Dry January 2024 (The Sober Thread)

Cassinonorth

Well-Known Member
If you're sober year round or just want a break after the pandemic drinking habits built, use this as a virtual AA meeting.

I stopped in September 2018 at the ripe age of 28 and haven't looked back. Social life changed a little, but not nearly as much as I thought. Read This Naked Mind and completely changed my outlook on drinking.

If any craft beer drinkers are out there (I was), Athletic Brewing, Lagunitas Hoppy Refresher (and new IPNA) and some Brew Dog NA's are pretty solid alternatives to the real thing.
 
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Cassinonorth

Well-Known Member
Experimenting. 93 days dry towards the start of the year, after which DIPAs tasted like shit, now at 55 days dry.

Man being in Vermont would be super tough tbh. Always went up there for the beer/snowboarding. I actually had 3-4 month+ long spells before it fully stuck. I think I got up to 3 months at one point before visiting Trillium. That was a bad weekend lol.
 

Cassinonorth

Well-Known Member
1 year this past month. Don't miss it one bit. Everything got better esp those long climbs.
Cold turkey for me, none of that AA meeting bs, you just have to really want to do it.

I didn't attend any meetings either aside form the occasional posting on reddit's stopdrinking subreddit but if I did I probably would've opted for the SMART meetings. The overreaching religious aspect of AA doesn't really appeal to me very much. If it works for people, good for them. Different strokes and all that.

Awesome job though. It takes a bit to realize the accepted norm is that everyone drinks.
 

A Potted Plant

Honorary Sod
I maybe had 6 beers this year and less then 70 in my whole life(29yo), my dad would have a case in less then a weekend which turned me off to alcohol. I do have my own struggle so I'll join in but with candy/soda. This year has been better for me but I was eating 300 to 600 calories of candy a day last year and thanks to covid not being in the office has cut off the supply. I'm down to a bag every few(2) weeks and I'm no longer buying every time I go to a store. The longer I go without sweets the harder they are to eat(all I taste are chemicals now).

I plan on going cold turkey after Christmas, if I don't I'm sure I'll be drawing blood within 10 years.
 

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
I will be dry 4 years this April.

I like Athletic Brewing - the light blue can. The taste is remarkably good for an NA beer. I even had one of the beer snobs tell me it was impressively good. The first time I had it, my mind was in a total twilight zone. A good exercise in psychosomatic effects, to be sure.

I did not read that book, but I feel like I am much more mentally with it as it pertains to pretty much everything. In a work context, I often feel like I am starting 4 hours ahead of everyone else because some days it takes people that long to shake off the night before.

As @Dingo says, you definitely need to really want to do it.
 

Soundguy

#SenditGuy
Team MTBNJ Halter's
I didn't attend any meetings either aside form the occasional posting on reddit's stopdrinking subreddit but if I did I probably would've opted for the SMART meetings. The overreaching religious aspect of AA doesn't really appeal to me very much. If it works for people, good for them. Different strokes and all that.

Awesome job though. It takes a bit to realize the accepted norm is that everyone drinks.
SMART is a good program. I don’t think “meetings” are really their thing, but the cognitive exercises in the text can be very helpful. AA isn’t really as religious as it comes off at first...it’s more about the community of people who have been through the same shit.
 

Cassinonorth

Well-Known Member
SMART is a good program. I don’t think “meetings” are really their thing, but the cognitive exercises in the text can be very helpful. AA isn’t really as religious as it comes off at first...it’s more about the community of people who have been through the same shit.

That's fair, I've heard the AA meetings vary wildly from chapter to chapter. I'm sure a young person's meeting in NYC is going to be wildly different than a regular meeting in the south.
 

Dingo

Well-Known Member
I was forced into AA meetings due to a run in with the law 28 yrs ago. The stories I would hear in the rooms convinced me I did not have a problem. My story was a blip on their radar compared to the wacked out shit. Also a lot of cross users, coke, heroin, pills, weed. I could not relate to these folks. What I finally figured out, is I am just like them. What really made stop, was being tired of being sick and tired. My body had enough, 45 years of alcohol was starting to effect my health, I could feel this in my rides. Every morning I would tell myself this is the last time. 5 or 10 yrs of this back and forth, I just did it, I wanted sobriety that bad. Things are so much better. Looking back, most everything bad that happened in my life, alcohol was involved. No more.
 
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