Hi oct3591 -- welcome and great job staying sober this week. :-)

Welcome! It takes some time and work, but I promise you, living sober does not suck. Keep staying busy, have sweets on hand and drink plenty of fluids.

Excellent job this week, just stay busy if you can get to a meeting it is very important to hand with sober people. Even at the gym it is nice to be able to open up about drinking with some one who understands.
PEACE,MARK

So far so good. Thanks.

Habits. Friday nights, all day Saturday. Big days for drinking. I woke up this morning with no hangover. Sweet!

Now is a traditional drinking time. Doing chores around the house on a Saturday afternoon. But not today. (the drinking part, I mean).

Hi, oct3591!!! Welcome!! I'm glad you found us here and I hope that you will find the board helpful!! It sounds as though you're doing great, so far!!!

Curious....what's keeping you sober?

Welcome to the group oct and well done on your first week sober. :}

The first thing that comes to mind of what's keeping me sober is remembering the cursed hangovers.

But there is a lot more. I think of all the time I waste drinking, and sick the next day. I've been very lucky all my life avoiding catastrophe. I mean the usual ones like DUI, fights, crime, "bad luck", stuff often associated with alcoholism.

What's keeping me sober? I guess I've just had enough. I've read a lot about it and believe life can be better without alcohol.

My advice is to keep going to meetings until you want to go to meetings. A week is great and it just gets better and better for me. Don't give up before the miracle happens.

Try going to BB meetings and 12x12 meetings where they read a chapter a week and you discuss it as a group. I learn a lot in those meetings still...

That's what keeps me sober too, Oct3591. I've just had enough!!!!

glad you found DS....hopefully you hang with the winners and stick it out for a lot longer than five months...your in the right age group for the progression of alcoholism to start to take its physical toll on your body..glad you like the gym...me I am not a gym guy but need to be for my knees...four knee surgeries now I need both replaced....but that is off the topic of simply not drinking...some enjoy the freedom that not having that hangover in morning gives...but that is not the least of what good things come from being sober and living in recovery...

if you were to write down today all the things you think you would get from being sober you would sell yourself short....so much miracles happen to the people who are able to stay off booze...

have you started into AA at all? I did not see any mention of AA...just that it works for many...not all understand that they can get sober in AA and end up recoiling from it...but my experience is that I am thankful AA saved me from the end by keeping me sober today!

Good on you for those sober days and reading the literature. I didn't even know about AA literature until I went there. I'm 11 years sober now but it was AA that worked for me and going to any lengths to stay sober.

Thanks, everybody. This is the kind of thing I was looking for, a little help. I know it's out there. But I thought I didn't need it, or was too proud to seek it.

I haven't gone to AA. I respect it and am happy it works for many. We'll see.

For now, I'm happy to be up on a Sunday morning with no hangover. Yay!!