lasting energy after a year or so. I can unwind pretty fast now, that took a long time as well. The social anxiety is tough, I can deal really well now, I’m not sure when that came about. Took forever feeling comfortable around drinking situations. That is definitely the hardest part. But when I did feel uncomfortable that usually subsided after a bit, and I just drank a bunch of soda or whatever, just to keep something in my hands. I don’t really have to do that now.
Stick with it. Life is so much better and only gets better.
Today I learned that I do not need alcohol to connect with my kids. Being able to give them my full attention makes their eyes light up!
Monday is not as bad when you not drinking all weekend or more, like me before.
After ~7 months sober I know I do not need alcohol.
My friends were drinking on Friday it looked very tempting to get some, but then brain turned on, with ‘why, I really do not need to get back to my old self after only one drink’…
Most interesting it was more tempting at home then in pub… Probably, because all that drinking was done at home mainly before…