Curious to hear others’ stories about the positive changes they experienced (mentally and physically) after they quit drinking....I am thinking about quitting again - mainly to improve my mental and physical state.

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I was a relatively high functioning alcoholic when I stopped 20 years ago.

While it didn’t stop the divorce from happening, I stopped looking at the split from a retrospective POV and started looking up toward the future with trust: what next?

Over the course of that first year I started sleeping better (no more waking up with the shakes and sweats as the liver tries to figure out the blood sugar), which was huge for dealing with stress, business problems, and enjoying the good moments better.

I had a lot of shame about drinking that also clouded my mental landscape and generally kept me in a state of discomfort. That slowly evaporated and was replaced with a sense of “rightness” I’ll call it (others might say spiritual fitness) — a more positive sense of myself that led to less second guessing, less feeling like a hider of things, a secret imposter.

And I had more open energy. I stopped waking up thinking about how to avoid the liquor store and started looking forward to meetings and fellowship. I felt less alone and sought healthy connection.

20 years on, I’m still sober. I have two kids and a marriage that’s healthy enough to contain ways to deal with anger and resentment when they happen, AND deal with changes we didn’t see coming.

And when anxiety wakes me in the still of the night, I’m not pouring booze on it and causing more problems than I need to.

It ain’t perfect. But it’s better for sure.

I wish you luck in your own journey with it. Every road is different.

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I have a little over a year and the changes to my life have been substantial across everything. The biggest thing is what I call continuity of thought. Because I am not resetting my brain regularly with booze, everything I am doing I am improving. Thoughts can progress into conclusions, conclusions to habits, then habits into behavior. I have solved so many life problems now and I am improving at work continuously.

For example, for the longest time I was terrible using git. I just couldn't get my head around it and just wrote out lists of commands to explicitly follow. In sobriety I started having insights, now git makes complete sense.

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My sleep improved sooo much. If I have even one drink I wake up during the night, if I don’t I sleep through it. Also my mood was much better and I was more productive at work. I didn’t gain any weight but I’m not sure I lost any either.

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Quit drinking 4+ years ago. For first 6 months not much was different and it was hard. Then I ended a marriage because I could no longer hide from what was obvious: no trust and past the point of no return. Then I quit eating sugar and flour (Bright Line Eating) which I couldn’t have done without sobriety because you can’t have alcohol either. Lost 45 lbs. Then i sold my house and floated around, feeling free but unmoored for a while. The I found the house of my dreams, all my own, and have an amazing refuge. Then I found CoDa, AA and a bunch of amazing friends outside of work. Then I started hobbies I cared about. Next up: career pivot, dating again. Have never felt more hopeful

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For me it’s more food addiction than booze. But overall I feel like when I’m in the bottle/food, my life feels more compulsive and less in control. Overall it feels like a greater sense of entropy, fogginess, and low energy.

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When I quit drinking I stopped adding new problems.

Not all of my existing problems went away (stomach, sleep, etc.) but now I know that addition action is required to heal. I can no longer blame those things on drinking.

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