As they say Alcoholism is a subtle foe wiff out A begginers mind I ad libbed a bit but here!!

Shoshin () is a concept in Zen Buddhism meaning "beginner's mind". It refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject, even when studying at an advanced level, just as a beginner in that subject would. The term is especially used in the study of Zen Buddhism and Japanese martial arts.[citation needed]

The phrase is also used in the title of the book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by the Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki, who says the following about the correct approach to Zen practice: "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few."[1]

Billy

Me personally am NOT COUNTING the days of sobriety.
But I will be proud when I can truly say 'I have not had 1 sip of alcohol in one full year'. That day will be January 3 for me. And I feel you should be proud when u say I haven't had any alcohol in 1 month, 1 year or whatever date you choose to recognize.
If I were to tell someone I haven't had a drink since blah blah blah, it would be because I was making a statement, not cause I want to continue using.

Yeah, I guess there should be some pride generated with a long term of sobriety if you feel like you are giving up something that you really should be able to enjoy (in moderation) but for whatever reason that doesn't work for you . My point is that I have now convinced myself that alcohol is just a bad thing to ingest and therefore I will not ingest it any more. I am not sure that my "enlightenment" and subsequent action really rates generating a lot of pride for me. It is more like I now understand the alcohol addiction much more clearly and have no further interest in being under the spell. Being drunk simply has no value to me anymore and why should I be proud of stopping the use of something that I believe does me no good. It is more like I should feel stupid for not defining and dealing with my addiction earlier, but not so much pride that I finally got smart. Anyway, not a really important topic but maybe just a simpler way to deal with things.

Can me saying to others I am XX sober giving them hope that it is possible to not drink for long periods?? To motivate them to find a solution for themself??

Not sure we can rest on our morals and say I have beaten this disease/addiction, I think we need to be ever vigilant, not paranoid but on guard.

I totally disagree with the statement "we really never sincerely believed it is a harmful and addicting substance, or we just don't care if we destroy our bodies...." Whilst I agree drinking is harmful both physically and mentally, I know people who sincerely want to quit but who have found the pain or suffering is not enough to stop the drinking in a day/week/year.

I have seen too many people whose default is to drink to believe they just started to drink because they never really wanted to stop.

My tuppence G8

I found several things that happened and some that didnt.

when I was early i sobriety my expectations were high in relation to the reality. I was expecting a ticker tape parade and dancing girls and cake to magically appear out of the ceiling when I picked up my one month chip. Well, that didnt happen...

I think it is important to have a marker of the past sobriety but as time progressed I didnt feel that the days months were so important. I have learned that it can be gone by me simply bending my elbow and I have learned also that the most important day is today.

There is always a 'let down' associated with each milestone and this is important to recognize. I would be so amped up and happy for the 1, 6 , 9 etc that when i passed it I would go into a funk.

Thru it all the thing I learned is to be in the middle of the road. I used to get too high (emotionally ) and then 'normal' seemed like being depressed.

I dont brag about the time I have but I will share my sober date sometimes just to let someone know that it is possible to get sober.

Be proud of your time. Have pride in your accomplishment, not many ppl make it past the 1 mo mark and the numbers diminish greatly and the 9 month chip is the least picked up chip. Goals are good and they really helped me to make it out of the grasp of booze. Cmon keep going@!!@!

1is2many

Yes Dan, your eye poking analogy is exactly my point. Not a big deal either way except that I would rather not make some huge life-long war with alcohol addiction a main theme of my life. Now that I have accepted the belief that alcohol ingestion is harmful and addicting I am ready to continue through life without it. No regrets, no fanfare. That seems like the best approach and resolution for me.

But drinking is not stoppable by just willing or thinking it bad for you. There is power in booze that if I ingest it I don't just stop. There isnt such a thing as a slip! Its planned event that we will drink because we are not vigilantly keeping sober. The prayer day that I received help I asked from God is that ephimy you suggest is the day that you thought alcohol was bad for you... Believe me I drank knowing that it was progressively going to worsen much of my life. I needed help to stop and help to change reasons I felt drinking would help me feel differently about me.

20yrs isnt my entire life but I count them as sober and some of the best portions of my life so I count the years as I remember there were days much worse before these last twenty tough yrs!

Willpower did not keep me sober. Educating myself about alcoholism did not keep me sober. I had willpower in all other facets of my life except when it came to alcohol. For me AA was the answer, even thought I did not believe in god.

It helped me to see long time sobriety in others. It gave me hope because I felt hopeless. Today is always the most important day. But I have a responsibility to let others know that long term sobriety is possible. I don't do it for me. I do it for others. By being there for others, as a byproduct, I have helped myself.

By reaching out a hand to another alcoholic I keep a drink out of my hand.

1-2

Count days...Don't count days...Don't matter much, something to be said on both sides of that fence...One thing I can't forget to count...My "blessings"...

Good post, I totally agree...

While I can appreciate the direction from whence you are coming, Buck Stag, I think it grossly undermines the power of addiction--be it to alcohol or any other drug. The reality is when someone is addicted, they have chemically rewired their brain to irrevocably respond to that substance in a way that makes them self-destructive--to the point of many killing themselves. We are not lending the substance power by admitting that it IS powerful and we ARE powerless when we use it.
Reaching milestones and acknowledging them can be empowering and inspirational to others on here. Some find it extremely helpful to make their progress known, others don't. But because we acknowledge it, whether just private to ourselves or to others, doesn't mean we are doing so as a statement of "even though I want to use, I haven't---whaddya think about that?!" Hopefully the more days we have, the less we want to use until we just don't want to anymore.
My point isn't really whether it is always helpful to mark the days of recovery, but rather to simply say that alcohol is poison and so "no duh" just don't drink it omits the biggest part in all of this, which is that people become severely addicted and dependent on it, so to make the choice and fight to get their lives back, is certainly something to celebrate. I know that this idea is the backbone of Allen Carr's books, and I don't argue that it is a wonderful tool to help alter one's perception of alcohol so that it becomes less and less desirable, but I think it can potentially dangerous for an addict to forget the power a substance has over them.
That said, as one progresses in their recovery, it is like Okiyoe says, they slowly acquire a new mind and mastery of their will-power and may not need to or feel the need to mark their progress anymore.

I don't mean to downplay the power of an addiction to alcohol. I was addicted for 45 years and it had become an integral part of my everyday life. All I am saying is that for some addicts it may be enough to simply acknowledge that ingesting alcohol is harmful and addictive, stop ingesting it and then go on with your (new) life. That works for me. I see no value in fighting a battle when I believe the war is won.

Many people realized( long before they stopped drinking) that the way they used alcohol was harmful and addictive yet still drank. Day counts may be a tool of strength to demonstrate one can stay off the bottle.

If it is a tool of strength for you then by all means, use it. For me it is more like a daily reminder of a lifestyle I want to put in my past.