I have been enjoying sobriety. It takes lots of work and it is draining sometimes, but totally worth it. I won’t lie, my social life took a huge hit, but that was to be expected. I tried “finding my tribe” amongst people in my sober circle. But nothing has been clicking. I’ll get to meetings early and stay late, but I am not connecting with people at all. This site helps a lot, because I feel I am truly anonymous. I have never done a zoom meeting and have no real desire to lol, but I appreciate the functions of the internet as it relates to recovery. Initially everyone told me sobriety is a job, the more I work at it, it is becoming a career and seems all encompassing. I’m not saying I’m always at meetings or doing sober activities, but it’s really all I think about and take seriously. Taking it a day at a time helps, but realistically I’m still thinking of the future far too much. I’m looking forward to finding a new home group as far as in person aa, because in my experience there is no adequate replica of an in person meeting. As I get older, I’m positive I cannot do this alone, or use a successful intimate relationship as a sign of success in recovery. I say all that to say, sometimes just being able to vent is a form of emotional support. If any of you are anything like me, I hope this helps, and takes the edge off of dealing with all these so called “normal” people lol.
i got sober before internet so face to face are no 1 for me but times have changed not a fan off zoom ,
Intensive recovery work in early sobriety is necessary to change the ingrained drinking habits we had acquired. Once we can instill in ourselves the good habits to preserve sobriety, the work load eases off.
I haven’t had to work hard at recovery for maybe the last 35 years of my 40+ yr. sobriety journey. As the AA Big Book says, the Problem has been removed".
For me, sobriety is a way of life, not a career. Just like I need oxygen to survive, I need a daily dose of sobriety to survive. Sure, some days I have to work harder at it than others, but my daily routine consists of something sobriety related whether its a meeting, interaction on this forum, meditation and/or reading AA material.
I love my social life now. I realize now that I never had true, authentic friendships in my using days. My using got so out of control towards the end that my social life became almost non existent. Isolation was my preference but that’s what addiction thrives on. Happy to have so many wonderful people in my real life these days and I met them all in the rooms of AA. My virtual friends here are the forum are awesome too. I haven’t met them in real life, but they’re always here when I need them.